15. Anthony

The whole time Wyatt and I had been wandering the sporting goods store, I’d expected reality to come bitch slap me in the face. I hadn’t forgotten about my split from Simon. Not at all. I just… still didn’t feel anything. I figured that any minute now, all my emotions would come crashing in, and I’d have no choice but to process the fact that my three-year relationship was over. After all that fighting and stressing and doing everything I could to save us, there was suddenly nothing left to save anymore. It was all gone.

Simon was no longer my boyfriend.

So why didn’t I feel anything?

I was halfway to the café with Wyatt when I realized I did feel something:

Relief.

Ever since Simon had blindsided me, I’d been anticipating a crushing barrage of emotions. I thought it would feel like when my team had fought tooth and nail to stay alive in a critical playoff game, and the buzzer sounded, letting us know that our season was over.

Instead, what I felt now was this quiet, peaceful sense of relief. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing as dramatic as it should’ve been following a breakup like this. Just… the gentle, spreading relaxation as if I’d released a breath I’d been holding for too long. I should’ve been tied up in knots today, grieving the end of my relationship and worrying about going forward. About the only thing that registered in that department, though, was worrying about if and when we’d sell the house. Simon and I would have to figure out those logistics later.

Today? Meh. Whatever.

It had to come crashing in at some point, though. Even if this really was the step we’d needed to take, there had to be some grief. Some processing. Something.

If there was, it wasn’t happening today. Maybe because I’d had a convenient distraction ever since I’d woken up. A pleasant one, too; wandering through the store with Wyatt—it was fun. It was chill. No second-guessing everything I said or bought. No eggshells crunching ominously beneath my feet.

Well, even when the grief and heartache did inevitably set in, today had driven one thing home—there was life after Simon, and that life was good.

I drove us across Redmond to Mary’s, a hole-in-the-wall café Nova had taken us to shortly after I’d arrived in Seattle. It was one of those places that didn’t look like much from the outside or even on the inside, but the food was spectacular. Their sandwiches were simple, but always perfect, with just the right amount of homemade sauces to make them amazing. Their Hollandaise was the best I’d ever had, and they had some salad dressings that were as unique as they were incredible. And that was to say nothing of their burgers; Nova was always on the prowl for the perfect burger when we were on the road, and more than once, he’d announced that, “This is good, but still not as good as Mary’s.”

I had to agree.

It was also reasonably priced. Since Wyatt was insisting on buying lunch, it was just the ticket.

The hostess glanced at Lily, but her pleasant expression didn’t falter and she didn’t ask any questions about the dog. Instead, she showed us to a table for four instead of two, even though there were some two-seaters available. I almost suggested one of the smaller tables, but when Lily settled under the table, I kept my mouth shut. She was a big dog, and she’d have much more space under there. Plus we were up against a wall, so there was less chance of someone stepping on her paw or tail.

Wyatt kept the leash looped around his forearm as he perused the menu. Beneath the table, Lily rested her head on her paws.

“She’s okay down there?” I asked before picking up my own menu.

“Oh, yeah. She’s trained the chill under the table when we’re at a restaurant.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Do you have enough room for your feet?”

I nodded. “She’s got her back leg on my foot, but that’ll keep me from forgetting she’s there. I don’t want to kick her or anything.”

His smile did things to my heart that it probably shouldn’t have. “I appreciate that. If you bump her or something, she’ll just move.”

I glanced down, making sure I knew exactly where she and my feet were, and then faced Wyatt again. “I won’t bump her. Promise.”

He half-shrugged. “It happens. Honestly, it does. And you’re obviously not the kind of person who’d kick her, so—”

“Oh my God, no.” I shook my head. “I stepped on Bear’s paw a few weeks ago, and I probably annoyed the shit out of him apologizing and making sure he was okay.”

Wyatt’s soft laugh made my heart jump again. “You know, having watched you with your boys, I can totally picture that.”

Some heat rose in my face. “You should see when I brush them.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded as I reached for my water glass. “I have to do it a lot because their coats are so thick, and whenever I find a knot…” I grimaced.

“I bet.” Wyatt gestured downward. “That’s been one perk with her—she sheds like crazy, but I don’t think God Himself could get fur that short to knot up.”

“Ugh, must be nice. Don’t get me wrong—I love my big fluffy cats—but there are days when I think I might get one of those hairless things next.”

He snorted. “You should get one now. It would be funny to see them side by side. Bear would be all, ‘What the fuck is that alien thing?’ And Moose would absolutely be like, ‘Put some clothes on, you little freak.’”

I was laughing as he spoke. “That’s—yes. That’s exactly what they would think. Bear would be confused and Moose would be offended. A hundred percent.”

