Hollis glares at his teammate. “You’re saying you don’t give a shit that he broke Jensen’s heart?”
I suck in a breath. I broke her heart? Did she tell them that?
Hollis spins toward me again. “You are such a dumbass, Connelly. You made the biggest mistake of your dumbass life when you broke up with Brenna.”
“I know.”
“First of all, she’s gorgeous. It’s almost disgusting how gorgeous she is. She’s smart and witty and hilarious and—wait, what do you mean, ‘you know’?”
Shrugging, I lower myself onto the bench. They remain standing, and I suddenly feel like I’m a kid being scolded by my two dads.
“I mean I know,” I say unhappily. “It was a huge mistake. One I’m going to rectify the second we beat Michigan.”
“If you knew it was a mistake, then why didn’t you rectify it days ago?” Hollis demands.
“Because I have a game to play.”
Because I’m fucking terrified of facing her.
There’s no way I’m admitting that to these two boneheads, but it’s the truth, the real truth.
I suppose I could take the easy way out and blame Hazel for my actions. She was the one who induced my panic by hammering me with all those questions, asking if I was ready, warning how hard it was going to be, how impossible long-distance relationships are. Every point she’d raised created more and more pressure inside my chest until I couldn’t breathe. The walls started closing in on me, and I felt like I was suffocating.
I know she wasn’t doing it on purpose. Those were all things I should’ve already been thinking about, issues I should’ve been anticipating.
But I wasn’t, because I was still living my Solo Jake life. In that life, I get to be selfish. I get to blow off dates for hockey. I get to concentrate on kicking ass in the NHL. I get to have one priority: myself.
Relationship Jake is required to be there for someone other than himself. Or rather, to be there for someone along with himself. The realization scared the shit out of me. I’ve never had to be there for anybody else. What if I’m bad at it? What if I let Brenna down in some way? I can’t promise to be there for her every second of the day, and the way Hazel was going on about it, it was like I wouldn’t have a single second to myself ever again.
I’m really not blaming Hazel. But the anxiety attack that began at the diner followed me all the way home. When I saw Brenna, the panic spilled over.
I found myself grasping for the first excuse that came to mind, the tried-and-true reason I used to give girls who demanded more of my time: hockey. I told her I needed to be there for my team, because in that moment I was terrified of the responsibility of being there for her.
It only took an hour, maybe two, before my anxiety passed and I was able to clearly process my thoughts. I am capable of being there for Brenna. Haven’t I already done that for more than a month now? I was there for her with the Ed Mulder charade, rescuing her ex-boyfriend, advising her about her issues with Coach Jensen. She was staying at my house, and other than one late practice—which makes a total of three in the past seventeen years—I was perfectly capable of balancing hockey and a girlfriend.
I don’t expect next season to be a breeze. I’ll be traveling a lot, I’ll be exhausted from working my butt off, and I won’t get to see Brenna half as much as I’d like to. But it’s only one year. We can survive that. Then she’ll graduate, and maybe consider moving to Edmonton, if I’m still playing there.
Annnd I’m getting way ahead of myself right now. First I need to convince her to take me back, and then we can worry about her moving to another country for me.
“Are you gonna talk to her after the game?” Hollis asks expectantly. “Or do we need to bring out a shotgun and—”
“Relax, you don’t have to make me talk to her at gunpoint,” I say with a chuckle.
“What?” His expression is puzzled. “I was going to say we’d clock you in the back of the head with the shotgun, knock some sense into you.”
I turn to Fitzgerald, who shrugs and says, “His brain operates on a level us mortals can’t comprehend.”
Hollis looks pleased. “Dude, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
The unexpected visit from the Briar guys is nothing compared to the shock I receive when I leave the locker room to find a vending machine and instead find my parents standing in the corridor. For a moment I think I’m hallucinating, until my mom blurts out my name.
“Jake!” Relief floods her face. “You’re here? Rory, he’s already here.”