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Could it get any worse?
I sighed and awkwardly held an arm across my boob. Hopefully, Piper brought the bag to my cubicle, though I had to admit, if a less savory coworker decided to go on a spending spree with my credit cards, I couldn’t have cared less. There were other, more pressing matters that required my attention.
I swiped at my shirt one last time and gave up with a resigned huff. The only way it would dry was to give it time. I locked down every last one of the weepy emotions that sat on my chest and pressed down with the weight of a six-ton elephant, went to Rita's office, and knocked on the doorframe. Rita glanced up from her computer and did a double take, eyes wide.
My fingers curled into the sides of my wool trousers. I was sick and tired of everyone giving me that look. Fine. I get it. I can’t take care of myself and look like something the cat yakked up. That doesn’t mean I wanted or needed a pity reminder from everyone in my life.
“Kylie. Do you need to go home?”
Normally, I would brush Rita off and insist upon staying. Work was good at keeping me from thinking about, well… him. But I could practically see the unread texts and voicemails that hung over my head. There was no way I was getting anything done until I dealt with them.
I nodded and rested a hand on my stomach, which had started to act up again. It seemed throwing up a lung, and maybe a spleen, was a temporary fix.
“Yeah, I think maybe I caught a bug or something.”
Rita hummed in agreement. “Then go home and get some rest. And, Kylie…” I paused at the door and peered over my shoulder. Rita smiled, but it was tinged with sadness. “Don't come back until you're feeling better.”
I swallowed, my throat tight, and said, “Thanks,” then hurried to collect my things while placating a few coworkers who asked if I was okay. They also gave me the look. The same one as Rocco, Nat, Rita, and every other person I came in contact with. Not quite pity, not quite concern, but rather, something in between, some nebulous emotional offering that did nothing but make me feel like a giant loser.
I went straight home, sat on my bed, and stared at my phone for over an hour before I deleted every last text and voicemail without reading or listening to a single one. I ignored the sharp ache in my heart and began the painstaking process of changing my phone number.
By the end, tears and snot were sliding down my face and hitched sobs kept breaking free until I eventually gave up and let it take its course. I cried until I was a sloppy, emotionally wrung-out, disaster. I hated to excise Seb from my life, but in the end, reality and self-preservation won out over hopes and dreams.
Because I knew if I didn’t cut and run, I’d fall in pathetically unrequited love with Seb. And if that happened, he’d destroy me, because I knew he’d never, ever love me back.
Better to make a clean break while I still retained a scrap of dignity. I sniffed and used the back of my hand to wipe the thick trail of mucous that dripped from my nose.
Dignity. Right.
What a joke.
Seb
I shoved my phone back in my pocket. Nothing. Rien. Zéro. Not a single response. No matter what I did, Kylie refused to talk to me. Refused to explain why she left me high and dry, both at my condo and again at the arena. Refused to explain anything.
I figured not knowing was the reason I ended up obsessed and desperate, to the point I’d gladly give my right arm just to speak with Kylie. I was floundering, needing to understand why she ditched me, ditched us—after we shared what was, for me, anyway, a life-altering moment.
Kylie took off and I became insecure and pathetic, left to grasp at straws to figure out what the fuck happened to turn her from relaxed and basking in the afterglow of amazing sex, to basically telling me to drop dead.
Or maybe that was all a bunch of bullshit I concocted to avoid the harsh truth. Excuses because I was too fucking scared to admit how I felt. To admit I cared about Kylie way more than I wanted to. That for the first time in my life, I wanted a woman for something other than an easy—though admittedly mind-blowing—lay.
And wasn't the universe one big fucking hilarious assclown.
After nearly a decade of screwing chicks whose names I didn’t remember and didn’t give two shits about before, during, or after I fucked each one of them senseless, Mr. Funny Fucking Universe decided to deliver a woman who was perfect for me in every way—a woman who, for the first time in my life, didn't make me want to slap duct tape over her mouth and kick her out the door—only to flip that shit on its head and send her running from me.
That cunning bitch karma bit me right in the ass. Not that I didn’t deserve every last shitty thing that happened to me over the years, considering what I did to my father, wasn’t there for my brother, and a lifetime of unapologetic, unrelenting selfishness. No one in his or her right mind would call me a saint. Nope. I’ll always be a bastard. The NHL’s High Priest of Assholiness. The Sinner.
"Dude, maybe you've had enough."
Evvy’s grating voice pulled me from my pity party.
“Fuck off, Ev.” I swung my arm over my head and to the side to keep my drink out of Evvy’s reach, and cursed when the cheap as fuck whiskey slopped over the edge and splashed all over my hand and sleeve. After the craptastic month I'd suffered through, I more than earned the right to get thoroughly and unequivocally shit-faced, and that was exactly what I was doing. No one was taking anything from me, not unless they wanted a broken wrist. Or two.
“Sebby,” Ev hissed in my ear and threw a heavy arm around my shoulders to keep me from swaying. “We’re in public. On the road, you fuckstick. If Coach catches wind of you being drunk and disorderly, he'll bench your fucking ass.”
Huh. We were on the road?
I shoved Evvy off and wobbled back and forth until I had the presence of mind to grab the edge of the nearest table. Once there was a fifty-fifty shot I wouldn’t immediately faceplant onto
