Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

It’s only hours later—after I’ve had dinner delivered and eaten it in my car, called my mom to check on her, fielded texts from some of my teammates who are meeting up for beers, and watched an entire movie on my phone—that it occurs to me that Jules might have told Audrey I was waiting in my car. Audrey could just as easily have parked elsewhere and gone in the front door instead, where I would never have seen her.

Have I been sitting out here like a fool, and she’s been inside this whole time?

I decide to test the theory, so I open my Jeep door and shut it quietly, then walk up the back steps. The door only has a transom window, but by standing on my tiptoes, I’m able to see through it, and sure enough, Audrey is sitting cross-legged on the couch, typing away on her laptop.

When my fist meets the door for a few quick knocks, she practically levitates out of her seat. Then she turns, and the look of annoyance on her face transforms to one of shock when she catches sight of me peering at her through the window.

She stands there, staring at me. Her face conveys the message that she wants me to leave, but when she mouths, “Go away,” there’s no doubt. I raise my hand like I’m going to knock on the window, and she shakes her head back and forth as she starts walking toward the door.

She cracks the door open, then plants her leg behind it like she’s trying to stop me from coming in. As much as I want to push that door open and pull her into my arms, I know that’s not what she wants right now.

“Talk to me, Audrey.”

“I’m not ready to talk about this.”

I take a deep breath through my nose, feeling my nostrils flare and my jaw tick as I grind my teeth together.

“I never want to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But…” I take another deep breath. “I’m kind of going crazy worrying about how badly I screwed things up. I didn’t mean to spook you. I just…I know how strong my feelings are for you, and I don’t want to hide them like I did when we were in college. I don’t want you to doubt how I feel. I don’t want you to question whether I’m in this.” I think back to this afternoon, to how being inside her knocked my whole world off its axis. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

“Okay…” The word is tentative. She chews on her lower lip and her hand immediately tracks to the necklace I notice she wears every day, her fingers pulling the small gold disk between them.

“You don’t have to be in the same place I am with your feelings,” I tell her. “I know these last few weeks have been a lot, and you’re probably still processing how you feel about this, and I’m fine with that. But Audrey”—I reach out, taking her free hand in mine—“I need to know what you want me to do about these feelings? Should I be hiding them from you, because you’re not ready to know about them? I’m pretty sure that, back in college, not talking about our feelings was part of what led us into this mess in the first place.”

“What I want you to do, Drew, is stop and fucking think for a moment instead of acting impulsively all the time. We talked about me not being ready to tell your family about Graham, and then you went and blurted it out to Caitlyn like we hadn’t just had that conversation. Then, you knew I wasn’t ready to talk about what just happened—Jules told you—and instead of going home and giving me space, you camped out in your car and waited for me to come home so you could corner me into this conversation. It’s cute that you can just put your life on hold, sitting in your car for hours, eating takeout and watching a movie, just because suddenly you have these feelings that you don’t know what to do with. But that’s not my life. I don’t get to put my life on hold like that to figure things out.”

Shit. Jules was right. I stayed because I felt desperate to fix the situation right in the moment, even though things may have been better if we’d both taken a night to process. She told me Audrey needed time to adjust to the way things are changing, and I kept pushing.

“I don’t want you to put your life on hold; I want you to invite me into it.”

“Well, forcing your way in when I’m still trying to make sense of all of this isn’t the right approach.” Her voice has a high-pitched quality that seems tinged with panic. “How can you be so sure you want a lifetime with me when we’ve never even been on a date? We haven’t even talked about what’s happening between us. You said you couldn’t do a relationship, and then you told me you were never going to get tired of being with me. You’re sending huge mixed signals! And then you go and proclaim that you’re going to marry me in front of your sister, when you’ve never said anything even remotely like that to me? How the hell did you get here from there?”

“I don’t know, it just happened.”

Her lips twist at the corner in a look of uncertainty, and then she sighs. “That’s kind of your whole personality, right?”

All of the noise of city life recedes as I block out everything around me—a skill I’m usually only able to employ while playing hockey—to focus on those words and the underlying current of sarcasm lacing its way through them.

That’s kind of your whole personality… What does that even mean?

“Are you saying that ‘I don’t know, it just happened’ is my whole personality?” When a slight tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow are her only response, I continue. “Like you don’t think that I think things through before I do them? And don’t take responsibility for my actions?”

She looks away, but her fingers continue working the gold disk on her necklace. I wish I could see what was on that thing. “Can we just…maybe forget I said that?”

