I leave the two men to work out the details of their man-chat and make my way back to my dorm. A lot of my energy over the past year has been usurped by holding up my second-hand hatred for Tate Myers.
I guess it’s time to figure out what life looks like if I let myself like him.
CHAPTER 19
Tate
Ididn’t want to move into the hockey house. But there’s an empty room, and the team and my parents ganged up on me behind my back. So now that I’ve been discharged from the hospital—as of a few minutes ago, I'm free.
Or, at least would be, if I wasn’t being held captive in my parents SUV on the way to the team house.
I growl again, but they ignore me. The doctors at the hospital tell me that I could talk if I wanted. Apparently having my jaw wired shut doesn’t stop me from being able to talk. Gave it a shot last night after visiting hours ended, and my parents were all but kicked out of the building, but it’s not for me.
Grinding out words around screwed-shut teeth isn’t my idea of fun. I’ll use text, or a white board, or gesturing and grunting to get my point across to the guys.
Ares says Bacon, the therapy pig and our team mascot, is already on site ready for cuddles. I’m not sure I’d inflict my bad mood on the poor potbellied pig, but we’ll see.
Leaning my head against the window of the car, I close my eyes and enjoy the cool breeze wafting back through the car from Mom’s open window. Since I got hit in the face all I’ve felt is afizzing anger under my skin, not at anyone in particular, just at my situation in general.
Going to the hockey house isn’t something I’m looking forward to, either. The pity on my teammates’ faces will make my simmering ire bubble over into all-out rage. And I don’t exactly want to sit around not doing shit while my teammates are on the ice, doing what I love, what I want to do, while I watch them through a fucking screen.
Another growl. I think I’m going to spend the next three months grumbling and snarling at people.
It’s a short ride to the house, and when we get there, I half expect banners and balloons on the lawn. Those assholes are extra like that. But relief floods my veins to see no one has taken their life in their hands and made a sign.
I’d have smacked them with it.
Ugh. My face hurts.
They gave me painkillers to take home with me, but I don’t want to be high as fuck the whole time either. It’s a balance between what throbbing agony I can tolerate versus spending hours asleep and drooling because I’m drugged up.
Once I’m settled, I’ll tell everyone to fuck off and leave me alone so I can sleep and then knock myself out.
I don’t know how this happened to me. And the more I think about it, the worse I feel. Wishing someone else on the team, or the opposition’s team, caught the shot to their jaw makes me feel like shit. No one in particular at least, but I wish it wasn’t me.
Of course I wish it hadn’t happened to anyone. But since it did, I wish it wasn’t me.
Swiping an angry hand at the tears trickling down my swollen, painful face, I check that Mom isn’t staring at me in the rearview. She’s staring out the window, lost in her own thoughts. Probably steeped in worry and regret that she ever let me learn to skate. It’s just what she’s like, reverse engineering a situationuntil she can pinpoint the exact decision she made to make it all her fault.
Guilt sloshes in my stomach so I reach forward and grip her shoulder. She turns to look at me, her eyes red-rimmed, and gives me a soft smile.
It takes them a good twenty minutes to get my shit in from the car, the bed made with fresh linens, and for some of the guys to make loud overtures about how they’re hungry and can’t cook, for Mom to hit the kitchen.
Thankfully, these assholes have cleaned before we arrived, and there’s groceries in the fridge, but apparently not what she wants.
She settles me on the couch and sends Apollo to the store with a list. I try to nap while she gets my teammates to reluctantly help her out with various things in the kitchen. It helps that Dad’s with her, they’re kind of stoked to talk shop with a former pro hockey player and pepper him with all kinds of questions.
When I wake up again, she’s whipped up a couple of pans of her baked ziti, enough for everyone to eat today, and probably for a few days to come, too.
Not only that, but she’s made a couple of hot dishes and the house smells amazing. It’s not long before a giant smoothie appears beside me, too.
When I take the glass from him, Apollo sits next to me on the couch, holding his hands up in surrender. “No sympathy,” he declares with resolve. “Almost lost my balls to Edith when I offered her sympathy after the accident. I learned my lesson.”
I didn’t understand at the time, but now I’m the one with the injury, I can relate to Edith and her recovery journey.
“Only support, recovery, and juice, soups, and smoothies on demand.” He jerks his chin at the glass I’m holding.
“We got an industrial juicer, blender, and food processor.”
