A Secret for a Secret (All In #3)(81)

“You’re the one who invited them to this private conversation, and I think it’s a legitimate question.” I cross my arms. It might not be appropriate, but it’s sure as hell pertinent. Part of me also hopes she’ll either ask for privacy or my family will take it as a cue to leave.

“You’re very attentive,” she whispers.

“So would you say we’re compatible in that capacity?”

“Um, yes, I guess.”

“You guess?” I’m pushing for a reason.

“You can be very . . . chatty. I don’t really see why this is relevant.” Her eyes bounce around the room, and her face looks like it’s about to burst into flames.

“I knew it! King’s a dirty talker! I figured he couldn’t be buttoned up all the time.”

“Shut up, Gerald,” everyone says in unison.

“And how do you feel about hockey?” I figure she’s embarrassed enough, and I have the answer I need. Jessica is beautiful, nice, and friendly, but our relationship has always been flawed, and I see that so much more clearly now than I ever did before.

“What?”

“Hockey. How do you feel about it?” I ask gently.

“It’s . . . fine.”

“Fine?”

“Well, it takes up a lot of your time, but you’re not going to play forever, and I’ve always had your family to keep me from getting too lonely, so I’ve been able to deal with it. At least I was able to deal with it until you broke up with me,” she replies.

“I don’t want it to be something you deal with, Jessica. Hockey is my passion. I love it. I’m excellent at it, and it’s always going to be part of my life, even when I’m not playing professionally anymore. I don’t need someone to love the sport the same way I do, but I need a partner who is at least going to understand my passion and help me foster it, not wait for my career to be over so I can fill my time with something else.”

“But we’ve invested all these years together.” She frowns. “And I’m already part of this family.” She glances around the room, her sudden panic obvious as she sends an imploring look to my mother.

And there it is, the truth neither of us wanted to face, and clearly she’s still struggling with it. Jessica’s family is exactly like she is: poised, proper, a little cold, and emotionally unavailable. My family might be a bunch of lunatics, but they love fiercely. And I realize that this is the reason Jessica is here. That, and I think this is my mother’s way of trying to stay in control of her family in the face of so much change. Of course she’d try to keep pushing Jessica and me back together, even though we’re two mismatched puzzle pieces.

This is a conversation Jessica and I should’ve had a long time ago. And it’s the primary reason we stayed together for as long as we did. I felt bad taking my family away from her when I knew she was so attached to them. And they were just as attached to her. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I wanted to make my family happy, so I stayed in that relationship for more years than I should have. And then I met Queenie, and she turned my entire world upside down.

“It’s not really me you’re here for, though, is it?” I ask softly.

“I-I—of course I am.”

I shake my head. “But you’re not. It’s not me you want back: it’s my family. We hardly saw each other except for a month in the off-season. And even then, we spent that month with my family. Otherwise it was once every six weeks, if that. You only ever attended games when they were in Nashville. And you always came with my family.” I take one of her hands in mine. “Look, Jess, I care about you and I always will, but being in love with my family isn’t the same as being in love with me.”

She exhales a long, slow breath. “I do love you, though.”

“I know, and I love you, but it’s not the kind of love that’s going to help us build a life together.”

She’s quiet for a few long moments before she squeezes my hand, bottom lip trembling with the threat of tears. “We’ve been a part of each other’s lives for so long, Ryan. I don’t even know who I am without your family.”

“I’m not asking you to give them up.”

She sighs. “But you have a new girlfriend. I feel like I don’t even know where I fit in anymore. I just . . . in my head I always believed eventually you’d be more focused on me than on hockey, and until then I could count on your family, but now that I’ve had time to reflect on it, I think it’s more that I’m afraid to be alone. But that’s not a reason for us to be together, is it?”

I shake my head and give her a sad smile. “It’s really not. Neither of us would be happy in the long run. I’m sorry, Jess. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know.” She pats my cheek. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body.” She looks around the now-empty room, a little embarrassed. Apparently my family finally got the memo and gave us the privacy Jessica didn’t think we needed at first. “I’m sorry it took me so long to finally see what you seemed to know all along.”

“I think we both held on longer than we should have. It can be easy to become complacent when you’re comfortable with someone, which is what we were.” I don’t want to bruise Jessica’s ego any more than I already have. I’m just as responsible as she is for the way things have turned out between us.