Game Plan

by Camellia Tate

  Part of him wanted to storm back up to Ashley’s door and demand she let him in so they could talk. Her words were still ringing in Connor’s ears. Ashley didn’t want him to come back, she didn’t want to see him again. Connor couldn’t process it. She’d calm down, he told himself, and then they could talk reasonably .

  Except, if Ashley did calm down, Connor didn’t get any word of it. It was Scott who sat him down the next day, talked through with Connor what he wanted to tell the press.

  If it had been up to Connor, he wouldn’t have told them anything. He tried to get Scott to put it off, explaining that he and Ashley would fix things. What he hadn’t accounted for was that Ashley had called Scott first, and made it clear there was no way she intended to carry on with their soulmate charade, let alone their actual relationship.

  Connor had to deal with the pitying pats on the back from the Howlers, and the reports from Tex of Ashleys who’d tried to sneak past him into the rink to offer Connor comfort in his time of need.

  It wasn’t their comfort Connor wanted. Every time he changed the sticker covering his soulmark, he felt sick to his stomach.

  It was weeks before Connor admitted to himself that Ashley wasn’t going to answer any of his messages. She’d meant it when she said she didn’t want to see him again. For the first time in Connor’s life, hockey didn’t make him feel better. The bitterest pill to swallow was that the Howlers were doing so well, making it through to the play-offs on a record streak of wins. Without Ashley there to kiss him for good luck, none of it seemed to matter .

  “Lewis!” Coach stopped Connor on his way out after morning training. “Hang on a second, Hayden wants a word.”

  Connor headed back into the locker room, shoulders slumped as he sat on the bench and waited for everyone else to leave. Hayden sat opposite him. He was silent for so long that Connor finally looked up.

  “I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re going through,” Hayden opened, “but you’ve been distracted for nearly a month. I thought -” He shrugged one shoulder, trailing off. “I think you need a person to talk to, and if you don’t want it to be me, that’s fine, but I want you to promise me that you’ll find someone. ”

  “What is there to say?” Connor asked, feeling the same mix of hopelessness and irritation that had been his constant companion since he’d last seen Ashley. “She doesn’t want to see me anymore, Hayden.” Hayden hummed, just loud enough for Connor to hear, his gaze somewhere to the left of Connor’s ear.

  “What happened?” he asked. “You know how gossip gets around this place, but no one seems to know. One day you were happy, and then next -” He waved a hand, to indicate Connor’s current state.

  Even the idea of explaining it was painful. Connor seriously considered walking out or lying. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his mom. Definitely not Maisy, who’d have a few well-chosen words about how much of an idiot Connor was.

  “We had a fight,” Connor said, through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how to fix it. She said I wanted a trophy wife, and that I didn’t care about her. You know that’s not true!” He hated how whiny his voice sounded.

  “I do,” Hayden agreed. The wash of relief that Connor felt was short-lived. “I don’t know Ashley well, but I’d bet she had good reasons for saying those things.” When Connor didn’t answer, didn’t object , Hayden nodded. “Have you tried to fix it?” he asked.

  “I’ve sent her a million messages!” Connor answered. “She won’t answer me. I don’t even know if she’s reading them.” Connor didn’t know whether to hope she was or hope she wasn’t.

  “What have they said?” Hayden asked, making Connor’s head jerk up. “Not the details,” he quickly clarified, “just in general. Have you said you’re sorry for your part of the fight?”

  Connor wanted to object that there hadn’t been a part of the fight that was his. It wasn’t true. He’d gone behind Ashley’s back. He’d thought he had good reasons, but Ashley was right that Connor could have talked to her. He still didn’t believe that Ashley would have changed her plans for him, but he hadn’t really given her the chance.

  “I haven’t,” Connor admitted. “I don’t see what good it would do. She doesn’t want my apologies, and she doesn’t want me around.” Connor knew he sounded sulky, but he couldn’t help it. He missed Ashley so much. It clouded every other feeling, and all people could tell him was that he’d get over it. “What if she was my soulmate, and I never feel any better?” he asked.

