Gavin

14

F uck, that hit is going to hurt later.

I shake it off and race down the ice, succeeding in getting the puck back from Jenkin. Keeping control of it, I get a pass off to Wylder, who takes a shot at goal. It's blocked but Fane gets the rebound goal.

Getting to the bench, I roll my shoulders, trying to release the tension. I just can't take the physicality like I used to. These younger players are hungry and tough. While I'm still fit as fuck, I don't recover the same as a twenty-two-year-old. Some of these guys are closer to Tori in age than me, and it's a bleak reminder of how old I am in this game. Like, she could be dating one of these chucklefucks.

I pop my neck to the side and hear it crack, feeling instant relief in my body, if not my mind. But I keep my head in the game. We're on a streak and I'm determined to have a winning season to retire on.

Once I'm back on the ice, I take another check to the boards that I'm sure is going to leave me bruised. That's just part of my life now, though. Again, I shake it off and keep my eye on the puck. This time, it's Letty who has control but no clear shot. I position myself just outside the crease so when he passes it off to Axel, the latter can pass on to me as I partially blind New York's view. I shove it toward the net, the light goes off, and we've scored another goal.

Up by three, we have a little more room to breathe, but hockey moves fast, and you can lose a lead as quickly as you gain it. We manage to keep it, though, winning our fifth game in a row.

I feel like a tenderized piece of meat afterward, but the ice bath the trainers push me into helps some.

"Doesn't look so big to me," Blom says, peeking over the rim as he walks by.

"Fuck off," I laugh, tossing a piece of ice at him. The guys have been razzing me relentlessly since they met Odette. She's liked by them all and I wish we were in a place where I could bring her around more.

We're not, though, and I have to accept it as a consequence of my own decisions. She doesn't understand why I chose the things I did. Why I chose to marry Caroline. Not past the point of not wanting to abandon my kid, anyway. While I'd love nothing more than to try and explain it all to her, it's obvious she doesn't want to hear it. Or can't.

Would I be able to hear it if I was in her shoes? If I'd gone to her wedding and watched her marry someone else? The thought of that knots my stomach. If that's the effect that idea has on me now, I can only imagine what it would have been like for her then. When our feelings were all so fresh and raw.

I was in love with Odette. I know that now, even though I didn't ever say the words to her then. But she doesn't know it. And I doubt I could convince her of it today.

She was there at my wedding. I can't believe she came.

I lean my head back and let the cold eat away at me. I deserve this for everything I put her through. Even now, I'm still causing her turmoil, when all I want is to get to know her again. To finally have the chance we were denied the first time around.

That might be out of reach, but I can't give up yet. I didn't fight for her before, I won't make that choice again. If I'm the cause of why she spends her life alone, and I suspect I am, it's my responsibility to try and fix that. Or help her heal from it. Because when I needed it most, she was kind and gracious, even while she was breaking.

It's a favor I need to return. Somehow.

Fuck, it hurts to think of her the day of my wedding. It physically hurts like a knife to the gut, stabbing over and over. What she said the other night plays on repeat in my mind. I can picture her lying in bed that night imagining me and Caroline entwined together in newlywed bliss.

That's not what happened. But she doesn't know that. Odette doesn't know how scared we both were, or how horrible we felt about so many things. She doesn't know that I mourned our relationship like it was the death of half of me. Or that I didn't really feel like I was living again until I held Tori in my arms for the first time.

"Time's up, Vaughn," Coach says, knocking me back to the here and now.

"Thanks, Coach."

"You feel okay? You took a couple hard hits."

"You know how it goes, shake it off and get back out there. I'll be ready for the next game," I answer. We don't have a game tomorrow. I'll be having breakfast with Caroline and this Brock guy before we catch the flight to Toronto in the early afternoon. A day's rest will do wonders for me.

"Good. Get some rest."

I skip out on grabbing food with the other guys, opting to get room service and playing hermit in my hotel room. After my salmon fettucine arrives, I turn on the television and flip through, trying to find anything to take my mind off everything.

Landing on some Channing Tatum movie, thinking it will be mindless entertainment, doesn't really pan out. It's a story of his wife getting amnesia and not remembering him at all. He attempts to romance her all over again, because if she fell in love with him once, surely, she would do it again.

Does that theory hold water in real life? I don't know, but I can hope that if I have the chance to show Odette the man I am now, maybe there's a chance she'll fall in love with me like she did when I was still a dumbass boy.

