It was time for me to leave for a road trip to the Northeast, and a luxury SUV waited at the end of my driveway. It wasn’t blocking me in, but it wasn’t one I’d seen before.
I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but that morning, I swore I saw something in my driveway.
I didn’t live in some gated community, because that was the life I grew up in. It was fine, but when given the choice, I picked a quiet, historic neighborhood closer to the arena. A lot of the older guys lived farther out, while Owen and the other kids were in town.
It wouldn’t be the first time I was followed. My ex, Greer, hired a private investigator to follow me when she suspected I was cheating on her.
To be clear, I wasn’t, but she convinced herself I was. Thus, she took some of daddy’s money and had me tracked. At first, I thought I was imagining it, just like now. But when I reached into my car’s wheel well and found a GPS tracker, Istarted questioning everything. Greer and I had been together on and off since high school, breaking up while I was playing junior hockey in Minnesota, and getting back together when the Rusties picked me up. She was successful in her own right, working long hours for a large consulting firm. From the outside, we looked like a perfect pair: two Columbus kids making it work close to home.
But inside, it was far from perfect. And the private investigator stunt was the thing that made me finally call it quits in November. I made it out of my driveway, but I couldn’t stop checking my rear view mirror as I drove to the airport.
I settled myself with a quick scroll on my phone before going in. The Rusties had posted the video of me and Emma, and the comments threw me for a loop.
COMMENTS (32):
So is the wedding going to be black tie or black tie optional?
Does Hallmark have the rights to this?
HIS HAND ON HER LEG YOU GUYS LOOK
I usually fast forward through this part
I ship Chef and Royce
People thought I was in love with Chef? Was it just the editing? They really made it seem like we were flirting with each other.
Inside the terminal, Chef Emma stood at her usual table, distributing road meals in handled brown paper bags. I never took one because I usually arrived full or packed my own stuff. It’s not that I didn’t think she could make something I’d like. It’s that it was the last bit of control I had over what I ate before I’dbe on the road, subject to the whims of what we were provided or what we could grab quickly.
Her hands rested on her back while she shared a laugh with Owen, who peeked down into the tall take-out bags.
“Hey, Chef,” I said with a wave.
“Chef,” she said back.
Owen screwed up his face. “Wait, why are you ‘Chef’ now?”
Emma giggled. “Royce joined my cooking class at the culinary school, and then he demanded private lessons.”
“No way,” Owen laughed. “And he’s still alive to tell the tale?”
“I’m a good boy. She even gave me more than four floor tiles,” I said. “Right, Chef?”
Emma’s cheeks turned a little pink and her throat worked. “Well, if you act up in your own house, I can just leave. The best I can do to control you here is limit your floor tiles.”
Owen started to head toward the plane and I walked beside him. “When are you going to start making the road meals, Royce?”
“When hell freezes over. You have to earn my meals.” I waved over my shoulder to Emma, but she was already talking to someone else. A pathetic, shitty little pebble sank to the bottom of my stomach. A disturbing pattern was developing: when I got Chef’s attention, I felt special. When I was deprived of it, well, I didn’t like it.
While our travel documents were checked, Owen pulled out his take-out box.
“Have to make sure it’s not Austin’s,” he said, peeling back the lid. As if hockey weren’t confusing enough, we had an Austin Garner and a Garner Owen. Austin was on the team first, so he went by Garner, and Owen was fine being called Owen. I often forgot he had a different first name. “Hell yeah. Chef rules.”
The memory of her arms around my waist on my bike made my stomach dip so hard I touched a hand to it. “Why?”
“She made my Creole caesar chicken wrap. She adds chickpeas too. We call it the 4C wrap.”
“Your wrap? You can get something special?” I asked.