He chuckled, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Is Bear really that, uh…”

“Stupid?”

“Well, I… I don’t want to be mean or anything.”

“It’s okay. He’s stupid.” I sipped my water. “He’s the sweetest cat, and I love his personality. But… let’s put it this way. They both like to drink out of the bathroom faucet sometimes. Moose is smart enough to do it without getting water all over himself. Bear?” I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God. He ends up with water on his head, in his ears, all over his neck… Like, dude, you’ve been doing this for four years, and you still haven’t figured it out?”

Wyatt laughed again. “That must be hilarious.”

“It really is. I think I have like fifty videos of it on my phone.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you? Can I see one?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” I whipped out my phone and started thumbing through my albums. “I’m always afraid to be that guy who’s shoving cat videos in everyone’s faces, but—”

“Dude, I’ll never say no to a funny cat video.”

“Well, I’ve got you covered there.” I found the one I was looking for, cued it up, and turned it so he could see it. Wyatt took the phone, and though I couldn’t see the screen anymore, I knew it by heart.

“Bear, you dumbass,” my voice came through the speaker. “If you shove your head under the water, it’s not going to go in your mouth.”

Then there was just the running water and me laughing in the background, followed by a flapping sound, which was Bear shaking off all the water.

“Great,” Simon drawled sarcastically. “Now we have to clean off the mirror before we go to bed.”

My humor vanished. Though I had the video memorized, I must’ve blanked out that part. Or just hadn’t thought about it. But the sound of Simon’s voice… fuck.

Wyatt handed back my phone, some concern on his face. “You good?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I shook myself and started looking for another video. “Just, um… Just forgot Simon was in that one.” Even with my attention fixed on the screen, I could feel Wyatt’s gaze on me. After a moment, I chanced a look at him, and sure enough, he was watching me, his brow furrowed.

Shifting a little in his chair, he asked, “Does your boyfriend mind us being out like this?” He gestured around the restaurant. “He, um… I got the impression he doesn’t like me.”

With a sigh, I put my phone facedown on the table. I suddenly wasn’t in the mood for cat videos anymore. “He doesn’t know you. He just doesn’t like that I invited you to stay at the house without consulting him.”

Alarm widened Wyatt’s eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly. “He’s… Honestly, his opinion on the subject is moot now anyway.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.” I drew circles in the condensation on my water glass. “We’re not making it public, but between you and me, we split up.”

Wyatt’s lips parted. “No shit? I’m sorry to hear it.”

The words I’m not came dangerously close to tumbling off my lips. What the hell? I’d been fighting tooth and nail to save this relationship for months now. Over a year, actually. Of course I was sad to see it go. Obviously it just hadn’t sunk in yet. Probably because I was still too busy being relieved that I didn’t have to fight anymore.

I exhaled. “It was amicable, at least. Which is good, considering we have to keep playing together and making the team believe we’re still a happy couple.” I rubbed my eyes. “We have to keep rooming together, driving in to practices and games together…”

“Shit. That sounds… stressful.”

“Just a bit.” I raked a hand through my hair. The weight of our breakup was starting to press down on my shoulders, but still not in the way I expected it to. “I think if we could just come out publicly as having split up, it would be a lot easier. The whole act was exhausting when we were on the rocks—I don’t think it’s going to be any more fun now that we’re done.”

“No, that doesn’t sound fun at all.” Wyatt was hard to read right then. Maybe he was a little relieved himself? I wouldn’t have blamed him if he was. The handful of interactions he’d had with Simon had been frosty at best.

I chewed my lip. “He’s going to be there tomorrow. At Thanksgiving. We’ll be riding in with him. If, um… If you’re not comfortable with that…”

Wyatt seemed to think about it. He took a sip of water and pulled a piece of ice into his mouth, which he rolled around for a moment. Finally, he shrugged. “I don’t want to cause problems between the two of you.”

“You won’t. Our problems are…” I made an irritated noise and waved a hand. “You’re still welcome to come with us. I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable. Once we’re there, it’ll be a lot of people, and it’s a big house. So we won’t all be right on top of each other. Just… in the car…”

Wyatt crunched on the ice. “A lot of people? Like… how crowded are we talking about?”

“Well, like I said, it’s a big house. I think Russell said he’s expecting like thirty or so including all the kids.” I paused. “We won’t all be jammed into one room or sitting at one big table, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It must’ve been, because he visibly relaxed. “I can handle that. I have a hard time with a lot of people stuffed into one place. Crowds, they’re…” He shuddered.

Beneath the table, tags jingled, and Wyatt reached down, probably to pet Lily.

“They really bother you, don’t they?”

