Where We Belong (Carolina Rebels Book 8)

by Lindsay Paige

“Are you okay?” Deanna finally asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Think we’ll win?”

  I smile. “I hope so. We could all use more wins.” It’s then and there that I decide to take full advantage of this game and Deanna as a distraction. I turn toward her a bit. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you like being immersed into their world? Being around all the spouses and other players? Being involved in the community they have going?”

  Deanna seems to mull over my question before answering. “I’m only involved as much as I want to be, but yes, I enjoy it. I…I don’t have much family and it was like I gained a great big family. There are ups and downs, but one thing remains true: the Rebels are always there for one another.” She seems to let me think about this before she asks, “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to stick to myself. The Rebels family is intimidating and overwhelming. I was kind of hoping I could just stick with Collin.” Her eyes widen a little. “And you and Brayden.” As an afterthought, I add, “And Cal.”

  Deanna laughs. “Believe it or not, there are little cliques within the spouses. We could be your clique. And nothing is expected. If it is, then,” she shrugs, “oh well. You do what you want. Have you told Collin?”

  “With all that’s going on, I can’t even remember if I have or not.”

  “Don’t worry about things like this, Julie. Really. Do what you want and it’ll all work out. Something tells me Collin doesn’t care how involved or uninvolved you are.”

  The blaring of a horn drags our attention back to the TV; the Rebels have scored again. I let our talk fall to the wayside and focus on the game. For the first time in two weeks, in months, I feel decent. Good, even.

  We watch the extremely physical game; I’d forgotten how brutal a playoff game can be. From the hits to the fights to the aggressive play, teams transform their behavior and push everyone to their limits. I’m not much of a fan, at least I don’t consider myself one, but I can get lost in a game. Watching players rush down the ice, swiveling around another player, standing idly at times during a power play and trying to decide what to do. It’s all fascinating.

  Deanna keeps a steady pour on our wine glasses to keep them full until the bottle is empty. I curl up on the couch, leaning on the throw pillow.

  The game gives way to a dark room with Dwight rambling nonsense as he paces. Over and over he paces and mumbles. Louder and louder his voice gets.

  “Jules.”

  A loud shriek bubbles out of my throat as I jump up, ramming my head into Collin’s chin in the process.

  “Shit, Julie.” He rubs my forehead while I blink and try to regain my senses. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?” His eyes fill with concern.

  “Yeah. I had a nightmare is all.” My brows furrow. “Did you win the game?”

  Collin smiles. “Yeah. We won.” His smile wavers a bit. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

  “No.” Then I notice Deanna is gone. “Did Deanna leave?”

  Collin nods. “Once I got here, she did. Let’s go to bed. It’s late and you’re obviously ready.”

  I sit completely upright and it suddenly hits me what Deanna and I talked about. “Wait. Collin, we need to talk.” He becomes very still, but waits for me. “I don’t blame you. For telling me to leave and what happened after. It’s not your fault.” He opens his mouth, but I rest my forefinger over it. “Let it go, Collin. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I hadn’t even thought about it until Deanna told me it still bothered you; that’s how much it doesn’t bother me. So, for me, let it go. Please?”

  “For you,” he says with a nod.

  “Thank you.”

  Collin leans forward to kiss me softly. “Bed, Jules.” He stands, takes my hand, and leads me to his bedroom.

  The next few minutes are bland as we prepare for bed. Collin keeps sneaking looks at me, but I’m unsure why.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks as we crawl underneath the sheets.

  “Okay.”

  “Can I hold you?”

  What a crazy question. I snuggle against his side. The pure contentedness that comes from being held by someone who absolutely loves me is fulfilling. I’m right where I need to be. Where I belong.

  As if reading my mind, Collin says, “Do you feel like we made it? Like we’re finally where we belong? Like we overcame all we needed to and it’ll be as smooth sailing as it can be from here on out?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  His sigh is one of relief. “I never thought I’d say it, but I’m ready for the season to be over. We will be spending so much time relaxing.”

