Page 34 of Sexting the Coach (Pucking Daddies #6)

Elsie

After all this time flying, you’d think I’d be a little more comfortable with it.

Growing up, we were constantly in airports. For Dad’s games, then, after he retired, we took family vacations four times a year. When Drew had a hockey camp, we’d make a family trip out of it. My figure skating camps were the same.

And, in the past year with the Squids, serving as PT staff for the games, I’ve been on planes plenty. But, still, the taxi to the runway and that initial, impossible lift up off the tarmac makes my body ramp up with adrenaline.

It doesn’t help that pregnancy hormones are running through me.

In fact, that’s what I’m going to blame the crying on.

The incessant, nonstop crying, even when I went through security and then checked into the airport lounge.

Thankfully, people were kind enough to pretend they didn’t see it, other than the lounge associate, who wordlessly passed me a little packet of tissues that I’ve already blown through.

The plane lifts up into the sky, and some of my anxiety ebbs, so I get to work drafting my apologies to Hattie and Mabel. They made me promise to wait before making any sudden decisions, to not flee San Francisco because of what happened with Weston.

We talked for hours, and I cried for hours, then they tucked me into bed and Mabel promised I would feel better after breakfast in the morning. I stayed in bed for a few hours, then got up when it was time to pack.

I’d already booked my flight out.

But I had to.

First, because the city feels like a scrapbook to our non-relationship.

And second, because the idea of running into him on the street is far, far too appealing.

In fact, the idea of dropping everything and going to him, telling him the truth—that I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t want him—ran through my mind as a possibility every few seconds.

Maybe because I know that if I see him again, I’m going to come clean. Tell him the truth about the reason I fell like I can’t be with him. And if I do that, he’s going to involve himself with this baby, even though it’s not what he wants.

The plane lands in Denver three hours later, and I haven’t managed a single second of sleep. In the aisle across from me, a baby babbles happily in a mother’s lap. The first baby I’ve ever seen on a plane, not bothered by the change in pressure, the elevation.

With my fingers wrapped around the handle of my suitcase, I depart from the plane and walk through the airport, shivers running along my skin at the familiarity.

Denver’s airport is massive, and when I was a kid, Drew used to tell me stories of secret tunnels running under the building, a whole mirrored world down there with people just like us, living their lives, no idea that we walked above them.

Another shiver runs the length of my body when I step out into the frigid air. I grew up here, I should have known better than to think it wouldn’t be stupidly cold, but I haven’t really been thinking straight.

My Uber arrives quickly, almost like the driver was hanging around the airport, which makes sense. The guy—who looks as old and large as my dad—gets out of the car and loads up my luggage for me, then circles back around to the driver’s seat.

He’s the kind of driver who likes to talk, and I find that it actually feels nice to chat with him. To pretend like my entire life isn’t falling apart around me.

When we pull up outside my parents’house, the driver lets out a low whistle, and it makes me laugh. After living in a shared apartment with the girls for the past year—and in college dorms before that—I can see the house through fresh eyes.

It’s massive, the kind of building that could, realistically, have wings.

Drew and I had bedrooms on the west side, while my parents had their rooms on the east side.

My mother had an entire dressing room just to herself, all wardrobes, shelves of shoes, and a vanity with her expensive line-up of makeup.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, climbing out of the car and waiting for it to pull away before I turn around and head inside, punching in the code for the security system, praying to God my parents didn’t change it.

They’re in Puerto Rico right now, at one of the resorts my dad invested in after retiring from the NHL. I didn’t tell them I was coming, but they’ll see me on the cameras soon enough. I’ll probably wake up to a text from my mom in the morning.

She won’t be happy with me. It’s fine, because I’m not happy with myself.

I open the door and step into the quiet, dark entryway. Everything about this house is just like I remember, and I flashback to nights I’d come back from late skating practice to find the house in this mode—the lights off, the air weirdly still.

The gentle hum of the dishwasher in the kitchen.

“Elsie?”

“Fuck!” I jump and turn, throwing my carry-on suitcase in the direction of the intruder—maybe the Uber driver? Or another robber?

No, it’s worse than that, because the person knows my name. It’s someone with a vendetta against my father, someone come to kidnap me—

My suitcase rolls slowly across the floor, coming to an anti-climatic stop at Drew’s feet. He looks down at it, then back up at me, laughing in that quiet way he does, chuckling without opening his mouth.

“Good to see you, too,” he mutters.

My hand is on my heart, and I’m desperately trying to suck in breath. All I can think is that this kind of adrenaline can’t be good for the baby. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Well, I thought you were someone breaking in,” Drew says, pushing my suitcase away with his toe. “So maybe we’re even, then?”

With the suddenness of this first meeting settling around us, I feel the rush of everything filling up the space. Remembering what happened. The reason why I haven’t spoken to Drew—or been alone with him—in years.

“Elsie—”

“I can go,” I say, taking a step back and holding up my hands, glancing toward the door like it might open up and suck me out into the night again. “I’ll get a hotel—”

“Elsie,” Drew snaps, grabbing my wrist and forcing me to look at him. We have the exact same eyes and it sends a little bolt of something—nostalgia, longing?—through me. “Stop running away.”

It knocks the air out of me, and when he releases my wrist, my hand falls limply to my side. Staring at the floor, I say, “I know you don’t want to be around me.”

