Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“That’s definitely not you now.”
“No, it’s not. I kicked my drug habit years ago. I went to therapy, finished college, married a nice girl, had a son, came out, divorced, and the rest is history. You might see a boring, regular guy who likes order and goes out of his way to not be a selfish prick, but the potential for chaos is still there…just under the surface. I sense it, and it scares me. I don’t want to blow up the life I made here by allowing my cock to dictate my actions. And I’m doing a terrible job of it.”
Smitty raked his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
“Well…I did warn you,” I huffed, tipping back the last of my wine.
“You did. But for the record, I don’t think you’re boring at all. Geez, I fuckin’ admire you.”
“Thanks.” I quirked my lips in a lopsided lazy grin. “Your turn. What’s your secret?”
“I can’t have kids.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. The sperm count is there, but my swimmers won’t attach to an egg.” He wrinkled his nose and sat up taller. “It’s the reason my marriage failed. I couldn’t give her the thing we both wanted and…one day, she told me she was tired of trying. I thought she meant she was finally open to looking at other options, like adoption, but no. She was done with me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It gets better. Rachel remarried a year after the divorce and…as I mentioned, she’s pregnant now.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Fuck, that must be hard.”
Smitty inclined his chin. “Yeah. I want to be happy for her, but there’s a part of me that feels betrayed. We stood in front of God and church, and family and friends. We promised to love each other forever, and I believed in us. I wouldn’t have married her otherwise. Every couple goes through challenging times, but this was something I couldn’t fix. And it was me. She blamed me, then resented me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The last year was the worst. Rachel insisted on staying in Michigan ’cause her family was there and she liked the doctor better. Plus she hated Toronto. She said it reminded her of failure. I drove back and forth in winter in between games on icy roads, praying, wishing, hoping. Sometimes I flew, but most times, I wanted to be in my truck. I needed to feel like I was in control of something…the thrum of the engine, the grip of my hands on the wheel, the sound of death metal music. Anything. And every time I’d see her, it got sadder and sadder. She stopped talking to me. She was depressed, I was depressed. Christ, my dying marriage was fucking killing me.”
I rubbed his knee in a silent show of support. “That’s awful.”
“It was, but you know something? I played the best hockey of my life that year. I was fearless on the ice. I took chances I wouldn’t have dared take earlier in my career. I played angry, I played mean, I played like a fucking beast. My teammates used to say I was always on thin ice. Always the guy taking stupid risks. But it was the only place I felt alive, you know?”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“I shouldn’t have been surprised that she wanted a divorce.” He pursed his lips, adding, “I was. I kept hoping we’d get lucky, but she’d already given up.”
Silence.
“That is dark,” I said, breaking the heavy quiet.
“No, no. That’s not the dark part. The dark part is in here.” Smitty tapped his temple. “It’s the voice in my head saying I failed and it’s my fault…on repeat. It’s silly, right? Rachel moved on and that’s good, and I moved on too, but guess who got shitfaced the night I saw my ex all pregnant and happy with a new husband this summer?”
“Oh.”
“And I don’t fuckin’ get it. I don’t miss my marriage. I don’t miss Rachel at all. I couldn’t make her smile, and it hurts to be around people who used to love you and don’t anymore, so…no, thanks. But there’s still something that just isn’t the same inside me.” He bit into his pizza and waved the crust at me. “And my real secret is that I fucking ran away to Elmwood to escape my life ’cause I needed to get off that road between Toronto and Detroit. So I ask you…could I be any more of a head case?”
Okay, that was a lot of information to absorb. Heavy confessions and brutal honesty didn’t go well with a casual chat over pizza and wine, but I supposed there really was nothing casual about us. I was wildly attracted to Smitty—his sexy body, his big personality, and his easy confidence, but I wondered if I’d subconsciously been drawn to the broken bits I recognized in myself.
We were just a couple of guys who’d schlepped oversized baggage to a tiny town, hoping for a reset or a reprieve from the real world.