  I chuckle. “You forget that I don’t get summers off.”

  “We will still be relaxing, Jules. Just you and me.”

  “Where will Cal be?” I tease.

  “Not my problem. It will be just us,” he promises.

  We fall quiet before the fact that I have a job hits me again. “When should I return to work?”

  “Whenever you feel ready, Jules.”

  I accept that answer and close my eyes, praying for no nightmares.

  “Isn’t this a conflict of interest?”

  Collin’s therapist chuckles. “Would you like to see someone else?”

  “No,” I reply quietly, my eyes bouncing from spot to spot around the room. After a week of nightmares, Collin refused to leave for his road trip unless I promised to make an appointment with a therapist. So here I am with his own therapist. While I encouraged Collin to speak with someone, I feel so uncomfortable.

  “Tell me how it feels to be home.”

  “Nice,” I answer with a shrug. “I went back to work today. Everyone treats me as if I was gone on a horrible vacation.” My gaze briefly lands on Mr. Lexington. “I feel like he’s still out there somewhere.”

  He nods. “It can be hard to accept he’s truly out of your life. You’ll get there. Do you think that’s part of why you’re having nightmares?”

  Well, he gets straight to the point.

  “Maybe. He’s been in my life in some way for such a long time. And now, poof.” I wave my hands in the air. It almost doesn’t make sense. It’s impossible. Isn’t it? “How am I supposed to break the habit of always looking over my shoulder? Or worrying when he’ll take me again? Life is supposed to be normal after such a long period of abnormalcy?” I ask incredulously.

  “One breath. One step. One day at a time, Julie.”

  That makes me roll my eyes.

  “I’m serious. You’re looking at the big picture and it’s overwhelming. We need to look at the small picture. The current picture. Only what matters at this very second for the time being.” When I give him a skeptical look, he dives further into this topic.

  I do my best to listen and put my best foot forward, just as I wanted Collin to do. When I leave, I drive straight to the apartment, happy to be done with everything needed for the day. Somehow, Collin manages to text me, asking how things went. I give him a short answer, but promise to give more detail when we can actually talk.

  I’m not sure if I feel any better after having my first official therapy session. But it’s a start. It’s the beginning of a new life. A new time when I can be as happy as I wish with only life’s natural curveballs to cause disruptions. And that is something I can look forward to.

  The series has us down three games to two as we enter game six. We’re on foreign ice. The home crowd is roaring, eager and cheering on their team to finish us off tonight. There have been too many losses this year. I plan to get as many wins as I can, even if it means spending extra time away from home. Away from Julie.

  Despite not having our own fans outweighing the home crowd, the energy within the locker room right before the game is to start is higher than it’s been yet this playoff season. Maybe it’s because we’ve made it as far as we have. Maybe it’s because everything is on the line in this game toni
ght. Maybe it’s because we’re so damn hungry for the win. Either way, it’s fuel for the fire.

  The intensity is even higher the moment the puck touches the ice. The sounds of the game roar in my ears, filling my head. My blood pumps with an energy that can only be found during this time of year. Add in the natural anxiety I get and it’s an odd type of high.

  Up and down the ice we go. Shooting shot after shot at their goalie and holding our breaths when Savage is faced with a shot. Somehow, with all the back and forth and scrapping in front of the goalies, the first period ends without much action on the board.

  The second period begins with a flurry of activity in front of both nets as a guy from each team gets called for a penalty. I’m on the bench when I see Rams score all the way from the blue line. The puck manages to fly through the air, over the goalie’s head, bounces off his back, and into the net as the goalie inadvertently slides backward. But two minutes later, I’m on the ice, fighting an asshole of a player in the defensive zone, battling for the puck, when he manages to snag it away. He quickly passes it to his teammate who whips past my brother to make his shot.

  And scores.

