Goal Line (Madison Howlers #4)

by Camellia Tate

  She’d rung Magda at a gas station halfway between Madison and Green Bay. As a result, her friend was waiting at their favorite cafe. After wrapping her arms around Magda in a tight embrace, Annie insisted on paying for their hot chocolates.

  The drink didn’t bring her any comfort. All she could think about was Devon, how she’d taken him for hot chocolate when they’d first met, and he’d treated her to that amazing chocolate cafe.

  “I get that I shouldn’t have unraveled his knitting,” Annie said, as she finished explaining the whole story to Magda, “but he still must have meant what he said about me not finishing anything. Not bothering.” The words stung as much now as they had when Devon had flung them at her.

  Magda nodded, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. Annie appreciated that she had a friend like Magda, someone who was willing to meet up with her just so Annie could complain about her boyfriend. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” she agreed. Annie felt a wave of validation at that. Yes! She had needed to hear that, needed to hear that she wasn’t completely crazy for being upset.

  “I do think it’s unfair to say that you don’t bother,” Magda carried on. “But,” and there she paused, long enough to make Annie frown a little. “What do you think would’ve been a better way for him to point out that unlike you, he would want to finish something?” she asked.

  “I don’t know!” Annie snapped, feeling that same sense of hurt and betrayal well up inside her. But she and Magda had known each other for a lot longer than two months. They’d seen each other through triumphs and trials. Annie trusted Magda not to have secretly been judging her. Trusted her the way she had trusted Devon, until today.

  Part of her wanted to insist that Devon shouldn’t have said it at all. Annie knew better than that. Devon was different. Annie genuinely did admire him for the way he stuck with things, even through the hard times. “I don’t know,” she repeated, more slowly. Was there a way Devon could have pointed out that difference without making it seem like a slap in Annie’s face?

  No one else had ever directly addressed Annie’s inability to finish things. They’d just… swept it under the rug. They hadn’t ignored it, because they’d acted on the knowledge that Annie would change her hobbies almost as fast as she changed her clothes. They just hadn’t said anything.

  “If it bothers him, why hasn’t he said so before now?” Annie asked. “I really thought he didn’t mind.”

  Magda seemed to think about that, but Annie hardly imagined she’d know. Magda had never even met Devon. She could hardly explain his behavior to Annie. No matter how much Annie wished she could. If only Annie knew why Devon had suddenly changed his mind! Or maybe he’d always thought that. Maybe he’d always secretly thought that Annie was... someone who gave up.

  It hurt to think that. To imagine that Devon might think badly of her. What hurt a lot more was that Annie knew he’d be right to. She did quit things.

  “Did he say it bothers him?” Magda asked. Before Annie could jump in and object, she raised her hand. “I’m not going to take the side of some asshole who’s hurt you, don’t worry. It’s just... from what you said, it doesn't necessarily sound like he said it bothered him.”

  Annie frowned, words jumbling themselves into a mess inside her head. She wanted to say that Devon wasn’t an asshole - but she couldn’t deny that it hurt. His words had brought all of Annie’s insecurities to the surface. They’d made her worry that Devon didn’t think she was good enough. Didn’t think she was the one.

  “Why would he say it like that if it didn’t bother him?” she asked. In Annie’s experience, if people didn’t mind her quitting things, they just didn’t say anything. No one had ever brought it up to her. The fact Devon had made Annie think that he wanted her to change. Except Annie didn’t know if she could.

  Or if she should. Finding your soulmate was supposed to be about finding someone who loved you as you were. Not someone who’d only love you if you could be perfect.

  “I don’t know,” Magda shrugged. “I mean, you still haven’t really told me how he should have said it.” Annie was tempted to point out how Devon just shouldn’t have said it at all. Magda seemed to sense that that was precisely what Annie was thinking and shook her head. “Why does it bother you so much? That he said it?” she asked, surprising Annie a little by the question.

  Annie took a sip of her hot chocolate. The rich taste did little to wash her feelings away. Part of her wished that it would. She didn’t want to face what she was feeling. She didn’t like what it said about her.

