Page 49 of He Has It All (Boston Brawlers Hockey)
“You talk like she’s dead. It’ll be okay, Chels.” She snaps her head around to meet my eyes.
“What do you know? You’ve been living on your own for a while and thrive on it.”
“What do you know?” I say. But it’s the last thing I should say. The connection has snapped, like a physical thing is severed between us and I feel the sharp pain of it. Revealing myself, sharing intimacies isn’t what we should be doing here. We need distance. I need distance.
She opens her mouth and shakes her head, finally says, “Guess I don’t really know a thing about you, do I? You’re not the boy you used to be. But you’re not the image you show people either, are you? Who the hell are you, Ryan?”
Her mouth trembles and my soul tears, I can feel it in my chest, a sharp pain as if God is striking me for my sins. I’d say it was my heart tearing, but we know I don’t have a heart. Because if I did, I’d have left her alone last night.
“When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.” I mean it. I can see she senses my sincerity, but her face goes dark.
“Too little too late.” Her words are so quiet I almost don’t hear them. Wish I hadn’t. Another lash of searing pain strikes my chest. Fuck.
“What happened to you, Chelsea?”
Her head whips around to glare at me. “What are you talking about?”
“The Olympics—” It’s all I manage to say before she smacks me on the shoulder hard, making me swerve the car a little, but I’m strong enough and tough enough to withstand her tantrum, because this version of Chelsea I recognize.
“Don’t you go pretending you care.”
“I do care. And you know it.”
“I don’t want your fucking stupid brotherly concern, all right? One night in bed doesn’t give you a right to go asking—”
“We have more than that between us.”
“Do we?” She licks her lips, like a lioness getting ready to take a bite out of me and I swear the idea excites me as much as it scares me, makes me feel so goddamn jacked up and alive like she’s the only person in the world who can flip that secret switch and turn me on.
“Yes.” I’m getting hard in resolve and hard in my stupid dick. I want to keep my dick out of this, but I can’t. Because if there’s one thing Chelsea is dead wrong about, it’s me thinking of her as a sister.
Oh, I may have talked the talk, but I haven’t been able to walk that walk for years.
“Really?” she says, steel in her voice to match mine. I’m hoping, imagining her panties are wet, soaking through as we sit here at a red light staring each other down.
“Then tell me,RO, what exactly is it that we have between us?” She tries whipping me with the moniker, but it doesn’t work, it’s overkill, and I know she’s scared of my answer.
The thing is, I don’t have an answer. Maybe I’m scared of whatever the answer is too.
No fucking maybes about it, RO.
