18. Wren

18

WREN

Blue's Words

Blog Entry #4:

Having no such luck with Operation Bring Mr. Hockey Back Home…

I thought I knew what I was doing, but it turns out I really don't. He doesn't want me here. He doesn't want anything to do with me, and I have no clue how to get to him.

Already I feel like I'm failing, but I know I can't give up yet. I have to stay strong. I have to remain positive.

Who knows? Maybe tomorrow will be the day.

Or maybe I'm just delusional.

But I won't let Mr. Hockey win, I know that.

I won't let him push me away.

Any tips?

T he past week, I've avoided Mal the best I could. Though I knew he was there, watching.

Always watching, I needed distance from him.

As you can see, this whole plan of getting him back home is working out greatly. Not.

The man made me crazy. For days now I've been trying to come up with some sort of common ground between the two of us, but nothing came to mind. When I meant nothing, I meant there was something, but I refused to bring it up with him.

Hayes.

I couldn't.

Even if I had an idea, there's no way he wouldn't just turn it into an argument. We weren't destined to get along. We weren't destined to be in each other's lives.

The fact was, he didn't want me here.

I didn't want to be here.

But I had to be.

I needed to be.

And to make matters worse, all the guys on the team were now avoiding me. They did what I asked, of course. They were friendly and always agreed to photos and videos for social media, but any more than that, they wanted nothing to do with me.

I knew something was off and I had an idea of who the culprit behind it was. Even now I couldn't get away from him as I scrolled through Facebook and came across an Orchids ad for their season tickets. Not only did he haunt my phone, he was haunting my every waking thought.

Sighing, I went to shove my phone back into my pocket, but a text message had come through.

Shelia: Hey! Haven't talked to you in a while, just wanted to see how you were doing. Call me if you can.

Shit.

I hated saying that she was the last person I wanted to talk to, but it was only because I couldn't find the strength to face her yet. I think the second I'd hear her voice, I'd break down into tears and that's the last thing I wanted to do. She then would undoubtedly hit me with questions about Mal and I'd have to respond with nothing but bad news because I was a failure.

No thanks.

Saving the disappointment and embarrassment for a later time, I placed my phone screen down onto the table and went back to working on a video I had been editing to upload to the team's Facebook page. After watching many YouTube tutorials, I was finally finishing up when something out of the corner of my eye had caught my attention.

Tall, broad, with an extremely large shadow, I wasn't expecting company and I sure wasn't expecting a certain grumpy hockey player to take the seat across from me. To be sure it was actually him, I blinked a few times in hopes that my mind was playing a trick on me before peering over the top of my computer screen.

Sadly, my eyes were working perfectly fine because the first thing I noticed was the absence of a shirt, with the exception of what looked to be some sort of wrap around his shoulder.

Like maybe he had injured it, but unfortunately, I was too distracted by the dips and curves on his chest to think any further than what had happened. In all his bronzed and muscled glory, he hunched himself over his salad and began to eat.

Half naked.

And to make matters worse, he had yet to acknowledge my presence. No hi. No eye contact. Not anything.

My mouth opened to ask what he was doing, but the words had died on my tongue the second he reached for his ball cap and flipped it around on his head.

I had no intention of staring at him this long, but that's exactly what I was doing. Mal wasn't an easy man, but he sure as hell was easy on the eyes.

"You're staring," he grunted in between bites without looking at me.

Crap.

My gaze fell from his torso and I went back to looking at my now black screen.

"I'm not staring," I grumbled.

Not anymore I wasn't, now I was just flustered.

"Could've fooled me."

My jaw tightened.

"I'm only staring because I didn't expect to see you sit at the same table as me, let alone without a shirt on."

My computer created a barrier between the two of us, but the second his eyes connected with mine, it may as well not even be there.

"I thought I told you that wherever you go, I go."

Oh, I remember him telling me that. I remember him saying a lot of things the other night, but I never expected him to mean them.

"I thought that was just all talk," I admitted. "A way for you get me to leave."

He watched me intently, his eyes never leaving mine before he brought his fork back up to his mouth.