  But Magda knew her. Magda wouldn’t judge. And even if she did, it wouldn’t hurt as much as feeling like Devon didn’t like her as much as Annie had thought he did.

  “I guess because he’s right,” she admitted. “I know I don’t finish things. And I know it isn’t my best quality.” Far from it. But Annie didn’t know how to change. She didn’t want to feel she had to. “I didn’t expect him to point it out like that,” she added. “Even if he didn’t say it was a bad thing, he wouldn’t have mentioned it if he didn’t mind.”

  Magda took a slow sip of her hot chocolate. Annie could see her thinking about what she wanted to say. Annie had always admired how composed Magda could be in pretty much any given situation. Maybe it came with being an ice skater, or maybe it was more something Magda had naturally. Either way, Annie appreciated it. She valued Magda’s input.

  “He wouldn’t have mentioned it?” Magda repeated, like she was checking that’s what Annie had said. When she gave a nod, Magda hummed. “But it’s something you do.” Annie’s anxiety spiked all over again. That was exactly what Devon had said, too. Well, you don’t finish things, do you?

  The frown on Annie’s face must’ve given her thoughts away. “No, hear me out,” Magda said. “It’s not a criticism, it’s just... an observation. You often start things and don’t finish them. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just a part of who you are. Does that mean I should never bring it up?”

  “You never have brought it up,” Annie pointed out, feeling like she had to defend herself. Surely it wasn’t unreasonable, not to want people pointing out her flaws whenever they got annoyed with her?

  Not that Magda was annoyed. And if what she said was true, then she didn’t actually see Annie giving up on things as a flaw. The thought was so novel that Annie didn’t feel she could trust it.

  “You don’t give up on things,” she said. “How is pointing out that I do not a criticism?”

  “But Devon didn’t just randomly point it out,” Magda argued. “You told me that he got upset because you undid a thing he’d knitted. It wasn’t anything much, so I can see why you would assume it didn’t matter. Especially because that’s what you do with your projects.” It was true, Annie more often than not picked her knits apart well before they even neared being finished.

  Magda obviously knew that, too. “But,” and there Magda paused in a fashion that felt a bit dramatic, but probably was just to make a point. “Maybe Devon’s more like me. He does a thing and doesn’t stop. That’s not a criticism, it’s just being different.”

  It still felt a little like a criticism, even to hear it from Magda. Annie wrapped her fingers around her warm mug, hoping that it would help her to feel less small and empty.

  Annie could see how, maybe, Devon and Magda didn’t mean to make her feel bad. It wasn’t their fault that Annie had always wished she was more like them and didn’t give up on things. She sighed.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “I can see how to me it feels like he’s throwing my flaws in my face but to him it’s just a statement of how we’re different.” And Annie could see, too, how Devon would be upset by her unraveling his knitting. Even though she still felt that he had said he didn’t want to make a scarf, and so she’d assumed he wouldn’t mind.

  She looked across the table at Magda. “So what do I do now?” she asked. “I can’t ask him not to point out things that I think are flaws. How is he supposed to know what those
are?”

  “No,” Magda agreed. Annie wished she would’ve said that of course Annie could ask him not to point out things that Annie thought were flaws. “But you could tell him that you think they are flaws,” she pointed out. “Explain to him why it upset you so much to have him say that.”

  The thing was, that Annie hadn’t really thought about why it had upset her. Not until Magda had started asking her questions about it. What if Devon wasn’t interested in finding out?

  Sucking her lower lip, Annie tried to imagine how that conversation would go. She didn’t want to tell Devon what she thought her flaws were. What if he agreed? “What if he didn’t think it was a flaw before, but me telling him makes him realize that it is?” Annie asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it be giving him reasons not to be with me?”

  Despite the hurt that Annie still felt, she wanted to be with Devon. He was different from any other man she’d ever dated. He had learned to knit, just so he could understand Annie’s interest in it. And until today, he hadn’t seemed to judge her. Still. The thought of telling him the worst things about herself made Annie feel vulnerable in a way she wasn’t at all sure she liked.

