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ERIK

I wasn’t the closed book Kayden was making me out to be. That doesn’t mean I agreed with all of it. I just wanted to stop any more fights before they began. And he was right about something: We had to put hockey first or we would all lose.

But that level of peace between us wasn’t meant to last. Something would come along and mess everything up.

Being tied three games mirrored the conference championship series. That would put a shit ton of pressure on anyone, but that wasn’t how my boyfriend looked at it.

As expected, he told me that pressure was exactly how he liked it.

In fact, he thrived on it. To me, that’s just a bullshit thing guys like him come up with to look like hotshots.

They claim to be half in love with danger or death.

It’s like they’ve got no idea how stupid that sounds.

I would’ve cupped a hand over my mouth to suppress laughter if things hadn’t turned so serious.

So far, Kayden and I had basically gotten along during the series, but it hadn’t been easy.

He would try not to say dumb things, but they would spill out of his mouth anyway.

I would ignore them. We’d sworn off sex for most of those two weeks.

Yeah, that wasn’t long for most people, but in our world of regular fucking, that might as well have been a year.

We’d taken a break from just about everything that qualified as a distraction because we couldn’t let such a perfect opportunity slip between our fingers. And now we were down to the wire.

But the tension was there. Oh god, was it ever. No use in denying it. Kayden would get a little irritable here and there, and so would I. We were both on edge, but were filled with determination too. The trick was to not screw things up.

We couldn’t ignore each other completely, though. That would’ve been unrealistic. Ignoring every dumb comment that left his mouth would’ve been impossible. I did go to his place a few days before game seven. That was mistake number one.

We ordered dinner from Skip the Dishes, but nothing heavy like La Nova Pizza. Chinese food, something Buffalo wasn’t known for. You know how my boyfriend eats, right? Well, this wasn’t Buffalo wings but, amazingly, he managed to eat like a pig with a pair of chopsticks too.

Like, he made a smacking sound with his lips and not just after shoveling food into his face.

He did it the entire time he chewed too.

And the sound grew louder and louder. For real.

I’m not saying an eardrum was ready to burst, but it was irritating all the same.

I squirmed, drew a deep breath, and forced myself to stay calm.

Sometimes all it takes is for one thing to make you snap.

Finally, I said, “Would you chew like a normal human being, for chrissake?”

And that was it.

He froze, looking like I’d slapped him across the face—which was what I really wanted to do at that moment. Almost two weeks of restraint undone in a matter of seconds.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“You can’t hear yourself eating, I guess.”

“No, I guess not.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is insane, that’s why. And I can’t take you anywhere, you know that, right?”

“We’re eating in, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I mean, theoretically. You know what I mean.”

My boyfriend didn’t roll his eyes exactly, but they did shift away a little.

“In that case, it can’t just be about the way I eat,” he said.

“Maybe it isn’t.”

I felt the temperature in the room rising. My chest tightened. Matter of fact, my whole body tensed up. I couldn’t take much more of this.

Now my team co-captain wore this look that I always associated with an arrogant attempt to take control of a situation. Basically, it was a dumbass smile paired with arched eyebrows. He wouldn’t get mad, not overtly, but the hostility was there.

“Look, Erik, darling, light of my life, if there’s a problem, why don’t you come right out and say it?”

“Fine. Maybe I will. You spend god knows how much time lecturing me. If you don’t know how that can turn into a problem, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“This again?”

“Yeah, this again.”

“I thought this was just about me eating like a pig.”

He stuffed a chicken ball in his mouth and purposely chewed with his mouth open. Then he grabbed a napkin, wiped his lips, and tossed the wad onto his plate like he was done eating—and equally finished with this conversation.

“This is stupid,” he said.

“What’s stupid?”

“Erik, you’re about to start an argument over nothing.”

“It’s not over nothing. And shut up.”

He gave me another look, a more sensible kind that said trying to reason with me was a colossal waste of time. He was the one who knew best, right?

“We’ve been over this,” he said. “Anytime I’ve mentioned hockey to you, it was because you had areas for improvement. You don’t have to take it personally.”

