‘So you and Tyler are like a thing now?’ Jess asks from across the room, her long, bubblegum pink painted fingernails tap furiously against her phone screen. Sharp, steely blue eyes watch me carefully.
Are we a thing now? I think so. But Tyler is hardly an open book when it comes to anything personal, especially anything special enough to make him overly vulnerable.
Our moment at my mom’s house last weekend took me by surprise. In a good way, of course. I’m still not sure what possessed me into saying that I was falling in love with him. The truth is that I am already way too close to actually being in love with him. How could I not be? The rugged, broken, shadow of a man only seems to light up for me, and my God, the beams are so bright that the sun wouldn’t dare challenge him.
It’s the way he always presses the tiniest bit harder on the thick flesh of my heels when I beg him to massage my feet because he knows I put too much pressure on them when I dance. It’s that no matter how lame he might think it is, my phone will always light up with a text before he heads to the ice for practice, saying something blunt yet comforting, something very Tyler.
My heels hurt. Tonight’s your turn. Gotta go, his text read when I received it an hour ago. It brought a smile the size of Texas to my face and I giggled like a schoolgirl while staring at the bright screen for an embarrassing amount of time.
‘No need to sound so excited for me.’ I force out a tight-lipped laugh and try to hide my annoyance with her attitude. She’s had a flagpole up her ass for the past few days now, and I am far from enjoying it.
‘Sorry. It’s just new.’
I guess she has a point. After watching me pine after Tyler for so long, it has to be weird seeing us actually spending time together now—a lot of it at that. And I can’t seem to get enough of him now that I finally have him at fingers length.
‘I get it. It’s weird for me too.’ I shrug and plop myself down on the couch beside her, sitting cross-legged. She drops the phone on her chest and pushes herself up from her lying position on the sofa. She sighs when her eyes meet mine again, this time full of enough judgment to fill the role of an entire jury.
‘You don’t think it’s kind of, I don’t know, sudden? I mean, he went from never even giving you a second look to grabbing all over you. It seems weird.’
A pit starts to grow in my stomach as she stares over at me mockingly, her shoulders rising in a shrug before she returns her attention back to her phone.
Is it weird? Have I found myself too close to an open flame, waiting to get burned? ‘Are you okay? You seem different lately.’ My words come out as soft as I can make them, but it’s not easy. Not when she’s both pissing me off and making my chest ache.
‘It’s you that I would worry about. Tyler Batemen is nothing but trouble,’ she replies nonchalantly, as if she knows him better than I do.
‘Jesus, Jess. Spit it out already. What is your problem with me lately? Is it really Tyler? Because you’ve never acted like this when it came to him before. You were so supportive of the entire thing. What gives?’
Throwing her phone back down, she rolls her eyes and folds her arms tightly across her chest. ‘I don’t have a problem. You’re making this into a fight because that’s just what you do.’
Excuse me? It’s what I do? She’s got to be kidding. I stand up and snort with squinted eyes. ‘You’re kidding, right? You started this with your judgmental attitude lately! You barely even know Tyler. Where do you get off talking about him like that? About us?’
She mumbles something under her breath that I don’t hear and stands up. She starts picking at her nails. I’m not sure why the small action pisses me off so much, but it does. Maybe it’s the fact she stole my nail polish again and won’t give it back. Or maybe, I’m just a real petty bitch. Either way, it doesn’t matter.
‘What was that? I couldn’t quite hear what you mumbled under your breath like a child,’ I snap.
Pushing out a sarcastic laugh, she shakes her head once and pulls her top lip back. ‘I said that I know him better than you think I do.’
I know my eyes have to be the size of soccer balls as I stare at her. My heart pounds away furiously in my chest, knocking against the bones like it’s trying to burst through them. Don’t freak out. Keep calm, I try to remind myself. My efforts are futile when her smirk sends a punch straight to my gut, nearly making me curl over and cover the floor with the chicken salad I had for lunch.
‘Stop trying to get under my skin. We both know you’re just going through something right now. Is it your brother? Is he okay?’ Jess’s brother has been deployed for the past two years, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she was worried about him more lately. The selfish part of me hopes that’s why she’s more on edge, but the smart part of me knows that Jess has always had a problem with keeping her paws away from other people’s property.
‘God, Gracie, relax. Ashton is fine. Stop being dramatic.’ She waves me off carelessly, and her words hold me in place, frozen to the plush carpet under my curled toes.
‘Oh,’ I reply while my heart sinks deeper into my chest.
‘Yeah, oh. Just leave me alone for a while. You’re driving me crazy with your hovering lately,’ she snarks before taking off towards the front door and slipping my white sneakers on.
‘I’m sorry. I had no idea I was hovering. You don’t have to leave, Jess.’ I feel embarrassed, ashamed that I’ve been acting in a way that has upset her as much as it has.
She throws her head back and groans. ‘Yeah, I do. I’ll be home later.’ She’s gone before I have a chance to respond, leaving my eyes glued on the welcome sign we picked out together last year hung beside the front door.
