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“What?”
“What part didn’t you understand?”
“All of it,” he roars. “I don’t understand anything, Isla.”
“Welcome to the fucking club, Cillian. I haven’t understood anything for years!”
His large frame, so much bigger than mine, barrels around the room like an angry bear. I can’t help the hazy awe. Cillian’s presence is larger than life, naturally exuding a sense of strength and dominance. Dad and I used to talk about how teammates naturally took his lead even though he was oblivious to it. Cockiness was never in his wheelhouse; he was even a little doubtful of himself. Always second-guessing his talent and skill. It worked for him though, because it made him strive to be better.
He’s different these days. Now, I think he knows exactly how talented he is and how much power he holds. Me challenging him the way I do sends him into a tizzy.
It’s fun to watch, the way his temples crease and his forearms tense. I could keep attendance for hours. Which is probably a really, really bad sign for him. Because this Cillian, the one running a rut in my carpet, gives me joy.
I like his suffering all too much.
“We’re not going to get anywhere with Sadie until we rehash the past, are we?”
“The past where you were a cheating asshole who ditched your pregnant girlfriend? Probably not.”
“You broke up with me,” he accuses, pointing a finger at me.
“As if you left me other options! You were snuggled up with her every spare moment, getting hard and taking pictures of it as if you were a Magic Mike dancer instead of an NHL player. Not to mention answering calls while she had your dick in her hand,” I roll my eyes and stomp to the other side of the room.
“Isla, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He sighs.
“How are you in so much denial?”
“I made stupid decisions,” he snaps. “Don’t you think I know that? It was harder than I expected. The pressure, the distance. Then there was this nice woman paying me more attention than I knew what to do with, and who understood everything I was going through because she’d seen it with other players before. I fucked up. I know I fucked up, but I was stupid and nineteen.”
“So was I,” I rage. “I was nineteen. Confused and alone, watching the guy I loved fall in love with another woman. Nineteen and pregnant. Nineteen and having to figure out how much of my life was going to change, how much was even under my control. Nineteen and growing a whole human inside me while I was so thoroughly heartbroken. Nineteen and having emotions I couldn’t understand. Nineteen and being hospitalized because my emotional state was so messy, I stressed my body to the limit and ended up in pre-term labor. Nineteen and thinking I was going to lose my baby because I couldn’t understand why a man who loved me threw me away like I was nothing but trash!”
“Isla.”
“And now you’re back and making demands as if I’m just going to hand over the life that I fought so hard for to you and your goddamned girlfriend? Not in this lifetime, Cillian,” I say, holding my hands up to stop him from getting any closer. “You wrecked me. You let her wreck me and it will only be over my dead, cold body that I let you do that same thing to my daughter.”
Cillian stares as awestruck as I was only moments ago.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he finally says, much calmer than either of us has been since he walked into my house.
“The floor is yours,” I offer, then move to the kitchen to pour myself a healthy dose of pinot noir. I hold up the bottle to him, but he shakes his head.
“She’s not my girlfriend. Trina was never that,” he starts.
“Please spare me the details,” I groan out.
“No details, I promise. Just a quick clarification before we get to the more important things,” he says, trailing me to sit beside me on the sofa. He’s closer this time, and I don’t like it. In fact, I despise the way it makes me feel. “When did you have to go to the hospital?”
“Far too early.”
“How early, Isla?” He leans toward me, pressing his stupid newfound bossiness on me, making me more uncomfortable.
“I was only four months pregnant the first time I ended up in the emergency room. I was closer to six months along when I went into pre-term labor.”
“What does that even mean, Isla?”
“It means that she tried to come too soon. They gave me an injection of something,” I say, waving a hand. I can’t remember what it was called because it was too much to pay attention to when I was as worried as I was. “Kept me overnight to make sure I didn’t continue to dilate, then sent me home with a long list of instructions. I had contractions every day from then on, but in the end, Sadie waited until a week after her due date to finally show up.”
“When was that?”
