39. Anthony

I’d never been to this place before. I had the address, but I’d never had any reason to come here.

First time for everything, I guess.

I felt a million times better after taking Lily and the cats for a walk with Wyatt. I was more centered. More relaxed. I’d had some time to decompress, and I was as ready to do this as I ever would be.

I pulled into one of the guest spots, and before I lost my nerve, I got up and followed the signs to apartment 3B. Without giving myself a chance to think twice, I banged on the door.

The door didn’t open, but Simon’s voice came through the Ring speaker: “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“We can talk in the car.”

I pushed out a breath. “No. That’s not gonna work this time.” I looked right into the lens of the Ring camera. “We can either talk in your apartment, or I can do this out here where all your neighbors can hear it.”

Silence.

Then, footsteps.

I had time for one deep breath before the door flew open.

Simon glared at me across the threshold. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

He eyed me. Then he looked around, exhaled, and gestured for me to come in. “All right.” He shut the door behind me. “Let’s talk.”

I faced him, arms crossed because I didn’t give a damn if I looked confrontational or defensive right now. I wasn’t here to put him at ease. Looking him right in the eye, I said, “All this bullshit between you and me? It stops right now.”

He folded his own arms and leaned against the door. “Is that right?”

“Yes. We have to coexist, Simon. We’re teammates, and we’re both stuck because of the club’s rules. And I don’t know about you, but all this tension and arguing? It’s exhausting.”

His shrug wasn’t nearly as dismissive as he probably intended it to be, and he couldn’t quite hold my gaze anymore. “It would be a lot easier if you weren’t flaunting your new boyfriend right under my—”

“I’m not flaunting a damn thing,” I snapped, but quickly realize that wasn’t going to help the situation. Schooling my tone, I said, “Would it be easier if we drove from your place to practices and games? Instead of you coming by the—”

“It’s my house too,” he hissed.

“Yes. It is. But you left. And Wyatt is there now.” I showed my palms. “What solution would you prefer?”

“Besides him not being there at all?”

“Not an option.”

Simon’s face contorted with all kinds of emotions. Anger, but also deep hurt.

I exhaled. “Simon. You broke up with me. This is—I thought this was what you wanted.”

He chewed his lip and slouched against the door. “When I broke up with you, I thought you’d at least try to win me back, but you already had him waiting in the wings, so you forgot all about me.”

I blinked, trying to make sense of everything he’d just said. “Wait, wait. Back up. First, I did not have him waiting in the wings. It never even occurred to me to get involved with him until after we’d split up.” I narrowed my eyes. “And since you’ve obviously been spying through the cameras, you fucking know nothing started while I was still with you.”

His expression screamed skepticism.

I barreled on anyway. “What do you mean, you thought I’d try to win you back, anyway? What does that even mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like,” he snapped. “I thought you’d want us to get back—”

“So you dumped me?” I threw up my hands. “I’ve been trying to fix us since before you moved out! What did you think I was going to do differently once you ended it?”

“You just wanted to talk about shit,” he said. “You didn’t want to be together. You just wanted to nitpick every fucking thing until—”

“I wanted to talk about our problems!” I groaned and shoved a hand through my hair. “Jesus Christ, Simon. Do you think that was fun for me? Trying to talk about shit? I wanted us to get back on the rails, but we weren’t going to get there until we did something about our problems.”

“Please.” He waved dismissively. “You were just looking for reasons to blame me for everything.”

I pushed out a breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. Then I dropped my hand and met his gaze. “Fine. You tell me—what exactly should I have been doing differently? Because that was the only way I knew how to figure this out.”

“You could’ve acted like you wanted me once in a while.”

I blinked. “What? Like, in bed?”

“That would’ve been a good start.”

“But… I did. The only times I didn’t—I mean, did you want me to initiate things when you were mad at me? When I couldn’t even speak to you without you snapping at me or cold-shouldering me?”

Simon rolled his eyes. “So it’s my fault. Again.”

“What did you want me to do?” I didn’t bother trying to hide my exasperation. “I wasn’t going to try to have sex with you when you wouldn’t even look at me.”

He scowled, and I could hear the counterargument coming. Didn’t know exactly what he’d say, only that he was going to try to twist things to make me look like the bad guy. And quite frankly, I was done with that shit.