Brock is a likeable guy; I can see why Caroline likes him so much. He looks like he's worked manual labor his whole life—broad, strong, big hands that are calloused and nicked. He has a hard time not touching her. I think he's making the effort, maybe for my benefit, but that's stupid. Caroline's comfortable with it, she doesn't show any reaction other than leaning into it every time his hand finds her.

I've asked him about a hundred questions, because at the end of the day, this man will potentially be a part of my daughter's life.

But he hasn't given me a single red flag. Not that I expected him to, Caroline has always had a good sense of people's character. She wouldn't pick an asshole. Not knowingly, anyway.

Brock is also divorced. His marriage lasted six years and he has two sons from it—the youngest is sixteen, oldest is twenty. It sounds like he has a great relationship with them both. He gets along amicably enough with his ex, too.

Seems like Caroline found herself a drama-free boyfriend.

She looks good, too. Relaxed and happy like I haven't seen her in a long time. Our marriage took a toll on us both, one we ignored for way too long.

"We'll be in Seattle in a few weeks," she says. "I miss Tori."

"She misses you, too," I say. "She's also excited to meet Brock."

"I'm excited to meet her, as well. I've never been to Seattle, so that's a bonus."

"It's a great city, I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"How's Odette?" Caroline asks. "Tori's absolutely in love with her."

"She's a great mentor."

"Gav, you know that's not what I'm asking."

Talking to Caroline about Odette makes my skin crawl. It's ridiculous, really. She's my friend before she's my ex-wife. But it somehow feels like a betrayal to talk to the woman who came between me and Odette. Even if it was completely unintentional.

But then again, Odette and I aren't anything more than friends. Fuck, we're barely even that. Besides, the situation is an anvil on my shoulders, and who better to talk about it with than the only other person that was involved?

"She was there, Caroline. At our wedding."

"Oh, Gav," she gasps, her hand going to her mouth and tears instantly pooling in her eyes. "I can't imagine how hard…"

Brock takes her hand and squeezes it softly.

"I always knew I did her wrong, but her telling me what it was like to watch…I don't know how she could ever forgive me."

"This is my fault," Caroline starts.

"Stop that," I admonish. "It was my decision to take you with me to Boston."

"Because you knew I didn't want to start my life as a mother under my parents' roof," she argues. "You did that for me." Caroline was always strong-headed and independent. She'd been eagerly anticipating getting out of New York and starting a life away from her family. She wanted her own identity. I thought I could give her that by taking her with me. When, really, it only replaced her title as daughter to wife.

Except with me, she got to make decisions for herself, she didn't have to put on any kind of dog and pony show for "appearance's sake".

Our parents wanted to be supportive however they could. My mom had instantly offered to be the primary caretaker so Caroline could work. But I knew we couldn't rely on her with her health issues and Caroline's mom loved her career. Caroline wouldn't have had much of a team had she stayed home.

So, we worked out a deal with our parents. They'd help support us financially until I could start making money and pay them back. We didn't need all that much, not with what my scholarship covered and the savings both Caroline and I had. My expenses were mostly covered, and Caroline was good about figuring out how to minimize expenses with cloth diapers and homemade baby food and whatnot.

We didn't live lavishly those first four years, but we also weren't a total financial drain on our parents. I was able to pay them all back quickly once I was drafted.

"I did that as much for me as I did it for you," I remind her. There was so much I was going to miss out on because of travel for hockey, I didn't want to add to it by not having my kid live with me.

"She must hate us," Caroline says quietly.

"No, I don't think she does. But she carried what we did by herself," I say. "Whereas we had each other for emotional support, and eventually Tori to focus our attention. Ode was alone."

"You were all in a hard situation. No matter what you did, someone was going to suffer for it," Brock says.

"Yeah, that's true," I agree. "I feel like a thief, though. Like I stole a crucial aspect of her life that she's never been able to regrow or find again. And maybe I did. Maybe she wanted children early in life or had dreams of young love that lasted until you die of old age together. But because I broke her heart, she never took the chance on anyone again."

I remember she once told me she didn't want to have children. Her mother had complications with pregnancies before she was able to have Odette and those complications came back afterward. Odette remembered her mom having a miscarriage when she was about six years old and never wanted to go through anything like that.

But she might have changed her mind.

"There's no guarantees in life or love," Brock says somberly.

"There is hope, though. And I think I stole that from her, too."