Goal Line (Madison Howlers #4)

by Camellia Tate

  The only thing that ate away at Annie’s perfect happiness was that she still hadn’t told Devon about her dad.

  The closer they got, the more impossible it seemed. How could Annie tell him? Part of her kept repeating that Devon wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t be so petty as to send her packing for something that Annie had no control over. Her dad had owned the Green Bay Mammoths for years before Annie had even met Devon. It would be a stupid thing to break up with her for.

  The other part of Annie couldn’t help but notice the way Devon geared up for Madison’s second game against Green Bay. He said the rivalry was only professional. It certainly seemed to have an emotional component.

  Annie had promised to be there. This time, she wasn’t sitting with Sawyer. Her stomach twisted, remembering how she’d covered up the truth. She hadn’t mentioned to Devon that her brother and her dad would be in town. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t face introducing them. Not when it meant she’d have to explain. Annie wasn’t ready. She had no idea when she would be ready.

  Green Bay had won. Annie was pleased for Sawyer and her dad. But her heart went out to Devon, knowing how disappointed he would be. She remembered how he’d blamed himself for the team’s failures the last time he’d lost.

  Watching the press conference was painful. Devon didn’t have to speak, Annie could see the tension in his shoulders. He wouldn’t slump, not in front of an audience. The rest of the Howlers looked much the same. Hayden, their captain, gave brief answers about how it had been a good game, how it leveled the outcome between Green Bay and Madison. One game each. The next one would be tense and exciting. One of the Mammoths that hadn’t played the match jeered. Annie felt genuinely bad.

  Then her dad stood up to the mic. He shot Annie a smile, which only made her feel more anxious.

  “I want to emphasize how much I respect the Howlers’ players on the ice tonight,” he began, to some muttering from the Mammoths. He quietened them with a gesture. “No, I mean it. It was a tough game for everyone. You all deserve admiration for how well you played.”

  A few of the gathered Mammoths gave grudging nods. It had been a fast, exciting game, with only one goal at the last minute earning Green Bay their victory.

  “Besides,” Annie’s dad continued, “I can’t hate Madison. My daughter lives here!” He waved at Annie in the crowd. She felt a vice of panic close around her heart. No, no, this couldn’t be happening. Annie’s feet were rooted to the spot. She couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t bear to find Devon’s eyes. Was it obvious that it was her?

  Annie’s dad chuckled. “She’s even dating the enemy,” he exclaimed. The massed reporters murmured at that, turning around to try to see who exactly he was talking about.

  “Devon,” Annie’s dad said, turning. Annie wished the ground would swallow her up. “I know we haven’t been formally introduced, but you have my blessing.”

  Annie gave a choking cry, pressing her hand against her mouth as if she feared she might be sick. Maybe she did. She could hardly focus on what happened after that. The reporters surged forward so thickly, trying to take pictures of Devon and her dad shaking hands.

  Trembling, Annie felt as though a knife had lodged directly in her heart. She couldn’t get enough oxygen. A concerned, matronly woman pulled her aside, hand rubbing soothing circles on Annie’s back.

  By the time Annie had recovered enough to look around her, the players had dispersed. She hurriedly offered her thanks, declining the woman’s offer to help Annie fetch a drink.

  As soon as Annie was out of the crowd, she pelted for the home team’s changing rooms. Security must have recognized her from seeing her with Devon. She wasn’t stopped.

  “Please,” she gasped, when her pounding on the door summoned one of the Howlers, half-dressed and damp from his shower. Flustered as she was, Annie couldn’t even place which one he was. Rick something? “Please, I need to see -”

  He cut her off with a glare. “He doesn’t want to see you.” Tears welled up in Annie’s eyes. No! This had to be a nightmare. Why hadn’t she told Devon? Why hadn’t she told her dad not to make a big deal of it?

  She had plenty of time to ponder that as she waited for the rink’s car park to clear. She’d begged and pleaded, but Rick had been unmoved, his bulk taking up so much of the door that she hadn’t even been able to glimpse Devon beyond him.

