I could wake up with Bristol. Fall asleep next to her. Make a life with her. Would it suck to leave the Reapers? Absolutely. Those guys were my family. But Bristol was my whole heart. Did it really matter where I played hockey as long as I came home to her every night?
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that, actually.”
“You have?” I stood up straight.
“I have. The truth is that this hasn’t been fair to either one of us. You have a team you love, and a career you’ve busted your ass for. And I’m just getting off the ground here at Lusso. Between getting the line up and running, and figuring out how to be a CEO at my age, well…” She took in a stuttered breath. “I guess we can say we gave it our best shot, right? Because I think we both know this isn’t working.”
“We do?” I fell back against the wall, then slid down it until my ass hit the linoleum.
“It’s pretty obvious,” she whispered.
She didn’t want me. It wasn’t working for her. I guess that made sense. After all, she was running her own business that operated out of both New York and London. But repeating the logic of her choice didn’t ease the sting. It hurt like fucking hell, like the oxygen had been sucked out of my lungs.
“And I know you still have a month on your contract, but I think I can call that GQ shoot even, don’t you?” She laughed, but there wasn’t any joy in it.
“Right,” I muttered.
“If it’s not too much trouble, I’ll be down there in a few days to pick up what’s left of the Lusso stuff I dumped at your place when we cleared out of the penthouse. I don’t want you to think you’re my storage locker or anything.” Another forced laugh, but it was just sad.
All of it was fucking sad.
“Right. Whatever you need.” I ran my hand over my hair and shoved it out of my face. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere. No rush.”
“Okay. I’ll call you when I get into town,” she said quietly.
“Sounds good.”
We hung up without saying goodbye, which felt almost fitting, since we hadn’t exactly said goodbye in New York, either. We’d shut each other out, said some ugly words, and both built up our walls so damned high that neither of us could scale the distance.
And now we were over.
I took a few minutes to collect myself before realizing that effort was completely futile. There would be no putting myself back together after this. It was impossible to even think about being whole when she owned my heart, whether or not she wanted it…and apparently, she didn’t.
Thank God you didn’t jump the gun and ask for the trade.
Taking a deep breath, I picked myself up off the floor and walked back out to my teammates.
18
Bristol
“How did he sound?” Grace asked from the spot where she perched on my couch.
I settled next to her, handing her a steaming mug of tea, and held my own close to my chest. I inhaled the warmth, relishing the feel of the steam in my lungs. I hadn’t cried this much since my parents died, and it had wrecked my nose and lungs.
“Miserable,” I said, taking a sip of the tea. “Apologetic, sad. Understanding, even.”
“And how did that make you feel?” she asked, taking a drink.
My eyes lilted past her, looking at my balcony, the twinkling lights of the city beyond it. The same balcony where he’d wholly claimed me, body and soul, and he told me he loved me for the first time. Why couldn’t that be enough? Why had things gotten so…painful?
“Like shit, Dr. Grace,” I tried to tease but it fell flat. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
She arched a brow at me. “Why?”
I blew out a breath. “Because,” I said, waving at the city outside my windows. “I live here. He lives there. We had one bad situation—and it was a really bad fucked up situation—and we couldn’t work it out. It would be impossible to handle the distance between us, no matter how much I believed we could.”
“But you love him,” she said. “And he loves you.”
He’d said as much on the phone. Hearing his voice after our fight had been like a breath of fresh air…until it hadn’t. Because as much as I wanted to yell and shout and fight for what we had, I couldn’t keep putting Cormac in a position where he had to choose between time with me or his career.
“Apparently, that’s not enough,” I finally said.
“That’s a load of shit,” Grace said, and I raised my brows at her. “Sorry, love, but it is,” she continued. She stared at her tea for a long time before setting down the mug on my coffee table. “I told you about David,” she said. “But I didn’t tell you everything.”