Page 3 of Replay (Toronto Blaze #3)

I’ve Lost the Story Here

Josh

I was still thinking about Katie when I opened the door to my condo.

She was here, in the same city as me, and now I knew where she lived.

That gave me ideas. She’d blocked me back in high school, on her phone and social media, so I’d had no way to get in touch with her.

Now I could find where she lived again… But the way she’d looked at me?

I’d never seen that expression on her face before.

After we broke up—no, after I broke up with her—she’d moved to stay with her grandmother and attend another school.

I’d been glad I didn’t have to see her again, because it hurt too much, but I’d missed her.

If I hadn’t had hockey to focus on, I don’t know what I’d have done.

If she’d stayed around, I wouldn’t have been able to resist trying to make up with her.

Damn it, I’d messed up so bad.

There were lights on in my place, which worried me for a moment till I remembered my new roommate. Fitch sat at the kitchen island, drinking a beer and scrolling through his phone.

He turned and raised a brow. “That was quick, Ducky.”

I frowned, working through my conversation with Katie. “What are you talking about?”

“The redhead you left the bar with. I thought you’d be gone for a couple of hours.”

“What? No, I mean…what?” I’d been so focused on Katie I’d forgotten about…what was her name again?

Fitch got up and opened the fridge. “We should talk—I’ll get you a beer. The way to make a woman happy takes more than ten minutes.”

I stared at him. “I know that. Well, unless it’s a quickie. But I know how to get someone off. And make sure it’s good. Tonight was different. Things happened.”

He passed me a bottle. “It happens to everyone, is that what I’m supposed to say? I wouldn’t know myself, but?—”

I swallowed a mouthful of beer, ignoring my roommate and his chirping. I needed to figure out how badly I’d screwed things up with Katie and how to fix it. Back in high school, I’d done what everyone said was the right thing. But she was still super pissed, and maybe she was right.

“Ducky?”

I blinked at Fitch, who was smirking. What had he been talking about? Right, sex. But that hadn’t been a problem. It never had, unless you counted tonight, but that wasn’t a performance thing. “I have no problem with my sex life. It’s just, when we got to her place, her roommate was there.”

He kept his mouth straight, but I could tell he was having fun because his eyes were smiling. “Don’t tell me you said no to a threesome.”

For a moment, that idea bored into my brain. The roommate was hot, obviously, since I’d gone home with her, but it was thinking of Katie that got my dick perking up. “I didn’t say no. I didn’t say anything but hi to Katie.”

Fitch took the beer away from me. “I’ve lost the story here. Tell me what happened.”

I grabbed for my beer, but he kept it out of reach. No problem. I swiped his instead and took a long swallow.

He rolled his eyes. “You’ve heard of germs?”

I shrugged. “I’m thirsty. And I’m trying to figure out what happened.”

Fitch sat down again and set his chin on his hands. “Okay, tell Dr. Daniel the problem.”

Who? Oh, right. Daniel was his real first name.

I wanted to tell him there wasn’t a problem, but I needed to get someone else’s take on what had gone down.

I was good at hockey, but I’d never done well in school or other things that smart people did.

And tonight? I’d never had a hookup go sideways like that.

The last time I ran into a roommate when I went home with someone, we’d gone the threesome route.

It had been a lot of fun. But that wasn’t what I wanted with Katie.

“So, the redhead and I got to her place, and we were making out. Like, kissing, and I was getting my hand under her shirt, and she was rubbing my dick. But her roommate was there, and she said she’d go to her room and leave us and that’s when I realized she was Katie.”

Fitch held up his hand. “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. The redhead’s roommate was Katie, and you know her? Previous hookup? Did things not go well with her? That would be awkward.”

I shook my head. “Katie wasn’t a hookup. She’s my ex.”

He stared at me like that was a hard concept to understand. Not sure why, because he’d said he was getting divorced so he now had an ex, if he hadn’t before. I shrugged and tried to remember anything my mother might have said to show she didn’t like Katie and that I’d missed. Why hadn’t I known?

Fitch snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“What?”

“Finish the story. What kind of ex is Katie? Wife? Fiancée? Girlfriend?”

People didn’t know about her because it had been a long time ago. Fitch wouldn’t know anyway, since he was new to the team. “Girlfriend. We were together for two years.”