“You don’t know anything.”

He sounds frustrated, and I can’t help it—this confrontation, combined with the all-too-much of everything that’s happened in the past few weeks—it sends me over the edge.

Again.

Except Drew doesn’t seem bothered by the sobs. Quietly, he takes me by the shoulders, guides me to the couch, tells me to sit down. He hits the button on the wall and the fireplace roars to life. As he walks out of the room, he tells me to take off my shoes.

I do, staring at them, watching the snow melt off them and into the rug. Mom is going to kill me.

+A second later, Drew returns with a mug of something that steams, and a cool cloth. It makes me laugh and cry harder all at once. Tea and a cold cloth—it’s what our mother always did any time we were inconsolable.

And even worse, it works. I press the cloth to my eyes, breathing deeply, that familiar scent of laundry soap soothing me like a custom-tailored aromatherapy.

Then I slide the cloth around to the back of my neck, taking deep breaths and a tiny sip of the tea, which is scalding but still comforting to hold in my hands.

“Okay,” Drew says, when I’ve calmed down enough not to seem like the human embodiment of a panic attack. “Can we talk?”

A fresh surge of anxiety rushes up inside me. “I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“I…already know what you’re going to say,” I mutter, looking away from him. “Trust me, Drew, I still feel guilty.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

That makes me look at him. “What? But you said—”

He holds up a hand, then uses it to scrub impatiently through his hair. “I know what I said, Elsie. And I’ve been trying to un-say it for like, five years.”

My heart beats hard enough to rock my body as I stare at him. When I first saw him here, I thought it was going to be another chance for him to tear me to pieces, to tell me how I ruined his life. And yet, here he is, not saying that.

Un-saying it.

“What?” Maybe it’s a dumb thing to say, but it’s the only word that rises to the top of my consciousness.

Drew laughs, looks up at the ceiling, and leans forward, pulling out a throw pillow and settling it in his lap. “This is going to take a second. Are you in a good place to listen?”

I blink at him, at the maturity. As I look at him, I realize something I couldn’t when I was running from him at Trader Joe’s. Drew looks different. And it’s more than his hair, grown out long enough to brush over the tips of his ears. It’s something behind his eyes, something settled and still.

Content.

I nod, and Drew starts.

“After the accident, I was pissed at you. And I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have because I was hurting, and I was too young to know that hurting you wasn’t really going to make me feel better.”

I shake my head. “No, you—”

He holds up his hand, “Let me talk.”

It’s not unkind, but firm. I settle back into the couch, nodding and taking another sip of my tea, not missing the significance of him bringing it to me.

“Time went on. I got better. Then I went to college, and I flunked out the first year.”

I gasp without meaning to, and it makes the corner of his mouth quirk.

“Right,” he says, shaking his head and rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Crazy, right? Perfect Drew. Mom and Dad would have killed me, if they found out. But my academic adviser saw me, realized what was going on. He forced me to go to counseling. At first, I hated it, but then I realized how freeing it was to talk, openly like that.”

Drew looks up and meets my gaze, holds it, “Obviously, tearing my ACL was not a good experience. But first, it wasn’t fair to blame you. It was an accident, and we were kids. Second, I’m pretty sure it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

I open my mouth, but close it when I remember I promised to let him talk.

Drew goes on, “Hockey was never my passion. I just loved it because it made Dad love me. And when I lost that connection with him, I blamed it on you. But after everything settled, and when I was sitting in an office with that counselor, I realized that hockey had been a time suck for me, keeping me from doing what I always wanted to do.”

“Painting,” I say, without thinking, and I flush, shaking my head. “Sorry, I won’t interrupt—”

“You’re right,” Drew leans forward, reaching out and tapping my knee once before leaning back.

Something shines there in his eyes, and I recognize it from the way Weston had looked at me before.

Being seen. “Painting. I always brushed off the praise from the art I did in high school because I didn’t want to feel it.

Didn’t want my hopes too high. But after hockey wasn’t an option anymore, it made me confront everything about that.

The fact that Dad didn’t understand it, all that shit about toxic masculinity.

If I couldn’t do hockey, then I should at least go into venture capital or something.

But that’s not what I wanted to do. So, I didn’t. ”

“You…didn’t?”

“No,” Drew smiles, “and if you opened your mail you’d know that. I’ve been trying to invite you to my galleries for ages.”

“Your galleries.”

“Repeat, much?”

It pulls a laugh out of me. It’s watery, and I feel my sadness hovering just beneath it, but it’s a laugh all the same. “So,” I say, staring down into the tea. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”

“I never should have said those things to you, Elsie. And I regret it every day. I’ve missed you.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“More like, I hated myself.”

Silence settles, and I’m surprised when I’m the one to break it. “I don’t want to do sports PT.”

“Okay.”

“I think I’m doing it because I couldn’t help you, so it’s like…repayment. Trying to make up for what I did.”

“It was an accident. You don’t owe anyone, Elsie.”

“I’m realizing that, now.” I suck in a sharp, quick breath, then look back up at Drew. “Also, I’m pregnant.”

He blinks, his eyes going wide, and when I open my mouth to say more, he holds up his hand. “Hold on, one second,” he starts to rise up from the couch. “I’m going to need more tea before we have this conversation.”