  A few minutes later, Zane gets hit particularly rough and out of the blue. The puck left his stick about seven seconds before the hit, a clear thirty feet down the ice away from him, when he’s checked hard into the boards by a player rushing across the ice. Everyone on the bench stands, breath stuck in our lungs as he lies on the ice for a second too long for comfort. Almost immediately, Brayden, who wasn’t too far away, closes the distance. The gloves fly off his hands in one smooth motion. Our eyes bounce back and forth between the fight and Zane. He comes to his feet as the fighting duo slip and fall, refs pulling them apart immediately.

  As if the energy wasn’t high enough in the arena, there’s now a constant buzz, a new edge. But it doesn’t help us in any way. We fight with all we have, but it’s just not enough. In the middle of the third, the other team scores twice to secure the win and their place in the next round.

  That’s it.

  Season is over.

  I don’t know how it’s possible, but I feel a new heaviness and lightness. A lightness that I can put this long, troublesome season behind me, but a heaviness that it ended without the ultimate prize, without us going as far as I wanted. It’s not until we’re back in the hotel for the night, with plans to fly home tomorrow, that I check my phone.

  Julie: I’m sorry.

  The text makes me smile.

  Me: It’s okay. Just looking forward to coming home now.

  Julie: Is it bad to say I’ll be glad when you are? It’s been a rough few days.

  Me: You haven’t mentioned that…

  Julie: I didn’t want to distract you.

  This is enough of a red flag for me to call her.

  “What’s wrong, Jules?”

  Cal glances over at me; he’s my roomie as usual. He’s nosy.

  Julie sighs. “I’ve just been antsy. Trace has been pushing me kinda hard lately. I feel like I’ve been left alone,” she admits softly.

  “Jules,” I whisper back as softly. My heart aches that she still struggles as much as she does. Not that I expect for her to heal so fast, but I feel like she’s moving at a slower pace than anyone would like.

  “I just miss you.”

  “I’ll be home tomorrow,” I remind her.

  “I know. Is the team doing anything tonight?” she asks, clearly over the subject.

  “I don’t know; Cal and I are in the hotel room. I think we just plan on getting some sleep. Our flight is early.”

  Julie lets me talk to her for about thirty minutes. Once I’m satisfied she is in better spirits, we hang up to go to bed, especially since it’s way later back home than it is here.

  “She is still not doing so good?” Cal asks.

  “No. Maybe she’ll do better once I’m home and not set to go anywhere.”

  I walk into my apartment the next day and wonder how I missed the fact that Julie’s car was in the parking deck. Because when I walk inside and into my bedroom, there she lies in bed asleep with Marmalade down by her feet. She didn’t tell me that she would be here. Did she intend not to go into work? Do I wake her and ask? She’s had so much trouble sleeping lately. I’d hate to disrupt some decent sleep when she might have actually called in.

  I quietly place my bags on the floor and walk over to the nightstand. I pick up her phone and decide to snoop. There’s no password, so it takes me two seconds to see that she texted her boss yesterday evening to say she just needed today off. I wonder why she didn’t tell me? I place her phone down and leave the room. She should get all the sleep she can get.

  It’s so weird to have nothing to do in the foreseeable future. The time right after the season ends is a time I actually hate. My anxiety normally spikes because of there being this decompression period we’re all expected to take. While decompression can be good for the soul, especially for someone like me, for some reason my anxiety rebels when it comes to a hockey season ending.

  I like to have a bigger purpose and relaxing just isn’t enough. While Julie rests, I decide to bide my time by searching for places we can travel this summer. We’re going on a trip whether she believes me or not. She’ll get the time off work one way or another. The question is where to go, when, and what all will we do?

  About two hours, one trip booked later, Julie stumbles out of the bedroom.

  “You didn’t wake me up?” she asks with a frown as she comes to sit next to me.

  “You needed the sleep.”

  She cuddles into my side. “I told my boss I needed the day off. I didn’t want to spend the day working when you would be here. I needed this instead.”