Tyler
I grunt, exhaustion from the last two hours spent training on the ice kicking my confidence down a few notches. My calves burn and my shoulders ache, the time spent running laps and getting shoved into the boards a mere lighthearted pastime compared to the actual game we’re about to face this weekend.
The Calgary Steamrollers plan to do just that, steamroll us. And their confidence isn’t unwarranted either. The aggressive pricks in the form of Anthony Meyers and Ryan Delaware wouldn’t know a clean hit if it literally hit them in the face. The other defensemen simply follow the lead of their two starters when it comes to their own defensive play.
Suppose Ryan has a hard night keeping his stick out from between one or five of my teammates’ feet, and Anthony throws his shoulders into a few too many sets of numbers. If that were the case, their crew would follow suit, making the game as dirty as Braden’s sheets after a night out.
I’ve tried not to let myself get too worked up, but my teammates feel it too. It’s not just another game against the Steamrollers that we’re worried about. It’s the fear of something happening to the league’s favourite player. The guy who picked the worst possible game to make his Vancouver Warrior’s debut after signing his new contract—Oakley fucking Hutton—and it’s my job to protect him out there. No matter what.
Gracie’s baby blues flash across my vision. The way they hold such adoration for Oakley only restates the importance of this game for me. She would be devastated if anything happened to him, and I would never forgive myself if I didn’t do my job and keep him safe out there. I cough to clear my throat and give my head a shake when the locker room door opens. I’m the only one still here, thanks to my inability to stop pushing myself so damn hard, so I assume someone forgot their car keys or something when I shove my practice jersey in my bag and yell out, ‘Forget something?’
‘Are you alone?’ Jessica, Gracie’s best friend, comes barrelling over to my cubby, throwing herself against me as her knees give out. Sobs shake her short figure, the sound coming off more forced than I think she was expecting. I place my hands firmly on her shoulders and push her off of me.
‘What are you doing?’ My mouth becomes the Sahara as I stare at her with a tick in my jaw. Finally, I gather my thoughts and move past her to look out the door and make sure she wasn’t followed. I turn back around. ‘You’re not allowed back here.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘We don’t. Now leave,’ I hiss, steel-jawed and waving towards the door. ‘We don’t need to talk about anything.’ I feel my stomach tightening, a wave of nausea swirling, making me squeeze my eyes shut so tightly that I see stars on the back of my eyelids.
‘Yeah, I think we do. I have to tell her about us. I just completely blew up on her. You should have seen her face,’ she cries, hugging her chest in a way that should make me feel sorry for her, but I don’t feel anything but anger. If she really cared about Gracie at all, she wouldn’t be here trying to climb me like a damn tree.
‘You what? What did you do to her? And what do you mean, us? There never has and will never be an us,’ I growl, baring my teeth as images of an upset Gracie terrorize me. I know that I should probably be more worried about Gracie finding out about Jessica and me hooking up a couple years back, but that pales in comparison to the hurt Jessica could have caused by just being her self-absorbed, insecure, petty self.
‘I hurt her. Really bad. I couldn’t control what I was saying. It just spewed out of me!’
‘Can you stop your fucking crying for five seconds? I don’t have time for your bullshit, Jessica.’ I walk back to the door. If Gracie’s upset then I need to be there, not here with her horrible excuse of a best friend.
‘You can’t just leave me! I need you right now,’ Jessica cries out again.
‘You don’t need anything from me. Just get out. I’m leaving.’ Footsteps echo behind me as I grip my duffle and fling open the door. I stalk down the empty hallway at an alarming rate. I can hear Jessica’s quick footsteps as she likely has to run to keep up with me, but I only pick up my pace.
‘We need to talk about this, Ty!’ she yells, desperation so thick in her voice that I have to swallow back the bile that makes its way up my throat. The nickname makes my body freeze up in anger while my brain yells at me to keep moving, to just get away from her before I let myself become incensed. But it’s my body that wins when I can’t seem to move my feet.
‘Don’t call me that. Ever again,’ I spit, making sure to pronounce each word a bit harder than the next so she can’t misinterpret me this time. ‘You were a mistake, one that I regretted as soon as it happened. I was too drunk to even know who you were when I fucked you, and I wish I never had to find out. We are not ever going to happen. And if you want to keep your friendship with Gracie, then I suggest you accept that and stop trying to fuck her boyfriend behind her back. Have some respect for yourself, Jessica.’
She’s silent as she takes slow steps away from me, refusing to blink so the unshod tears in her eyes don’t fall. I take her silence as a sign that she’s finally understood me. She straightens her back and glares at me. ‘Tell her, Tyler. Or I will.’
I nod stiffly and spin on my heels, storming out of the arena. Once I reach my truck, I slam my hand against the body. Sharp twinges of pain radiate through my palms as I use them to support my body weight and hang my head, staring blankly at the pavement. Fucking Jessica was by far the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Gracie’s best friend or not.
