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“Oh, Jesus,” Camden breathes out, and his hand comes to my shoulder where he grips it tightly. “I’m really sorry, man.”
“Yeah… me too.”
“How’s Kiera?”
I shake my head. I have no fucking clue how she is. “She’s dealing.”
I can see a million questions in Camden’s eyes, but I don’t feel like answering any of them. I throw my thumb over my shoulder to the lobby doors. “I’m going to head up.”
“If you want to talk…”
“Yeah… I appreciate it. Just processing, you know?”
Camden claps me on the back once, a sign of affection and solidarity. “I’ll catch you later. Let me know if I can do anything.”
I start to turn away but then something comes to mind. “Hey… actually, do you mind spreading the word? I don’t feel like making a statement about it.”
“I got you covered.”
“And maybe tell the guys to give me space for a bit,” I add. “I’ve got my head in the game, but away from the ice, I’m still…”
I don’t know what I am, but I know I’m not ready to talk about it. I’m certainly not ready to make any type of bold statement about the status of my relationship with Kiera because I don’t fucking know if anything exists between us anymore. I haven’t talked to her since I left her place last night and I’m sure she saw the key I left. Not sure why I did it, but I know it was an emotional reaction to the way she kept rebuffing me.
I did text her this morning to ask how she was feeling. Her response was short and it didn’t invite further follow-up.
Fine.
I’m glad she’s fucking fine because I’m not. I feel like I’m on the verge of losing my shit, like I want to scream until my throat shreds and my lungs collapse. I want to pound someone into the ground just for looking at me wrong. I want to crawl under the covers and sleep for days.
I take the elevator up and I’m not all that surprised to see Drake waiting outside my room. He’s leaned against the wall, hands tucked in his pockets. His duffel is on the ground, meaning he came straight here from the bus and by the look on his face, I know he wants to talk.
I don’t say anything, merely pull my key card out and open the door. Drake bends to grab his bag and follows me in.
I’m shrugging out of my suit jacket by the time the door is closing. I loosen the knot on my tie and don’t wait to find out why he’s here. I take the opportunity to get a better update than what Kiera gave me this morning.
“How is she?”
Drake moves past the beds over to a corner chair and settles his large frame into it. “I tried to call her once and she didn’t answer. Texted her to ask how she’s doing and I got a ‘thumbs-up’ emoji back.”
I blink in surprise that she’s being terse with her brother. “I asked her the same question. She at least typed out the wordfine. What has Brienne said?”
“Said physically, she’s fine and she worked today. But she’s not overly engaging. Have you talked to her?”
With a sigh, I pull my tie loose and toss it on the bed. “Things aren’t good between us.”
Drake’s eyebrows draw in and his jaw tightens. He’s gone into overprotective brother mode. “Why not?” he growls.
I hold my arms out. “Fuck if I know. She went off on me last night and told me to leave. So I did.”
“You just left her?” he says, eyes wide.
“No, I didn’t just leave her,” I exclaim in exasperation. “I took care of her and you know I did. You saw us the night we came home from the hospital. You saw me yesterday. I was there for her, ready to do whatever she needed. I was willing to miss a week of games. Ready to do anything for her and she didn’t want a fucking thing from me.”
“Okay,” Drake says, motioning his hands downward. “Chill out.”
“No, I’m not fucking chilling out,” I retort, that need to scream my lungs out creeping up on me. “I understand your sister is hurting and I want to make it all better for her. I can’t do that unless she lets me, and she’s not letting me. But you know what… I’m devastated too. No matter how she and I came to be pregnant, we’d committed and then we got excited about it and now neither of us has a damn thing. We don’t even have each other because she pushed me out.”
By the time I’m done, Drake is leaning back in his chair as if I just punched him. “I’m… well… I’m sorry, man. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”