  He didn’t want to see her. The words were burned into Annie’s brain, and into her heart.

  She had to see Devon. She could make him understand if only she could get him to listen to her. Weren’t they meant to be together? Annie believed that they were. Devon could see past this. He would understand that Annie hadn’t chosen for her dad to own an ice hockey team.

  She just needed to see him.

  Annie almost gave a sob of relief when Devon opened the door to his house. She tried to fling herself at him, to wrap her arms around his neck and cry into his beautiful broad shoulders. Devon caught her wrists, his grip firm but not so hard that it would bruise.

  “I’m so sorry,” Annie blurted. She’d been convinced she’d cried all the tears she had in her. Now, more leaked out into the corners of her eyes. “Devon, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what he was thinking!”

  He stepped aside to let Annie in. For a moment, her heart leaped. Maybe it was fine! But the look on Devon’s face was far from fine. Annie had never seen him look like that. It took her a moment to realize that what she was seeing was the feeling of betrayal.

  God, how had her dad managed to mess this up so much?

  “Well, it seemed to me that he was thinking that his daughter’s told her boyfriend about how her dad owns the Green Bay Mammoths,” Devon said, his voice sounding ice-cold. “It does seem like a pretty big thing. Especially when they are my team’s biggest rivals.”

  Annie’s shoulders shook as she tried to hold herself together. Devon had every right to be annoyed. Annie knew that she should have told him, and she hadn’t. Now he’d found out in the worst way. It was her fault.

  But she could make him see past it. She could make him understand. This couldn’t be the end! Annie wouldn’t let it be.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I know I should have said. But we were just getting to know each other. I didn’t know if we were even going to keep seeing each other. I wanted to wait until we were definite.”

  It would’ve sucked if Devon had refused to get to know her because of her dad’s job. But this was so much more agonizing. “I couldn’t figure out how to tell you,” Annie added. “I didn’t want you to…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  “Didn’t want me to what?” Devon almost snapped. He was clearly maintaining enough self-control not to totally lose it. Somehow, that just made Annie feel worse. She wanted him to be angry at her. He had every right. This kind of calm demeanor was... unsettling. Reading Devon was never easy. But it was especially hard when he was like this, so detached from Annie.

  Shaking his head, Devon took a step back, like he couldn’t quite face being so close to Annie. That hurt, too. “It seems like a pretty important thing to fail to mention. Why did you think you had to wait?”

  Annie wrapped her arms around herself, making a conscious effort not to follow Devon’s step away from her. It would only make things worse. She had to let him come to her when he was ready. When he forgave her.

  “Because I knew that you were rivals,” Annie answered. “And I didn’t want you to dismiss me because my dad owns the Mammoths. I - I didn’t know whether it would matter to you.” It shouldn’t, should it? Not if they were soulmates. Soulmates were able to overcome difficulties far more serious than opposing sports teams. “You were getting to know me. And that felt so good,” Annie carried on. “I didn’t want you to stop.”

  “Right, but you thought I would dismiss you?” Devon repeated. “I thought that you knew me. But fuck, Annie, how well can you know me if you couldn’t even trust me to not...” He seemed at a loss for words fo
r a moment. Annie almost thought she should interrupt. Before she could, Devon spoke up again.

  “It’s weird that your dad owns Howlers’ biggest rivals, sure. But that’s not why I’m upset,” Devon said. Annie had to frown at that. If that wasn’t it then... well, what was? Devon seemed to know what Annie was thinking. He gave a hollow laugh. “You made me look like a fucking moron in front of my team and I don’t even care! If this was how it came out to them then that’d be fine. But you didn’t tell me,” he stressed.

  Devon reached to run his hand over his face. “It’s not a little secret. It’s massive. And you didn’t trust me to know it. Worse, you thought I was going to break up with you because of it. Just how low is your opinion of me? Fuck.” Devon sighed, shaking his head. “You could have told me. We’ve been dating for months now.”