“Look,” I said before he had a chance to speak. “We’re done. It’s over. I’m sorry if I didn’t make you feel like I wanted us to stay together. And the pressure we were under—that we’re still under—it fucked us up. I don’t think either of us can deny that. If the team hadn’t put our balls in a vise like that, maybe we’d have had an easier time. But the fact is… we’re done. And we still have to coexist.”

Simon glared at me. “So what do you want? You just want me to pretend everything is sunshine and roses, and that I’m happy you’re with that asshole?”

It took everything I had not to lash out in defense of Wyatt. I hated the way Simon talked about him, but this was damage control time. I needed us to come to some kind of agreement so we could function together until the season was over.

So I swallowed my frustration and quietly said, “I’m not asking you to like anything. I’m not even asking you to like me. We just have to be teammates and convince the cameras we’re still a couple. Beyond that?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t expect you to be happy about it.”

Simon scowled and looked away.

“It’s like you said when we broke up,” I said gently. “We just have to get through this season, and then we’ll be able to show the team management that we can clearly coexist as exes. Then we won’t have to room together anymore or pretend everything is okay.” I exhaled. “It’s just a few more months.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say,” he muttered. “You’re living in the big house with a brand-new piece of ass.”

“Moving out was your choice,” I said. “You want to trade?” I gestured at the apartment around us. “You want us to move in here while you go back to the house?”

“Us,” he spat. “Christ, you really are already shacking up, aren’t you? And I wasn’t supposed to get suspicious when some random ‘friend of a friend’”—he made viciously sarcastic air quotes—“had nowhere else to go?”

“I never laid a hand on him until after we split up,” I growled. “Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not. I never cheated on you, and that’s a fact. But you’re avoiding my question. Do you want the house? Would that make you happy? Because we’ll move out if—”

“Keep the house,” he snarled. “I don’t want to live there now that I’ve seen what the two of you have done to that living room and kitchen.”

I rolled my eyes. “No one made you look at the cameras.”

“Whatever.”

Ugh. For fuck’s sake. Why in the world had I tried so hard to stay with this man? Because it wasn’t all in the name of protecting our careers. I’d loved him. I’d wanted us to be together the way we’d talked about. All those nights of fantasizing about off season vacations and the post-retirement good life—I’d really believed in that. Now, the thought of spending another minute with this man—never mind till death do we part—made me sick.

“We’re miserable, Simon,” I told him. “We were miserable the last year we were together, and we’re miserable now. The only solution is to agree to move forward until we can finally be open about breaking up.”

He met my gaze with angry, hurt eyes. “Oh yeah. You’re definitely miserable. You’ve got—”

“None of this has anything to do with Wyatt,” I snapped. “You’ve tried to make it about him at every turn, but this all comes back to you and me. No one else. And the solution comes down to you and me.” I spread my arms. “So tell me what I can do and what you’re willing to do.”

He stared at the floor between us for a long moment. Knowing him, he wanted to fight. He wanted to rip everything we’d had to shreds and probably blame both Wyatt and me for everything. But right in front of my eyes, the fight went out of him. Slouching against the door, he looked absolutely drained.

The impulse to cross the room and hug him was almost irresistible. I felt guilty for staying where I was; despite everything, there was still a part of me that loved and cared for this man. I didn’t enjoy seeing him upset or hurt. I wasn’t finding any thrill or satisfaction out of watching him squirm.

But I had to keep the lines clear, and comforting him would just blur them.

I stayed put, silently waiting for him to gather his thoughts and tell me where we went from here. Was this what it meant when someone said they had to be cruel to be kind? Because it sure felt like it.

Finally, he pushed himself off the door and stood straight, meeting my gaze. “You’ve made your decision. So I guess all I can really do is make peace with it.”

I bit back a retort that he’d made the decision. If he needed to blame this on me, then… God, fine. Whatever it took to put it all to bed. “Okay. So we just do our thing in front of the cameras and our teammates, and the rest of the time…”

“I guess, so, yeah.” He stepped away from the door, leaving me a clear path out of the apartment. “Was there anything else?”

“No.” I took a step toward the door, but hesitated. “I do want you to be happy, you know.”

Simon didn’t speak. He wouldn’t even look at me.

What else could I do but go?

I left his apartment and walked down to my car. After I’d started the engine, I sat there for a moment, gazing up at Simon’s place.

I wouldn’t call any of this closure. I wasn’t even sure we’d settled anything, honestly. All I could hope for was that he really could make peace with this—with the arrangement he’d wanted—and we could get to the end of this hockey season without killing each other.

Sighing, I backed out of the space and headed back to the home we’d once shared in Medina.