Hooked: A Hockey Romance

by Abby Donne

  “Heath said that?”

  “He’s not in a good place right now. Most of the time we just sit in the quiet. Something about him just makes me feel better.”

  Because she was nosey and honestly, she wanted to be able to help Tyson better understand the situation, she probed, “Tyson said he’s coming home looking beat up. He’s worried he’s doing something illegal.”

  “He isn’t doing anything illegal,” She responded a little too quickly. “Like I said, we don’t talk a lot.”

  A round of knocks at the door had her jumping up, bundling her robe closer as she shot across the room. Layla listed while Emma greeted the delivery guy. She paid over the phone when she made the delivery so less than a minute later she was hauling their extra-large supreme pizza and stuffed breadsticks back into her apartment.

  “The best hangover cure,” She proclaimed, raising the boxes above her head like she was Mufasa.

  Some of the heaviness in Layla’s chest lifted but the unease was still there.

  After a quick debate on what to watch they settled on some tiny homes show on HGTV and dug into their pizza. If there was anything Emma loved more than deconstructing eighteenth century French art it was yelling at random couples on TV who want to downsize and buy a tiny home then complain about the lack of space. While Emma loved the idea of a tiny house Layla had absolutely no interest in them; she already felt cramped in her efficiency apartment, squeezing herself into less square footage seemed like a lifelong headache.

  She could only take so much when it came to home buying shows so two episodes in she reached for her phone. She had a text from the girl who sat next to her in one of her classes asking about homework. Ignore. The one from her mom that read ‘Have you talked to Wade? I got a Google Alert. His tour dates are posted, and it doesn’t look like he will be home this year. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. Your grandma was so upset when missed Thanksgiving last year.’ was a lot harder to ignore.

  “At that price they might as well just buy a fucking house,” Emma huffed. She tapped Layla’s leg. “What do you think? Their budget was way too high for North fucking Dakota anyway.”

  “What?” She looked over at Emma, frowning, and said, “I’m sorry. My mom just said Wade isn’t going to be home for the holidays this year.”

  “Again? Let me guess, he’s gaslighting you again, too?”

  Layla went to her messages and found her thread with her brother. The conversation bubbles were mostly one sided. “I’m texting him right now, but I doubt he’ll text me back.”

  Not right away at least. Usually when she texted him about anything other than generic bullshit it took him a few days to respond. It was like he had to craft the perfect excuse every time.

  Layla: You’re not coming home for Thanksgiving? Thanks for letting us know. Mom had to find out from her fucking google alert.

  “I get not wanting to spend time with your family, but your mom is like, the sweetest person I’ve ever met, and he’s such a jerk to her.”

  “He’s not a jerk, he’s just…”

  “A jerk.”

  “Self-absorbed,” Layla corrected. She dropped her phone in her lap. “Actually I think he’s just emotionally stunted. He’s like, perpetually seventeen. The last girlfriend he had lives in Colorado. I don’t think he ever even saw her outside of tour.”

  “Oh my God, really? Ew. Wade is too hot to have internet girlfriends.”

  “He also lives in a house with four other dudes –”

  “Tyson lives in a house with three other dudes.”

  “True,” Layla laughed. Approaching the subject tentatively she asked,” Has Heath said anything to you about a Halloween party?”

  Tyson said none of the hockey guys ever threw a party at their houses because the giant Victorian that housed all the football players turned into house party central during October. Between Homecoming at the beginning of the month – an activity Layla missed out on because of work, their rivalry game with Miami, and Halloween it was pretty much a waste of time to orchestrate any type of party on their block.

  “Just to ask if I’d let him stay here that night.” Before Layla could even ask, she said, “I don’t think either of us are feeling really festive this year.”

  “You don’t want to do our Jurassic Park costumes?” Last year they both went through a Jeff Goldblum phase and decided to pay homage to Ian Malcolm, their favorite Goldblum character, by dedicating their Halloween costumes to him. Emma called dibs on being Malcolm, naturally, which was okay because Layla really wanted to rock Ellie Sattler’s look.