  It was so hard not to run across the room to Devon, not to wrap her arms around him and tell him that of course Annie didn’t think little of him. She admired him, cared for him, so much that the distance between them now felt unbearable.

  “I just didn’t want it to be important,” she protested, her hands digging into the soft cotton of her shirt. “I thought, if we were doing well, then it wouldn’t matter.” And they had been doing well. Until Annie’s secret had come out. And now… Now Annie didn’t know how to apologize enough.

  It didn’t feel like that big a secret. “It doesn’t change anything about me,” she pointed out. “I don’t have anything to do with the business.” Annie blanched because that wouldn’t always be true.

  “That’s not...” There was such a sharpness of frustration in Devon’s tone. Annie could tell he had to stop because he couldn’t even get the words out. She’d heard people advise other people to count to ten if they needed to compose their thoughts. She’d never seen someone do it. But that seemed to be precisely what Devon was doing as he stood there, saying nothing at all for what felt like ages but couldn’t be more than ten seconds.

  “I don’t care about the fact that your dad owns the Mammoths. It’s weird but it’s fine. I would have told you that if you’d mentioned it. It’s not a problem for me,” Devon told her. Again, Annie frowned. Devon kept telling her what wasn’t the problem - but Annie didn’t know what was! “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me and I... I don’t know if I even know you.”

  “Of course you know me,” Annie rushed in. Unlike Devon, the last thing she felt capable of was patience. Annie wanted to fix this, she wanted to put it behind them. She had a sinking feeling that wasn’t going to be something she could do. Devon was the only one who could decide whether he could get past this.

  The thought that he might not, forced a sob to claw its way out of Annie’s throat. “I’m still the same person, Devon,” she explained. “Everything else that I told you was true.” She’d had no reason to lie about anything else.

  “I didn’t know you, not at first. But then, by the time I did, I was scared to lose you.” Annie meant what she’d said. She hadn’t known when the right time was. Too soon and Devon might not have cared enough not to dismiss her. Too late, and she knew precisely what she was risking!

  “You wouldn’t have lost me by telling me the truth,” Devon said, shaking his head. “But you didn’t. Instead, you decided that I would... what? Break up with you because of who your dad is?” He rolled his eyes. Annie’s heart skipped a beat. Did this mean that Devon didn’t mind? If they could just talk this out and make things okay then...

  “I need a break. I can’t... Tonight is not the night to make big decisions. I’m going to ask you to give me space.”

  Annie’s heart turned over in her chest, before sinking down into the pit of her stomach. Giving Devon space was the last thing she wanted to do. Space meant time away from her, time to decide that they weren’t compatible, time to get used to being on his own again.

  “Please,” Annie said, balling her hands into fists just to keep from clutching at him. “We can talk through this. Don’t make me leave.”

  They had to be able to work it out. Annie could barely face the thought of returning to her apartment. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

  “Maybe,” Devon nodded. “But not tonight. I can’t...” He paused to take a deep breath. It reminded Annie that finding out about her dad wasn’t the only thing that had happened tonight. Devon and the Howlers had lost. This must feel like salt in an open wound. Annie felt awful about it. She so desperately wanted to make it up to Devon.

  But he wouldn’t let her. Or maybe couldn’t let her. She didn’t know. But Annie did know Devon well enough to recognize that he had made his mind up about this not being something they could solve tonight.

  “I’ll message you,” he told her, before nodding towards the door. “Please, Annie, just leave.”

  The tears rolling down Annie’s cheeks didn’t seem to move him at all. Annie couldn’t summon the energy to wipe them away. She felt awful. She wanted Devon to know that, to understand that she regretted every part of this.

  Slowly, she turned towards the door. Part of her hoped that he would change his mind, call out to stop her at the last minute.

  He didn’t.

  “I’m so sorry, Devon,” she said again, hand fumbling for the door handle. “Please, don’t forget that.”

  She took in one last glimpse of him, feeling like her soul had shattered into a million pieces. And she was leaving half of them on Devon’s floor.