  Hayden looked thoughtful. Connor found himself actually curious about what Hayden’s take on that would be. It wasn’t something Connor had let himself bring up to anyone else.

  “If you still think she might be your soulmate, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to apologize?” Hayden asked. “To do whatever you can to make things a little less painful between you?”

  Connor frowned, puzzled by Hayden’s wording. “You don’t think she’ll take me back, just because I say sorry,” he noted. It didn’t sound like Hayden was saying that he thought an apology was the way to get Ashley back.

  “I don’t know,” Hayden answered. “Only she can know , and you’ve got a better idea of whatever you both said and did than I have. I just think if it were my soulmate, even if I didn’t think I could get them back, I’d want to do whatever I could to… help them move on, I guess. Isn’t that what a soulmate means ? That you love someone else more than you love yourself?”

  Connor had never thought of it that way. He hadn’t even let himself think about whether he loved Ashley. It was too painful. What use was loving someone who didn’t want to speak to you?

  “It seems to me that it might do you both some good if you could clear the air,” Hayden continued. “It might not mean you ever get back together, maybe that ship has sailed. Wouldn’t you feel better if you weren’t still carrying around unresolved anger towards each other?” That made Connor raise an eyebrow, and Hayden chuckled.

  “I just mean,” he explained, “that you might feel calmer if you knew you’d done everything that you could.” Hayden stood up, offering Connor a hand. “You don’t have to do anything right now. Just think about it. Or speak to someone else, if you think I’m talking nonsense.”

  Connor didn’t think Hayden was talking nonsense. Not entirely. He didn’t think an apology would make Ashley forgive him, but maybe Hayden had a point that there were other goals beyond getting Ashley to take him back.

  Sitting on his couch, with some incomprehensible physics documentary playing in the background, Connor scrolled through his unanswered messages to Ashley. He hadn’t apologized. He hadn’t even admitted that he’d been wrong, because that would be as good as saying that Ashley should have gone to Dallas. That was a thought too uncomfortable to face.

  Now, Connor couldn’t help thinking about what Hayden had said. If he really loved Ashley, if he thought she was his soulmate, then shouldn’t he want her to be happy? Connor had gotten so tangled up in how he’d miss her. He’d forgotten that Ashley wanted to move. Not away from him, but towards her own future, just like Connor had moved away from people he’d loved to play hockey.

  She was right. It had been selfish to try to stop her. He should have supported her. Connor could have helped her come up with ways the two of them could manage the distance, rather than just being disappointed by what had felt like inadequate efforts on her part. As she’d said, a real relationship included looking out for each other. Connor had spectacularly failed to do that.

  It was probably too late to fix it now. It had been weeks, and the job had surely been filled. Connor knew from the reply to his email spoiling Ashley’s job prospects that the hiring manager was a huge hockey fan, so maybe there was a chance .

  Nearly a week later, Connor stood outside Ashley’s door, feeling sick with nerves. He ached to see her. At the same time, he couldn’t imagine how much it was going to hurt to see her and not be able to touch her, not to mention dealing with whatever her feelings were towards
him.

  He’d been stood there for nearly half an hour, waiting for Ashley to come home. At least, he hoped that she was out, rather than just ignoring him. He almost convinced himself to knock again, when suddenly she was there. Before he could see her expression go hard and angry, Connor launched into an explanation.

  “I’m not here to bother you,” he said. “I get it. You don’t have to forgive me just because I want you to. If you say you don’t want to see me again, I’ll go.” He paused for half a breath, just on the off chance that Ashley would jump in, say she did want to see him and everything would be okay.

  She didn’t.

