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“I know a thing or two about that,” Maria says and sips her tea too, she closes her eyes as she swallows and even if I didn’t know she was Vic’s mom, I’d see it in their matching smiles, the curve of their ears, the line of their noses. “Do you want to talk about it? Or did you just need to feel close to him again?”
I don’t know. I’m not sure what there is to talk about. I feel this stretching pull in my chest when I see his things in my space. My throat feels scratchy, like there’s something stuck that I keep trying to swallow when he doesn’t walk through the door. We’ve lived together for less than a week and I can’t fall asleep without my face pressed into the pillow that smells like him-and even then it’s not a good sleep. I’m tossing and turning without his body crowding me to the edge of my mattress, without his heat warming me more effectively than a down comforter. I can’t dream without seeing his hazel eyes and smiling face and cheeks flushed as he reaches for me. When did that happen?
“Can I be frank, Tristan?” I swallow another mouthful of tea the wrong way and I come up sputtering for air. Maria’s hand is on my back, rubbing soothing circles between my shoulder blades as she reaches for a napkin. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you, honey.” I wipe my mouth, feeling splotchy, and ridiculous, and out of control.
Tristan Grant is a force to be reckoned with. I made sure of that. She’s capable and confident and she doesn’t take bullshit from anyone. She doesn’tneedanyone.Theyneedher.So why am I falling to pieces without a man I thought I couldn’t stand? Why do I feel better with his mother’s fingers pressing lightly into the sore knots of stress that I carry at the curve of my neck?
“No, it’s fine.”I’m fine.I am. I have to be. In a few months, we’ll say our goodbyes and go our separate ways. I must just be reacting to the thought of losing someone all over again. It’s never gone well for me in the past.
“I know that this wedding and this marriage came on faster than either of you expected. I might be a momma who wants to see her babies settled, but I’m not completely blind to what’s in front of me. I know things between you two weren’t like a fairytale romance. I know this step was probably one that you both jumped into headfirst, with your eyes screwed shut.”
This is it. The moment she drops the nice and tells me what she really thinks. I’ve trapped her son. I’m a gold digger. She’s watching me. She’s on to me. Don’t get comfortable. How dare I steal her baby away from her? I brace for impact.
“And I’m so glad you both did.”
Wait.
What?
“Vic has spent far too long worrying about other people. That’s my fault.” Her laugh is watery, stuck in her throat. Her eyes focus on the far wall of the kitchen, and I feel a little like she’s about to share something deeply personal with me and maybe I should stop her. Maybe I should wait and let Vic tell me this stuff himself, but I want to know.
I’ve spent a long time thinking he was just a superficial jokester. One who made light of every situation put in front of him. One who enjoyed the attention that being helpful brought his way, but one I couldn’t count on when it mattered. I was wrong. About all of it. Iknowthat now, which hasn’t helped my teensy tiny little crush one bit. But now I want to know more.
“When Erik was diagnosed, I did not handle it well,” Maria says, and I instinctively reach out and grip her hand. “I’m not proud of the mother I was for those years. It was just me and the boys. Anna was off at school, and I refused to let her give that up. The kids’ father hasn’t been in their lives since the boys were barely walking. So it was me, just me, listening to treatment plans and rates of reoccurrence, and giving everything to Erik. And I let Vic slip through the cracks.”
She turns her gaze on me, and I can see the tears forming in the corners of her hazel eyes. Eyes that look just like her son’s.
“He doesn’t ask for what he wants.” Maria’s hand is squeezing mine like a vise. I think I can feel my knuckles grinding together under my skin. “He puts his own needs last. My baby was going to give up skating in order to help around the house. To be there for me and Erik if we needed anything. Robbie’s the one who fixed it for him, did you know that? Robbie Oakes? The boys grew up together. He contacted the commissioner. Something I should have done. Something I will always regret I didn’t do.”
I feel cold and hot at the same time. Sweat beading along my upper lip and the back of my neck. I’m not sure where she’s going with this conversation, but I think it’s going to devastate me. I want to cover my ears, ask her to stop, run from the room. I don’t.
“I saw the way my boy looked at you in those videos. I heard the way he talked about you to his friends, his teammates.”
“Like I was a thorn in his side and he wanted me far on the other side of an Olympic-sized ice rink?”
“Like you were the one ray of sunshine he was willing to keep all for himself, even if he knew he couldn’t.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think beyond every interaction I’ve had with Victor Varg. The way he held my gaze, read my mind, cupped my elbows, followed my lead. The way he smiled at me, tugged at my hair, called me kitty cat.
“Putting a ring on your finger was the first time I’ve seen Victor take what he wanted in years. Consequences be damned. So thankyou,Tristan, for bringing my boy back to life. For being someone he wanted to liveforrather than without.”
Five games on the road translates to close to two weeks. In the past, that never bothered me. Jet-setting city to city, sleeping with a neck pillow and noise cancelling headphones, hitting the opposition’s ice for practices. It was fun, exhilarating. This time feels different and I won’t pretend that I don’t know why. I feel itchy under my skin, like I need to peel off the layer of team captain, of professional athlete, of hockey powerhouse, and go back to just being Vic. Vic, who made a home for himself in Tristan’s bright little apartment.
I’ve always been all-in with hockey. Once I went off to the USHL, I had little choice. How could I let the gift I’d been given, my opportunities, my talent, fall by the wayside when my twin would never play again? How could I do anything but focus all my fear and frustration into becoming the best I could be? You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all that jazz. I know it wasn’t just hard work and talent that got me here. It was a shit ton of good luck, too. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, squander it.
The first game on the road was okay. I put up two assists, one for Robbie and one for Ahlstrom, but I couldn’t connect my shots to the back of the net. I winged one off the post more than once and even Ullmark, the opposition’s goalie, looked at me, shock visible behind the cage of his yellow and black helmet. The team pulled out the win without me, and I helpfully avoided the look Robbie sent my way as we stripped out of pads and guards and gear.
The next game was worse. I put up no points whatsoever. But it was the third, when we let Buffalo score shorthanded, when I realized how deep my distraction ran. Nothing had put me off my play before. Not my twin, not cancer, not the time I fractured a finger, or had blood leaking into my eyes from a high-stick I took to the face. I’ve skated on a sprained ankle. I’ve run miles in a torrential downpour because conditioning just couldn’t wait and I couldn’t let Erik get in more distance than me for the week. But slipping a shiny gold band off my finger felt like cutting off my oxygen.
“Get your head in the fucking game,” Robbie growled at me, pulling me aside after the loss. I knew Noris was on a tear, knew he was going to hand our asses to us. Fried up. With potatoes.
The rest of the guys filed past us as Robbie gripped my elbow pad. He’d taken off his gloves and hooked the tips of the fingers around the elastics holding mine in place. It halted my mission to get past him, too. I tried to shake him off, but he tightened his grip.
“Stop,” he said, words shifted around the mouth guard between his teeth. “God fucking dammit Vic. Just listen for two fucking seconds. ‘Kay?”
I make a production of glowering at him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m an asshole, I know, but you’re tanking yourself here.”