  Magda seemed to sense that. She set her coffee cup down in order to reach across the table and give one of Annie’s hands a squeeze. “It’s okay to have flaws, Annie. Everyone has flaws,” she told Annie gently. “And if he likes you - maybe even if he loves you - he’ll accept those flaws. But he can’t know that you’re upset unless you tell him.”

  It was good advice. Annie knew that. She wondered how Magda’s relationship was and whether she was successful at following her own advice. To Annie, who had never talked about negative things with someone she was dating, it seemed... weird. Surely you were meant to have a good time together? This did not sound like a good time.

  Lifting a hand to her temple, Annie tried to rub away the slight tension that had gathered there. Everything Magda said made sense. It was just so different from the way Annie had always been with people. It wasn’t as if she believed that she was perfect, or even that she thought other people saw her that way. She’d just never had anyone say it to her face before.

  “I guess maybe he’s used to people teasing him about being different,” she mused. “So he didn’t think it would be upsetting.” Unlike Devon, Annie hadn’t grown up in that kind of environment. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have felt so hurt.

  Even though it had only been a few hours, Annie already missed Devon. She hated that they’d left things on bad terms. She wanted to fix it. She just wasn’t sure a conversation about what she thought was wrong with her was going to do that. “Do you tell Henry when he’s upset you?” Annie asked.

  “Yeah, I do.” Magda nodded. “Honestly, Annie, Henry’s a moron.” She sighed dramatically, making Annie give a startled laugh. “He wouldn’t know I was upset if I sat in front of him crying. I have to tell him. Otherwise he won’t know.” She shook her head. Truthfully, Annie couldn’t even imagine that.

  “It’s taken some time to get used to it. For him, too. He’s never dated anyone who’d tell him. His exes used to just get angry with him for not getting it and then break up with him. Talking is a lot easier, in my opinion.”

  Thinking about breaking up with Devon, a cold chill seemed to fill the pit of Annie’s stomach. She didn’t want that. If talking would mean they could stay together, she could certainly give it a try.

  “Doesn’t it make you feel… anxious?” she asked. Even though Annie was convinced Devon wouldn’t want to hurt her, the idea of telling him all her flaws so that he could avoid them was still unsettling. What if there were too many? Or what if Devon started to see them as flaws because she did?

  “Anxious about what?” Magda asked with a frown. “You said Devon’s super focused, right?” Annie nodded in confirmation. She definitely had told Magda as much. Even if she hadn’t, Magda could probably guess. She knew that Devon was not only a pro-hockey player but a goalie.

  Magda gave Annie a look that seemed to imply Annie should be connecting the dots of whatever she was talking about. When that didn’t happen, Magda shook her head. “Some people would see that as a flaw. Being too focused. There’s a saying, isn’t there? ‘Having blinders on’? That’s about being so focused on one thing that you miss another. But you don’t think that’s a flaw in Devon.”

  No, Annie really didn’t think it was a flaw at all. “I admire it,” she confirmed. “I’ve told him that.” Annie didn’t think that Devon admired her for not finishing things. But he had been interested in why she’d learned to knit. He’d even seemed impressed that she’d picked it up from YouTube tutorials. He hadn’t cared that Annie didn’t always get the results she wanted.

  “So, you’re saying it’s all subjective?” she asked. “That something that seems like a strength to me, might seem like a weakness to someone else.” That did make sense. It meant that Devon couldn’t have known that Annie saw her abandoning projects as a flaw. Not without her telling him.

  “That is what I’m saying, yeah.” Magda nodded. “But also, something that seems like a weakness to you might seem like a strength to someone else.” Annie doubted Devon thought her inability to stick with a project was a strength. It seemed unimaginable that anyone might think that. But then, maybe that was because Annie worried it was a bad thing.

  She supposed she could only find out by asking. No matter how vulnerable that conversation might make her. Maybe she didn’t have to be the only one making herself vulnerable.

