18. Crossland

CHAPTER 18

Crossland

Ithrew in my chips, some muscle memory inside of me checking the cards I’d been dealt.

I couldn’t believe I was sitting here, that Aspen wasn’t in the spot she should be, resting in that open space near Daisy, Alex, and Brynn. The girls chatted quietly across the room, everything so incredibly familiar and yet so different at the same time.

It’d been two weeks since Aspen had left me at the hospital. Throwing the contract in my face in what was no doubt a defense mechanism after the scene her parents had caused.

I’d tried to talk to her several times since, but every time she insisted she needed space.

And while I respected that, it hurt like hell.

She even blocked the transfer of the money she was owed per our contract when I tried to send it. She texted, saying she didn’t want it.

Everyone in the hand folded except for Doyle, and I nodded to myself, more than happy to battle against him. If there was anyone who deserved the anger boiling in my gut, it was this asshole.

Asher delt the flop, giving me the nut straight. With the flush draw too. I had a strong as hell hand, but I wasn’t about to show Doyle that, so I checked.

Doyle shook his head, throwing in a bet that I quickly matched.

Asher dealt the turn.

I checked again, wanting to give Doyle all the rope to hang himself.

“You know,” he said. “I’ve watched that clip of you knocking that guy out over a dozen times. It gets funnier every time. It’s all anyone is talking about.”

“You’re crossing a line, Doyle,” Ethan said in a warning tone.

Doyle laughed. “How am I crossing a line when I’m just stating facts?”

Weston parted his lips like he was about to get in on defending me, but I raised a hand to my friends. I knew what he was doing, and it was working.

“I’m already pissed off,” I said. “But you knew that already didn’t you, Doyle? You want to keep pushing me? That’s fine. Put your money where your mouth is.”

I didn’t give a shit anymore. Not after everything that had happened in the last two weeks. Not after realizing that I’d somehow found the love of my life and lost her in the span of an hour.

“If you’re so confident, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is?” Doyle threw that back at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Put the Calgary team on the line. Or are you still too chickenshit?”

“Are you trying to get thrown out of the game?” Asher asked Doyle.

He huffed at him. “You can’t throw me out. The only way to get me out of this game is if I lose my seat or I die. It’s all written up in that delightful little contract/NDA that you guys made me sign at the beginning of this. Deal with it. If McClaren can’t handle the bet, he should get out of this hand.”

“I can handle the bet just fine,” I said. “If you want Calgary on the line, put your own team up for grabs.” I figured that should be enough to get him to calm the fuck down. The NHL Bangor team was one of the only legit establishments he had in his pocket.

“Fine,” Doyle said, scribbling something down on a blank chip. “Bangor may suck, but at least we have the number one draft pick. That should be more than enough to stand against your Calgary team, if you have the balls to call.”

“Don’t bet your team, Crossland,” Weston said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, it’s not worth it,” Ethan said.

“Doyle is just trying to rile you,” Asher added.

I looked at Gareth, who silently told me to take him to the cleaners if I had the goods. Which I did.

I grabbed one of my own blank chips and wrote the Calgary team on it. A tiny piece of me screamed that this was a stupid idea, and that I should have learned my lesson betting things that I wasn’t willing to lose.

But after everything?

I’d already lost the one thing I couldn’t live without, and I would have traded my father’s car if it would help me earn Aspen back.

I tossed in the chip, and Asher let out a heavy sigh as he dealt the last card on the river.

There was only one card that could beat me, and I highly doubted Doyle had it. I wrote down another bet for one of my favorite yachts.

Doyle instantly called, laughing as he declared he had a straight.

It was lower than mine.

I flipped over my higher straight, smirking at him.

Serenity grasped behind him as she read the cards, her eyes flickering to her father with just a little bit of fear as he slammed his fist down on the table.

“Son of a bitch,” Doyle snapped, glaring at me. He pushed away from the table. “You never bet first. How the fuck did you not bet on those cards? I could’ve had the ace-high straight.”

