by Danica Flynn
“Okay, sweetheart, I’m going to come get you and take you home. Okay?”
“Okay,” she responded in a small voice before I heard the click.
I handed Noah back his phone. He cocked his head and pushed his long dark hair behind his ear. “Is everything okay with you and Fi?”
“I thought so…” I trailed off and then looked at my phone and saw a text from my brother-in-law.
FINNEGAN: Sorry, man. Kind of let it slip to Fi that you are legit in love with her, and I think it freaked her out.
“Shit!”
“Hey, man, everything okay?” Noah asked.
I sighed and ran a hand down my face. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted her to find out about the “L” word. I wanted it to be this big grand gesture, and then maybe she would then tell me she felt it too. She had to feel it too, right? She nearly melted in my arms when I kissed her, and I knew when we were having sex that the look in her eyes wasn’t just one of lust. Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see?
Fiona Gallagher was it for me. She was the only woman who would ever be for me and the reason why I drowned myself in casual hookups and relationships that never worked. None of those women could hold a candle to my best friend, the love of my life.
My chest tightened. That’s why she was day drinking at Dinah’s. She knew I was in love with her, and she didn’t want to think about it. That kind of crushed me.
Noah clapped me on the back. “We’re quite a pair, eh?” he asked.
I shook my head with a sarcastic laugh. “I think I need to collect my wife at your girlfriend’s.”
He hung his head. “I don’t know if she’s my girlfriend anymore.”
I followed him to where our cars were parked. “I don’t know about that one. I think you two can figure it out.”
“She really hurt me.”
“I know, bud.”
“How can I forgive her?”
“Noah, you love her, right?”
He nodded. “More than anything.”
“Then you two need to talk about it, tell her how it hurt you, and try to work through it. If you both really love each other, you can work it out.”
I tried to believe my own advice to the kid. What the fuck did I know when it came to love? I hated watching Noah be so sad the last couple weeks, though. I also had a feeling that his girl still had some lingering issues over her late husband’s death. I thought maybe that’s why watching him get taken out of the game made her break up with him. She was just scared.
He squinted at me. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Maybe not while she’s drunk, though, huh?”
He nodded.
I had no idea what I was in for when I got to Dinah’s. Fi getting drunk with Dinah made me nervous. If that's what she did when Finnegan told her I was in love with her, maybe our marriage was doomed to fail. Maybe we should have gotten a divorce the day after our wedding. Maybe it would have made this hurt less.
When we got over to Dinah’s place, the two of them were quite the drunken pair. Fi was lying on Dinah’s couch with the bottle of whiskey in her hands while Dinah was lying on her floor. Noah and I shared an annoyed look; maybe it was a bad idea to introduce the two of them. He helped Dinah into her bedroom, and I took that as my cue to get my wife out of there.
I held out a hand, and I was surprised when she actually took it and let me pull her to her feet. I took the bottle gingerly out of her hands and set it down on the coffee table, then put an arm around her shoulders.
She leaned into me. “Riley?” she asked.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go home,” I told her.
She slipped her hand in mine, and we walked together back to my SUV. She fell asleep on the ride back to the condo, and it took a bit of encouragement to get her to come upstairs with me. I ended up carrying her inside and to our bedroom.
I placed her gently on the bed when her small hands grabbed the lapels of my shirt. “Aaron? I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I asked softly, nearly melting at her calling me by my first name. It was a small gesture, but it made my heart pound loud in my head. “Do you want to get out of your jeans?”
She flopped back on the bed and squirmed out of her jeans, kicking them onto the floor. “I’m sorry I’m a bad hockey wife,” she moaned.
My heart softened at that. I sat on the bed next to her and stroked her hair. “You’re not, I promise. Maybe we should talk about this later. You had a lot to drink today.”
