“Is that weird?” he asked. “To be with someone who’s objectively great and feel nothing romantic?”
“I’m no expert, but I think chemistry is either there or it isn’t. You can’t force it.”
“But why isn’t it there? What’s wrong with me?” He groaned. “I keep asking myself that. Brooke’s not the first, either. The last few women I’ve dated, it was the same thing. Everything looked right and felt fine, but fine isn’t ever enough, you know? Fine is just . . . going through the motions.”
“Maybe you’re worn out. Your season’s long, and you’re under a lot of pressure. It’s hard to have room for romance when hockey’s eating your whole brain.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t know. I feel like something’s off, like there’s a piece missing and I can’t figure out what it is.”
I knew that feeling, the sense of being out of alignment with your own life, like a picture frame hanging crooked on a wall. I’d felt it for years before I figured out what was causing it.
But that was my story. Not his.
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I think everyone feels like that sometimes, like they’re supposed to want things they don’t want or feel things they don’t feel.”
Skyler studied me for a moment. “You felt that way?”
“Sure, especially after my injury.” Now it was my turn to offer a bitter laugh and stare into his whiskey from across the table. I ran both hands through my hair and tried to tamp down emotions I’d thought long buried. When I spoke again, my voice sounded so small, so distant, even to my own ears. “It’s . . . I had this whole life planned out, you know? I was going pro, following my dream. It was all coming true. After all the doubts and fears and . . . and everyone telling me I was stupid for wanting . . . and then . . . it was just gone.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I had to fight—really fight—to keep them from falling. I could feel Skyler’s gaze, intense and assessing, as he watched me fidget with my fingers.
“It took me a long time to figure out who I waswithout football. I think my dad put a ball in my hands before I could walk, and all of a sudden, it was ripped away. Only then, it wasn’t just a ball stolen from me; it was a whole life, a whole future. I had no idea what I should do then, what I should want. Hell, what Iactuallywanted versus what I thought I was supposed to want.”
Skyler never stopped me or interrupted. He sat there, quiet, listening. I dared not look up, but his sympathy wrapped around me. How that happened, how he did it, I had no idea.
His voice quiet, almost drowned out in the murmuring noise of the bar, he asked, “And did you? Figure it out, I mean?”
I thought about Barbacks, about Finn and Mark and Benji, and about the life I’d built from the wreckage of the one I’d lost.
“I think so. Maybe . . . mostly,” I said, looking up and letting him see the pools threatening to spill over. “It’s all still a work in progress, but I’m happier now than I was trying to force myself into a shape that didn’t fit.”
Football. I was still talking about football. Fuck.
“A shape that didn’t fit.” Skyler nodded, turning that over like tasting one of Rod’s new dishes. “Yeah. That’s what it feels like.”
We sat with that for the longest moment, listeningto everything but hearing none of it.
“Sorry,” Skyler said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to get all heavy on you. I came here tonotthink about stuff, and instead I’m dumping my existential crisis on a guy I barely know.”
“We’ve exchanged DMs. That makes us at least moderately acquainted.”
“One DM exchange makes us mates?”
“Are you trying to slip an Aussie-ism past me?” We exchanged a much-needed grin. “Besides, it was a very meaningful DM exchange. You admitted to almost vomiting in my parking lot. That’s basically a blood pact.”
Skyler laughed, and this time it sounded real. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Absolutely not. It’s my favorite piece of Skyler Shaw trivia. I’m saving it for when you’re famous enough to have a biography written about you.”
“I’m not that famous.”
“You have a blue checkmark and over two million followers. You’re a little famous.”
He waved me off with a scoff. “The followers are mostly hockey fans and people who think I’m hot.”
“Ah yes, the two genders: hockey fans and people who think you’re hot.”
He grinned. “Shut up.”