  “What do you want to do today?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Okay.”

  We spend the day being lazy. We take a trip to the grocery store. We watch TV. We spend time making love in bed. I tell Julie about our upcoming trip to Europe. We talk about random things, regular life things, our future, anything and everything. Julie seems better than last night. I’m hoping today will prove to actually do her good. I see Trace tomorrow and I’ll admit that I plan to ask him about her. He more likely than not won’t tell me anything, but it won’t hurt to ask.

  “Do you like seeing Trace?” I ask.

  “Some times, I do.”

  I laugh, understanding her answer.

  “Even though I struggle some still, I think he’s helping.”

  That’s a relief to hear. I’m not in her head, so I can’t be absolutely sure how she’s doing. Knowing that she thinks she’s improving is great.

  “He thinks I need to read the police report about what went down with Dwight.”

  “Why?” I ask, immediately outraged that he would send her mind back to that day.

  “He thinks if I know, if I can picture how it happened, it’ll give me some closure and the nightmares will stop.”

  I lack the optimism Trace seems to have about this, but I don’t voice that. Julie watches and analyzes me for a moment.

  “I want to do it.”

  “Okay.” I nod in agreement. That one word, one action, seems to relax her, as if she was looking for permission. As if she needed to know I was on her side and thought it was a good idea too, even though I don’t think so, but I most definitely am on her side.

  “He also thinks I should talk to my parents.”

  This is something I’ve been thinking about as well. I’m not too sure what went wrong with Julie and her parents, but she hasn’t spoken to them since she kicked them out of her hospital room.

  “Or at least tell him why I don’t talk to them.”

  “What about tell me?” I ask hopefully.

  That makes her smile, but for only a second. “I don’t want to talk about it just yet.”

  “But you’re doing better?”

  She nods and I relax a little more.

  I, myself, finally seem to be trul
y stabilizing. Questions and reports are still swirling about my mental health. Most players don’t discuss these kinds of things until they retire. The team gives the same statement every time they are asked about it. I’ve been told the ball is in my court as far as if I would like to speak about it.

  Cal has been curiously silent with his opinion. Julie is lost in her own issues. I’m undecided, which is a change from before when I knew I’d never speak of it. Possibly speaking out will be one of our topics of discussions in therapy tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I’ll come around and make this one of my missions to be an advocate for as well. That seems like a lot of pressure and a big decision. Once it’s made, there’s no going back.

  “What are you thinking about?” Julie asks.

  “Things I’m going to talk to Trace about tomorrow.” When she quirks a smile, my eyes narrow. “What?”

  “For someone so set against therapy, you sure do seem to look forward to it now.”

  I gently nudge my elbow into her stomach. “Leave me alone; no one ever said I was the smartest Kessy.”

  She laughs and it’s the greatest sound I’ve heard today.

  “Do you want to discuss your parents first or read the report?”

  They both sound like horrible ideas. However, the issue with my parents will be less traumatic, so I choose them.

  “I know why you don’t have anything to do with your sister, but you haven’t really explained what happened in the hospital room or why you don’t want anything to do with your parents right now. Let’s hear it.” Trace leans back in his seat and waits.

  Three words. Three words weigh down so heavily on my tongue I’m not sure I can bear to say them aloud. I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to believe it. I want to keep ignoring it in the way that I have. But if I want to put this mess with Dwight behind me, then I need to take this step.

  “It’s their fault,” I whisper.

  “What is their fault?”

  “Dwight.”

  Trace understandably looks confused.

  “I asked him why he met me and he said…” I close my eyes and shake my head. “It was my parents. He told me some elaborate story about how he met my dad and then saw a picture of me. He conned them into giving him all the information he needed to run into me and it snowballed from there. They even once suggested how they should set us up on a date.” A gag involuntarily emits from my throat. “They had a part in this,” I mutter, completely heartbroken.