She stirred when I leaned down to kiss her goodbye. Her eyes fluttered open, but she still looked half asleep. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked.
“Shush, go back to sleep. I have to get to the arena,” I told her. I sat on the bed next to her and pushed her hair out of her face.
“Don’t be mad at me,” she cried in this sad small voice, and it gutted me that I had to leave her right now. I thought she might still be drunk.
“Sweetheart, I’m not. We’ll talk when I get home, okay?”
She kissed my big hand lying on her face, right on the silver wedding band that I only took off when I was playing hockey.
“Aaron…”
“Shush, sweetheart. Go back to sleep,” I urged and kissed her on the forehead.
“Aaron, I’m sorry, please don’t leave me,” she urged, and then she was crying.
I wiped the tears from her face and pulled her to my chest, not caring if her tears wet my suit. “Aw, sweetheart, don’t cry. I’m here. I’m only leaving because I have a game to go to. Get some sleep, okay?”
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” she said and pulled away from me.
I smiled at her and gently pushed her back down on the bed. I kissed her forehead again. “Sleep, sweetheart.”
She yawned then but finally did go back to sleep, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t remember the conversation we just had.
I pushed all the things out of my head about what her day drinking with Dinah meant and left for the arena. I was nervous, and I was scared, but not because of hockey. I did my normal pre-game rituals, but I was so on edge that I ended up taping and re-taping my stick way too many times. Like way more than normal. My usual visualization of getting the puck to the back of the net wasn’t working either. I knew I wasn’t the only one on edge when I locked eyes with Noah. I didn’t even want to bring up whatever was happening with him and Dinah.
All my thoughts of anything other than the game melted away as soon as my skates hit the ice. I’m sure therapy really helped a lot of people, but for me, my therapy had always been this game. I took my place on the bench and watched the starting line take the first face-off, and of course, we lost the puck to New York. There was a tightness in my chest, and I suddenly had a really bad feeling about this game.
On the change-up, I hopped over the bench with my line and struggled to bat the puck away from our opponents. I made a big hit on one of the lumbering defenders, a six-foot-four massive Swede that I was sure actually hurt me more than it did him. I couldn’t get the puck out from under his stick. When I did, I put too much pressure on my stick and flung the puck all the way down the ice. I hung my head at the icing call and skated down the other end to watch as Noah took the face-off. I think we were both off our game because the other team got possession and tried to one-time it into Metzy’s net. Metzy—the fucking beauty—saved all our asses on that play.
I skated my ass off in the game, taking big hits and giving them back just as hard. It was my job to be that big tough guy on the ice who protected the net at all costs. Coach lit a fire under our asses after the second period, so we rushed the net hard and tied the game with a minute left in the third. It ended up not being enough, and we lost 4-3 in OT. It wasn’t like this game mattered anyway.
After the game, Noah was getting hammered with questions by the media since he had gotten a goal and an assist in the game. Despite assisting him on the goal, I was able to slink away to the showers. I checked my phone after I got dressed and was a little disappointed that I hadn’t heard from Fi.
Hallsy slapped me on the back. “Hey, man, you coming out for drinks tonight?”
I shook my head and started typing a message to Fi. “Nah,” I answered.
“Oh,” Hallsy said, dark eyes smiling. “You miss your wife; I get it. I miss Mia so much when we’re on the road.”
I nodded but was tight-lipped about the whole thing. Yeah, I had missed my wife, but I wasn’t sure if she missed me. I also didn’t like that this morning, she was so sad and crying. I think she had still been drunk, but I didn’t know what to think. What was she sorry about? And why was she crying and begging me not to leave her? I had a whole day off tomorrow, no practice, no games. I wanted to spend it with her as much as possible. If she would let me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FIONA
I woke groggily and in a haze with the familiar pounding of a hangover in my head. It felt like a giant took a sledgehammer to my brain. I didn’t even want to open my crusty eyes, but when I wiped my hand across my face, I realized the problem was not just sleep. I had been crying.
What the fuck?
The last thing I remembered was freaking out when Finnegan told me that Riley married me because he loved me. Then I went to Dinah’s with a bottle of whiskey to distract myself from the confusing feelings. And also to knock some sense into her so she would beg Noah to take her back. Since she broke up
