10. Avery

Imoved through the day as a zombie. I ran into a few people in town. None of them realized I wasn’t myself that day—or maybe this was my true self. Still, they didn’t notice how off I felt. They didn’t see me because I’d worn a mask to hide my darkness so well.

Sure, they saw my grumpiness and cold persona, but they didn’t see the heartbreak rippling through my system. They didn’t see my sorrow and pain as they passed by me. I felt invisible to the world, and I couldn’t help but think that even my partner couldn’t see the hurt within me.

As I walked to my office before practice, I took a few deep breaths at my desk. I wished there was a button on my body to reset my system and be normal. Whatever normal was.

Nathan knocked on my door and peered inside. “Hey, Coach. I just wanted to stop in and check on our plans for today and…” He stepped into my office space and knitted his brows together. “What’s wrong?”

“What?”

“You look…off.”

My chest tightened slightly from his words.

No way.

There was no way he could see me—see the real me—when the rest of the world seemed so blind.

I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair. “I don’t look off.”

“Yes, you do.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know…You just look…” He studied me with a slight tilt of his head. “Sad.”

I swallowed hard.

Sad.

Yes.

That’s it.

“I’m not sad,” I lied, standing from my desk. “What in the world would I have to be sad about?”

“You tell me, Coach.”

His sincerity kept me from coming up with some witty remark. That, and my mind was still beating me up for calling him a bad guy the day prior. Yet there he was, Mr. “Bad Guy.” The only one who could read my truths when the rest of the world seemed addicted to my misprints.

My lips slightly parted, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I was sad. Instead, I said, “I’m sorry.”

He arched an eyebrow, perplexed. “For what?”

“Calling you a bad person. I don’t think that about you.”

His head tilted, and he walked over toward me. He placed a hand on my forehead.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Checking if you have a fever. You’re speaking delusionally.”

I shoved his hand away from my forehead. “I’m serious, Nathan. I haven’t been fair to you, and I’ve made rude judgments. I guess the inner teenager in me still held a bit of resentment toward you, and I apologize for that. You didn’t deserve it. Truthfully, it was easier to call you a bad person than to face the reality of the situation.”

“And what’s the reality of the situation at hand?”

“That you’re…good.”

Which he was.

Maybe that bothered me the most—that he was a good person. A great person, even. Not only with me but with everyone he crossed paths with. Nathan made people feel seen and took his time to converse with anyone who approached him. He had a kind smile that made others grin themselves. He was respectable and humble, and a damn good coach, too. He was one of the good guys.

And that pissed me off because it was just a reminder of why I liked him so much all those years ago.

It was easier for me to hate him. When I hated him, my heart didn’t feel so conflicted.

His joking manner settled into a serious look. “You really think I’m good?”

“I do.”

“Then why have you been so hard on me? Because of our past?”

“Yes,” I confessed. “And I’m a stubborn jerk.”

“Or you’re just someone who feels a lot and keeps it all to themselves. Either or.”

“I like the idea of stubborn jerk. It has less emotions.”

He smiled.

I liked it, too.

Damn me for liking it.

“Are you sure you’re good, though?” he asked. “Coach to coach, I mean.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m just a little overwhelmed with the wedding.”

“Oh, right.” It could’ve been my imagination, but I swear Nathan grimaced at the mention of the wedding. “That’s right around the corner, right?”

“Yes. Two weeks from today.”

“Wow…” He cleared his throat. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. I’m sure I’m just getting wedding jitters.” I glanced at my watch. “But we should get?—”

“I saw Wesley with another woman today,” Nathan blurted out.

My chest tightened as I looked up to meet his stare once more. He frowned and shook his head slightly. “I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but well…if it were me, I’d want to know.”

“Was the woman a blond?”

“Yeah. They walked into my brothers’ butcher shop earlier today. They went in laughing and seemed a little too friendly.”

They were together today, too?

That felt like another knife to my gut. Yet this knife seemed to cut even deeper, seeing how Nathan delivered the news to me. I was humiliated. Though I tried to shake off the feeling.

“Drew,” I muttered. “That’s his best friend. Who just so happens to be his ex, too.”

Nathan’s brows raised. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know. I found out on Super Bowl Sunday.”

The bewildered look flashing across his face would’ve been funny if it wasn’t such a heavy topic to my spirit. “Get outta here,” he said. “You’re telling me he has a best friend who’s also his ex that you didn’t know existed?”

“Oh, I knew Drew existed for a long time. I just thought she was a man.”

“He didn’t tell you Drew was a woman?” he whisper-shouted.

I would’ve laughed if it wasn’t so damn embarrassing. “Nope.”