  “If everyone has flaws, does that mean that everyone also thinks they have flaws?” Annie asked. It was hard to imagine Sawyer or her dad ever admitting to anything being a flaw. Her dad, in particular, was so sure of himself all the time. And Annie couldn’t imagine what Devon might see as a flaw in himself. But maybe there was something. Something Annie wouldn’t want to accidentally make him feel bad about, the way he’d accidentally made her feel bad.

  “I think a lot of people actively avoid thinking about their flaws,” Magda shrugged. That actually made a lot of sense to Annie, especially in the context of her dad. If he had flaws, things he worried about, then he was very good at not showing it. Maybe that was why Annie worried so much about showing hers. It certainly hadn’t been something that had been discussed in her house growing up.

  Magda took another sip of her hot chocolate, before setting the cup down. “So are you still super angry at Devon?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at Annie.

  It made Annie give a flicker of a smile. “No,” she admitted. Magda was really a very good friend. Annie had been letting her hurt and her anger cloud every rational thought. Magda had somehow known how to help her break through it. “I’m still a little nervous,” Annie admitted. “But I don’t believe Devon would want to hurt me. So if I tell him how not to, I think he’ll listen.” Maybe Devon wouldn’t always be able to avoid it. Trusting that he would try meant a lot.

  “Will you let me take you out to dinner, as a thank you?” Annie asked. “I drove all the way here. I don’t want to drive back without catching up with you properly.” It would be good for Annie, too. She could get her mind off Devon until her emotions had stabilized a little. Besides, Annie really did want to hear more about everything that was going on in Magda’s life.

  Magda gave a soft laugh at that. “Of course, I’ll let you take me out to dinner.” She nodded. “Stay the night at mine? We’ll have some wine and watch some romcoms, that’ll cheer you right up,” she promised. It did sound nice. And it was something Annie hadn’t done with Magda in forever.

  “But first,” Magda said, tapping her fingers against the table. “You need to text Devon and tell him that you’ll talk to him soon, so he knows you’re not angry at him.”

  It was a good point. Annie didn’t want to leave Devon wondering when she was going to come back, or even if she was going to come back. Magda politely finished her hot chocolate in silence while Annie tried to figure out exactly what she wanted to say.

&
nbsp; It took her several attempts. Finally, she settled on a message.

  I’m sorry that I overreacted. I’m spending the night with Magda, but can we talk when I get back? Annie xxx

  She had to put her trust in Devon that he would give her a chance to explain, that he would at least try to understand why she’d been so upset. Annie hoped that he would. Until then, watching romcoms with Magda was exactly what she needed to take her mind off it.

  Chapter Twelve

  DEVON WAS GRATEFUL for the message that Annie had sent him. It didn’t completely fix the fact that Devon felt bad about what had happened, but it did give him hope. He’d thought a lot about what had been said. And where he might’ve gone wrong. It was his mom who’d suggested Devon think about how he’d said things. That was how he’d figured that saying that Annie didn’t bother to finish her projects was probably where the problem lay.

  While he did mean that unlike her, he would’ve liked to finish something, Devon hadn’t meant it as a bad thing. On reflection, he could see how it might’ve sounded like he did. Devon’s anxiety about unfinished projects hadn’t helped matters.

  Annie had texted him to let him know she was getting back from Green Bay the following day. Devon had been tempted to ask her to come over straight away. He’d thought better of it. Maybe not seeing each other for a couple of days would give their emotions time to cool.

  After training on Monday, Devon had asked Annie if she’d like to come over for dinner. He wasn’t great at cooking, far from it, but Devon was pretty excellent at ordering takeaway.

  It arrived only a few minutes before Annie did. Devon gave her a smile when he opened the door. “Hey,” he said letting her in. “I ordered Chinese, I hope that’s alright.”

  The smile that Annie offered was a little more hesitant than Devon was used to. But he was going to take it as a good sign that Annie was smiling at all. “Yeah, it smells good,” Annie agreed, letting Devon help her out of her jacket. “And maybe some wine?”