“Sorry, Ducky. I didn’t know. I thought you were one of the fuckboys on the team.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “Well, yeah, but that’s because I didn’t have Katie.”

Obviously. If I had a girlfriend, I didn’t cheat. Those were the rules.

“How long ago did you break up?”

“Senior year, high school.”

“And you’re what, twenty-four now? So six years ago? You haven’t had a girlfriend since?”

I shook my head. It was five years ago. His math was off because I’d had to repeat a grade, but it didn’t matter. I’d never been serious about anyone because I hadn’t found anyone like Katie.

“Huh.” Fitch took a swig of my former beer. “So, you saw the ex and that killed the mood?”

“Well, yeah. Especially when they were talking about me and all the things I did wrong.” I picked at the label on the beer bottle. That was the part that had me stumped. I’d been sure I was doing the right thing.

“What did you do?”

I gave Fitch a quick recap of everything I remembered. When I looked up, he was shaking his head at me. My beer was empty but I didn’t think I should get another, even though it was an optional practice in the morning.

“When you want to end a relationship, you need to talk.”

I let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I get that now. I was just afraid that I couldn’t do it if I was looking at her.”

“Why did you have to break up? And why then? You could have waited till you were drafted, in case you ended up somewhere near her. Or broke up then if you didn’t think long-distance would work.”

“So she would pick a school for the right reasons. Her parents said?—”

“Wait, her parents were in on this?”

Oh yeah. They’d asked to talk to me and explained that Katie had to make important decisions and I was a distraction. They were afraid she might decide not to go to school until I was drafted so she could follow me.

Fitch frowned when I told him. “Seems they didn’t like you. Or that Katie was easily influenced.”

“I thought they liked me.” Had I been wrong about that too? “And no, Katie can be a hard-ass. She wouldn’t do my homework for me, always insisted I could do it myself if we found a way for my brain to figure it out.” And she did. She was brilliant.

“Then maybe they were wrong. Sounds like Katie could have decided on her own.”

Fitch made a good point.

“I messed up, really badly.”

“I’m afraid you did. That’s too bad, because it sounds like you really cared for her.”

I did. In high school, there had only been two things that mattered to me: hockey and her. “Katie—she’s the best. She’s so smart, and I don’t know what she saw in me.”

Fitch fought back a grin. “Me neither.”

“And she said my mother didn’t like her, and I’m trying to see if I missed something.

If Mom didn’t like her. I mean, Mom always said she did, but people lie.

” I’d always respected my mother and other adults.

That was how I was raised. I never thought Mom would lie to me. But damn, these people had played me.

“That is true.”

“Yeah, I’m going to have to figure that out.”

“Good to know before you get serious about someone else.”

I picked up his empty bottle and crossed to the recycling. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if your mother interfered with Katie, she might do it again. And if you find someone else, someone you want to be with, you don’t want your mother to cause problems.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘someone else’?”

Fitch threw his empty bottle into the recycling. “Don’t you want to have a girlfriend again? You’ve obviously blown it with Katie. And with the redhead.”

“I wasn’t serious about Madeline.” I frowned. “And she wasn’t serious about me. But I’m going to get Katie back, now that I know I made a mistake in high school.”

He turned around slowly. “I don’t think that’s on the table. Sounds like she’s still pissed at you, with good cause.”

“But that’s a good sign, right?”

He blinked at me. “You think it’s a good sign that she’s pissed at you?”

“Yeah. Because that means she didn’t forget me. And she’s still thinking about me.”

“That’s—well, that might be a good point.”

I nodded. I wasn’t a genius, but I wasn’t stupid either. Well, not always. “I know it won’t be easy. But I’m used to working hard. I didn’t get to play hockey by taking things easy. I’ll just have to work on getting Katie to love me again.”

“How do you think you’re going to do that?”

“I don’t know. But I did it once. I’ll just have to find a way to do it again.”

It would be harder this time. Katie was pissed at me, and she wasn’t my tutor so she didn’t have to spend time with me. Or maybe…no. No way I could convince her I needed study help now.

But I wasn’t the kid who hoped to make it to the NHL anymore. I was here. And in Toronto, where people loved hockey. I had money, and I had connections, and all the determination in the world. That should make up for everything else.

I was going to find out.