Chapter 20

My lungs seize up and my heart literally stops. I can’t move, I can’t breathe. “No,” I finally manage to croak out. “No, you don’t.”

She bites her lip and the color fades from her face. “Y-yes. I do.” She steps closer and holds out a hand, her other arm still wrapped around herself. “Max. I know how we started out…but we’ve spent a lot of time together. We’ve talked about so many things. We’ve gotten to know each other, and—”

“We’ve fucked a lot.”

She flinches and my guts twist up tighter.

“That, too,” she agrees calmly, but her eyes are bright. “I thought I could do that going into this. I know sometimes it’s hard to keep from getting emotionally involved with someone you’re sleeping with, but I thought I could do it. And…I fell in love with you.”

“Christ.” Now I’m the one to close my eyes, my vision actually going spotty. A wave of anger washes through my body and I break out in a sweat. “No. You’re not in love with me—you just think you can fix me, like everyone else. Like your mother. Like your patients. Like the losers you went out with who broke your heart.”

Her eyes go wide and she splays her hand on her chest.

“That’s why you were attracted to me. Right? Because I’m messed up. You knew that all along. You thought I was a project you could fix.”

Her mouth falls open, that plump bottom lip really trembling now. “What?”

“I’m not messed up. I mean, I guess I am, but you can’t fix me. My wife died.”

“I know.” She presses her fist to her mouth, gazing at me with those shiny eyes full of hurt. “I know that.”

“I can’t do this anymore.” I keep my voice firm and steady. “I keep seeing the way you look at me, and…we have to stop. We can’t do this anymore. It’s for the best, for you, Kendra.”

“So you’re saying…you don’t have feelings for me.”

I feel like I’m going to vomit. I don’t want to say this to her. I don’t want to hurt her. And I’m pissed that she’s making me say it. “I care about you, Kendra. But I can’t love you. I…can’t.”

She slowly nods, her face crumpling, and a small noise that almost sounds like a wounded animal escapes her. My chest constricts even more and my stomach roils.

She turns to the stove and stares helplessly at the food cooking there. Then she picks up a slotted spoon and removes the sweet potatoes from the saucepan. When they’re all on a plate, she slides the pan from the hot element and turns it off. She sets down the spoon and picks up a towel and wipes her hands.

Nodding again, she carefully hangs the towel on the rack inside a cabinet door. “Okay,” she says, her voice steady. “I’ll go get my things together.”

Shit. Fuck. Fuck.

I watch her walk out of the kitchen. “Wait. Kendra.”

She pauses and looks at me over her shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

She looks away from me, her forehead creasing in bewilderment. “I don’t know.”

“Let me…take you somewhere…” I don’t even know what I’m saying.

“You can’t drive.”

Oh, fuck, right.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get a taxi. No problem.”

She disappears.

I look at the food, the chicken breasts I haven’t finished shredding, all the vegetables. I shove the cutting board away from me and lean on the counter, my head in my hands.

The music on the computer changes to “Blue Moon” by Beck. The words fill my head and I squeeze my eyes shut. My entire body is throbbing. It’s hard to breathe.

I should have known. I should have fucking known better than to do this. It wasn’t supposed to be a relationship—just an affair—and now she’s in love with me and I’ve fucking hurt her because I can’t love her back. Because I can’t betray my wife.

I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I’m not sure who I’m talking to. Kendra? Or Ariana? Or both of them.

I can tell Kendra I’m sorry to her face. That’s the least I can do. But Ariana…I don’t know if she hears me, but it’s killing me that she might be hurting, too, somewhere.

Mindlessly I finish shredding the chicken, check the recipe, and combine the ingredients in a bowl. I toss the peanuts on top and stare at it.

Kendra returns, having changed into a pair of jeans. Her hair is still in damp waves, her face still bare, but now her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, her nose pink. She’s pulling her suitcase, her purse sitting on top of it, and she moves to shut down her laptop.

“I called a cab.” She keeps her chin up as she slides the computer into its case and tucks it inside her suitcase. “It should be here right away.”

