“Hey, are you excited about your first pro training camp?”
“Yep.”
“Wanna join me in the shower?”
“Not today.”
“Lucas, is everything all right?”
“Everything’s great.”
Then he began to distance himself, attending longer than normal workout sessions, hanging out in Jersey hotspots for drinks with guys from the team—never once inviting me.
I swear he did small stuff—like leave the cap off the toothpaste—to irritate me.
“You left the cap off the toothpaste this morning.”
“Oh.”
Whenever I initiated sex, he came up with excuses like needing to preserve his energy for the gym.
My plethora of insecurities lunged at me, their pitchfork laced with a lethal dose of self-doubt.
It’s the five pounds of weight I gained.
He’s had enough of spending too much time with me.
It’s only toothpaste.
Who needs sex every night anyway?
He’s lying.
On the morning he left for training camp, I got nothing but a peck on the cheek and a, “See ya,” before he took off with Damian Hicks who was, of course, behind the wheel of a flashy McLaren convertible.
What the fuck?
Head ready to explode, my thumbs went ballistic, pounding the keys of my phone, blasting off a text to give him a big piece of my mind.
Me:Look, you asshole. I’m not going to see your grumpy ass for three weeks—save for the weekends you get to come home for a visit—and all I get is a measly, kiss-your-sister kind of peck on the cheek and a shitty, motherfucking “see ya”?
Phone in my shaky hand, I glared at the text, bare feet hitting the cool tile, pacing our kitchen floor as my chest inhaled a combination of sobs and ragged breaths.
Press. Send.
You know the jerkbag deserves it.
But I couldn’t send it. Couldn’t send him off to training camp as angry—hurt—as I was.
Instead, I dispatched words straight from the eyes of reason rather than the angry haze blurring the lines between my fuming head and my bleeding heart.
Me:Miss you already! Hope we can talk about whatever is bothering you when you come home for training camp break this weekend.
He never replied.
The three daysthat followed had me feeling as though I’d been hit by an asteroid.
I barely heard from Lucas, and when I did, his replies were blunt and dry.
