Duke grins like a fool. Men like him always win.
As I expected, Duke gets a slap on the wrist, while I lose everything. It’s a lot easier to be mad at someone else when you’re the one to blame. I’m an adult. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway. So, now I have to suffer the consequences.
“Would you excuse us, Dr. Devine?” Tom tips his head toward the door.
Ashamed, I can’t even look Tom in the eye.
Duke touches my arm. “Wait for me, okay?”
I nod, because how else will I get home? He drove me here.
When I was in college, I was already married to Ted. I never did a walk of shame out of the dorms or a frat house. Hell, I never even did anything slutty. And as I leave Tom’s office, I imagine the gut-wrenching, soul-crushing feeling I’m experiencing now would have come pretty close.
* * *
An hour later, I climb into Duke’s SUV, and for the first time, he doesn’t slap my ass to help me into my seat. Not that I want him to touch me right now. We have a lot to talk about, a lot for me to think about. Duke slides into his seat and turns on the engine. He stares out the window with a blank expression on his face. Since we walked into Tom’s office, Duke looks like he’s aged five years.
“We’re breaking up, aren’t we?” Duke’s deep voice cuts the silence.
“For now,” I say, my voice trembling. “I need to think about everything. About how much I screwed up.”
Duke leans back in his seat and shoves his hands through his hair with a frustrated groan. “I wish I could say that I regret pushing you to date me. I wish I could say that I would take it all back. But I meant what I said earlier. I love you, Lila. I’ve never been in love with a woman before. And I don’t know what to do or say that will make this better. I wish I had the answers. I wish I could do something that doesn’t make me feel so useless. But please… I need you.” A single tear falls from his eye when he locks on to me. “I can’t lose you.”
“Don’t make this any harder, Duke.” I wipe the tears falling from my eyes away. “Give me some time to think. I just lost my job, and I’m sick to my stomach over it. I want to crawl under a rock and hide.” I cover my face with my hands. “I still have to pick up Max from her dad’s house and explain to her why her mom is all over the Internet. Why her mom is in pictures and videos on every major social media platform and news outlet. She was crying when I talked to her. She doesn’t understand why everyone is trashing me.”
Duke grabs my wrist, and when he kisses my hand, his tears wet my skin. “I’m sorry, Lila,” he whispers. “I’m sorry…”
There’s nothing else to say, no way for either of us to make this right.
“Can you take me home?” I say after a long silence passes between us. “Max is expecting me, and I have a lot of explaining to do.”
Duke drops my hand and wipes the corner of his eye. He blows out a deep breath and moves the shifter into drive. I study every one of his features, committing Duke to memory, because I want to remember him, unsure if we still have a future.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Duke
Two weeks have passed since I last spoke to Lila. She hasn’t made any contact, and as promised, I have kept my distance. Every two seconds, I consider texting or calling her. For most of my waking hours, I think about her. I wonder what she’s doing, how’s she coping without me. I wonder what Max is up to and how she’s playing.
Several times, I drove to the rink and considered breaking Lila’s no-contact rules. I would do anything to be near Lila for a second. Anything to see her one more time. Anything to hang out with Mad Max. I miss that kid. If it hadn’t been for Max, I never would have opened with Lila. Max struck a chord with me, reminding me of Kat and what my life was once like. Their absence in my life is like a knife to the chest.
With each week that passes, I feel the rage brewing at the surface. Lila is the cure to my anger addiction, the only person who makes me feel normal. Without her in my life, I feel myself slowly falling into old patterns. I broke another cell phone last week, which makes the one in my hand the twelfth phone I've owned in one year.
I can’t function without her. The only thing that keeps me going is the little bit of time I spend with my team. I was allowed to practice with the team on Monday. It felt good to get back on the ice with my guys. They’re the only good thing I have left, or at least that’s how it feels. For years, I was afraid of love because I was afraid to lose it. Now that I have, I can see why my dad fell apart. I understand how he felt, even though I would never turn my back on my children. At least now it makes sense to me.
I flip through Twitter—because I’m a masochist. I have hundreds of notifications and more messages than I can count. I skip the direct messages. They’re usually from women who want to fuck, crazy fanboys, or haters. I hate social media. We’re not required to have social media accounts, but my publicist did encourage it. She said it was good for my image to maintain contact with fans. Easy for her to say. She’s not the one getting messages with attachments of dicks, tits, and all sorts of fucked up shit.
What the hell is wrong with people? If you wouldn’t send this shit to your friend, then you shouldn’t send it to a complete stranger. Everyone acts like they know me because they watch me on television. No one knows me, not like Lila does. Fuck, I miss her so damn much.
Fire courses through my veins as I scroll through the tweets about Lila. I’m thankful she only has a Facebook account filled with pictures of Max. If she saw any of these tweets, it would devastate her. I know it would because it’s killing me. My heart pounds at an insane rate, my pulse so quick my head spins. I blow out a deep breath. I would love for these assholes to say this shit to my face. I’d put them six feet under.
People are still talking about us, even though we’re not together. I thought this would blow over by now. The Caps are used to scandals. Alex Parker’s trade a few years ago was the talk of the town. It took a while for our team to rebound after he left. Losing one of our best defensemen was hard on all of us. The sex tape he unintentionally made with the team owner’s granddaughter was dubbed Puck of Shame by the media. It will take years for both of them to live that video down.
But what surprises me most about my situation is that people in this city still care that I was with my therapist. This is D.C. They have enough shit to gossip about. Like politicians caught in the act with hookers and government officials taking bribes. So, why is my relationship with Lila still the topic of conversation among the locals?
I type a few nasty responses back to some asshole on Twitter. He’s a fucking Flyers fan, go figure. Their fans still haven’t let me forget about smashing in Dean’s face. Will I ever get some distance from the mistakes of my past? Every time I open an app on my phone, I’m greeted with another reminder of all of the shit I fucked up.
I love interacting with fans, but this dude is a fucking jerk off. He knows exactly how to get under my skin. Someone used the pictures of Lila and me to turn them into GIFs. There are hund