  Misquoting the movie Emma said, “We were so preoccupied with if we could that we didn’t stop to think if we should.”

  “You really don’t want to?”

  Halloween wasn’t Layla’s favorite holiday. She didn’t like creepy things as much as Wade did, and she had more fun dressing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas than she did putting on a costume to binge drink in. But Emma always wanted to go out for Halloween. Her and Nolan used to wear cute couple’s costumes, and last year she DIY-ed the cutest ‘Thing 1’ and ‘Thing 2’ costumes for her and Layla.

  “Halloween is a week away, which means the party is a week away. I don’t have a costume, and I don’t really have the extra money to spend on getting one. I’ve traded a shit ton of shifts at work recently.”

  Giving it one last college effort Layla suggested, “We can drive to Columbus and go thrifting. I’m done with class Tuesday by noon.”

  “Tyson would make a way better Ian Malcolm, and it makes way more sense for you to dress up with your boyfriend.”

  “I guess,” She conceded, “But you have Jeff Goldblum’s body shape. He’s too bulky.”

  After a pregnant pause Emma giggled, “I think I’m insulted by that.”

  “Did we or did we not spend three weeks last year straight up obsessed with him? You forced me to Photoshop our heads into pictures with him!”

  “I did not force you!” Emma gasped. She sat up straighter and pointed a finger across the couch. “You were a willing participant!”

  “Our definitions of willing are different. You were holding the gummy worms ransom. I had no choice.”

  “Just like you had no choice to stay up until four am reading Malcom/Sattler fanfiction out loud to me?”

  “I thought we agreed never to talk about that,” Layla attempted to say with a straight face.

  A straight face that lasted all of two seconds. Collapsing with giggles she leaned into Emma, who was crying from laughter and not pain – a fact that made Layla’s heart swell – and those last bits of uncertainty started to fall away in her head. This was more like Emma. She knew there were bound to be more bad days, but this was at least a good head start on her best friend’s healing process. Layla made a vow to be more present in Emma’s life, even if she wasn’t the shoulder Emma wanted to cry on anymore.

  But she really wanted to be that person for Emma. If it meant stepping back and not asking so many questions, she would, but she was going to be a mute on the sidelines. It was the least she could do for the person who’d been her biggest cheerleader over the last three years.

  Yawning as he tossed open cupboards, Tyson blindly reached for his blender cup. Choking down a protein powder breakfast made him want to gag, but they were basically out of groceries and his half full container of Cookies n’ Cream powder was the only thing that called to him from the pantry. Honestly, it was probably for the best. He’d practically lived at the gym the last five days. He loved Layla – it was getting easier and easier to say it to himself – but she wasn’t good for his diet. It wasn’t that she loved junk food any more than he did, but it was hard to get up and go spend an hour lifting weights with the guys when she was naked in bed waiting for him.

  What red blooded man could say no to that? Honestly.

  Tyson hadn’t really seen her in person all that much over the last few days, though. Between hanging out with Emma and her interview and sub
sequent training at The Good Seed, they were back to a super irregular schedule. When she was working at the gas station they’d squeeze in as much time as possible together, even if that just meant falling into one of their beds at night. Over the past week he’d only spend the night at her place once, though, and he had to go to bed before ten because he had a clinic before practice the next morning.

  Hitting the gym harder really made Tyson double down on his pursuit to get to the NHL, especially after spending a night with Jordan and the scout for the Sharks. They weren’t even in his top ten, but Campbell talked the team up just enough to make Tyson second guess himself. Tyson always played his best game, he thought, but he pushed even harder on the ice.

  And when Jordan texted him a few days later saying he was talking with Wakeman, the only scout Tyson really cared about, about making a trip to East Lansing to see their next away game he found himself a little thankful for the time away from Layla. By no means was she getting in the way of hockey. He was juggling just fine. Sure, he was exhausted, but no more so than any other season. But time away from Layla made him realize just what was at stake.

