Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Perhaps that was what pissed me off most about this entire scenario.
Here I was, home, no practice, no games, no responsibilities… and I couldn’t even spend my time fucking Chloe into oblivion.
It was hard to think about anything else after our night in Orlando. I had been plagued by the image of her riding me reverse cowgirl ever since, haunted by the way her legs shook violently when they were hitched on my shoulders, and she denied herself a climax in the name of testing other positions. I could close my eyes and still feel how she tightened around me when she finally relented, could replay the most intense orgasm of my life as I let myself follow behind her, both of us gripping onto each other tight and riding out the waves.
The flu wasn’t the most dangerous part of this situation.
No, it was that Chloe was taking care of me, and that I couldn’t help myself but to talk to her when she brought me food or ran a hot bath on my behalf.
I’d spent the last three days laid up, but I’d also spent them learning her.
She told me about her days at college, about how she had wanted to be a teacher for longer than she could remember. I listened intently as she told both hilarious and horrifying stories of her early teaching days, and I memorized the way her eyes grew distant when she talked about some of her troubled students who stayed in her heart still.
I asked about sewing and her strange fascination with true crime podcasts. She pulled up photos on her phone of what she called her early “Pinterest fails” before she started figuring things out. I passed the time with eager questions, never feeling like I knew enough.
What was even more terrifying was that I opened up to her, too.
I told myself it was the fog of having the flu that loosened my lips, but I’d be a lying sonofabitch if I said I didn’t want to share with her every time she shared with me. I didn’t shy away when she asked about my early hockey days, or my mom, or the strained relationship with my father. I smiled when I told her about Uncle Mitch, how he’d stepped in when Dad had gone hollow. I chomped at the bit to tell her about playing in college, about my first years bouncing back and forth between the AHL and the NHL.
I didn’t even shy away when she asked about how I was after Jenny died.
I told her everything — from the way I broke down and nearly lost my spot on the team to how I rose above the grief and became the best version of myself on the ice.
But how I felt like I’d lost myself as a father in the process.
Every new story she shared with me, I felt my heart crack. Every story I shared with her, I felt the crack widen. Over and over again, the cycle repeated, and I found myself making room for her to slither in, to make a nest, to make a home.
I found myself wanting to make a home in her, too.
And then, like the colossal asshole I was — I’d shut down.
I didn’t know why Chloe stayed. One moment, we’d be talking and she’d be laughing and I’d be leaning in for more. The next, fear would spike through me, the memory of Jenny so fresh in my soul that I couldn’t escape it.
It was a trauma response too significant to play off, one no amount of therapy or self-awareness could fix.
I was just… fucked. There was no way around it.
And I knew I was hurting her.
When we had sex, I left immediately after. When the talks got too deep, I’d close myself off to her and be a grumpy sonofabitch until she left me alone. I wasn’t too blind to see the hope in her eyes turn to disheartened pain every time this happened, but I was too emotionally stunted to do a damn thing about it.
My brain would beat me senseless as soon as I was by myself, reminding me with every menacing thought that I could wind up back where I was four years ago if I wasn’t careful.
That was always enough to sober me.
I couldn’t go back to that man. I couldn’t risk losing my team, my daughter, all because I couldn’t keep myself in check.
More than that, I couldn’t bear the thought of fucking everything up so royally that Chloe wanted to quit.
Because even if I could survive her leaving, I wasn’t sure I could say the same for Ava.
My daughter loved her. I knew that without needing to hear it. It was in every mannerism of my little girl…from the way she held Chloe’s hand to the way she said goodnight.