“Mmmhmm,” she moaned softly and closed her eyes. I kissed her forehead and moved from the bed. I picked up her jeans off the floor and put them in the hamper before quietly closing the door behind me and going into the kitchen. I cracked a beer and gulped half of it down while standing at the sink. I didn’t know what was going on in her head, but I knew it was nothing good. I also knew that I couldn’t really focus on that right now.
Normally, I would have let myself be consumed by watching game tape to figure out how to prepare for our game tomorrow, but now our season was toast. We had to play a couple more weeks of regular season hockey for nothing. It kind of sucked, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
I finished my beer and decided it was time for me to go to bed too. I grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and left it on the nightstand beside Fi. She was probably going to need that in the morning. She was on her back when I climbed into bed beside her and, being paranoid, I checked that she was still breathing and then promptly shifted her so she was on her side. She shifted and pulled my arm around her, holding her close. I knew she was asleep, but I nuzzled her hair and kissed her neck softly before clutching her to my chest and falling asleep.
When I woke for pre-game stuff, Fi was still dead to the world, but the glass of water on the nightstand was empty. I dressed for the game and refilled the glass, leaving a note to her that I would see her when I got home.
She stirred when I leaned down to kiss her goodbye. Her eyes fluttered open, but she still looked half asleep. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked.
“Shush, go back to sleep. I have to get to the arena,” I told her. I sat on the bed next to her and pushed her hair out of her face.
“Don’t be mad at me,” she cried in this sad small voice, and it gutted me that I had to leave her right now. I thought she might still be drunk.
“Sweetheart, I’m not. We’ll talk when I get home, okay?”
She kissed my big hand lying on her face, right on the silver wedding band that I only took off when I was playing hockey.
“Aaron…”
“Shush, sweetheart. Go back to sleep,” I urged and kissed her on the forehead.
“Aaron, I’m sorry, please don’t leave me,” she urged, and then she was crying.
I wiped the tears from her face and pulled her to my chest, not caring if her tears wet my suit. “Aw, sweetheart, don’t cry. I’m here. I’m only leaving because I have a game to go to. Get some sleep, okay?”
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” she said and pulled away from me.
I smiled at her and gently pushed her back down on the bed. I kissed her forehead again. “Sleep, sweetheart.”
She yawned then but finally did go back to sleep, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t remember the conversation we just had.
I pushed all the things out of my head about what her day drinking with Dinah meant and left for the arena. I was nervous, and I was scared, but not because of hockey. I did my normal pre-game rituals, but I was so on edge that I ended up taping and re-taping my stick way too many times. Like way more than normal. My usual visualization of getting the puck to the back of the net wasn’t working either. I knew I wasn’t the only one on edge when I locked eyes with Noah. I didn’t even want to bring up whatever was happening with him and Dinah.
All my thoughts of anything other than the game melted away as soon as my skates hit the ice. I’m sure therapy really helped a lot of people, but for me, my therapy had always been this game. I took my place on t
he bench and watched the starting line take the first face-off, and of course, we lost the puck to New York. There was a tightness in my chest, and I suddenly had a really bad feeling about this game.
On the change-up, I hopped over the bench with my line and struggled to bat the puck away from our opponents. I made a big hit on one of the lumbering defenders, a six-foot-four massive Swede that I was sure actually hurt me more than it did him. I couldn’t get the puck out from under his stick. When I did, I put too much pressure on my stick and flung the puck all the way down the ice. I hung my head at the icing call and skated down the other end to watch as Noah took the face-off. I think we were both off our game because the other team got possession and tried to one-time it into Metzy’s net. Metzy—the fucking beauty—saved all our asses on that play.
I skated my ass off in the game, taking big hits and giving them back just as hard. It was my job to be that big tough guy on the ice who protected the net at all costs. Coach lit a fire under our asses after the second period, so we rushed the net hard and tied the game with a minute left in the third. It ended up not being enough, and we lost 4-3 in OT. It wasn’t like this game mattered anyway.