  The Royals. His team.

  So waking up at four in the morning for some extra practice on his footwork suddenly wasn’t robbing him of an extra hour in bed with Layla, it was giving him an extra hour pushing for his dream. As sweet as she tasted in the morning, he wasn’t going to get a place in the draft if he skipped practice to eat her out on a regular basis.

  “I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking about.”

  Tyson nearly dropped his bottle. He turned around and almost dropped it again. Heath was awake, looking as normal as he had in weeks, leaning against the door frame. He was dressed in something other than athletic pants and his hair was combed. Probably because like Tyson and Layla, he and Pete were doing their midterm presentations in Jackie’s class. Tyson wasn’t super confident with their presentation, mostly because every time he and Layla tried working on it they ended up making out, but his grade was decent enough overall if they didn’t do a great job it wasn’t going to kill him.

  Plus he was going to get to stare at Layla dressed in the power suit she insisted on wearing. He had no idea what a cigarette pant was, but they were pink and when she sent him a selfie earlier to confirm she looked alright his dick got hard. White blazer, pink pants, leopard print shoes. He was pretty sure she could wear his old gym socks and he’d find a way to get aroused by it.

  “Just thinking about how delicious this is going to taste,” He said, holding up his blender bottle. “Nothing like watery cookies n’ cream at the ass crack of dawn.”

  “Better than nothing.” Heath rifled through the pantry, lifting empty boxes and frowning into them. He finally found a Pop Tart in the back of the cupboard. “Can I catch a ride with you?”

  “Yeah. If we go now I can swing through somewhere and we can get some actual breakfast.” He’d probably have to skip lunch if he got fast food breakfast, but he was planning on spending the afternoon working on some drills at the arena.

  “This is fine,” Heath said as he held up the shiny wrapper.

  Tyson had known Heath long enough to know the dude ate like a dump truck. Snatching his bag and his keys he headed for the door. Tossing it out as nonchalantly as he could over his shoulder he said, “My treat. I’ve been craving some breakfast burritos.”

  He waited for Heath to protest, but there was absolutely zero snark on their walk out to his car. Maybe worse, he didn’t say anything at all. The car ride to the nearest drive thru was completely quiet. He kept waiting for Heath to grab the aux cord or talk about practice or Jackie’s class or anything really, but he didn’t. Tyson ordered a shit ton of food, tossing all of it to Heath but two burritos, and headed back to campus.

  Layla said Emma said he wasn’t doing anything illegal, but she wasn’t sure she bought it.

  Tyson wasn’t sure he bought it, either, but he was clueless when it came to breach any sort of emotional topic with his friends. They didn’t talk about their feelings. Sure it was superficial but they didn’t need to cry and hash out all their bullshit. The times he did talk to Heath last year about his family problems got awkward real fast, and Tyson wasn’t able to do anything to help him so it felt useless.

  Not doing anything felt useless, too, especially when last week Heath strolled into practice late sporting a black eye.

  Teetering on what to do all the way up until he pulled into the campus lot closest to Jackie’s class Tyson finally broke and cleared his throat. “Everything good with you?”

  Heath snorted and crumbled a wrapper in his fist. “Sure.”

  “How is Jackson?”

  It felt like the air was sucked out of the car. Heath shoved the empty food bag on the floor and grabbed his bag, laughing to himself.

  “What?” Tyson said, pissed for no reason other than feeling like he wasn’t in on whatever was making Heath go crazy. He jumped out of the car and followed Heath’s movement’s, grabbing his bag and stalking towards campus. “What the hell is so funny?”

  He grabbed Heath’s shoulder and was instantly pushed backwards. He looked like a hellhound, snarling and lurched forward.