"You should know by now that whenever I say something, I mean it."

I scoffed.

"It's been ten years, Mal, I don't think I know you anymore," I responded. "I don't think I ever really knew you."

His eating paused. It was hard to decipher what he was thinking, but his chest expanded on a heavy breath.

"You know what everyone else knows about me."

My eyebrows dipped downward.

"And whose fault is that?"

I was being an ass, but I wanted to give him a little taste of his own medicine. And by his sudden standstill and the way his shoulders flexed, I knew I had gotten to him.

"You wanna know me, Doe? Is that it?" He dropped his fork into his salad bowl and cocked his head at me.

With his full attention now being directed on me, my skin went up in flames. Though his body was a hell of a distraction, his eyes had stolen my attention.

"Like you'd let anyone see the real you." I steered clear of his fiery gaze even though I felt tempted to see his reaction. "Like they'd even want to see it."

I waited for what felt like hours for a response from him. I even thought he had gone back to eating, but when I peered up from my screen to catch a glimpse of him, my heart sank. Cold, detached eyes were locked onto my face, but he wasn't really looking at me.

Like he was no longer present and had disappeared into his own head.

That's when guilt suddenly filled me. It began to crest and billow until the words "I'm sorry" were on the tip of my tongue.

"You don't think this is the real me?" His voice cracked on impact, causing me to flinch. "And if it wasn't, you'd think I'd let just anyone in? You think I'd want the whole world to see the real me? Fuck no," he swore. "Fuck that."

His chest was rising and falling at the same tempo as my heart rate. Even the notorious scar on his eyebrow had a pulse.

"I may be a grumpy asshole, but at least I don't pretend to be someone I'm not."

I was at a loss for words, my mind reeling as it was too busy trying to figure out whether or not he was insinuating that I pretended to be someone I wasn't.

Even if he did think that, why would it matter?

I knew who I was.

"When I'm around you, I feel like I'm going crazy," he admitted on a low, almost nonexistent breath. Like he didn't want me to hear it, but I had.

The fight in me was exhausting, and for once I didn't argue back.

Because I understood.

Instead we locked eyes, a vulnerable moment in what had been a turbulent week for us. There was no disdain. No anger. A shift from our normal scowls and glares that seemed to be permanent whenever we were in the presence of each other. Even for a second there, I felt like I might be looking at the real Mal. The vulnerable Mal.

"Likewise," I whispered back.

I could no longer hold his gaze as it became too personal. A cruel reminder of the guy I had once known, and in its place, a more disconnected man that I could have ever imagined.

A broken man who never healed. Who never accepted. Who never moved on.

In a world so big and vast, filled with many different kinds of people, Malachi Villareal was the loneliest soul that lived.

An outcast on and off the ice rink.

Too stubborn to change, too damaged to find peace.

It rocked me to my core. He reminded me of myself before Hayes.

Before I broke out into tears, I slammed my computer closed and focused on picking up all my belongings scattered around me.

"I left you something in your passenger seat for the away game tomorrow," Mal announced as I unzipped my backpack on wrinkled brows.

"What?"

"I left you something in your car. Wear it." He rose up to a standing position. His abdomen, hips, everything now on full display for everyone.

I gulped.

"What? What do you mean you left something in my car? How do you even know what my car looks like?"

He then surprised me with a grin. Something I thought I'd never see.

"Shouldn't you be asking how I got into your car?"

"I… Dammit, Mal, I'm serious. You can't just break into my car…"

He was clearly amused now. His abdomen flexing with each passing second he smirked at me.

"Too late now."

I scoffed.

"I know you've been watching me."

"Didn't I tell you I would be?"

I hit him with a glare. Our peaceful moment was now gone.

"Not funny."

His smile deepened at my reaction. I wanted to remember it forever, so mentally, I soaked in every glorious second of it until it finally vanished. The small, short glimpse of it was reason enough for me to help him any way I could.

It gave me hope.

And then with one final look before walking away, he lifted his head toward me with a nod.

"Lock your car doors, Doe."