“Kendra…I’m sorry.”

She lifts her head and gives me a searching look. “For what?”

“For hurting you. I never meant to hurt you. You’re a good person. Wanting to help people is a great thing…but there are some things you just can’t fix.”

She straightens and shoves her hair back. “You think I don’t know that?” She holds my eyes with her steady gaze. Then she closes her eyes, tips her head back and exhales sharply. “Never mind.”

With her things all together, she walks to the door.

I want to stop her. I want to hug her, hold her, and keep her here. I don’t want her to go like this, hurting. But it has to be. I know that. We have to end things now.

I get off the stool and limp along behind her, hovering uncertainly in the foyer as she slings her purse over her shoulder. She lifts her head and looks at me. I meet her eyes, even though it’s fucking painful.

“I love you, Max. I know you don’t want that, but I won’t apologize for it. And you can question it all you want and say that I really don’t, but…well, if that makes you feel better, then you go ahead and tell yourself that.” She swallows. “I do love you. That’s why I want you to be happy. I hope that someday you’ll find love again. Because you can. You can find love again.” She pauses. “Even if…” Her voice falters and she pauses to swallow again. “Even if I’m not the one. But I hope one day you find that with someone else.”

She opens the door, then turns back to me. “Remember what you told me…about the Dalai Lama.”

I frown.

“Pain is inevitable…suffering is optional.” She walks out, and the door slowly, quietly closes behind her.

I stand and stare at the door for about a year, or maybe an hour, I don’t even know. Every muscle in my body is frozen, my gut a churning pool of bitter bile.

I know I’ve hurt her, but I’ve done the right thing. The best thing for both of us. Neither of us wanted this. It’s better to end it now. There’s no point in dragging things on because we have fun together and have hot sex together, when it can’t be any more than that. This is best.

I turn and walk back into the kitchen. I stare at the big salad I just mixed up. And I pick it up and hurl it across the kitchen. The bowl shatters against the wall and food splatters everywhere. I stare at it with burning eyes and then in one of my few moments of weakness, I yank open the fridge and pull out a beer.

“All right, who crapped in your quinoa?”

I stare blankly at Rupper. “What?”

“You’re in a shitty mood.”

“No, I’m not. I’m happy my hamstring is just strained and it’s getting better.” This is true.

It’s Tuesday and I’m back at the gym. My leg felt good enough to drive after another day of lying around yesterday feeling sorry for myself and worried about Kendra. Farhad checked me out and I told him it’s feeling a lot better, so he says I don’t have to go for an MRI, but I still need to be careful.

We’ve just finished lunch, and it’s just me and Rupper in the lunch room. I ate half my salmon salad wrap and shoved away the rest, and I’m now guzzling down water.

“You didn’t need to snap off Flash’s head because he asked about positioning in the defensive zone.”

“I did not snap his head off. Fuck off.”

Rupper stares at me. “Um, okay. Sure.”

I shake my head and rub my eyes. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

I haven’t slept the last two nights, to tell the truth. The night that Kendra left, I was feeling shitty enough, although several beers did kind of blur things. But when I went to bed and discovered Buster sitting on the dresser in my room, I felt like I’d been stabbed in the gut. I picked him up and sat on the bed, staring at him for a long time. Did she forget him? Or did she leave him on purpose?

Remembering the story she told about the first Buster she’d had and how her mother had thrown him out when she was so attached to him made my throat ache so bad I couldn’t swallow and could barely breathe. She deserves so much better. She deserves to be loved. It’s so unfair that her mother couldn’t give her that. And now I’m the same.

Worry about where Kendra went, how she was feeling, and annoyance at myself for messing things up so bad kept me from sleeping both nights, and now I’m weary and short-tempered.

“Your leg bothering you?”

“No. That’s not it. Never mind. Let’s get back to work.

Greg gets me doing some easy range-of-motion exercises but then he starts pushing me hard on my upper body, cracking the whip while I do pull-ups until my arms are shaking and I’m dripping sweat.

