Page 13 of Roughing
“Briggs, going to dinner with you was a mistake. We’re through. One-hundred-percent finished.”
“Mick, I—”
She held up her hand to stop me. “Don’t call me that. Only my close friends and family call me that. And don’t try to change my mind. What we had was fun while it lasted, but we aren’t going anywhere. I deserve better than a man who only wants sex and nothing else.” Her words solidified what I already knew.
I couldn’t argue with that. She did deserve better than me, but I couldn’t give up.
“Michella.” I wavered between pleading for another chance and packing up my wounded pride and accepting we were through.
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You know what’s wrong with you, Briggs?”
I knew better than to answer that loaded question.
“Your emotions are closed off. You’ve shut yourself down from the outside world. You won’t let me or anyone else in. The only time you show any feelings is when you lash out because you’re frustrated or angry. You don’t trust me enough to let me in. That’s not how a relationship works.”
It’d worked fine for months, or had it? The sex had been off the charts, but what about everything else? Michella and I had a connection, but I resisted allowing that connection to grow beyond the bedroom. She wanted something out of me I didn’t know how to give even if I wanted to.
I stared out the truck window and clenched my jaw so tightly it hurt.
“Sorry, Briggs.” Michella opened the passenger door. “I can’t keep doing this. We’re done.”
I nodded around the lump in my throat, unable to speak for fear of embarrassing myself. She watched me for a moment before slamming the door shut.
I waited for her to get in her car and drive off, not moving until her red taillights disappeared around a corner. My throat thickened with regret, and my eyes burned with unshed tears. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. Pain rendered me paralyzed. A pain so consuming it rivaled the agony I’d felt when I’d lost my sister.
Michella had been my oasis in a sea of regret and self-flagellation. Only with her had I been able to live again, even if only temporarily.
Losing Michella destroyed me, and I hadn’t realized how much until just now.
ChapterFive
LOSERS
~~Briggs~~
Iboarded the team plane and took a window seat in an empty row. No one would sit next to me. They never did. Not one teammate welcomed me back. In fact, they deliberately ignored my existence as they filed past me to their seats. Bits and pieces of conversations floated around me, driving home how excluded I was from my teammates’ discussions.
Yet I’d done nothing to merit inclusion. I’d been a dividing force on the team since our first day of training camp, and I’d done my best to disrupt the building of team chemistry and harmony. I was a negative presence, and no one wanted me on this road trip, except Coach, out of some misplaced loyalty since I was on his college team.
I’d been ostracized before, but this felt different. This time I wasn’t initiating the isolation. This time, I had to find a way to fit in. They didn’t have to like me, but they needed to respect and work with me. I’d deluded myself for months about being traded to a contender, but it was just that, an illusion with no basis in reality.
I glanced around the plane. Some guys had started a poker game, others talked about hockey, still others bantered back and forth over who was the team champion of some video game.
Up until two years ago, I’d have anchored my ass right in the middle of all this. I must fight my way back or destroy my last opportunity to play hockey again.
I was still out of sorts about how yesterday went, mostly with Michella. We were done. No late-night booty calls, no hanging out by the coffee shop just to catch a glimpse of her, no marathon sex sessions. And therein lay the problem. None of my regrets centered on Michella as a person, more an obsession, a desire, an aching need, but not someone I turned to when times were tough or celebrated with when times were good. I’d never given her a chance to be that person, never wanted to open myself up to that kind of vulnerability.
Possibly a deeply buried part of me did want a real relationship with her, but I’d never follow through. I didn’t have it in me, and she did deserve a better guy than I’d ever be.
I glanced upward, surprised to find Kirby Darkhorse taking the seat next to me. Kirby was a top-line defenseman and almost as talented as I was.
I wiped the unwelcoming grimace off my face. I didn’t want company, but I had to make an effort to be a team player and not a team disrupter. Disrupting had been easier, and I’d lashed out, inflicting pain on my teammates so they’d feel what I felt every day.
Getting along with people was more work. I hated the thought of inviting people into my world and having them see who I really was. A good possibility existed that they wouldn’t like the real me. Hell, I didn’t like the real me. Ultimately, my inability to share my innermost feelings was probably one of the biggest reasons Michella broke off all contact. I wasn’t a guy in touch with my feelings, and she seemed to want that.
“You’re back on the team.” Kirby’s statement didn’t require an answer, so I said nothing.
I felt his eyes drilling into me and resisted squirming. Kirby had this uncanny knack for peeling back the layers of bullshit and exposing the person beneath. I wasn’t interested in being exposed by him or anyone else.