After the game, Noah was getting hammered with questions by the media since he had gotten a goal and an assist in the game. Despite assisting him on the goal, I was able to slink away to the showers. I checked my phone after I got dressed and was a little disappointed that I hadn’t heard from Fi.
Hallsy slapped me on the back. “Hey, man, you coming out for drinks tonight?”
I shook my head and started typing a message to Fi. “Nah,” I answered.
“Oh,” Hallsy said, dark eyes smiling. “You miss your wife; I get it. I miss Mia so much when we’re on the road.”
I nodded but was tight-lipped about the whole thing. Yeah, I had missed my wife, but I wasn’t sure if she missed me. I also didn’t like that this morning, she was so sad and crying. I think she had still been drunk, but I didn’t know what to think. What was she sorry about? And why was she crying and begging me not to leave her? I had a whole day off tomorrow, no practice, no games. I wanted to spend it with her as much as possible. If she would let me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FIONA
I woke groggily and in a haze with the familiar pounding of a hangover in my head. It felt like a giant took a sledgehammer to my brain. I didn’t even want to open my crusty eyes, but when I wiped my hand across my face, I realized the problem was not just sleep. I had been crying.
What the fuck?
The last thing I remembered was freaking out when Finnegan told me that Riley married me because he loved me. Then I went to Dinah’s with a bottle of whiskey to distract myself from the confusing feelings. And also to knock some sense into her so she would beg Noah to take her back. Since she broke up with him for no good reason, the kid had been a real shit to be around. I knew Riley tried to mentor the younger guy, which was why he had asked me if I could intervene. Well, I did, by avoiding the fact that my brother thought my husband was hopelessly in love with me. I vaguely remembered D trying to tell me the same thing last night after she had drunk texted Noah. Oh, woof. I better call her later.
I slid my eyes to the other side of the bed, and something wrenched inside my chest at the sight of it empty. I squinted up at the ceiling, trying to remember how I got home in the first place. Had D put me into an UBER last night? No, she was just as bad as I had been.
HOLY SHIT!
Noah and Riley had come over to her condo after they got off the team jet. Guilt, or maybe it was all the whiskey, bubbled up inside me as I remembered that Riley had a game today. I ran a hand across my face and groaned. I was the worst hockey wife.
I pulled my left hand back when it felt odd. My eyes widened, and I swore when I noticed my wedding ring was missing. Why was my wedding ring missing? I couldn’t remember anything from last night.
The condo was quiet, but when I looked at my phone, I knew Riley had already left for the arena. He had left a note on the bedside table along with a glass of water, which I drank quickly. I didn’t think there was any way I was going anywhere today. Especially not to the game if I couldn’t find my wedding ring. What would Riley think if he saw me without it?
I got up out of bed and paced. Then I went to the kitchen to eat some toast because it was all I could stomach at the moment. Luckily, I was keeping the whiskey down, but all I was thinking about was how Riley would look at me when he came home and saw me not wearing my wedding ring. I didn’t want that.
I finished my toast and started tearing apart our bedroom, looking for that stupid ring. I looked under the bed, opened all the drawers in the dresser, checked the box in the walk-in closet where Riley kept his cufflinks, and finally went to the bathroom. Nowhere. My ring was nowhere to be found. I stormed around the living room, searching behind every cushion, and even checked the damn refrigerator. Drunk Fiona was known to put things in weird places. Still nothing.
I slumped on the couch in defeat. I pulled out my phone and dialed Dinah’s number.
“You suck, you know that, right?” she said by way of greeting.
“Sorry, but it worked, didn’t it?”
“I’m not sure. I was too drunk to talk to Noah last night. I think we’re gonna talk when he gets home.”
“That’s good, though? You still want to be with him, right?”
She sighed. “More than anything. Anyway, do you feel like hot garbage too?”
I laughed. “Yup. And I have another problem.”
“What’s up?”
“I can’t find my wedding ring.”
