She nodded, but a lone tear escaped and left a wet trail down her cheek. He raised his hand to wipe it away but didn’t. With one last look at her pretty face, he trudged out the door, head down and shoulders slumped.
Chapter 17—When it Rains…
Rosalind stood in her bookstore and stared at the books lining the shelves. There was one thing missing, one very big thing, and now that the bookstore was her prime focus, she needed to do something to make a permanent difference. There weren’t any customers. In fact, it’d been two hours and twelve minutes since she’d made her last sale, which had been a packet of breath mints she kept on the counter.
She would’ve liked to have said that the store’s event with the Stanley Cup had worked a miracle and business was booming. It had increased the first few days following, but she suspected most of the traffic had more to do with fans hoping for an Alex sighting. Within a week, the business had dwindled down to the same rate as before.
On the other hand, RoAnn’s sales had skyrocketed beyond anything she could imagine. She dared to hope the increase would last.
Alex had been gone a few weeks. The first few days, she’d held out hope he’d call her, but he didn’t. And why should he? She’d made her position clear, and so had he. He didn’t love her and wasn’t willing to commit in the way she needed a commitment. On the other hand, she wasn’t going to throw her heart out there and get it stomped on.
But why did her heart feel like it’d been put through Mr. Givens’ meat grinder at the local butcher store? Why did her eyes fill with tears at the drop of a hat? Why were all the words she wrote about breakups and not so happily ever afters?
The aftermath hadn’t been as bad as she’d imagined. The book club snobs still looked down their nose at her and whispered behind her back, but they’d done that before, so nothing had changed much there. Her books sales had shot up, and she’d had more than a few crude proposals and propositions. Again, nothing new there either.
She must shake herself out of this funk. She could survive this and be stronger for it.
“Ms. Newcomb.” The slimy Realtor who managed the property for an absentee owner regarded her with undisguised interest. The man had always given her the creeps, and she was grateful he actually lived on another island. Even then he was too close.
“Mr. Byles, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” She forced a friendly smile, even though being nice to the man made her stomach turn.
“I’m a busy man so I’ll get right to the point. This property and one next to it are owned by interests in California.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You probably weren’t aware they had placed the two buildings on the market a few months ago?”
“No, I wasn’t.” She lifted her chin, not allowing him to see how much this news upset her.
“The building has sold, and you’ll need to vacate the premises. It’s all here in this paperwork, which I’ll leave for your perusal. Unless you’d like to discuss it over dinner.”
She bit back a retort in which she truly wanted to tell the asshole to go to hell. “No, thank you. I never mix business and pleasure.”
“Such a pity.”
“You can’t close this bookstore.”
“I’m not. You are.”
“Who’s the new owner? I’ll talk with him about renting the space.”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal his name, but he has plans for building. He purchased it for a specific purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“Again, I’m not able to disclose confidential information. We’ll need your store vacated within thirty days.”
“Thirty days?”
“Thirty days,” he said firmly, giving her zero opportunity to argue. He tipped an imaginary hat and smiled. “Good day, Ms. Newcomb.”
Rosalind stared at the door long after he’d left. She was at a loss. The bookstore was a staple in this community. It’d been here for several decades. Who’d read to the kids? Who’d sponsor the book club? Who’d make sure the ladies’ knitting club had a comfortable place to knit on Thursday mornings?
And even worse, what did this do to her already messed up future plans?
~ ~ ~ ~
When it rained, it snowed a blizzard. Alex had only been back in Seattle a few weeks. He’d already bailed Cave out of jail, gotten stuck in the middle of a fight between Brick and Amelia, and taken the cat to the vet because he’d stopped eating. And most of all, he wasn’t feeling great. His stomach hurt and his chest ached. If he didn’t know better, which he did, he’d guess he was pining for Rosalind. He couldn’t be. Alex didn’t pine because he didn’t fall in love, nor did he get attached.
Training camp started soon, and he had to get his act together.
He’d let Rosalind go because he couldn’t tell her he loved her, even though saying goodbye had killed him. She deserved better than he could give. A clean break was the kindest way to end a relationship with a woman who didn’t do casual and a guy who only did casual.
She had her life on the island. He had his life here in Seattle. While he might be able to convince her to give him another chance, for what reason? The thought of something more permanent gave him claustrophobia. If it didn’t work out, then what? She’d have given up everything for him. He wasn’t ready or willing to make a huge life-changing decision.
Perhaps he hadn’t matured this summer as much as he’d thought. And perhaps he was fooling himself and doing a damn poor job of it. He fucking missed her. Regardless of all his protests to the contrary and spouting bullshit such as he didn’t fall in love and he didn’t get attached. He’d definitely been heading down that road, and now he might qualify as a hot mess.
His doorbell rang, interrupting his current pity party. With a growl, he stalked to the door, pissed at being bothered this late on a Saturday night. The irony wasn’t lost on him, since a few short months ago, this hour would be considered early in his book. It wasn’t even midnight.
