“Why wouldn’t you have told me before?” I snapped at Max.
“What- and have you throw up in my office?” He asked with bulging eyes. Max always did that- he enunciated things by widening his eyes all the way out and making big hand gestures. I usually found it funny, but nothing about today was funny.
I was going to see her in the stands watching me again but with her little husband sitting next to her. What the hell kind of sick joke was this? I felt like my knees were being taken out by someone. I was going to get sick again.
“I can’t do it. I’m not going to coach.” I turned to Smitty, “team’s all yours, bud.”
That had them both up in arms arguing with each other from across my new kitchen’s island. My kitchen. Fuck. Why had I bought this fucking house in this fucking town. I did not keep tabs on her at all, but I did check to see if her grandparents were still in this town before purchasing here and I’d gratefully found that there weren’t any Hurley’s in Northfield. Great, that was just more evidence that she’d married and taken another guy’s last name. I’d like to see him. Tell him how she was mine first and he’d never be able to have what she had given me first.
But no. That line of thinking- that’s where I couldn’t go. She was not mine. She hadn’t been in a long time- she didn’t want to be. She’d made that clear a long time ago.
I stared at the wall in front of me. Maybe I’d go out and find myself a bar fight. I could find some asshole who’d love to take a swing at a washed-up NHL-er. If someone knocked me hard enough, maybe I could forget about her. At least for the night. That would probably be the easiest course of action at this point. Violence on the ice had helped me live through the last several years.
I clasped my hands together and nodded. That’s what I’d do. No one cared if I lost my head. I didn’t have anything to lose except those damn memories.
I heard my front door open then, making me pause and the guys finally stop arguing.
“Hi guys!” Paige called out cheerily, causing me to groan. I shouldn’t have given her and Max a key to my place.
“She’s too peppy,” Smitty said, and I couldn’t help but silently agree. Now was not the time for the positivity she oozed.
Paige walked over until she was standing in front of me, paying no attention to Max or Smitty.
She jumped straight to the point, “this could be a good thing for you, Greyson.”
I gave out a frustrated growl and ran my hands through my hair, I needed a haircut and I needed to get out of there. I didn’t want a lecture in my own house.
“I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed by Benny’s bartender,” I said gruffly without making eye contact with her. I regretted the words as I’d said them. Paige was not trying to be mean to me, but I needed her to leave me alone.
She looked taken aback. I pushed out of my chair and walked out of my house with my friends sitting around my kitchen.
I didn’t even reach for my keys because I knew I wasn’t in a good place.
I took the short walk down the street into Northfield’s downtown. I’d always loved downtown.
I wandered around town until I found myself at Scores- the old barber shop I’d gone to hundreds of times as a teen. The girl working there kept asking me questions and looked nervous. She could probably tell how intoxicated I was. I didn’t want to listen to her so I told her to buzz it all and be done with it. Jules hated it buzzed. Good, I thought bitterly to myself. I shook my head to physically jar her out of it.
As weird as it sounded, a head massage was what I craved. It made me feel relaxed. Honestly, it was my only human touch I’d had in a while. Pathetic. I had zero game.
But barbershop drunk- interesting experience… I’d probably regret it. I hadn’t had a buzz since college when we all decided to bleach our hair during a tournament. Mine was too dark and we had no clue what the word toner even meant, so it ended up orange. After the tournament win, I had to get rid of it all and start over in fear of looking like a clown forever. Smitty buzzed it close to the scalp to get rid of all the orange.
Jules had been so mad about it and I had laughed in her face over it because I really didn’t think it was a big deal. But when she felt my head with a cute pout on her face, she made me regret it. She was the only person who had ever cared about my damn hair. She punched Smitty in the gut- her hardest- but definitely laughable- for being the one to do it. She even threatened him over it, saying if it didn’t grow back the same, he’d be sorry. Thinking of how she’d been my tiny defender going up against a hulking division 1 defenseman over my hair brought a smile to my face, which I quickly wiped off.
I needed to remember she wasn’t mine. I needed to push these memories, good and bad, back into the box I’d shoved them in years ago. I wondered yet again if I’d made a horrible mistake in coming back. She was someone else’s defender now.
“Dude, what happened to your head?” Smitty asked me as soon as I opened my front door. He was glancing quickly back and forth from me and the new NHL game he was playing on my tv.
“Little short there bud, we are going into the fall,” Max teased, but looked at me with unease.
Whatever, I didn’t care. I just wanted it gone.
I eased my hat back on, wanting them to stop looking at me.
“I’m best-looking coach now,” Smitty bragged and I rolled my eyes.
I thought they would’ve left my house, but it looked like they’d just made themselves more comfortable, having moved to the living room.
“Pizza will be here soon,” Max told me. He paused the game then and looked at me. “Paige is pissed. Fix that before I take her home,” he said plainly.
I knew I had to go fix things with her but being demanded like that irked me. I had to swallow my pride though. Max and Paige were the only ones looking out for me this past spring when I had no idea what to do or where to go. They were my family.
I exited my living room and made it back to the kitchen to find Paige gathering plates and cups for dinner.
“You have any pop or water in this house or just beer?” She asked in an even tone, looking into my sorry excuse for a fridge. I think I only had beer and eggs.
“I’m sorry,” I forced myself to push out a rare apology.
She slowly rose to look at me and stood with her hands on her hips and pursed lips. She needed to be a mom someday, she’d already perfected the disappointed mom glare. That brought a smirk to my face.
“Something funny young man?” She asked, making me crack a smile.
“You’ve got the mom look down,” I told her.
“I should by now. I’m basically a mom to all three of you,” she shook her head and I could see a small smile pulling at her lips. “I can’t stay too mad at you when you look like a poor little boy that’s gotten his toy taken away.” She sighed and plopped onto one of the kitchen barstool chairs. I took a seat next to her waiting for the lecture she’d surely give me.
“You haven’t had closure,” she began. “You’ve been stewing over questions for years. We have too. We all grew up together and we were all friends.”
Her words made me want to throw up arms, but I knew I was overreacting. I drew a breath in, “Don’t you dare compare, Paige. What if Max did that to you?” I asked quietly.
“I’m not comparing,” she urged. “But this is what I’m saying- we don’t even know what she did to you. And if we have questions when it comes to her, you definitely do. You’re not the same person you used to be. You used to be happy-go-lucky, light-up-every-room, and love-your-life-hockey-guy. That summer you turned into an angry hockey monster- which worked for you for a while. You had a place to put your anger I suppose. But now you’re kinda just an angry shell that moves through the day. And you need to fix it. You can’t keep going like this… you’re going to waste your life being stuck in this fog.”
I knew she was right. I did have questions and if I was honest with myself, I would say I was stuck. I couldn’t let anyone in because of her. I hadn’t made a single new relationship in the last decade.
“If it makes you feel better, I think she’s been stuck in a different kind of situation for the past nine years and she just recently got out of it.”
That snapped my eyes to hers, “How would you-?”
“Greyson- I talked to her today. She’s the same Jules. She just has extra barriers up now.”
The doorbell rang then, ending the conversation. I was grateful for it. I had enough to think about when it came to Jules. I didn’t want to hear about her happy, fluffy, perfect-picket-fence life she had built without me. But maybe Paige was saying it wasn’t so perfect? But that hurt too. As bitter as I was, I still wanted her to be happy. It was so fucking confusing.
Jules had always had a way of seeming perfectly put together, but she could poker face with the best of the upper class. I used to be able to detect cracks in her facade easily. I wondered if I’d still be able to.