He nodded, some color blooming in his cheeks. “They do. Like I don’t know if I could handle going to one of your games. That many people with so few exits…” He shuddered again. “But I’ve been to holiday gatherings like that, and those were at smaller houses. So yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He smiled, and he seemed like he meant it. He gave Lily a pat, then sat up again. “As for the car—eh. I can live with it.”

“Me too.”

Right then, our server appeared with a notepad and a carafe of ice water. She was definitely flustered as she said, “I am so sorry for the wait.”

I smiled up at her. “It’s okay. Looks like you’re busy.”

She exhaled. “For a Wednesday, yeah, we really are.” She topped off our water, then put her pen to her notepad and glanced back and forth between us. “What can I get started for you?”

“Uh…” Wyatt flipped open his menu, which he hadn’t even looked at yet. “You go ahead. I’ll figure it out by the time you’ve ordered.”

Fortunately, I’d been here enough times that I knew exactly what I wanted, and Wyatt was right—as soon as I’d finished ordering, he’d figured it out too.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, “can I also get a couple strips of bacon on the side? Not seasoned or anything?” He gestured under the table.

She stepped back and her eyes widened. “Oh my goodness! I didn’t even see you under there!”

Wyatt reached under the table, probably petting her or scratching her. From the thumping against the floor, Lily was wagging her tail.

The server looked at Wyatt. “She’s a service dog, right? So I shouldn’t pet her?”

He nodded apologetically as he sat up. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Of course. And I’ll make sure she gets some bacon strips.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

After she’d left to put in our orders, I asked, “Does she usually get treats in restaurants?”

“She’s, um…” He blushed. “She’s really not supposed to? But I’m admittedly spoiling her a bit right now.” He grimaced. “Probably not the best thing for her training, but I might as well spoil her while I have the chance, you know?”

My heart clenched. I’d almost forgotten the situation they were in. The situation they were going to return to soon. Even though it was the whole reason we were out today in the first place, it just… didn’t seem real.

I swallowed some water. “I don’t blame you. She’s a great dog. She should be spoiled.”

His smile turned a little sad. “I agree.” He paused, then cleared his throat. “And, um, the host for tomorrow—he’s really okay with having her there?”

“Of course. She’s a service dog.”

“Yeah, but I know how people can be. And you said there was a bad experience with someone’s support dog, so…”

I shook my head. “No, no. Everyone knew the difference. I actually heard one of the wives say she wanted to say something, but she was scared of making things harder for people with real service animals.”

Wyatt sighed. “Yeah, it’s kind of a catch-22 sometimes. You don’t want to let the people get away with abusing the service animal accommodation, but you also don’t want people with real service animals to get harassed. It’s—I don’t even know what to say or do in those situations.” He paused, then added dryly, “Except tell them to get their dog away from mine.”

“You’ve had problems with them and Lily?”

Rolling his eyes, he nodded. “When I was still learning to work with her, too. This guy comes up to me with his dog on a loose leash and just immediately lets it run up to Lily. I told him to back off, that she was a service dog, and he just said, ‘Well yeah, but so is she, so it’s okay.’” Wyatt groaned. “His dog even had Service Dog on her vest, so the need may have been legitimate. But the dog was nowhere near trained enough to be working, and the handler had no idea what he was doing.”

“Jesus. What did you do?”

“Got the hell out of there. I didn’t know what to say or do, so I just removed myself—and especially Lily—from the situation.” He sighed. “Which… that just made me feel like I was leaving him to be someone else’s problem, you know?”

“Maybe, but it can’t be your responsibility to unfuck people who don’t handle their dogs properly.” I gestured under the table. “She’s your primary responsibility. And yourself.”

“I know. And I’ll always put Lily first. I just wish I could’ve said or done something more, you know?”

I nodded. “I get it. I haven’t been in that situation, but I get what you’re saying. And don’t sweat about tomorrow—the host knows about Lily, and he even asked if she needed him to provide a water dish or anything.”

Wyatt sat up a little. “He did? Really?”

“Oh yeah. He loves dogs. If there’s anything she needs while we’re there, just let me know and I’ll shoot him a text.”

His startled expression shifted to a soft smile that made me lightheaded. “That’s… Wow. I really appreciate that. I’ve got a bowl and some treats I can bring with me, though. She’ll be fine.”

“Okay. Perfect.” I took another drink because my mouth had gone dry for some reason. “I think the only hiccup tomorrow will be dealing with Simon, but like I said, that’ll just be in the car to and from. It’ll be fine.”

Wyatt studied me. “How will you be, though? When you’re stuck around him?”

I huffed a humorless laugh. “I’m used to being stuck around him.”

“But the breakup—that’s a recent development, isn’t it?”

