Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
I couldn’t act the same around them. Any time I was with Vince, I was caught between wanting to punch him in the throat and let him punch me for disrespecting him. He had trusted me, and I knew I was sitting on a betrayal so deep I wasn’t sure it was forgivable. It made it impossible to act normal around him, to laugh and joke like we used to when I was keeping such a secret.
Carter dragged me out to Boomers a couple times, the local bar that was more like a club where all the puck bunnies knew to find us. He then promptly gave me shit for sitting in the corner and drinking alone. I laughed at his jokes about my dick being broken all while swallowing down the truth, which was that there wasn’t another woman in this fucking city — in the world — who could make me want them now.
Desecrated. That’s what I was.
I could feel the weight of Will’s gaze on me, too. He knew I wasn’t the same, but he didn’t press. Every now and then, he’d clap me on the shoulder and ask, “You good?”
A nod was all he got in return.
Driving my cars down Bayshore Boulevard didn’t give me the same rush as before. I couldn’t read more than a page in any book. I didn’t feel the usual excitement humming under my skin that I usually did with a new season ahead. I just felt… numb.
It was like I was playing pretend in someone else’s life, like I was trying to walk in shoes too big for my feet. I was off kilter in every possible fucking way.
I hadn’t been eating enough or working out enough on the road trip, so when I returned, I had to force feed myself to put on weight — which was especially hard considering my appetite was nonexistent.
My trainers had me lifting heavy every fucking day, and we were back to skating again, playing practice games and running drills as the preseason was just around the corner.
I was thankful at least for that — for hockey. The one place I felt mildly like myself again was on the ice.
Will was usually the first one to the arena when we had skate time, but I was beating him to it these days, and staying until my trainers all but dragged me away. The more my muscles burned, the more I had to think about where the puck was and where I needed to be…
The less I thought about her.
I didn’t know why, but now that we were thousands of miles apart, things between us just didn’t feel the same. Grace and I had texted a lot in the first few days, but then she went to Costa Rica, and her service was so unreliable, I didn’t hear from her for a week.
I couldn’t even talk to her on her birthday.
When she got back, she FaceTimed me, and I felt a little piece of my heart click back into place at the sight of her. She was sporting a fresh tan and a bright smile as she told me all about it — how she’d done yoga every day, how she’d tried her hand at surfing, how much she loved the sound baths and the days at the beach and the nights meditating.
She was doing okay. And fuck, I was so glad she was.
But I was also gutted — because I was at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Still, time has a funny way of pushing us forward whether we drag our feet and kick and scream against it or not. Soon, August slipped into September. Camp and preseason took over my life, and I jumped willingly into that pool, desperate to drown myself in anything that wasn’t the longing in my chest for Grace.
We still texted, almost every day. She sent me pictures and videos, and I hid my screen from Vince when I sent my replies. There were a couple nights when we were both alone and our video chats turned into her fucking her fingers while I stroked my cock and remembered the way it felt to be inside her.
But the longer we were apart, the more I felt the distance Grace was putting between us.
Soon, texting every day turned to every other day, and then just a few times a week. She was in and out of service, so our calls faded, too. We went from having everything to say to each other to only talking surface-level to eventually just sending a joke or meme in a text.
I knew it wasn’t because she didn’t care for me, or that she didn’t want things to be different. It was the opposite.
Grace was an expert at running from pain.
And right now — I was the source.