Page 101 of Holding Penalty

“Baby, you can ask me anything anytime.” Baby. That word I’ve been using more and more ever since that night in the bed of my truck. I’ve quickly grown addicted to calling Piper by that name. It feels like a smooth sip of liquor on my tongue every time, the kind that goes down easy, doesn’t burn, but still warms you through.

Piper gives off hesitant energy next to me. I look over to find her rolling her lips thoughtfully.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Yes, of course, it’s nothing like that,” she answers. “It’s just …” She sighs, like she’s shrugging off the last of her hesitancy. “What happened with your first engagement? With Bridgett?”

A chilly weight forms in my stomach at hearing her name. The muscles around my neck and shoulders pull tighter. But the negative reaction passes quickly.

If anything, the thought of Piper asking about Bridgett is oddly soothing. Like this is now one more topic we don’t have to tiptoe around. Like maybe we don’t have to tiptoe around anything, anymore.

It makes me think that, if she really were ready to drop everything that’s been developing between us when she gets her inheritance, she wouldn’t have even asked.

I take a stretch of time to let all these thoughts and feelings untangle themselves in my head.

“We met a couple months after I graduated college. LA drafted me, and I went to play for their AHL affiliate for a year before they called me up to the roster. That’s when I met Bridgett.”

“How’d you meet?” She hastily adds, “And if you don’t want to talk about any of this, that’s totally fine. We can change the subject any time.”

“No, it’s alright. The team sent us to a professional photographer to have promotional photos taken for the new season. That’s where I met her.”

“She was a photographer?” Piper asks

“No. A model who was getting ready for her own photoshoot.”

Piper laughs, and she shakes her head next to me.

“What?” I ask, grinning.

“Of course you dated a model.”

“Go ahead, keep stroking my ego. I won’t ask you to stop.”

Piper rolls her eyes and jabs me with the point of her elbow. “Get on with the story, model-dater.”

Leave it to Piper to make talking about one of the heaviest topics in my life feel lighter. I never thought I could actually laugh while talking about Bridgett, but here we are.

“She asked me out after we talked for a while there. I wasn’t really looking for a relationship, but I didn’t know anyone else in town, so I thought, why not? Things went well for a while.

“I can’t say I really felt much of a spark at first, but she kept proposing follow-up dates, then started making bigger plans for us. Vacations and trips and stuff. I felt that things were moving a bit too fast, entirely at her pace, but she did all this in a way that made me feel like I couldn’t say no, or tell her I wanted to slow things down. Before I knew it, I couldn’t deny that we were in a relationship.”

“Was there ever a spark?”

My lips press together, brow furrowing in thought. That’s a good question. I’ve asked myself that question plenty of times. I never did come to a satisfactory answer.

“Maybe. But, then again, if maybe is even a possible answer, I guess the real answer has to be no. Like I said, everything seemed to move at her pace—fast. I mean, the first time I told her I loved her was when she broke down crying during a small argument we had, accusing me of not loving her.”

“Sounds like she basically extorted it from you.”

“I guess if I were smarter, I would have realized that at the time. Anyway, time passed, she started dropping hints about getting married. I started to think that maybe there was something wrong with me. That I wasn’t feeling that spark—that something more that love is supposed to feel like—because I was just incapable of it. And Bridgett went from dropping hints to outright pressuring me, so eventually I just gave in. I decided it must be the right decision, based on ‘objective’ arguments I was rationalizing to myself, rather than actually feeling that she was the person I wanted to spend my life with.”

“I know what that’s like.”

A sad feeling pierces my chest that Piper had to go through the same feelings in her engagement. At the same time, it feels good to talk with someone who can sympathize with my experience.

“So, we got engaged. Then my contract with LA expired, and Austin signed me. We were all set to move here, but she told me she wanted to stay in LA for a couple months, to finish up some of her modeling gigs before relocating. Didn’t bother me.”

“And then?”