  “You can still have the job in Dallas,” Connor forced himself to say. Some stupid part of him hated the thought of Ashley going, even now. If she was across the country, there’d be no chance that she might one day decide to take him back. Connor pushed that part down deep. “I called the hiring manager, and I explained -” Well, it didn’t matter exactly what Connor had explained, so he waved a hand.

  “The job’s yours if you want it. The same start date, the same salary, everything.” Connor had been very insistent on that point. “That’s all I wanted to tell you.” It wasn’t really all . Connor had planned to leave as soon as he’d said his piece, but found himself unable to walk away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low. “I’m sorry I ever tried to stop you from taking it. You were right, I was being selfish and short-sighted. All I could think about was how much I’d miss you. I thought that if you’d miss me too, then maybe you’d be happier if you could stay nearby. It wasn’t my decision to make.” Connor risked a glance into Ashley’s eyes. His biggest worry was that she’d still be so angry that she wouldn’t take this if it was him that was offering it to her. “You should take it,” he urged. “You should go, and do all the things you planned to do.” And this time, she wouldn’t leave behind a boyfriend or a potential soulmate to worry about.

  Ashley stopped, presumably waiting to see if Connor was done before she gave a nod. Connor had no idea what the nod meant. She wasn’t asking him to leave , so he decided that was probably a good start. Walking past Connor, towards the door, she unlocked it before stepping inside.

  “Come on, I don’t need my neighbors to hear this.” Connor followed her inside before she could change her mind. He wondered if he should apologize again , but then would that just seem like overkill? He had no idea. This wasn’t something Connor had known how to prepare for and Ashley was so silent that it was very difficult to tell what she was thinking.

  Setting her shopping bags down on the kitchen counter, Ashley turned around. It struck Connor how it was a very similar position they’d been in the last time he was there, just with him in the middle of the kitchen and her at the door.

  “That’s quite a speech, did you practice it?”

  “No,” Connor answered, and then paused, realizing that at this point he really had nothing to lose. “The first bit I did,” he admitted, “about the job, that it was exactly the same as it was before. I didn’t want you not to take it because it was me that was offering it.” Connor still hoped that Ashley wouldn’t refuse it on those grounds. She deserved to have the dream job that she’d worked so hard for.

  “I was going to just leave, after that, so that you wouldn’t have to deal with me.” Maybe Connor should have, but Ashley had let him in, and she wasn’t shouting at him. At least, not yet. “I am sorry,” he added, “but I know that doesn’t really change anything. I still did it. Even if I do my best to fix it, and even if I apologize. You won’t be able to trust me again.”

  Ashley paused and Connor could appreciate that she gave him the time to speak. She seemed to actually listen, too. “Do you think what you did was wrong?” Ashley asked, glancing away from Connor. Before he had a chance to reply, she carried on talking.

  “You really hurt me. It felt like you don't think my dreams and career ambitions are anything worth considering.”

  Connor winced. It felt a little like Ashley was twisting a knife already painfully piercing his heart, but he squared his shoulders. He deserved it. Whatever Ashley might have to say to him, it couldn’t hurt worse than knowing he’d lost her.

  “Yes,” he answered simply. “It was wrong, and it was selfish, but I never meant to make you feel your career wasn’t worth considering. I just thought…” Connor shrugged and sighed. Maybe there was no point defending himself, but Ashley had asked. “I thought there’d be other jobs that were just as good, that if something happened to make you reassess, you’d realize that you’d be happier.” That was mostly true. “I suppose I convinced myself,” Connor admitted, “because I wanted to believe you could be happier if you stayed.”

  “I wish you had just talked to me,” Ashley said. She sounded so honest that it was almost painful. Connor, too, in retrospect wished he'd just talked to her. It was obvious that he'd been so focused on one thing he'd completely failed to think of an alternative. Putting some of her shopping into cupboards, Ashley turned back to look at Connor.

  “Would it really have been so terrible to try long-distance?” Her tone sounded so defeated, that it was hard not to step forward to hug her.