“You didn’t,” I said.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “You’re doing me a favor. Bangor is the worst NHL team in the league, and everybody knows it. Good luck with that. I need a fucking drink.” He stormed out of the room, snapping at Serenity to follow him when he made it to the door and she hadn’t moved. His daughter quickly jumped out of her chair and hurried after him, the two of them disappearing.

Asher pushed the chips toward me, and while I was ecstatic to have won the hand, the one person I wanted to tell was Aspen, and no matter how many times I looked at that space by the girls where she should be, she wasn’t there.

“Jesus,” Weston said. “That was close.”

“And reckless,” Ethan said. “I thought you learned not to bet things you weren’t willing to lose?”

I shrugged. “I knew I had him.”

“And now you have two in NHL teams to deal with,” Asher said, shuffling the cards. “Want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “I know how to handle an NHL team, even one as poorly trained as Bangor. Same shit, different day.”

Ethan whistled. “Now I know you’re lying. You love your Calgary team, and I know that you’re already calculating how to fix Bangor. But you’re brushing it off?”

Another shrug.

“You need to talk to her,” Wes finally said.

“I’ve tried. I can’t make her think differently of herself. I’ve told you all this. She blames herself for what happened, and maybe I handled the situation poorly, but she doesn’t want to hear from me.”

“Shit happens,” Ethan said. “I’ll be the first one to say that. We make mistakes. It doesn’t mean that you get an excuse to tap out, unless that’s what you’re looking for?”

I fastened him with a glare that screamed he knew better.

“Then tell her.”

“Tell her what?” I snapped. “Tell her that I never wanted her to question herself in my world? Tell her that I’m having a hard time breathing when she’s not around? Tell her that I don’t care who her parents are or how many times they try to crash our events, I just want her with me? Every time I reach out, she tells me to give her space. And that tells me everything I need to know. She doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do her. If she did, she wouldn’t have bailed.”

“Did it ever occur to you that she bailed because she didn’t want her family to continue to bring you down?” Daisy asked, inserting herself into the conversation from where she sat with the other girls behind us.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“Is it?” Daisy challenged. “What would you do if you felt like you were putting her in positions to be publicly embarrassed or at the very least, situations that create emotional danger? Would you continue to be around her? Would you continue to let your environment hurt her?”

“I...” I couldn’t answer that question, not honestly. Because I would do anything to keep her from hurting.

Was that what she was doing?

Did she think that by keeping her distance from me, her parents would leave me alone?

Did she honestly think that I would care?

I replayed the after aftermath of the scene at the hospital, my memory serving me with a crystal-clear vent-session on my end. One that could easily be interpreted the wrong way. One that could make the scene look like it affected me more than it should have.

Damn.

“Either way,” Asher said when I’d been quiet too long. “You won’t know until you have an honest conversation with her. She needs to know the stakes.”

“And what if I tell her? What if I tell her everything I’ve told you guys, and she laughs in my face?”

“Then she laughs in your face,” Gareth said. “And you move on.”

I studied my friend, noting the way he kept glancing over his shoulder as if he expected Serenity to come back any moment. It looked like not knowing if she was okay was driving him nuts.

“So, you’re saying that it’s worth it? The possibility of getting rejected just to know?”

“Yes,” Asher, Weston, and Ethan said at the same time.

“I’m pretty sure you said something similar to me,” Ethan added. “When I was floundering.”

“I’m not floundering. I’m drowning,” I admitted.

“Then fight,” Asher said. “If you tell her everything, and she tells you that she needs space, then you respect it. But at least then you’ll know that you did everything you could.”

I nodded, the advice of my friends sinking in. Even if she did reject me, I guess a final break would be better than the constant agonizing.

“I’m done with cards,” I said, shoving away from the table.

“I think we’re all done,” Asher said.

“Want to go get a drink?” Ethan asked.

There was a collective nod.

As much as I wanted to call Aspen and beg for some time to talk, it was already late in the evening, and the last thing I wanted her to think was that I was hoping for some late-night action.

I’d call her tomorrow, and hope that she’d give me the time I needed to lay my heart on the line.