Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ryder
The high from winning the game drained from my body as rage rushed up to fill the void.
You know what made it hard to convince yourself that you were being stupid and worrying over nothing? When you saw your girlfriend laughing and talking to your teammate, his hand on her back, their close posture way too intimate.
“Hey, babe!” Lindsay took three large steps, wrapped her arms around my waist, and kissed my cheek. My nerve endings short-circuited, the whiplash of going from anger to desire confusing them. She’d called me babe, too.
Maybe she threw it out because she needed to divert attention from the fact that she was flirting with my teammate two seconds ago. I’d tried to ignore it and convince myself it was no big deal before, just like I’d attempted to do the same with the bartender a couple of nights ago.
“What the hell, Lindsay?”
She carefully withdrew her arms and glanced at the cups in her hands. “Did I spill on you? Sorry.” She licked one of the cups and her hand, swiping the liquid off with her tongue. “I got you a drink to celebrate your win.”
“Daniel gets to put his hands all over you while you flirt with him, and all I get is a drink?”
She scrunched up her eyebrows, and Daniel disappeared, moving faster than he ever did on the rink. “I was not flirting with him. I was congratulating him on the win, the way I’m trying to congratulate you. Maybe you’d see that if you pulled your head out of your ass.”
“Oh, so I just imagined it?” A distant part of me knew I was being a huge prick, yet I couldn’t stop, especially after she was getting mad at me. “I’m not an idiot. I know you two have hooked up before.”
Her face dropped. “Forever ago.” She shook her head. “You said you didn’t care about that.”
“I don’t care about the past, but this is the present that’s happening right now.”
“Thanks for the lesson and for being a condescending jerk while all I’m trying to do is congratulate you on your win.” She clenched her jaw. “Why don’t you just say what this is really about? I had a run-in with your dad at the game. Thanks for warning me that our parents had a history.”
Of course Dad went and told her before I could—why am I even surprised? “I barely found out myself, and I’m trying to deal with it.”
She swung the drink in her right hand around. “No, you’re not dealing with it, you’re freaking out. I get it, because it freaks me out, too, but I tried to tell myself that you and I are different, and our parents’ past didn’t matter, just like my past didn’t matter.”
I raked my hand through my hair. “This isn’t about the past. I’ve given up a lot of hours of studying and training to be with you, and I need you to tell me that I wasn’t just your way back into the hockey world.”
She let out a mirthless laugh. “Like I couldn’t have gotten in without you? Oh, I could’ve in a hot minute, but if you’ll remember right, I didn’t want to be pulled back into this world.” She jabbed a finger into my chest. “You’re the one who insisted you wanted me here.”
Things were getting out of control and my thoughts whirred, trying to sort out the facts from the emotionally charged situation. “I do. I just…” I dragged a hand over my face. “I’m trying to process. But with the NCAA Tournament coming up, what I need to do is focus on hockey. I can’t afford to screw up and let all my hard work go to waste. I still have to go to college here next year.”
“You’ve had time to process, several more hours than I have, and I think we both know you’ve already made up your mind, even if you don’t want to have to come out and say it.” She pressed her lips together, her eyes going glossy. “The really sad thing is, I started to think I belonged here. You clearly don’t see that, though, because you’re looking at me all conflicted, like a problem to be solved, even after I’ve been nothing but upfront with you. About how I grew up; who I used to be. Obviously when you said that you don’t care about my past, you meant you’d wait and throw it in my face after I fell for you, so it could hurt that much worse.
“Well, mission achieved.” Lindsay tipped back her drink, then shoved the other cup in my hand, hard enough it crumpled and liquid sloshed over the side. “Congrats on your win and for proving once and for all that guys are judgmental assholes. I’ll make it nice and easy for you and give you lots of extra time to focus on hockey, because I’d rather not be referred to as a waste of time. In the long run, I guess you’re doing me a favor, because now I don’t have to worry whether or not I’m making a rash decision about my future that I would eventually regret.”
She charged past me, and I just stood there, like the stupid idiot I was.
Damn it to hell. That came out all wrong. I let everything I’d found out mess with my head, and I’d overreacted when I saw her and Daniel.
I wished that I could run after her and say that I was sorry, and that of course I trusted her.
While I was sorry, I didn’t know if it changed enough to make a difference in the long run. We’d had one complication after another since starting our relationship. I didn’t like who I became when I saw her so much as talking to another guy. Daniel was my teammate, and one of the few people I considered a friend, and a couple of minutes ago, I wanted to rip his arms off.
Even now, the urge to hunt him down and threaten him to stay the hell away from Lindsay remained. What did that say about me?
Then there was how I’d been playing lately. I couldn’t pretend that being with her wasn’t distracting when my game stats said otherwise. I’d made some big plays tonight, but that was only after Dane had to pull me out of my thoughts. The biggest games of the season were still ahead of us, and I needed to play better. Unlike Lindsay, I had to come back here next year, and I’d rather not go from starter to bench sitter.
I need to hit the gym. Of course it was closed right now, not to mention my legs were practically noodles from the game. Nothing made sense anymore, and my head spun, and I wasn’t sure if I was more pissed or ashamed, but I didn’t like either.
Maybe it’s time to just let her go, before we end up doing even more damage. If I could even get Lindsay to forgive me for how I’d acted tonight—and that was a huge fucking if—spending more time together would only make it that much suckier in the end.
What’s the point? It’s over. It was always going to end, anyway.
The cup in my hand called to me, reminding me it was there, and I downed it in a few large gulps. I was supposed to feel happy—we were advancing to the NCAA Championship.
Instead I just felt like shit, and I longed to be numb so I could forget everything for a while.
Luckily, I was at a party with lots and lots of alcohol. Everyone deserved one night to be a complete idiot, right? I figured after twenty years of always falling in line, I was long overdue.