Aidan’s satisfied sigh as he leans back against the side of the hot tub is irritating. So is the owl hooting nearby. And the twinge in my hamstring from falling funny on the mountain earlier.
Lately, everything annoys me.
“This is the life.” Aidan groans before chugging some beer.
Again, irritating.
“So I was thinking we could head down to the lodge tonight, grab a pint,” Aidan says. “I’ve seen tons of hot snow bunnies around…”
“I was thinking an early night.”
Aidan mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like what a surprise.
“If I knew you’d be this much of a wet blanket, I would have thrown you in the dryer before we left Somerville, Hart.”
I say nothing, just swish my fingers through the hot water.
Stare at the smooth surface. Ridiculously, it reminds me of her. Harlow Hayes ruined water for me.
“Do you think Coach would be up for installing one of these in the locker room?” Aidan asks. “Can you imagine? Stepping off the ice into a hot tub with a cold beer?”
“I think that this hot tub probably cost Coach’s annual salary, Phillips.”
His family’s ski house, chalet, whatever it’s called, is even nicer than I was expecting. Nestled in the mountains, private access to their own ski lift, comes with membership at an exclusive lodge in town? Aidan is loaded, not just rich.
“Did you call her?”
I grab my bottle of beer and take a long swig. Aidan’s right, about the combination being incredible. The jets are massaging my back with hot water, and the beer is ice cold against my palm. I’m in Colorado with my best friend, snowboarding all day and then coming back to what is the nicest house I’ve ever been to.
And Aidan’s right, I’ve been a total wet blanket. I’m like Coach, not cracking so much as a smile.
“Text her?”
He’s not dropping the subject, the way I hoped. Aidan and Hunter have tiptoed around the topic, which is not like either of them, ever since Aidan asked why Harlow hadn’t been over and I responded with a curt “I ended it.”
“I’m worried about you, Hart.”
I sip more beer. “I’m fine.”
I’m not, though. I keep waiting for this feeling to go away, and it hasn’t. Each morning, I wake up expecting for it to hurt a little less. Hasn’t happened, and it’s been weeks.
We’ve won every single game we’ve played since losing to Edgewood. Hockey, the one thing that’s always, unequivocally, mattered, is going as well as it possibly could again.
And I’m miserable.
I’m terrified I fucked up, worse than I ever have before.
I think I’m in love with her.
The real, scary thing.
Not lust or fascination or obsession or any diluted form of it.
I think I truly love her, to the point that I hate what my life looks like without her in it.
To the point that, if I miraculously make it to the pros, I’ll look up in the stands at the tens of thousands of people packed in to see me play, and it won’t matter very much if hers isn’t one of the faces in the crowd.
To the point that I’m worried I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering where she is and what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with, the same way I’ve spent these past weeks.
“Bullshit.”
I refocus on Aidan. This whole time I’ve been spiraling, he’s been staring at me.
“I’ll get over it,” I mutter, then drink more beer.
I thought the self-loathing after losing a game was bad. Turns out it’s nothing in comparison to letting the girl you love slip through your fingers.
She was right there, asking if I cared about hockey more than her. And I walked away.
“Then bring a girl back here tonight.”
I wince.
I haven’t touched a girl since Harlow. Just like when we were sleeping together, I have absolutely no desire to. Aidan has brought back three girls in the three nights we’ve been here, and I lay in bed on the other side of the wall—alone and awake with a pillow pressed against each ear.
Aidan has the gall to remind me, “She hooked up with Thomas.”
Something I’m furious about. Something he knows I’m furious about. He and Hunter have both seen the cracked plaster.
And I have no right to be mad.
She warned me she’d move on, and that’s exactly what she did.
I couldn’t react—couldn’t punch Thomas, instead of my bedroom wall—because I never told her how much I cared. Because I was the one who ended things and let Clayton swoop in.
I ran into her on two dates last semester, and it bothered me both times. Now, I don’t even know how I would react. Don’t know if I could keep from reacting.
Seeing her talk to another guy? Laugh with another guy? Touch another guy?
I might commit murder, trapped in a hell of my own making.
Aidan sighs, long and exasperated.
And then we continue sitting in silence, drinking our beers.
