“Wild game today. You ready to get lit?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m driving tonight, so you can.”
Fi’s face fell. “Oh, Riley, I can drive if you want.”
I squeezed her hand. “No, it’s okay; I know you need to celebrate finishing your first draft.” TJ’s head kept wiping back and forth between the two of us, and I realized that I was rude and hadn’t introduced them. “Fi, this is my teammate, TJ. TJ, this is my wife, Fiona.”
I swear TJ’s eyes bugged out of his head, and he stared down at my left hand. “I thought you wearing a ring was new. Wait, haven’t we met before?”
Fi nodded. “Yeah, we did! Nice meeting you again.”
TJ shook his head. “Riley, man, never thought I would see you of all people settle down.”
I glared at him when I saw the sour look that crossed Fi’s face. She shifted to neutral when I turned to her, but I saw it, and I wanted to know so badly what she was thinking inside that brain of hers. Probably nothing good.
I guided Fi into the kitchen to get a drink, where we bumped into Noah, who was coming back from next door. He was just as surprised as TJ was when I introduced Fi as my wife, but he slunk away when Benny came over to us.
“Hi, Fi,” Benny greeted her.
“Hey. So you and your girl got back together?” she asked.
Benny nodded, but I noticed Stephanie wasn’t with him. “Sorry, I heard she was really rude to you.”
Fi waved him off. “It’s okay. I ended up hanging with Metzy’s girl, Lacey.”
Benny frowned. “Still, I’m sorry.”
Fi shook her head at him.
Benny wandered off when Hallsy called him over to the other side of the room, and I walked off when Noah’s girl Dinah came in, and she and Fi got to talking shop. I walked over to TJ and Noah with a grimace on my face, not really wanting to explain the situation to my younger teammates. Noah and I got to talking about my weird marriage, and when I looked across the room, I shook my head at seeing Mia, Fi, and Dinah all doing shots together.
“Oh, no. I smell trouble,” I groaned out loud.
Noah glanced in the direction I was looking in. “Was it a good idea to leave those two together?”
“Hence, why I offered to drive tonight,” I commented and raised my glass of water to him.
Noah shook his head and clapped me on the back. “I don’t understand this whole marriage of yours. “
I shrugged. “I don’t think either of us do.”
I heard TJ groan as he sunk a ping-pong ball into a red solo cup. “You two are kind of insufferable lovesick puppies.”
I gave him the finger. I wondered if TJ would ever come to the dark side with us, but he seemed like a guy who would never settle down. Although, I guess a lot of people said that about me too.
After our game of beer pong, I watched Dinah come over to the couch, where she and Noah looked so disgustingly cute. He pulled the tiny woman into his lap and whispered sweetly to her. I had never seen the kid look happier. I wanted what they had, but I wasn’t sure if Fi would ever feel like that about me. I went into the kitchen to find her alone and nursing a glass of water, which I guessed was good. She side-eyed me from behind the glass and put it down on the counter.
“You were right,” she stated.
“Yeah? What was I right about this time?”
Her eyes slanted into slits of annoyance at my cockiness. “That I would get along with Dinah. I’m not good at friendships.”
My heart softened at that, and I grabbed her hand. “We’re friends.”
“True, but I’m not good at keeping friends,” she explained with a sigh, and she squeezed my hand. I smelled the alcohol on her breath, so I wondered if these were melancholy drunk thoughts. “I guess that’s why it really hurt when Eric didn’t show up. It was yet another person who left.”
I cupped her face in my hands and looked into her eyes. “You know I’m not going to abandon you, right?”
She shook her head. “You already did.”
“When I left for the NHL?” I asked.
She nodded. “Everyone always abandons me. So what’s the point in getting close to anyone?”
My heart broke for the woman standing in front of me. I couldn’t believe she thought that I would ghost her out of my life. I didn’t realize it bothered her that we weren’t as close as when I left for the NHL and she left for college. She had wormed her way inside my heart when we were seventeen. Probably even way before that. She wasn’t just always on my mind; she practically lived inside my brain. It now made a lot of sense why she was so hesitant about this marriage between us. She was convinced that I was going to leave her. I didn’t know how to explain to her that was never going to happen.
“Hey,” I said to her softly. “I’m sorry you felt like I abandoned you. I’m sorry we haven’t been as close.”
She shook her head at me and looked down at the floor.
“Fi, that’s not going to happen again, okay?”
She refused to look at me and pulled away to sip her water almost coldly. Maybe keeping her at a distance had been a bad idea. She shook her head suddenly and looked up at me with a worried look. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
She shrugged.
I glanced at my watch and noticed it wasn’t too late, but I could see the party starting to peter out. “Do you want to head home?” I asked.
Her eyes got