I relish the pain. The pain in my body helps distract from the pain inside me.

The pain I fucking swore I’d never go through again. I’m so goddamn pissed at myself, I’m punishing myself by pushing harder.

“Easy,” Greg says. “You’re gonna hurt something else if you keep going like that.”

I do crunches and planks and variations of crunches and planks until my abs are screaming. I lift weights until my entire upper body is shuddering.

I want to get on the ice, but Greg holds me back.

“It’s no different than walking,” I argue. “At least let me try it. It if hurts, I’ll stop.”

He gives me a weird look. “You okay, Max?”

I scowl at him. “No, I’m not fucking okay. I’m pissed because I’m hurt and I don’t fucking need this, okay?”

He tips his head to one side. “Dude. Chill.”

I take a deep breath. “I’m going on the ice.”

“Look, I already said it. If you’re not smart, you’re going to end up hurt worse.”

I drop my head. Right, right. I need to get my shit together. I have a goal. I almost lost sight of that. I have to be ready to fight when training camp starts, and now it’s just over two weeks away. I can’t let a woman distract me from that. I can’t let my own stupidity distract me from that.

I’ve been working toward this for months now. It’s getting closer, so close. I have to be ready. I can’t let some stupid emotional bullshit stop me. I managed to shut that all down after Ariana died. I vowed I wouldn’t go there again. I need to be better than this.

“I’ll be careful,” I say in a more reasonable tone. “Just let me try it.”

It fucking grinds me to be asking someone else for permission to do something. Who the hell is he, anyway? Oh, yeah, the dude I’m paying thousands of dollars to help get me back in shape so I can play in the NHL.

“Okay,” he agrees, but he’s looking at me with a weird expression, a searching, sympathetic expression that pisses me off.

Everything pisses me off today.

I go for an easy skate around the ice, not pushing myself. I get what Greg is saying and I don’t want to make things worse. It feels good to be on the ice and I have to be satisfied with that.

When I get home, I’m exhausted. I fall face-first onto my bed and lie there for a long time. Despite my fatigue, I can’t shut off my mind. I’m still worried about her.

I know I shouldn’t, but I just have to make sure she’s okay. I roll over and grab my phone, and text Kendra. Did you make it home?

She doesn’t respond for a while, and it’s brief. Yes.

I’m tempted to reply again and explain myself, or…I don’t know. I close my eyes and toss my phone aside. It’s not fair to keep communicating with her when it’s not leading to anything, just because I want to know how she is.

My condo seems unbearably empty now, after having her there for four days. Only four days. And yet her spirit and energy were so big, they filled the place and made it hum.

I think about her dancing all the time, jumping on the bed when a good song came on, bopping in the kitchen as she cooked. I think about her bringing me ice packs even though she called me a big baby. I think about the book she bought me and how she was perfectly willing to stay in the other night when I was tired, even though she’d wanted to go to the Jazz Festival.

I think about my goal of making the team. I imagine what it will be like. Visualization is one of the strategies for success we’ve talked about at the training facility, imagining a scene and how it feels to perform the way I want to. I’m usually pretty good at this, but right now I’m finding it hard to get my head into that space. I’m supposed to use images of a previous good performance, so I think about how it felt the year we won the Stanley Cup. I imagine feeling that way again, when I’ve played my best and worked my hardest and I’m part of the Aces again.

I imagine I’ll be pretty happy when that happens.

I won’t have anyone to share it with.

But that’s not the point. The point is doing what I set out to do.

I know you’re very goal-oriented and disciplined.

Kendra said that to me. And those are things I’ve always been proud of. I need to get back to that.

I roll off the bed and drag my aching muscles into the kitchen to make something to eat. I don’t feel hungry, but I have to keep fueling my body so I can keep going.

The next week players are arriving back in town, gearing up for training camp that starts Friday. Army and Duper and my buddy Nick Balachov, who’s from Toronto and spent the summer there, join us at FitTech. Also Chase Hartman and Cam Brickley, young guys I only played one season with.

