“We won,” he said. “That’s all that matters. Haven’t you said that yourself at least a hundred times?”
“Yeah, I have, and I meant it. But you’ve got to be smart about it. What happened out there…that just brought us uncomfortably close to losing.”
“Did we win or not?”
“You’re just trying to avoid the facts. We didn’t need to go into overtime, but we did. We didn’t need to go into a shoot-out, but that’s what wound up happening.”
“That’s just how it is, Kayden. If you don’t win in regulation or overtime, you wind up in a shoot-out.”
“Yeah, I know we do. That’s not the point, and you know it. What I’m trying to say is?—”
I stopped myself there, practically choking on the words. Sometimes there’s no reasoning with someone, and this was one of those times. My boyfriend had simply shut himself off to anything and everything he didn’t want to hear. And then it dawned on me. He had another reason for being a total pain in the ass. I didn’t take the time to think about it. I went ahead and said it so I could catch him off guard.
“You thought a pro scout was going to be there, didn’t you?” I asked.
He perked up, giving me this look like he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m not saying anything, just wondering. Like, maybe you thought a pro scout was going to be there and you wanted to impress him. You put the entire team on your shoulders, including me, to show them that you’re the real star of the Larkin Lions. Then you’d at least be on the same footing with me, isn’t that right?”
My boyfriend’s eyes widened. He shook his head. I knew he was full of shit
“If that’s the truth, you can tell me,” I said. “You don’t have to shake your head. Just use words, okay? Maybe we can clear the air that way.”
“But why would I do that? You said yourself that I nearly cost us the game.”
We weren’t going anywhere with this. That was a given. Sure, I could speak truthfully in a nice way, but Erik would take it any way he wanted. In some way, that was the kid he’d been ever since the Maple Leafs had taken interest in me.
“It’s not like I really want to get into this,” I said. “I’ve got better things to worry about with the national championship series coming up. I am going to tell you I don’t want that ruined.”
My boyfriend’s face reddened a little, and he headed for the door. I followed him. No way could I let this conversation end without some sense of closure.
“What’s the deal, bro?” I asked. “Are you just going to walk away from me?”
“I’m not just walking away. I’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“Come on, this isn’t the Erik De Ruiter I know.”
And love,I reminded myself.
“Maybe not,” he said, “but you’re not the Kayden Preston I know.”
Normally, a comment like that wouldn’t have bothered me. Now, it felt different. And no, it wasn’t because I thought my boyfriend had any kind of point. It was because I saw a change in him,a side that I’d never seen before, and I didn’t like it. Worse, I didn’t know if I would get the Erik I’d fallen in love with back.
And I knew that our fights would only grow worse and worse. Yeah, we’d fucked each other’s brains out a bunch of times lately. There was nothing wrong with that end of our relationship. But if we couldn’t master the basics of just getting along, Erik would wind up as just another ex, much like all the girls I’d dated before he came along. I couldn’t let that happen. Yeah, I know I’dbeen in no hurry to announce our relationship to the world. Still, I won’t deny that what I’d had with Erik held more substance than anything I could’ve imagined.
“Look,” I said, “I know I’m not supposed to be the rational one here.”
“No, you’re definitely not.”
“Thank you, Erik. Thank you very much. I appreciate the confirmation. Anyway, we do have to talk these things out. If we don’t, it could become a real problem for us in the championship series.”
Erik paused, drew a deep breath, and forced the air out through his nostrils. He knew that it was the truth. I knew it, too, because he hadn’t even tried denying it. And yeah, I’d brought hockey into it again. It was the most important thing in the world to both of us. S
He turned from me, but didn’t just walk away. We left together. That was the good news. Maybe that sounds surprising given how we’d sniped at each other the whole time we’d been alone. We should’ve been celebrating the conference championship win, right?
Our relationship was like a ticking time bomb. It might not detonate immediately, but it would blow sooner or later, and time was running out.