“You don’t have to talk down to me.”

He threw his hands up.

“Look,” he said, “we’ve both had all the hockey we can possibly handle. We’ve been under a lot of stress and we’re tired. We’re both on edge. Can we just agree to chill out?”

I shook my head. Yeah, I’m the type of guy that loves compromise, but I couldn’t let him dictate the terms of an argument too.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I said.

“Erik, what the hell has gotten into you?”

I shook my head again, not wanting to say another word to him. If I spoke, I didn’t know what would happen. I might get angry. I might get sad. If things really got out of hand, I could…

I didn’t want to think about that last possibility, the one I’m too ashamed to even think about.

Something definitely was wrong with me. Kayden was right about that even if I’d never tell him that.

I wanted a championship, but I also wanted Kayden.

But not the Kayden Preston I’d seen lately.

I wanted things between us to be the way they’d always been—only my boyfriend would come with a mute button for those moments when it really became necessary—but he didn’t seem to care about that.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to act so goddamn superior,” I said.

“It’s because I might be getting drafted.”

He said it not as a question, but as a fact. He wasn’t trying to trick me either. This time, it wasn’t the typical Kayden Preston bullshit either. Now, when he spoke, he seemed to know it…and I had no way to deny it.

Like, he was within a hair of grounding that idea in reality—and I had to act fast.

But what the hell would I say?

“I thought so,” he said, “and I’ve got to say, it’s really shitty that you can’t be more supportive of me.”

“Give it a rest, would you, Kayden?”

“No, dude. I won’t give it a rest. You started this argument, and now I’m going to finish it.”

I turned my head, hoping I’d managed to flash the angriest look. If I did, then my boyfriend seemed completely unfazed by it.

“Nice,” I said.

No matter what, this conversation wasn’t going to end well.

All because he couldn’t eat like a normal human being.

Okay, maybe I’d gotten myself going and it made no sense to him, but an argument wouldn’t have happened if Kayden dealt with problems when they started instead of dismissing them outright.

“Like I said, we’ve all been on edge,” Kayden said, “and it’s almost over. Just one more game. I still have to say it’s shitty that you wouldn’t be more supportive.”

“I have been supportive. Where the hell have you been?”

“Are you on drugs, bro? Besides, the whole thing is stupid. You’re starting a fight over the way I eat within days of the biggest hockey game of our lives.”

“It’s not the way you eat. That’s just a symptom.”

“Yeah, that makes it so much better.”

“And now you’re blaming me for everything. Real cool, Kayden. Real cool.”

His hands slammed down onto the table hard enough to make the silverware jingle. He withdrew them instantly like he’d never meant to do that. Apparently, I drove him that nuts.

“Look,” he said, “we’ll have plenty of time for arguments like this once the game is won and we’ve got the national championship trophy in our hands.

Shit, maybe it won’t even matter anymore because we’ll be too busy reveling in glory.

You know, if you’re not too thick-headed to realize a good thing when it happens to you. ”

“Fuck off, Kayden.”

Those two magical words sealed it. We’d said a lot of things to each other, but never that. He sat there like he didn’t know what to say.

I stood up, leaving dinner behind, and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Wherever the hell I want. Free country.”

At first, Kayden didn’t stand, like maybe he didn’t really think I would walk out on him like that.

Only when I slipped my shoes on and reached for the doorknob did he pop up.

He darted for the door with all the speed and grace you’d expect from any hockey player.

When I pulled the door open, his hand clamped down on mine.

I stared down at his hand but didn’t pull away—yet.

“Dude, you can’t walk out of an argument like this.”

“Watch me.”

And I headed out the door.

Yeah, I know that’s not how I usually react, but that’s what I did.

I’d had all I could take. When I walked out the door, I knew I needed to get away from Kayden just for now.

That he had a leg up in the argument didn’t help, but there’s more.

I couldn’t handle the idea that a championship could separate us, and then he would be drafted and out of my life forever.

When I got in my car and drove away, I realized that was exactly what was happening.