She was silent for a minute. “Hang on. I’m going to go check if it’s here.”
I waited in silence on the line while she searched her condo. I sipped at my glass of water and tried to make my hangover disappear.
“Sorry, Fi, I can’t find it, but I’ll keep looking,” Dinah said when she got back on the line.
“Fuck, okay. Thanks. I better go; I need to find it before Riley gets home.”
“Good luck! It’ll turn up.”
I hoped she was right, but a part of me wasn’t that optimistic.
I went back into the bedroom and got down on hands and knees, searching the carpet for that stupid silver ring. It wasn’t even that nice a wedding band, but I loved the weird story behind my marriage. If Riley saw me not wearing it, he was going to think the worst. He was going to think that I didn’t love him.
It was at that moment, crying on the floor of our bedroom, that I realized why I was so upset about losing my wedding ring. And why I decided to get drunk last night instead of dealing with my feelings.
I loved him too.
I loved Aaron Riley, my best and oldest friend, and the man who was always there for me when I needed him. Maybe that was the real reason the universe told Eric to leave me at the altar because he wasn’t who I was supposed to be with.
I had always loved Riley in a way. In high school, we had been fooling around when his teammate Jackson had asked me out. Jackson was cute and sweet, so I had encouraged Riley to ask out Stacey Graves because I knew she had a thing for him. Jackson ended up being a douche, and I broke up with him a couple weeks later, but Riley and Stacey dated all senior year. She did not particularly like me. I think I made a mistake all those years ago, and now I knew why.
I’m not sure when Riley discovered he loved me. When Finnegan told me that was why he had saved my wedding day, it scared the shit out of me. Not because I didn’t feel the same way, because I was pretty sure I did, but I was scared that if I allowed myself to love someone again, they would leave me again. Like Riley had when he left for the NHL and like Eric had when I was supposed to marry him. Now Riley was probably mad at me for getting shit-faced with Dinah, and I had lost my wedding ring.
I was so afraid he was going to come home, see me without my ring, and think that I wanted a divorce, which I definitely did not want. Not anymore. I loved this man who protected and cared
for me my whole life and would do anything I asked. I wanted to stay married to him and maybe later have babies with him.
Holy fuck, I wanted to have a baby with him. Not like this second, but one day. I wanted all of that with Riley. All those things that Eric decided I couldn’t have because he didn’t want them. Riley could give that to me, and I really wanted that. I wanted the happy life together that he had promised. I wanted our happily ever after.
I put my hands over my face and breathed heavily as tears fell down my face and my shoulders racked with my sobs. I gasped in shock suddenly when strong hands pulled my hands away from my face. Through tear-stained eyes, I stared back into Riley’s worried blue eyes. He scanned me with an anguished look etched across his face. His thumb brushed across my cheek and wiped away a tear.
“Hey,” he whispered softly. “What’s with the tears? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head, shaking tears onto the floor beneath me. “I can’t find my wedding ring!” I blubbered.
His face softened, and he wiped more tears away from my face with his calloused fingers. “Why are you crying? It’s just a ring.”
“Aaron! It’s my wedding ring!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t taken it off since we got married! I--I felt like if I took it off, our marriage would be over.”
His eyes got cloudy in confusion at my words. “Fi, why is it so important for you to find your ring?”
I pulled away from him with a hurt look on my face. “What do you mean why is it important? If I lose that, I lose you.”
“Fi, what are you talking about?”
“Aaron, I love you. I love you so fucking much, and that’s so scary to me to love someone so completely.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to lose you again.”
He held my face in his hands, his blue eyes searching mine for answers. “Fi, when did you lose me before?”
“When I told you to ask out Stacey, and then you left for the NHL. Left me. Like everyone else does,” I sobbed. Fuck, the tears were really coming now. I had a vague notion in the back of my memory of him kissing me goodbye this morning and this happening then, too. Fuck. “Like Eric did.”