He gave me a blank stare before blinking a few times. “And you’re okay with this?”

Absolutely not. Not in the slightest. “I don’t really have a choice. She’s his best friend. What am I supposed to say?”

“No,” he sternly stated. “You’re supposed to say no. There was something about them that made it seem as if they had some kind of?—”

“Can we stop talking about my life and get to practice?” I snapped. I didn’t mean to snap at him, but that was what happened when I was embarrassed or sad. Instead of tears, I found rage and annoyance.

He tossed his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Breaking rules.”

“All the rules.”

“But…” He paused and grimaced. “They were sharing an ice cream cone.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“They were licking an ice cream cone together. One cone, two mouths.”

The embarrassment seeped deeper into my soul as I stood still like a buffoon. “Let’s just get to practice.”

“Avery—”

“Stop,” I begged. “Please.”

“But—”

“I just told you that you’re not a crappy person, Nathan. Please don’t make me regret every single word.”

His eyes flashed with compassion as he nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Ice cream, Wesley?!”I barked, rage shooting through my system as I paced my living room. He sat on the living room couch, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You were licking ice cream with her?! On Main Street?! You might as well have been licking her vagina in public, for goodness’ sake!”

“Geez, Avery. Don’t be so vulgar.”

“Oh, screw you. What in the world were you thinking? Especially after yesterday.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What was I thinking by getting an ice cream cone with my friend? Uh, nothing, other than I wanted ice cream.”

“But you just had to lick hers, huh? In town, knowing how these people gossip. You don’t even share ice cream cones with me.”

“You don’t like rocky road,” he calmly replied.

I stared at him and silently prayed I wouldn’t go to prison that evening for killing my fiancé. I’d seen enough episodes of Snapped before. I knew it just took one little thing to push women over the edge.

Apparently, mine was rocky road ice cream.

I took a deep breath as I closed my eyes. I quietly counted to ten before releasing the breath and reopening my eyes. “The whole town’s coming to our wedding in two weeks. And now people are gossiping about seeing you with another woman, licking ice cream cones together. Do you understand how embarrassing that is for me? How stupid that makes me look?”

He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t mean for the day to go as it did. I went to get my car from work, and Drew was there talking to my boss. The repair center with my car called and said they’d have to keep it until tomorrow. Drew then started saying she’d drive me home again, but I had to go get groceries to cook dinner for you. So she took me, and there just so happened to be an ice cream shop. It was nothing serious, but I understand your frustration.”

“Do you, though? Because it seems to me that you think I’m overreacting.”

“Well, it’s a known fact that women are a bit more emotional than men. Studies show?—”

“Oh, screw your studies, Wesley!” I barked. “You’ve been weird for the past few months. Ever since that woman came to visit.”

“Are you jealous of Drew or something?”

“Jealous?! Of Drew?!”

Yes.

I was.

Completely.

Wholeheartedly.

Yet still, he couldn’t see me. Not the real, hurting me that was.

He dropped his head and put up surrendering hands. “Okay, you’re not jealous of Drew.”

I sighed. “Listen, if you don’t want to do this wedding thing?—”

“Whoa.” He shot to his feet and headed over to me. “Slow down. What are you talking about? I want to do this marriage thing, Avery. And sure, I’ve been a bit off lately, but there’s been so much going on with work. Plus, I understand that Drew has been a lot for you to take in, and I accept all my faults with how this came to be. I should’ve told you she was a woman and?—”

“And that she licked your ice cream cone,” I added.

He smirked slightly. “And that she licked my ice cream cone,” he added. “But I was only having her help me cook your dinner because she loves to cook. I hate it. I wanted my apology meal to be amazing for you.”

I arched an eyebrow and glanced over at the table set with a fancy-looking dinner. “You cooked me dinner to apologize?”

“Yes.”

“With her?”

He swallowed hard, knowing this was going nowhere good. “Uh-huh.”

I walked over to the plates of food. Fancy steaks with a compound butter and some cooked pork belly and peas.

I hated peas.

I glanced at Wesley, then toward the dinner, then back at him.

A big part of me wanted to ruin the whole meal. I wanted to throw the steaks against the wall and smear the butter in his face. What was he doing? Why was he working so hard to ruin what we had? We were supposed to be stable with one another. We were supposed to make sense. Sure, we weren’t romantic, but we were supposed to be a team.

This wasn’t teammate behavior. If anything, it was as if he’d benched me and I’d been replaced by another woman fourteen days before our wedding.

“I’m going to bed,” I murmured, feeling slightly too exhausted and hurt to deal with any more interactions with him. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed and stay there for the next few weeks.