Annoyance flared his temper, and Alex jerked open the door, expecting Cave or another drunken teammate to be on the other side.
Tyler Harris leaned casually against his doorframe.
“You’re a fucking asshole. Jus’ sayin’.” Tyler sneered and pushed past a shocked Alex to enter the condo. “You’re dumber than I was when I left Lavender behind on the island.”
“And you know all this how?”
“Lavender found out from Clarissa. Rosalind isn’t talking. What the fuck happened?”
“I couldn’t tell her I love her,” Alex said, his voice strangled.
“You fucking dumb shit. Do you love her?”
“I…don’t know.” Alex wasn’t sure. He might. He didn’t really know how it felt to love someone, but if the agony gripping his heart and constricting his gut was any indication, yeah, maybe he loved her.
Tyler rolled his eyes, his expression full of disgust. “What’re you going to do now? Go back to partying? Because I can tell you right now, it won’t be the same. It’ll never be the same. The alcohol only takes away the pain for so long. Look, asshole, I know how it feels to lose a family member. I lost my dad suddenly, and everything I did after that was to mask the pain, deny it, rather than open up the wounds and let them heal properly. I don’t pretend to know how it feels to lose an entire family in one night, but I do know the path you’re heading down isn’t going to fix your problem. It’s going to compound it.”
“I—I—”
Tyler wasn’t going to give him a chance to say a word. “If you guard your heart too closely, you’ll never know the bliss of truly loving someone, of sharing the good and bad times, of knowing that person always has your back.”
“But I—”
“Are you strong enough to take a risk on love? Are you strong enough to battle through the pain and love someone with all your heart and soul? A strong man fights for love. A weak man denies it ever existed. Can you do that?” Tyler halted his tirade, his chest heaving and
his eyes still blazing with fury.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” Alex said in a hoarse whisper.
“You’d damn well better figure it out.”
Tyler turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, leaving Alex to stare at the closed door, as confused as ever.
Chapter 18—Impeccable Timing
Training camp started soon. All the guys were back and ready to work hard and party hard, but Alex’s heart wasn’t into the partying. He finally surrendered to Cave’s constant badgering and joined him at a local nightclub with a couple of last year’s rookies. Alex nursed his beer and watched the action as if he weren’t in the middle of it but merely an interested observer.
Cave had a woman on each arm and toggled back and forth from one to the other, making out with each one. His hands were on their upper thighs, and their hands were all over him, including, at times, down his pants. A few months ago, Alex would’ve been in a similar situation and loving every minute of it.
Or had he only been fooling himself? He looked back on his crazy yet lonely life. He’d drunk so he never had to face the pain. He’d partied so he could present a happy face to the world. He’d slept with every woman under the sun just because he could, not because he wanted to.
He didn’t want to go back to that life. He wanted something more. A lot more. He wasn’t sure what that something was yet, but he was certain Rosalind might be part of the solution.
He’d been inconsolable since they’d said goodbye. Returning to Seattle, he’d expected to fall into his old routine, but he hadn’t. He’d stayed home and read, done charity work for the team, and hung out with his married or attached friends, even though he’d considered them boring as hell not so long ago. He even babysat Macy, Brick’s daughter, a few times, and took her to a princess party.
And when nighttime came, and he crawled between those sheets alone with just a cat for company, Tyler’s words came back to him, playing over and over in his head and torturing him with the truth.
When the DJ took his first break, Cave’s dates of the evening went to the bar to get another round of drinks. Once they were gone, Cave leaned toward him. “What’s your problem? Women have been coming on to you since we walked in the door, and you haven’t showed an ounce of interest in any of them, even that hot redhead who’s showing more skin than a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.”
“I don’t have a problem.”
“Then why are you the biggest downer in attendance instead of the life of the party?”
“Not feeling it.” Alex shrugged and looked at the crowd of people in the noisy room, dressed to impress and looking for another lonely stranger to spend a few shallow, meaningless hours with. The entire scene struck him as pathetic and miserable, instead of fun and exciting as it once had.
“You haven’t been feeling much of anything since you came back. Did the team get to you? God knows they’re putting pressure on me to clean up my act, but no one controls what I do and how I do it. They pay me to play hockey, not be a moral citizen and upstanding team member off the ice.”
Alex swung his gaze to his friend and studied him for a moment. “I used to think like that.”
“And now you don’t?” Cave jerked back as if Alex had slapped him in the face.
“Nope. I guess I’ve grown up.”
“And I haven’t?”
Alex cocked his head at his buddy. “Doesn’t look like it. Don’t you ever get tired of one-night stands, meaningless sex, and waking up next to someone whose name you never knew or can’t remember?”
“Nope.” Cave grinned at him and belched.
“Way to impress the ladies.”
“Doesn’t seem to drive any of them away.”
“You could work on your manners.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? And what’s going on with your English?”
“I was faking it before. This is me.”
Cave scratched his head, as if confused.
Alex didn’t respond. “Have you talked to Clarissa?”