  Once she’d closed the door behind her, Annie slumped against it. She didn’t know where to go. She didn’t want to be alone. Her fellow students that she lived with were nice, and all, but not so close that Annie could go to them with her heartache.

  It seemed to take forever before she made it to her car. She drove away so that she wouldn’t have to stare at Devon’s windows, wondering whether he was still up, what he was thinking.

  Annie barely remembered getting home. She’d gone straight to bed, where she’d tossed and turned for hours without getting a wink of sleep.

  She’d ruined everything. Devon didn’t know how to trust her now, but that wasn’t what kept Annie up all night. What hurt the most was knowing that she’d hurt him. Humiliated him in front of his team.

  In a lot of ways, he was right. And Annie needed to know how to fix it.

  Sawyer was still in town after last night’s game. He agreed to meet Annie for strong coffee early the next morning.

  She explained everything. Annie winced when she had to admit that she hadn’t taken Sawyer’s advice to tell Devon after the first Howlers-Mammoths game. Maybe if she’d done it then, it would have been okay.

  “What do I do?” Annie asked, her tone sounding as anguished as she felt. “You must have had fights with Charlotte. How do you fix it?”

  Sawyer, to his credit, seemed to genuinely consider Annie’s question. He took a sip of his coffee with a small, thoughtful frown. “I think firstly you need to do as he asked and give him time,” Sawyer decided. It wasn’t the advice Annie wanted to hear. But she understood why he said it. Respecting what Devon wanted did seem pretty important.

  “Honestly, Annie, it’s a pretty shitty situation,” her brother commented. And yeah, Annie was aware. “He’s obviously upset. But he didn’t break things off with you right there and then, right? So that’s a good sign, I think.”

  It was a small piece of hope. Annie held onto it with all her heart. Devon hadn’t broken up with her, and he had said that he would message her.

  Annie wasn’t sure if she believed him.

  “Do you think what he said is true?” Annie asked. “Do you think I don’t trust him enough?”

  Sawyer sighed again. Annie worried her lower lip between her teeth. She wanted her brother to agree with her, to tell her that she was right and Devon wasn’t. But Annie also knew that it wouldn’t really make her feel better. It was Devon who she wanted not to think that way.

  “I can understand why he might feel that,” Sawyer finally said. Annie’s heart sank a little. �
��You worried about telling him and he feels like you shouldn’t have. That you should’ve just trusted him.” That was more or less what Devon had said. Annie nodded.

  Sawyer gave a small shrug then. “Why did you assume he’d take it badly? Like, I get at first, he’s a stranger, but... what about like last week?” Sawyer, Annie felt somewhat kindly, did not say ‘or when I told you ages ago to tell him’.

  Annie wasn’t sure it was completely fair to say that she had assumed Devon would take it badly. “I just… didn’t know how he would take it,” she clarified. “I hoped he’d be okay with it, but I was never sure.”

  In the cold light of day, Annie could see how that meant she hadn’t trusted Devon. He’d given her no reason not to. He’d been nothing but accepting of Annie, even of things that she considered to be flaws.

  “I was scared,” Annie admitted. “I was scared I would lose him. But I’m more afraid now.” And it was Annie’s fault. If she’d told Devon before, maybe they wouldn’t have had to go through this.

  Sawyer took a step closer, putting an arm around Annie’s shoulder so he could pull her into half a hug. “I know, sis,” he promised. “And hopefully Devon will, too.” There wasn’t, Annie supposed, much else that could be said about that. She couldn’t force Devon to get it. The most Annie could do was accept that not telling him had ended up hurting him.

  She wished she could go to him, to explain, but Sawyer was right. She had to respect Devon’s request for space. No matter how painful the silence from him might be.

  “Guess it’s time for language-tapes and a craft project to keep my hands busy,” she said, doing her best not to cry. She didn’t want Sawyer worrying about her when he drove back to Green Bay.

  Thinking about craft projects just made Annie think of Devon, how he’d promised to support her and encourage her.