  Not wanting to make it worse, Connor paused, really thinking about his answer. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “You seemed so sure that it would work, and I couldn’t really see it.” Even if they’d talked about it, Connor didn’t know that they would’ve come to an agreement on that.

  “I guess I should have tried it before deciding. Or at least talked to you about what we were going to do if you got promoted in Dallas and wanted to stay there for years.” Connor had never had a long-distance romantic relationship. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad as he imagined.

  “Yeah,” Ashley nodded. 'Talking about it' seemed like the correct plan of action, if Connor had taken it. It was frustrating because it seemed like such a simple plan and yet Connor hadn't even truly considered it. Because of that, he'd lost Ashley. Worse still, he had hurt Ashley.

  The silence stretched between them. Connor wondered if he should just go . Maybe Ashley would prefer him to go because his being there was just a reminder of how he’d failed her. For Connor, he couldn’t help thinking about how good Ashley had been as a girlfriend. It made it hurt so much worse to think about her moving away, and the possibility that Connor would never see her again.

  “I hope you will take the job,” he said, his voice quiet. “I know it’s none of my business, anymore, but I want you to be happy.” The way Ashley looked up as if she were surprised , made Connor’s heart ache. He wanted to explain, to make her understand.

  “I know it doesn’t seem like that was important to me,” he said. “I’m sorry for making you feel like your happiness was less important than mine. I should have supported you. That’s what you deserved. If I could go back-” If he could go back, Connor would do everything differently. “I’d make sure you knew that your happiness was most important.”

  “Was it, though?” Ashley asked, the challenge in her tone clear. “If it was so important to you that I be happy, why couldn't you respect that I wanted this job? Can you imagine what it would feel like if I took away your opportunity to play for the Howlers?”

  Connor took a step back, bracing himself against Ashley’s kitchen counter. He’d never been very good at being put on the spot. All he could think to do was tell Ashley the truth.

  “I can’t imagine,” he said, shaking his head. “And I know you’d never do that.” Ashley had always been understanding of Connor’s commitments. She’d never made him feel bad for not putting her ahead of hockey. It was like she’d said, she’d been willing to come second to his passion for his sport. It was far more than Connor had deserved.

  Connor didn’t really have an answer for why, but Ashley seemed perfectly willing to wait in silence until he could come up with one.

  “I thought I could make you happy,” he said. “That us being together would make you happy, I mean. An
d I didn’t realize that this job was so important, or that you’d gone through so much to get it.”

  Realizing those were just excuses, Connor ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t respect what you wanted, and you were right to break-up with me because of it.”

  The nod Ashley gave in confirmation hurt but it was deserved. Connor had breached her boundaries in a way that he now saw as unacceptable. No amount of good intentions would fix that.

  “You did make me happy,” Ashley said drawing Connor’s attention back to her from where he’d been looking down, in some expression of shame. “But I don’t want my happiness to depend on one person. As much as I wanted to be with you, I also wanted to be more than just someone’s girlfriend, or someone’s soulmate.”

  Connor nodded. As much as he hadn’t acted like it, he did understand that. “I like that you’re passionate about what you do,” he said, and the force of Ashley’s incredulous look almost made him take a step back.

  “I know,” he assured. “I wish I could have behaved as if I did when it mattered.” It was no use starting now . Maybe the truth might clear the air, as Hayden had suggested. “I never wanted to put you in a position where you’d have to give it up and just be my girlfriend. If I’d known how much that particular job meant to you, rather than convincing myself that any PR job would be as good, -” Connor stopped.

  “I should have known,” he corrected. “You’d have known if it were the other way around. Or you’d have asked. You wouldn’t have convinced yourself that the world would work out the way you wanted. You deserve better treatment.”

  “I do,” Ashley nodded and Connor assumed this was where she told him to leave. When that didn’t come, he gave her a small glance. Ashley seemed to be thinking about something and when she finally spoke up again, it surprised Connor.