The Not-Outcast(46)

My phone buzzed.

That wasn’t hope in my chest. No—and then a real no because I saw who sent it. My whole fucking chest deflated. It’d been five weeks and I hadn’t talked to Cheyenne, or Chad.

I wanted to talk to Cheyenne. I didn’t want to talk to Chad.

Chad: Can we talk? You’ve been avoiding me. Good game the other night, by the way.

Right. The last game had gone past in a blur for me. I hit the ice and I wanted to kill. Crow was confused since he was the team’s enforcer, but I’d been wanting to fight. Itching for one. Coach called me in, talked to me, wondering what was up, too. I hadn’t said a word. We weren’t like that. I wasn’t like that, but hockey was my sanctuary. I hit that ice and that’s all I could control so I did. I controlled everything, everyone.

I was attaching to it like it was a lifeline right now.

Fuck.

Maybe Cheyenne had been right?

I was already worked up, worked up this much over her, and I’d only seen her a few times.

She was right. I mean, I didn’t know what the hell she actually went through.

Christ.

Swinging into my seat, I stuffed my bag under the seat in front of me and typed back.

Me: Let me call you when we land and I get to the hotel.

He’d been right. I had been avoiding him, but it wasn’t hard. He never came home the next day after the whole toilet papering event, and after our home game, he was out partying. I went to the house. Woke. Went to the arena.

We’d been traveling almost ever since. This was my life during the season. Chad knew it. It wasn’t uncommon that we went months without seeing each other. He was only saying something now because of Cheyenne.

Me: You back with the Russian?

Chad: She’s not a Russian.

Me: She pretends she is.

Chad: Lol

Chad: You and Cheyenne?

Me: What about us?

Hendrix dropped into the seat next to me, and I could already hear the music blaring from his headphones. He got settled, then tugged his headphones off and nodded to my phone.

“Your woman?”

“Chad.”

“Nice. I saw him at Bresko’s the other night.”

“Yeah?”

“Went there after one of our games with a few guys and he was there, in your box.”

I frowned. It wasn’t really my box, but I was a silent investor, and the owners kept a VIP section for us. Chad dropped my name, a lot. It was partly his job, but not for Bresko’s. I knew he was never employed there to promote them. The club didn’t need him, but Chad needed Bresko’s. He used his connection there to build up the crowd that he could pull for other clubs.

“Who was he with?”

“Not as many as normal. A few people, no one I remembered.”

I went back to my phone.

Me: Who’d you party with at Bresko’s?

Chad: Huh? Why?

Me: Cuz if you’re using my name, I want to know.

I was being a bitch. He always used my name, and he knew I knew it. This was just the first time I was saying something about it.

There was another long pause.

Chad: You don’t want me to use your name?

Me: I want to know who you’re taking to the VIP area and using my name.

Chad: WTF?

I scowled.

Me: Just tell me who you partied with.

Chad: Don’t be a bitch because my sister took off on you.

A whole whoosh sensation went through me. This fucker.

I was scowling.

Me: Wow, first time you actually called her that.

Chad: What the hell is your problem?

Fuck’s sake. I had to calm it down. He was right.

Then my phone started ringing. Chad calling.

I didn’t trust myself to talk civil to him. I didn’t know what I’d say to him over text either.

I hit decline and turned it on airplane mode.

Switching back to my music, I noticed Hendrix had been paying attention, but he didn’t say a word. He stuck his headphones back in his ears and we flew to Seattle just like that.





21





Cheyenne





I was doing a bunch of self-reflection lately.

I had my job, and I loved working at Come Our Way. I loved everything about it. The guys. The workers. The volunteers. The mission. And I had my girls. I saw them almost every day. We were family. That’s how it was, but I hadn’t thought about my love life. I hadn’t had to, to be honest.

I was fulfilled.

Or I thought I had been, but with my stuff, a person goes through a situation where they really question things at a deeper level. Like, would it be fair to bring someone else in on the struggle you endure every day? If you did, was it fair to bring a child into the world who had a mother with the struggles I had? On the surface, she would seem to be just a mom who’s distracted or disorganized.

But follow down the line, and it’s a mom who’s not listening to you. It’s a mom who forgets to pick you up. It’s a mom who forgot to pay your meal plan for a year, for the second year, for a third year. It’s a mom who forgets to pick you up not once, but twice, three, four, five… The intent is there. The love is always there, but the struggles are there, and they are often greater than the whole, and they can chip away at a person, at a child, at a husband, at a wife. If something gets chipped away at enough, holes get created and those holes get bigger and bigger over the years.