“Yeah, we stay in touch. She’s a good hookup, and we’re compatico.”
“Compatico?” Cave was always making up words or using the wrong words. The team swore he’d been raised by wolves in the wilderness.
Cave beamed as if he’d said the cleverest thing ever. “Do you talk to Roz?”
“No.” Alex said flatly, sounding more depressed than he’d meant to reveal.
“Then you don’t know.”
Alex sat up and leaned across the table. “Know what?”
“About Roz.”
“What about her? Is she okay?” Fear sliced through him and settled in his gut.
“She lost the lease on the bookstore.”
“Oh, crap.”
The blood in Alex’s veins froze, and he was suddenly so cold he grabbed the jacket across the back of his chair and pulled it on. “When did this happen?”
“Not sure. A week or so ago.”
“I hope she follows her dream and writes full time,” Alex said.
“That’s all you have to say about it?” Jasper raised a brow.
Alex stood abruptly, no longer able to stay in this oppressive atmosphere with all these plastic people. “I need to go.” He didn’t wait for Cave to say anything but hustled out the door into the cool night air.
Alex strode down the sidewalk in a hurry to go nowhere. He hesitated near a homeless man huddled in a doorway. The old Alex would’ve walked right past without a thought, but this Alex stopped. He dug in his wallet and handed the man a hundred-dollar bill. The old guy’s eyes grew wide and his toothless smile even wider.
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.” Alex turned down the street to his car parked a few blocks away. The news about Rosalind had punched him in the gut, and he fought off a wave of nausea. He staggered the last few steps to his car and got in, resting his forehead on the steering wheel. He was a prizefighter who was fighting above his weight class with zero chance of winning. He’d offered her nothing. Absolutely nothing because he’d believed his heart had been too broken to love someone, but he’d been wrong, because losing her couldn’t possibly hurt this much if his heart wasn’t capable of love.
Alex started the car and drove mindlessly down the wet Seattle streets. He pulled into a parking lot and blinked a few times, surprised at where his subconscious mind had taken him. He was at the marina where Brick, his best buddy and the Sockeyes’ goalie, lived.
He got out and walked to the gate at the marina. He was in luck, as someone had propped it open. He entered and shut it behind him. At the end of the dock, the lights decorating the eaves of Brick’s two-story boathouse blinked cheerfully at him through the misty gloom. Brick’s young daughter, Macy, loved the lights they’d put up at Christmas, and Brick kept them lit for her year-round.
He’d once been Alex’s partner in crime and partying buddy until the daughter he didn’t know was dropped on his doorstep. Since then he’d fallen for his nanny, and the three of them were living their own version of happily ever after.
Alex hesitated, almost turning back. He wasn’t sure why he’d come here, other than Brick might be his only friend who understood what he was going through.
He peeked through the window next to the door and could see Brick sitting on the couch with a game controller in his hand. He rapped lightly, not wanting to wake Macy, as it was well past her bedtime.
Brick opened the door a few minutes later, dressed in a ratty pair of sweats and old T-shirt. He gave his buddy the once-over and then stood back to let him in. “This better be good. You interrupted my game, and I was on a roll.”
Alex said nothing and followed him into the living room.
“You look like shit,” Brick said after plopping down in a recliner. Alex took the couch and sighed. He ran his hands through his hair.
“Thank you. I’m glad you appreciate the time I took to prepare for this visit.”
In a manner of speaking, he guessed he was. He hadn’t talked much with Brick since he’d come back from the San Juans, so everything he said would be new info to his friend, or maybe not; after all, the team grapevine was shockingly efficient at times.
“I heard the San Juans were good to you. Didn’t see your name smeared across the gossip blogs once.”
“Were you looking?”
“Not really, but guys talk and so do their women.” Brick leaned forward, his expression calculating. “Speaking of women and talking, I hear you spent a lot of time with a romance writer this summer.”
“You could say that.”
Alex squirmed under the weight of Brick’s intense stare. Brick sat back and grinned even broader. “And one more lonely bachelor has succumbed to Cupid’s arrow.”
“I guess.” No reason to deny or fight it.
“Love happens to all of us if we’re lucky enough.”
Alex opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. “She ended it because I couldn’t tell her I loved her.”
“It’s ripping your guts out, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t know I loved her until tonight. Then it hit me.” Alex nodded and sighed. Brick rose and came back into the room with a couple IPAs. Alex took one and held it to his lips, taking a brief sip. Even beer didn’t taste good tonight.
“Do you think she feels the same way about you?”
Alex chewed on that question for a long time. His stomach began to protest again, clenching and unclenching.
“I thought she did.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
“Are you that fucking stupid?” Brick snorted, shooting Alex one of those do-I-have-to-explain-everything-to-you looks. “You can fight for her. Anything worth having is worth fighting for. You’ve never been a quitter. Don’t quit now.”
“And if she boots my ass to curb one more time?”
Deflected: Game On in Seattle (Seattle Sockeyes Book 9) Page 18