I greet my buddy Nicky with a bro shake and hug.

“Hey.” He slaps my shoulder. “Good to see you. You look great.”

“Thanks. Greg’s been cracking the whip to get my ass back in shape.”

The team is going to be different this year. Pauly McDonald announced his retirement. Last year we traded away Hugh Land for Gabe Gandy, who’s still pretty new. I haven’t played with him. Some of our fourth-line players and defensive pairings are going to be challenged by our young draft picks that are gunning for a spot on the roster. We lost Heart (Brian Erhardt), who became a free agent and signed with another team over the summer.

The guys are all laughing in the locker room. Someone taped a big picture on Chase’s locker and they’re all trash-talking him about it.

“Who is that?” I ask, looking at the picture. Whoever she is, she’s hot, wearing a skimpy red sequined bodysuit and red high heels, long golden-brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, striking a sexy pose looking over her shoulder at the camera with a sultry smile.

“You don’t know who that is?” Cam gapes at me.

I shake my head.

“Fuck, you’re old.” Rupper elbows me in the ribs.

“Not as old as you. Do you know who she is?”

“Hell, yeah. That’s Jordyn Banks.”

I’m still mystified.

“Pop slash R&B singer,” Cam supplies. “Chaser has a huge crush on her.”

I look at Chaser and grin. He doesn’t deny it. “I’ll put this picture up on my bedroom wall.” He touches it reverently.

“I’d do her,” Cam says.

“Shut the fuck up.” Chaser frowns at him.

Army’s all smiles greeting the guys, too, then somehow he nudges me away from the group and gets me alone behind a bank of lockers, his smile disappearing. “What the fuck happened with Kendra?”

I give him a blank stare. “What do you mean?”

“You said you two were on the same page. You said she knew the deal.”

I swallow. “She did.”

“I told you not to fuck her over.” Army’s eyes narrow. “But you did.”

“How do you know this?”

“She came to our place last weekend. Sunday night. She was a mess.”

I close my eyes, my chest burning. “Look, man. I never intended that to happen.”

Army slams a hand into a metal locker. “Well, it did!”

My gut goes rock-hard. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Jesus fucking Christ. I told you she has a history of hooking up with losers.”

I wince.

“I fucking told you she’s been dicked around before. And you said it would be fine.”

Because I kind of feel like crying, I lash out. “Fuck you. She and I had an agreement. An understanding. She told me she knew what was going on and it was fine. She’s the one who messed things up.” I fucking hate myself, but I keep going. “She thinks she’s in love with me, but she’s not. She thought she could fix me. That’s her thing. She fixes people.”

Army’s eyes are burning hot, staring at me.

“But she can’t fix me. I ended things before it got too far, so you should be fucking thanking me.” I shove his chest with both hands, taking him off guard, and he bangs into the lockers, and then I stalk away. I almost expect him to jump me from behind, adrenaline coursing through my veins, but he doesn’t.

“Hallsy.”

His sharp tone has me stopping. I turn to look at him.

“She said the same thing.” Army crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at me. “She said you two had an agreement. She said it was her fault that she started to care. She fucking defended you.”

I stare at him.

He shakes his head, still scowling, pushes past me, and stalks out.

I stand frozen. My insides are a lump of ice, and coldness spreads through my body. My heart races as if I just did ten laps around the ice.

She defended you.

“What was that about?” Nicky stands there, watching me with a frown.

I didn’t know he was there. I swallow. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit. What’s going on with you?”

“Fuck.” I turn and walk out, my knees almost shaking, my mind churning as I head onto the ice. My focus is shot.

Nicky follows me. “You’re telling me. Later. I’m bringing a bottle of Johnnie Walker to your place. We apparently have some catching up to do.”

I don’t argue with him.

At least I know where Kendra went that night. It makes sense. I’m glad she had family to go to.

It sucks that Army’s my teammate, though, and he’s pissed. I can’t blame him. He’s totally right.

I fucked up so bad. She really does love me.