Page 44 of Center Ice
Next to me, my phone lights up with a new text.
Drew:
We’re boarding the plane. I wish I could have had time to see you and to talk before I left on this trip.
Audrey:
It’s okay, we can talk when you get back.
I honestly don’t want to wait to talk to him—there’s so much to figure out—but I also think the conversation we need to have deserves to be in-person.
Drew:
What are you doing right now?
Audrey:
I’m home, Graham is in bed, and I’m having a wild Saturday night folding laundry and watching a baking show.
Drew:
Wish I was there to help you.
I actually laugh out loud at how ridiculous that statement is.
Audrey:
Yeah, sure you do. If you weren’t on a plane right now, you’d be out celebrating with your team.
My brother was a professional hockey player, and I know all about the debauchery that goes on the night after a win. The VIP rooms in clubs, the women who flock to wherever the players will be, the alcohol that flows freely. If Drew was in town, he most definitely would not be sitting on my bed folding laundry with me.
Drew:
Not if you were home with Graham and needed my help.
Audrey:
I don’t need your help. I’m more than capable of folding my own laundry.
Drew:
I know you are, but it would be more fun if I was there. ??
Audrey:
I’m perfectly happy doing it myself. You’d just be in the way.
Drew:
Keep telling yourself that.
Even my thoughts feel like a broken record now:I need to be the responsible one here. Because having flirty text exchanges with Drew is not going to get us to the point where we can co-parent Graham.
If I let things happen between me and Drew, and then it didn’t work out, I can’t have him walking out of Graham’s life like Scott did. I know Drew thinks he’d never do that, and it’s probably not fair of me to assume he’d be anything like Scott in that situation. But at the same time, I have to consider the possibility. And it would be a hundred times worse for Graham this time around, because Drew actuallyishis dad. Plus, he was young enough when I was dating Scott that eventually he forgot about him, but that wouldn’t be the case with Drew.
Which means this conversation needs to be shut down. Right now.
Audrey:
