Chapter 13
Game Day
Beau
With an hour and a half to go before the game, the team was suiting up in the dressing room. Guys were cracking jokes and throwing insults like always—but for once, I wasn't part of it.
Iggy was the first to call attention to it.
“Hey Beau! The hell's the matter with you over there?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
“Never seen you be so quiet in my life.”
I waved my hand at him. “Ah hell. Piss off.”
Vinny piped up. “Hey, whatever happened between you and that chick you went to high school with?”
The boys who'd been at the club with us last night all grumbled their comments:
“Hey, yeah, I liked her!”
“She was pretty hot, not gonna lie.”
“You don't deserve her, Beau, she's outta your league!”
“Pretty sure her friend dug Jack, too!”
(I took a quick peek over at Jack. His cheeks flushed and he hid his embarrassed smile.)
“You guys are like school girls,” I said with a shake of my head. “Anyway. I've got these.”
I grabbed the two boxes of cupcakes from Camille's bakery from my stall. I passed one box to my left, and one to my right.
“Camille made these. But be warned: they're vegan. If you turn into a hippie or something, don't blame me.”
“Vegan?” more than a few guys grumbled.
But I watched as the box went around the room, and the boys weren't scared off by the vegan desserts. Instead, almost every guy took a cupcake, took a cautious bite, and then ended up tossing the rest of the treat into their gaping mouths.
“Hey, damn, that's actually really good!”
“Right?” I asked, breaking into a huge smile.
“Wait, so your girlfriend made these?” JT Kiernan asked.
“She's not my girlfriend.”
“Beau just wishes she was,” Hunter, on my right, quipped.
I slugged Hunter's shoulder. “Whatever, man.”
“So did you grudge-fuck her or what?” Vinny, on my left, asked.
I gave him a shove. “I don't kiss and tell.”
The room went up with raucous laughter.
“You don't kiss and tell?” Jack Cameron asked. “Since fucking when?”
The fact that it was the silent rookie Jack that called me out? The room laughed even harder.
A heat grew under my jersey, under my pads, spreading all over me. I knew I was turning bright red. I don't know why I was so bothered.
The truth was, ever since last night, I'd felt out of sorts. My anxiety attack hadn't quite ended. I didn't know what the fuck was wrong with me, but I was starting to worry something might actually be wrong with me. What if that pain in my heart wasn't just anxiety—what if I was about to have a real heart attack or something?
“Aw, look at Beau,” Vinny said, cutting in, clasping his hands under his chin and obnoxiously batting his eyelashes. “The ladies man finally has a real crush.”
Iggy cut in. “He just better hope he didn't fuck his chances up by jumping into the sheets with her first, right? Seems like every girl he sleeps with ends up hating his guts—”
I jumped up from the bench and started yelling.
“Would you guys keep your noses outta my fucking business for once? We're supposed to be hockey players in here! Not a bunch of goddamn drama queens!”
It's not often a dressing room full of professional athletes ever goes quiet. The only time that rarity happens is after a really embarrassing loss. The kind of loss in which there are no positive takeaways. No highlights, no goals scored, no good moments, nothing to be proud of—the entire team played like shit.
So the stunned silence that followed my outburst told me that I just looked like a huge jackass.
Everyone blinked at me. They looked like they were hoping this was a joke. That I might strike a funny pose and say, ta-da! Got ya! Wouldn't it be weird and awkward if I actually had snapped like that, but for real?
But, of course, that didn't happen.
I stormed out of the dressing room, nearly blowing the doors off the hinges in the process.
***
I went for a walk through the bowels of Madison Square Garden, hoping to get some peace and quiet and clear my mind and figure out what the hell was wrong with me.
I didn't get it. I got what I wanted—the grudge-fuck. It was every bit as hot as I hoped it'd be, too.
But deep down? It wasn't satisfying. It was the opposite of satisfying. It was like I'd picked and picked at some scab until I finally tore it off—only for it to start oozing blood. And then I think to myself, 'well, what the fuck did I do that for?' because soon I'd have a new scab to pick off all over again …
I clenched my fist. I should've known better. Hell, part of me did! Before we left the club, I told myself it'd be better not to fuck with Camille's heart. No matter how hot I thought it might be. It just felt like I'd be doing something wrong.
But then her friend zonked out. Camille needed help. And then we were in the car together. And one thing led to another.
And then old, heartless Beau took over. Beau, who thinks with his cock.
And now I was acting like a crazy dick. And my heart felt like it was getting ripped out of my goddamn chest.
***
With a 6'3 athlete in full gear, walking around the halls of MSG on skate guards and swearing under his breath?
It was only a matter of time before someone from the media noticed me.
My old buddy Larry Graves from the Times spotted me first.
“Beau!” he shouted, rushing to my side. “Beau, have you heard Dave Leroux's response to the statements you made yesterday?
I didn't care about this shit right now. I shot him an impatient and bewildered look. “What? No.”
Larry put on his reading glasses and began to read from a mini-notebook.
“And I quote: 'You mean to tell me Beau Bradford made some idiotic comments to the media? Wow, color me shocked. What Beau Bradford ought to focus on for once, instead of trying to piss everybody off, is how to actually play the game of hockey with skill and integrity. I heard that Beau didn't always play this way? Apparently, he used to actually be good at hockey and avoided the dirty stuff. Funny, I can't even imagine it now. But everyone has to make a living, I guess. Some people make a living cleaning up [expletive] from toilets. Even that's too honest of a living for Beau Bradford. The guy's just heartless. Scum. Scum on the ice. He makes a living by dredging up everyone's vulnerabilities and exploiting them for his own selfish—'”
“Stop!” I roared, nostrils flaring, a finger held in Larry's face. “I don't care what he said, for fuck's sake!”
“Is that on the record, Beau?” Larry asked.
“No! Fuck no!”
I turned around and went right back to the dressing room.
When I barged back in, it was like somebody lifted the needle from a record. Whatever the boys were talking about immediately stopped, and everyone looked at me with expressions of concern.
“Everything alright, Beau?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” I lied.
“You good to go tonight?” he asked.
“I'll be fine.”
I hunkered down in my stall and got lost, deep in thought.
Leroux.
Leroux said all that about me.
A guy I respected.
The worst part is, you know he's right.
The others were still chatting it up, but I couldn't focus. I had to do something. I got out my cell phone.
My thumb, operating on muscle memory alone, went straight for the MeatMarket icon—the way I normally distracted myself.
But I stopped myself from tapping it.
Instead I opened up my photo gallery. There, the first pic, was that selfie I took last night in the club. Me and Camille. Something about the picture wrenched at my aching chest more. We looked good together. We looked cute together. In a weird way. Not your normal couple.
Her smile had the slightest up-curl in her upper lip. Like at any moment she could snap, and snarl at me, and those arms she had draped around my neck might wring my throat instead. But her tits. Man, her awesome tits. She really was pushing them up and out, right by my face, like she were daring me to look.
And me?
Well, I just looked happy.
I sighed, put that picture in a text message, and sent it to the number she typed in my phone last night.
Here goes nothing.