He had a point, and I gave it some thought. No, I hadn’t had much time to get used to being around Simon and the team now that we were exes. We’d practiced and played, we’d eaten with our teammates, and we’d traveled, all since Simon had dumped me, but that had been over a fairly brief stretch. There hadn’t been time to let it all sink in and let the shock wear off.

Except…

What shock? Let what sink in?

I met Wyatt’s gaze. “You know what’s messed up?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“The breakup—it kind of came out of nowhere,” I said. “Like yeah, we’ve had problems for a while, but I still thought—anyway, he just dropped the bomb and that was it. We were done. But now that he has…” I sighed, shaking my head. “I thought I’d be a mess because we spent so much time fighting to save something and failed. Now I’m just like, ‘What the fuck were we trying to save?’”

Wyatt straightened a little, but my own words slammed into me like a ninety-mile-an-hour one-timer. Out of nowhere. Right to the center of the chest.

What had we been fighting to save?

No. That wasn’t it.

What had I been fighting to save? Because looking back now, I saw myself pleading with him, arguing with him, begging him to go to a counselor, to fucking talk to me.

And Simon…

I sat back in my chair and swallowed hard. “God, I don’t even know why he hung on this long, you know?” I reached for my water glass as I added a bitter, “To tell you the truth, I think he checked out before he moved out.”

“Damn,” Wyatt said. “I had an ex like that.” He rolled his eyes. “In hindsight, I think he was just hanging on because he liked my BAH.”

“BAH?”

“Housing allowance. It was enough to cover our entire rent, so he didn’t have to worry about anything except utilities.” He huffed a dry laugh. “I finally got tired of it, drove him down to the recruiter’s office, and said, ‘If you’re just in it for the BAH, you can enlist and get your own.’”

I barked a laugh. “Oh my God. You didn’t.”

Wyatt snickered. “I so did. And that’s the story of how my boyfriend and I split up in front of the Army recruiter’s office.”

“Wow. So he really was just in it for the rent?”

“Yep. Didn’t even try to hide it when I called him out.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Did he enlist?”

Wyatt snorted, shaking his head. “Oh, hell no. This was a guy who thought it was the biggest imposition in the world to load the dishwasher.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. He was one of those.”

“Yep. I still don’t know why I stuck it out for so long.” He wrinkled his nose. “God knows the sex wasn’t worth it.”

I burst out laughing. From the wicked chuckle and the little sparkle in his eye, that was what he was going for, and I appreciated it.

“So it was one of those relationships where it ended, and I wondered why I wasted so much time and energy trying to keep it going.” He nodded toward me. “Maybe that’s what’s happening here?”

“I… yeah, maybe? I mean, we had a good thing for a long time. The first couple of years were great. But once it started going downhill…” I stared at the table between us as the last year ran through my mind. “Being with him stopped being fun. Like, I know it’s not supposed to be all sunshine and roses all the time, but it should at least be…”

“Not miserable?”

“Exactly. I kept telling myself it was a rough patch and we’d get through it, but…” I shook my head. “Even during a rough patch, we should still like each other, you know? And… I don’t think we did.”

That was a gut punch once I’d said it out loud. I loved Simon. I didn’t see any reality where I didn’t love him to some degree. But somewhere along the line, we’d stopped liking each other. If we weren’t fighting, we were either ignoring or annoying each other. I didn’t have a single fond memory of the two of us from the past year or so. The last six months, every interaction was stained with frustration and resentment.

I exhaled and met Wyatt’s gaze again. “I can’t say I’m glad the relationship failed. I really thought we were in it for the long haul.” I swallowed. “But now that it’s over, I’m definitely relieved.”

Wyatt’s smile was gentle and sympathetic. “It’s tough. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, you know? And I mean, you guys are teammates. Maybe this is the best thing for your relationship in the long run.”

I tilted my head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, my oldest brother and his ex-wife tried to stick it out for their kids even though they were miserable. They couldn’t stand each other for the last two years they were married. Once they got divorced, though, and they started co-parenting, they realized they were fine that way. They get along great now.”

“So they made better exes than spouses.”

“In their case, I think they made great spouses, and they made great parents, but they were terrible as married parents. Like, they were fine when it was just the two of them. They were fine after the divorce. But they couldn’t make both marriage and parenting work.”

I considered it. “Huh. Maybe that’s the thing with me and Simon. Boyfriends, fine. Teammates, fine. But not both.”

“Could be,” he said. “It might take some time, but you never know.”

I’d always thought I’d be crushed, going from Simon’s boyfriend to just his teammate. Today… Well, maybe Wyatt was right.

And I realized that, quite frankly, I’d rather be happy as Simon’s teammate than miserable as his boyfriend.

Maybe now, we could actually pull that off.