Dropping Gloves

by Catherine Gayle

  “If you’re going fast enough, the wind could send it all back in on us.”

  I was gripping the wheel so tight that she reached over and touched the back of my hand. That touch made me flinch. She removed her hand, and I instantly missed the warmth of her skin.

  “Spill it,” she said. “Whatever it is. It can’t be as bad as all that.”

  I backed down the driveway and pulled into the road. “Spill what?”

  “Don’t pretend you aren’t upset about something. I know you.”

  She did know me. She knew me as well as just about anyone, which only made this worse, somehow.

  “You don’t want to wait until we get to the coffeehouse?”

  “Not if you’re this worked up about it. I want to know. Even if it’s something I’d rather not know.”

  The huge knot that had started in my gut had worked its way up to my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but that didn’t exactly work out.

  We came to a stoplight, and I glanced over at her. It was the first time since she’d been back that I’d really, truly looked at her, not just skimming the surface. She had grown up a lot in the years we’d been apart. There was a worldliness in her eyes now, a sense of having learned things both her father and I would have preferred she hadn’t. I knew bits and pieces of what that new knowledge might have been because of what had ended up splashed all over the gossip sites.

  The first guy she’d dated in LA, Jesse Carmichael, had been busted for drugs more than a few times while they’d been together. Nothing too bad with the next couple of guys, other than pics of them on vacation when she was wearing a hell of a lot less than she should have been in my opinion. But it was the last guy who really set my blood boiling. Beau Brunetti. He was famous more because of family connections than anything he’d done himself. When she’d been with him, I’d started to notice a different sort of look in her eyes. It was a look that spoke of the kinds of knowledge that could only come from the wrong sorts of life experiences, and it was one that had haunted my sleep.

  Now here she was, looking at me with those eyes, wanting to know what was wrong with me. And there wasn’t a goddamned fucking thing I could do protect her from whatever had put that look there. I couldn’t turn back time. I couldn’t go back to the day at Zee’s and Soupy’s weddings, when she’d told me she was leaving for Hollywood, and beg her to stay with me. I couldn’t bash the fucker’s face in for whatever it was he’d done to her. I couldn’t do anything but say, “I can’t do it anymore, Katie.”

  She blinked a few times, and she shook her head, but her smile faded. “Do what?”

  “This.” My voice cracked, which only served to piss me off. “I can’t keep trying to be friends with you when it’s not enough. It’s not what I want. I don’t want to be just your friend. And you keep dating these sons of bitches who—” I cut myself off before I told her they weren’t good enough for her. If she couldn’t see that, then there were bigger issues at hand. The light turned green, and I clenched my jaw, hitting the gas. “But then you leave, and you break my heart all over again every time. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t watch you with them and accept being nothing but your friend. Not when I still love you as much as I ever did.”

  I don’t know why I told her I loved her. It wasn’t something we’d ever said to each other before, but it was the absolute truth. It was one of those simple facts of life: the sky was blue, gravity kept our feet firmly on the ground, and I loved Katie Weber even though she had trampled all over my heart more times than I could count.

  I turned into the Starbucks lot and found a parking space, then put the car in park. When I looked at her, she had tears pooling in her eyes, which made me feel like as big of an ass as the guys she’d been dating.

  “What are you saying?” she asked quietly. She didn’t turn away. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to look anywhere but down at her lap, but now she was staring straight at me as those tears slowly spilled over.

  “I guess I’m saying that I can’t handle trying to be your friend.”

  “All or nothing, huh?” Katie’s expression was completely unreadable, but she stared straight through me, not even blinking. Tears were still wetting her cheeks but no longer fell from her eyes. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without attempting to take it all back, and she pursed her lips together. “All right. I understand. I may not like it, but I understand. It hasn’t been very fair for you, has it?”

  “Do you want me to take you home now?” I asked in lieu of answering her. I hadn’t brought her here to point out all the places we might have gone wrong over the years, and I didn’t think it would do either of us any good to make it out to be all her fault. It was mine as much as hers. I’d allowed myself to fall head over heels in love with a girl even though we’d both known all along that she was going to leave. That just made me an idiot, I supposed, or maybe a masochist. At some point, I had to staunch the wound. I had to make the bleeding stop if I was ever going to move on.

  She didn’t answer immediately, which took me aback. When I stopped studying my death grip on the steering wheel and faced her, it was to find her still staring at me, appraising me. It was such a different sensation from when she had looked at me in years past. Before, she’d seemed to think I was perfection personified. It was overwhelming, to be honest. No one could live up to the sort of image of me she’d seemed to have. She’d always seemed to think I was so much better than I ever could have been. Now, though, maybe she was starting to see I was human.

  “You promised me coffee,” she said after a minute. “For old time’s sake? And then you can take me home, and we can move into this next phase.”

  “One last cup?” A final moment to be her friend, to let myself think of all the things that could have been. And then I could hit the button on a restart. I could finally attempt to move on. I tried to force myself to smile, even though that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  This could be my closure, something that had been a long time coming.

