He sits his long body on the bed and leans back against the headboard.
“You tell me something about your past and I’ll tell you about mine.”
My stomach tightens. “That’s not how it works.”
“Tonight it is. We’re not in session.”
I should say no.
I should redirect and deflect.
Instead, I say, “Fine.” The worst word in the dictionary because when people say they’re fine, they’re not. “You first,” I add.
I scoot back on the couch and cross my legs.
Parker exhales a slow disciplined breath. “I had a girlfriend,” he says, running a hand over the back of his neck.
Already, I don’t like where this is going.
“Over a year. Thought it was serious.” His tone is flat. Even. “She cheated.”
What? Why would anyone cheat on this man?
“With one of my teammates.”
My heart rattles against my rib cage with empathy and concern.
In a soft tone, I ask, “That’s why you left Michigan?”
“Mostly,” he says after a pause. “I couldn’t skate next to someone who could betray a teammate. I considered him my friend.”
“So you left because you didn’t want to be around either one of them.”
He nods.
“Can we back up a little? Since you were good enough to start for Texas football, tell me how you decided to play hockey instead of football?” Maybe I can get to the root cause of his fear.
“I played football and hockey before college and I… I was tired of being compared,” he admits.
Now I have something to work with. “To your brothers?”
He nods once, fiddling with the string on his sweatpants.
“Hockey was mine and mine alone. Something different.”
His voice is as solemn as I’ve ever heard from him. Everything clicks into place so easily it almost hurts. My chest literally tightens knowing he’s hurting mentally, not just the physical part of dropping the ball.
His biggest fear isn’t failure, although it’s all connected.
It’s comparison.
Not being enough.
Not living up to the name on the back of the jersey.
But he also doesn’t trust easily. No wonder, his girlfriend cheated on him with his teammate. There is a lot to unpack.
“Your turn,” he says nodding with the expectation I’ll tell him something.
