Pucked Over (Pucked 3)

Sleep sucks. In the morning I have a message.You’re not mine, so u can fuck whoever u want.This isn’t a conversation I want to have over text. I try to call again, but it goes to voice mail. I don’t leave another message since the last one sucked my balls.

Once I’m back home, I drop my shit at the door and head for my bedroom. All I want is to lie down and smell Lily. It’s weird, and maybe a little messed up. But the housekeeper’s been by, and the sheets are fresh. The clothes Lily left behind are folded in a neat pile on her side of the bed.

The damn chest ache is back. I rub the spot, hating the phantom pain.

That’s when I realize what I’m feeling is heartbreak. I’m always worried about hurting someone else; I never thought about myself. And it’s my own damn fault.

But trying for more with Lily will only end up causing her pain in the end.

***

“Why don’t you go see her while we’re in Toronto if she won’t answer calls?” Lance is currently kicking my ass at NHL Hockey on Xbox. Granted, I’m not trying very hard.

“There’s no point.” It’s been two weeks, and I’ve heard nothing from her.

He beats me for the third time, so I toss the controller to Miller. “You’re up.” I must throw it with more force than I intended because it hits him in the throat.

“Seriously, dude.” Miller rubs his neck.

“Sorry.”

“You’re worse than a PMSing teenage girl right now.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“Uh, yeah, you are. You’ve had penalties every game for the past two weeks. You’re almost as bad as me,” Lance says.

He’s right about that. I’ve been way more aggressive than usual. I almost got ejected from the last game for fighting. “Seeing Lily isn’t going to change that.”

“You can’t know until you try,” Miller says. He’s been on me to work shit out, but there’s nothing to work. Lily hasn’t messaged me again since I left that voice mail, and I don’t have the balls to try again. I don’t know what I was thinking doing that in the first place. She’ll be moving to Chicago soon, but it’s not like I’m going to run into her all the time. Unless she’s at games. Then I’ll want to talk to her when I should really just leave her alone.

According to Sunny, Lily’s flying to Chicago next week. Alex didn’t want her driving in a U-Haul in the middle of January, so he’s having her stuff shipped to the house. I hate that I’m jealous of a guy with a fiancée.

“It’s not like talking about it is gonna change anything.”

“How do you know that?” Miller asks.

I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “Because it was supposed to be just fun and now it isn’t for her.”

“Can you explain that?” Miller asks.

“It was getting too serious,” I summarize.

“For who?” Miller scratches his week-old beard.

We’ve been over this before. I don’t see why we’re having the same conversation again. “For her.”

“So all she wanted was dick?” Miller asks.

“Well, yeah. We had a conversation right at the beginning about it being just fun and keeping things light.”

“Can we back up a second, because I’m still confused. Sunny says Lily’s a fucking mess over this. I don’t get why she’d be so upset if she was only in it for the dick.”

“I’m her rebound. I didn’t think it was going to turn into a case of the feelings.”

“Am I the only one here who’s acknowledging that you’ve been talking about Lily like you two were in a relationship?” Lance asks.

“No, we were—”

“Just having fun. We know.” Lance rolls his eyes.

“Well, what else could it reasonably be with her all the way in Canada and me traveling half the year? Besides, she just got out of a seven-year relationship—”

“From the sound of it, that relationship was over long before that,” Miller says.

“It’s not like it matters. It’s better this way. Ending shit was smart before I could ruin it by doing something stupid.” Shit. I am teen-girl PMS-y.

“What are you even talking about?” Miller asks.

“She’s moving here, and I’m gonna want this to be something it can’t be.” I think it should be clear by now who I am.

“You mean a relationship?” Miller presses. Lance is staring at his Xbox controller.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t get why it can’t be exactly that, especially with her moving to Chicago. That’s way easier to manage than her living in Canada. I would know. It seems like that’s what you want.”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna fuck her over eventually.”

“How can you know? They replace your balls with crystal ones? Can you see into the future?” Miller looks extremely unimpressed.

“That’s what my dad did. He fucked my mom over. Repeatedly. I don’t ever want to do that to another person. I don’t wanna hurt someone like that.”