  I still hadn’t gotten used to going home and not having anyone there with me. I’d grown up as the oldest of seven boys, so there had been no such thing as having time to myself, let alone peace and quiet, in my childhood. When I’d gone on to play junior hockey, I’d lived with a billet family who had three kids of their own. As a rookie with the Storm, I’d lived with Zee. After that, I’d always had a guy or two on the team for roommates—Soupy, Liam Kallen, Luddy for a while, then Levi last season—other than brief stretches when one of them moved on, right up until this season.

  Over the summer, I’d finally bought a house. I’d signed a big, new contract with the team, and Jim Sutter and Bergy had named me captain. With all that, they’d made it clear I wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, so I’d figured I might as well put down some roots. I’d offered Levi a room if he wanted it, but he had opted to go in on a swanky downtown condo with Koz, one of the new guys.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about my brother getting close to Koz. Mainly because the guy had come to us with a less-than-stellar reputation after his first few seasons in Anaheim. Living in So Cal had made it easy for him to get mixed up with the wrong people—kind of like what had happened with Katie—and he’d developed a reputation as a wild child who missed practices because of his hangovers, spending all his spare time at strip clubs and partying with porn stars. Everyone said that was the reason the Ducks had given up on him so easily, trading him away as a twenty-two-year-old center who had the potential to be a top scorer in the league. It was like Tyler Seguin, part deux, or at least I was pretty sure Jim was hoping for similar results to what the Stars got with the Seguin trade.

  Jim was always giving guys chances that no one else would, so the fact that he’d pulled the trigger on that trade hadn’t come as a surprise to any of us in the Storm organization. So far, Koz had been settling in all right and hadn’t gotten into any trouble, but I wasn’t sure he would
n’t before too much longer. Portland was the strip club capital of the US, and there were bars all over the place. Still, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as long as his behavior didn’t get out of hand. It was a reflection on the team, after all.

  But my brother was a different concern entirely.

  I’d always felt the need to look after Levi, but he was all grown up now. He and Koz were the same age, and they were both young guys getting their start in a new city, and so I supposed it only made sense that they would hit it off together. The only other really young guys new to the team this year were European and were hanging out together. Levi and Koz were two young North Americans striking up a friendship.

  My hope was that Levi would be a good influence on Koz and help him straighten his shit out; my fear was that Koz would be a bad influence on Levi, and then I’d have to figure out a way to help them both climb out of the holes they might dig for themselves.

  Anyway, the point was that Levi hadn’t come to live with me. I’d thought maybe there would be a young guy I could take in and mentor the way Zee had done with me, but that hadn’t happened, and here I was. Alone. And it was weird. Maybe I should get a pet. But if I did that, I’d have to figure out what to do with it when I left on road trips with the team. I couldn’t just leave an animal alone here for a week or more at a time.

  After taking Katie home, I’d come back to my place and gone through my fridge to figure out what I would eat for dinner. I’d never been much of a cook. A few years back, I’d finally learned how to make coffee that didn’t burn, overflow the coffeemaker, or kill someone. That had been a first step. These days, I had a small arsenal of things I could make using one of four appliances—a Keurig, a microwave, a waffle iron, and a toaster oven. A couple of years ago, I’d asked Will Archer, the team chef, to teach me how to feed myself in the easiest ways possible. He’d tried to convince me he could teach me to use the stove and oven, but I figured it was safer to start small and work my way up. Those were the appliances we’d settled on, and he’d given me some lessons and basic recipes to follow. I actually ate pretty well, even if my cooking skills were limited.

  The guys all laughed and teased me about why I’d bothered buying a house with a big chef’s kitchen if I was afraid of most of the things in it. If you were cooking for one, though, there wasn’t any good reason to heat up a whole big oven when the toaster oven could do the job.

  I took out some fresh asparagus, a lemon, and a jar of already-minced garlic, grabbed a couple of tilapia fillets from the freezer and tossed them in the sink to thaw, and set to work preparing my meal. After I had the fish and veg in the toaster oven, I put couscous in a bowl under the Keurig spout and got that cooking. In less than twenty minutes, I had a full, balanced meal—and I’d made it all myself.

  I’d just sat down in front of the TV with my plate, ready to eat while catching up on Black Sails, when my phone buzzed again. I dug it out of my pocket and swiped a thumb over the screen to find another text from Webs.

  What the hell did you do? Why is Katie holed up in her room and crying?

  Well, fuck. I’d known that telling her what I had would hurt her, and I’d been fully aware that it would land me on the wrong side of her father’s ire, but knowing it and being prepared for the guilt turning my stomach to lead were two very different things. It would have been easier to deal with if I didn’t know she was crying. Webs probably realized that. Hell, it might be why he’d told me, hoping to make my guilt match his helplessness. I wasn’t going to take back any of the things I’d said, though, regardless of her tears or anything he might try to do to punish me for whatever crimes he thought I’d committed against her.

  I set my plate on the coffee table and typed a response on my phone.

  Me: I didn’t do anything wrong. I swear.

  Webs: You think I’m going to take that as an answer and be okay with it?

