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“When I was twenty-eight. Hit the top shelf.”
Ding. Twenty-eight is too young to retire. “What happened? Why’d you stop?”
“Fractured my neck. They won’t let you play after that.”
A sadistic smile forms on my face as I aim for the next shot.
“Jesus. Does that make you happy?”
My grin widens. “Happy to hear you have a weakness.”
“Why? So you can murder me? Everyone has a weakness.”
Ishouldmurder him. Heknewhe was coming here to coach,knewAurora and I had history, and he fucked her anyway.
And I only have myself to blame.
I shrug. “If you say so.”
“Don’t act smug. Everybody knows yours.”
I straighten to my full height, leaning on my stick. “And what’s that?”
He scoffs and raises his brows. “Aurora.”
Shaking my head, I return to shooting slap shots against the bar.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asks.
Ding.“Nothing to talk about.”
“Why’d you break up?”
Ding.“We didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. She broke up with you.”
Ding.“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. She never broke up with me.”
“You’re in denial. You left town. She left you. Same thing.”
Ding.“She left my house. Moved out. Blocked me on everything, but she never broke up with me.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, his perma-scowl deepening. “You need to let that shit go. You can’t hold on to her forever. She’s not yours.”
I drop my stick on the ice and clench my fists. The fuck I can’t. I’ll hold on to her until I’m six feet under. I have no issue with that. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. If I’d have stayed, she’d have stayed. She’d have never left me. I was a full-blown addict. She deserved better. I gave her the penthouse. I told her to keep it. I was the problem, and I left.” My voice cracks, and I swallow the lump in my throat. “I spent that time getting obliterated on every drug I could get my hands on, hoping to fucking?—”
Die.
I rub at the ache in my sternum. “She’s better off.”
He nods, taking it all in. He no longer regards me with pity or arrogance. “Don’t you think it’s a little obsessive to be this hung up over a girl?”
“Are you asking for me or you?”
FIFTEEN
AURORA