I run my hand across the brim of my Rebels hat, pulling it down on my forehead. I can’t remember the last time I was nervous around a woman, but maybe what I’m feeling isn’t nerves—it’s anxiety. I hate that all I can think about in this moment is that her low opinion of me and my past could prevent us from having a future.

“It’s not exactly the kind of thing one forgets.”

“Drew.” Instead of the normal reprimand, my name comes off her lips like a plea.

“Yes?”

“Please, try to see this whole situation from my perspective. For years, I watched as your hockey career took off, and the photos of you at parties and restaurant openings and on dates popped up in the media. The wild nights out with the guys, the women who followed you around, the antics between you and your teammates, all the fights and the time in the penalty box…it doesn’t exactly scream ‘reliable guy.’”

I try to see it through her eyes: the years of partying in Vancouver, and then the years of fighting in Colorado. It occurs to me that I never told her what happened there, why things went sideways between me and my teammates, and how it affected my game and my personal life. She doesn’t know how often I came home to Boston to see my family. She doesn’t know it’s been years since I had the type of wild party night she’s imagining. Because I haven’t told her. It’s like my mom said…I need to show her.

Sure, I’ve done a couple of small things, like taking care of her when she’s sick, or taking her and Graham out for cookies. But she doesn’t actually know that I’m capable of being the person she needs me to be. She doesn’t see what we could build together.

“If your picture of who I am now is based on who I was years ago, you’re not giving me a fair chance. I’m not expecting you to be the twenty-one-year-old I first flirted with, or any iteration of yourself except who you are right now, in this moment. That’s all.”

“This isn’t about not understanding who you are now, Drew.” She crosses her arms and sighs in frustration. “But you just found out you had a kid, for Christ’s sake! We haven’t even told Graham that you’re his dad yet. We have no idea how he’s going to react to that, or what impact it’ll have on him and on us. So yeah, the chemistry between us is amazing, but that doesn’t mean we need to play house right away. It’s like suddenly, out of the blue, you want the wife and the kid to come home to.”

“No, it’s like suddenly I want you and Graham. You’re not some faceless family in some domestic fantasy I’m living in.” How do I explain this to her? “I feel like…when you’re not around, I can’t breathe…and when you are, I can.”

“There’re more than your feelings that we need to consider here, Drew. Like Graham and what he wants. Plus, a relationship, especially a marriage, needs to be based on more than just wanting to be with the other person.”

As she pauses to take a breath, I consider how similar her words are to my mom’s earlier.

“You’ve only seen the fun times: the hockey practices where you get to skate with Graham, taking him out for cookies afterward, or throwing the football around in your mom’s backyard. You haven’t lived through a tantrum, or the changing tastes of a five-year-old who never wants to eat what you make for dinner, or the heartbreak when a friend tells him he doesn’t want to be his friend anymore. You call when you’re on the road, and stop by my office when you’re in town so you can give me amazing orgasms, but you haven’t had to be part of all the mundane shit, like grocery shopping and folding laundry. Real family life is so much more complex, and also less exciting, than the moments you’ve participated in. You don’t decide you want to start a family with someone just because you’ve seen a couple clips from the highlight reel.”

I take in her pink cheeks and the way her body is practically vibrating with all her emotions. “You’re right.”

“Being part of my and Graham’s life means seeing the messy parts too. And it means sticking around when things get ugly.”

“I know. I hear everything you’re saying.” It’s in this moment that I have absolute clarity about what I want: Audrey and Graham. I didn’t think I was ready for a serious relationship, or for a kid. But now that I’ve gotten a taste of what that could be like, now that the possibility of Audrey and Graham being part of my life is right in front of me, I’m terrified of losing them.

“So, where do we go from here?” she asks, her body relaxing as she lets go of some of the frustration from a few moments before.

“Well, since I haven’t seen all this real family life you’re talking about, should I move in right now, or wait until tomorrow?”

Her eyes widen, and then I can tell she realizes I’m joking. The laugh that bursts out of her is exactly what I was hoping for, but then her face grows serious again, and she says, “It’s not something to joke about.”

“I know, I just needed to see you smile. For real, though, let me prove to you that you and Graham are what I really want, and that I deserve you both. Let me be here for you in the good times, and through all the mundane shit, and when things get hard.”

I watch her trying not to let down her guard, trying to hold everything in. Finally, she says, “I don’t think you’re ready for all that.”

I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life. “I look forward to proving you wrong.”

“Sure,” she says quietly as she looks up at the sky. “Goodnight, Drew.”

She closes the door slowly, like she thinks I’m going to stop her. But I realize she needs time to process all of this, and I need time to figure out my game plan. Because there’s no way I’m not giving this relationship everything I’ve got.