  Me: Seriously. I just told her I couldn’t hang out with her and act like everything’s all right anymore. I’m not okay.

  Webs: Well, damn.

  Me: Well, damn?

  Webs: I hoped she would figure out she wants to be with you before you decided not to let her string you along anymore. That’s all.

  I didn’t have the first clue how to respond to that. Maybe it didn’t need a response at all.

  My doorbell rang, and I tossed my phone on the coffee table next to my dinner before getting up to answer it.

  Levi came in as soon as I opened the door. He sniffed the air. “Smells good. Have enough for me?”

  “If you make your own.” I followed him down the hall.

  He veered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, stared for a moment, shook his head, and then headed to the pantry to get the fixings for peanut butter sandwiches.

  I left him to it and went back to my meal.

  A minute later, he joined me with three sandwiches on a paper plate. He plopped down on the sectional and put his feet up before taking a bite.

  “You should get Willie to teach you how to make a few things,” I suggested. “Peanut butter sandwiches are okay sometimes, but you need to get better food in you.”

  “Koz and I go in early enough to get Willie to make us breakfast. We have lunch with the boys. It’s just dinner I have to worry about.”

  “And you should worry about it. Your body needs more than peanut butter.” I’d been on him about eating better for at least a few years, once I’d started to really focus on my diet and seen the difference it could make on the ice.

  “I know.” He scowled at me over the top of his sandwich, but he took another bite.

  I went back to my tilapia and asparagus. “What’s Koz up to tonight?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was fishing for information even though that was exactly what I was doing.

  “On a date. Some chick he met at Amani’s the other day.”

  Amani’s Family-Style Italian Restaurant was where most of the guys went for lunch on game days. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place I would expect to find a date, but I supposed it wasn’t entirely out of the question. If he was on a date, maybe he was staying out of trouble.

  “Oh, I love this episode,” Levi said, mouth full of bread and peanut butter. “It’s the one where Billy Bones—”

  “Are you here for food or something else?” I interrupted before he could tell me everything that was to come in the show I was about to watch. I never managed to keep up with TV shows I liked when they were airing. I set my DVR to record them, and then I would try to watch a few episodes at a time when I got the chance. With this show, I was almost a full season behind. He knew that, but he’d always been bad about spoiling what was to come. It was one of his quirks that drove me crazy. I loved all my brothers, but we were definitely brothers in every sense of the word—able to get on one another’s nerves without even the slightest effort. It was a talent.

  He raised a brow at me, but he took the time to swallow before answering, at least. “I’m here because you were with Katie this afternoon.”

  “I was. And?”

  “And I thought maybe it was best if you weren’t alone.”

  I grunted in lieu of coming up with a coherent response. That was the other thing about being one of the Babcock brothers—I could always count on each of them to know exactly what was needed even if I didn’t know myself.

  “Oh, this part is the best,” he said with his mouth full again. He kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the coffee table, settling in for the long haul. “I love it when Flint…”

  He kept talking, but I didn’t take any of it in, too busy thinking how grateful I was to have a brother who would come over and annoy the shit out of me so I wouldn’t wallow in my own thoughts.

  Levi might drive me crazy, but he was a pretty good guy when it came down to it.

  I allowed myself an hour for my pity party, but that was all the time I could spare. Dani was only here through tomorrow, and I was wasting time I could be hanging out with
her.

  Once I got my tears under control, I headed into my bathroom. My tears had streaked my makeup, and I looked an utter wreck. I washed my face and ran a brush through my hair, trying to remove the traces of crying before I went back out to join my family. Not that I thought I could fool any of them. Mom, Dad, and Dani had all been in the living room when I’d come through the door and started sobbing before racing up the stairs and locking my door. They might not know what had caused my upset, but they knew something had happened. They could definitely deduce that it had to do with Jamie. I only hoped they didn’t expect me to tell them about it.

  The thing was, I still wasn’t sure how to feel about it, myself. I mean, yes, Jamie had told me he couldn’t really bear to be my friend anymore. That sucked. It hurt. It made me want to punch my pillow as much as it made me cry into it.

  But he’d also said he loved me.

  Maybe he hadn’t realized he’d said it, maybe he hadn’t intended to let me know how he really felt about me, but I had definitely heard it come out of his mouth. It wasn’t me imagining things. It wasn’t me wishing for something so hard until I convinced myself that it was real. Not when I still love you as much as I ever did. Those were his exact words. They might as well have been branded on my brain because I doubted I would ever stop hearing them filter through my mind.

  He loved me.

  He loved me, but it hurt him when I kept leaving. Totally understandable. Completely made sense. I mean, hell, it hurt me every time I left, and it wasn’t just because I was leaving my family. It was because I was leaving him, too.

  I’d dated a few guys over the last few years, and every single one of them had been a mistake. Derek had pushed me into it, and I’d told myself that if I couldn’t be with Jamie, I could still be with someone, and maybe I’d come to love one of them as much as I loved him. Or even more than I loved him. I suppose that was what I’d been hoping for, but what had really happened was so far from my ideal that it was laughable.