  “Jackson is doing just fucking great, man. He’s living with our ninety two year old grandpa in a trailer four hours from home because my parents are both so fucked in the head they can’t keep custody of him. My grandpa can’t wipe his own ass, let alone take care another person. The last time I talked to Jackson he said our grandpa was eating fucking cat food for dinner. Who the hell lets that happen? Who the hell puts a kid in that kind of environment? So that’s how he’s doing. Thanks for fucking asking.”

  Tyson knew it was bad but not that bad. The last time Heath talked about his family he just told Tyson they found his dad in a casino a hundred miles away too drunk to even know his own name. He just assumed things were going to be okay then.

  No, you wanted everything to be okay so you stopped asking. Tyson felt like a piece of shit but whenever he did ask Heath didn’t offer much up. Not enough to make it worth pushing. At least that’s how he used to look at it. Now staring at Heath’s retreating back as he stomped away, lurching his bag over his shoulder, Tyson realized how wrong he was. He didn’t like admitting he was wrong about anything, but it was hard to find a way to word it where he ended up not the jackass in this situation.

  He knew Heath was going through some shit and instead of manning up and asking he just pushed it under the rug and let his friend self-destruct. What a fucking winner.

  “Tyson?”

  Whipping his head around at the sound of his name he saw Layla coming up on him, looking like a goddamn dream in pink and animal print, wearing a concerned expression.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” He said instinctually. When her face didn’t move, the lines still etched hard and full of worry, he sighed and pulled her close to him. Her arms wrapped around his body and she rested her head on his chest. “I’ve been a piece of shit friend to Heath.”

  “You have not!” She exclaimed, tilting her head up to him. “You can’t force someone to talk about what’s bothering them.”

  “Almost like you and Emma, huh?”

  Tyson wasn’t sure why he said it. Especially in such a bitterly sarcastic way. He was hurt and itching and as much as he didn’t want to fight with Layla, he wanted to fight with someone. He couldn’t go into his back to back games with Michigan State with such a heaviness in his chest, especially not if Terry Wakeman was going to be there.

  Layla’s face turned down, but not in anger. It was hurt. She unlocked her arms from behind him and took a tiny step back.

  “Don’t bring her into this.” Her eyes carried a warning. It was a challenge part of Tyson itched to rise to, but for as defiant as he felt he also loved Layla too much to press any harder.

  “Then don’t act like you know what’s going on.”

  Tyson waited for her to storm away like Heath di
d. Instead of yelling at him, she nodded. She didn’t take his hand or offer him any of the comforts he wanted. It was his fault, he was the one who pushed her away.

  “Fine,” She muttered. She looked at the sea of cars around them before starting off towards the path that led towards campus. “We’re going to be late, come on.”

  Somehow stumbling through a poorly thrown together presentation about Ernest Hemingway seemed like a better option than standing there questioning what the hell he was doing with his life so he shoved his hands in his pockets and followed Layla, a few steps behind.

  chapter nineteen

  Wade: I don’t have any control over our schedule. I should be there for Christmas.

  For a minute, Layla contemplated shoving her phone back in her purse. Ignoring Wade whenever he emotionally bruised her worked fine in the past, why change it up now? Something compelled her to press the button and call him while she ascended the flight of stairs to Emma’s apartment.

  Maybe she was already feeling emotionally bruised. She could deal with Wade. She could deal with Emma. She could deal with Tyson. But all three at once? There was no way to juggle it all without feeling like she was losing the battle. Just phrasing it like that made her skin crawl. Over the course of a week things went from being relatively awesome to kind of shitty, to put it lightly.

  She interviewed at the Good Seed Monday and got the job, which was a weight off her back. She started training the next day. Layla always thought she’d make a terrible waitress, but she wasn’t half bad at it. It probably helped that The Seed was as laid back as a place could get. The menu was small, the staff was friendly, and the hours weren’t awful. She worked a close Thursday and was only there until ten thirty. Now instead of coming home smelling like gas and Slurpee she smelled like roasted chick peas and garlic. She really couldn’t complain. Plus Gidget was a way better boss than Dan.