Page 9 of He Has Trouble (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
"I don't know why I stayed with Tim so long." Her words brought me back to the present. I studied her face. It was unchanged, simply beautiful. Creamy white skin and long dark lashes framing dark eyes full of fun and innocence, hiding a depthless strength.
She’d held me together on more than one night, covered for me too many times to count. Shamed me into doing the schoolwork so I could qualify for the NCAA scholarship to the University of New Hampshire.
"Yeah, why did you stay with that fucker?" I couldn’t help the anger. Force of habit. “Sorry.”
"No apologies for calling a spade a space. I stayed—I don’t know.” She huffed a breath. “Not a lot of choices. Did you know the average age in New Hampshire is forty-one years old?"
I laughed, though I hated thinking of her looking for men to date and was glad she hadn’t tried very hard to find someone worthwhile. Because one thing I was sure of was that if she’d really and truly put herself out there, men would have flocked.
“Maybe you stayed with Tim because he was a shield, so you didn’t have to find someone real—or so a real man wouldn’t find you.” I held my breath, hoping she’d admit to it.
“Oh yeah? You get a degree in psychology while you were off in the summers?”
“No, but I did have a lot of time on my hands to think in the off-season.” In truth, I’d seen a few shrinks. Some at my team’s insistence. I’d have to go back to one of them again now, a league condition to return from the suspension.
She nodded. “I bet. You never came home. That first summer, I kept waiting for you to show up. I’d look out the window every time I heard a car in your driveway. But it was never you.”
“When did you give up looking?” I held my breath. We both knew I was asking when she’d given up on me, on us.
She shrugged. “Tough question. It was a long, slow process. My hope eroded in tiny pieces. Like losing weight an ounce at a time. A little bit every day.”
I heard the pain in her voice and felt it in my belly, in my heart.
“I know.”
“You know what?”
“How that kind of loss feels. I didn’t want to have to feel it again. But I did.”
She reached out, put her hand on mine. I looked at her delicate fingers, felt their softness and warmth and clasped them like a Venus flytrap closing. She was the cure for my heartache at some elemental level.
“I’m sorry, Brady. I’ve always been sorry. I don’t know how to make things better for you.”
“Don’t say that.”
She stood. “I should go. Maybe you should talk to your dad.”
Jumping up from my chair, I felt panic closing in like I hadn’t felt since I’d been a kid. “Don’t go.”
“It’s Christmas day, Brady. We have things to do at the house. You’re invited for dinner. You and your dad. Mom’s expecting you to get him to come over.”
Pride had me refusing to admit that I had no idea if I could handle my dad. I’d have to figure a way.
“I’ll do it. What can I bring?”
“Yourself. Wear an ugly Christmas sweater if you have one.”
“An ugly Christmas sweater, eh?”
“Eh? You going Canadian on us?”
I chuckled. “I told you I’ve changed.”
“Did you really?”
“Not completely. I’m still the charmer you once fell for.”
“For all the wrong reasons.”
