Center Ice (Entangled Crush) (Corrigan Falls Raiders)

by Cameron, Cate

  I didn’t want to hear any of this. I just wanted to find Tyler, and…distract him? Make him worry about me instead of about the game? Wasn’t that why I’d been coming to the arena in the first place?

  “I think you can see the problem,” Brett said gently. “Even talking to him about this conversation? Asking him what he thinks you should do? Even doing that will be a distraction. He’ll be worrying about this instead of about his game. Do you see that?”

  “It should be his choice,” I managed to say.

  Brett frowned. “He’s made his choice, Karen. Every morning when he got out of bed before dawn to go to the rink, he made his choice. When he left his family behind so he could play hockey, he made his choice. He’s made it so many times already. But now? If he feels guilty, if he feels like he has to protect you and look after you? Is that really a choice he’s making, or is it a choice you’re making?”

  I felt a bit sick. I’d done nothing but create trouble since I got to town. First the Beacons, and now Tyler. “What am I supposed to do?” I whispered.

  Brett put a kindly hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug it off, but I couldn’t seem to find the energy. “A clean break is probably best,” he said gently. “After the game tonight, you can just tell him you need some space. Tell him you want to be friends, or whatever, but that there are too many changes in your life and you need to keep things stable. That would work, right?”

  Of course it would work. It was almost the truth. It was what I’d already told Tyler, and he’d believed me then and given me the space I thought I needed. And I’d gone running to him as soon as I’d been upset, dragging him away from his team dinner, acting like I was the only one who mattered.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I think you do.” He smiled again, and I really wanted to punch him right in his smarmy face. He was a con man, trying to control Tyler because if Tyler made lots of money, Brett would make lots of money. I wasn’t stupid enough to miss all that. But I also wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the truth of what he was saying.

  “I need to go,” I said, pushing myself off the bench.

  “Be back for the game,” Brett said firmly. “Until you’ve officially broken up, you need to be supportive.”

  I didn’t answer. I just walked away, even though I had no idea where I was going to go.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  - Tyler -

  I pulled the truck into the lot at the park and wasn’t too surprised to see someone Karen-shaped sitting on one of our benches. Her step-mother had called me at the rink, looking for Karen, and said just enough to freak me out. I’d tried Karen’s cell, and when she hadn’t answered I’d convinced Coach to let me take a quick road trip. He’d made it clear I wouldn’t start in the game if I didn’t get back in time for the pre-game skate, but that was okay. It was still early in the season, and our rookies needed ice time. Coach wouldn’t have let me go if he’d thought it was a big deal.

  But now that I’d found Karen, I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do about it. Mrs. Beacon had been a bit vague on the phone, just saying that Karen had overheard something she shouldn’t, and they needed to talk, and I should tell Karen that nothing she’d heard meant anything. Probably something with Miranda, I figured, so I hadn’t asked too many more questions.

  Sitting there in the parking lot, though, I wished I had a better idea what I was getting into. I reminded myself that this was Karen and I needed to just get over myself and go make sure she was okay, and that helped. So I headed across the grass toward her, and when she saw me coming, she straightened up like she was bracing herself. Like something unpleasant was coming. It totally threw me off.

  “You okay?” I asked, trying to sound casual and gentle.

  “What are you doing here? You’ve got a game.” She sounded like she was accusing me of something. Sounded kind of like my father, to be honest.

  But I tried to ignore that. “Mrs. Beacon called. She said she was worried about you, and said you weren’t answering your phone. And you didn’t answer when I called, either, so that made me a bit worried myself. So…here I am.”

  “Your game,” she said. “You need to be at the game. You can’t be chasing me around, dealing with my stupid shit, not when you’ve got something important going on.”

  “Okay, well, it’s not a big deal. It’s just hockey, right? Just the Corrigan Falls Rangers? Nothing to get upset about. But, yeah, I should get back as soon as I can. So, do you want to tell me what’s going on? Or maybe just call Mrs. Beacon and talk to her?”

  She stared at me, then looked away, over to the forest, her face kind of twisted around, and I realized that she was trying not to cry. It shouldn’t have felt weird to sit down beside her, but it did, especially when I felt her body tense up. “What can I do? I’ll help, but you’ve got to tell me what you need. Seriously, I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “No, you don’t,” she said, and she sounded angry. “You have no idea, and it’s none of your business. Look, I have my own stuff, okay? It’s mine, and I’ll deal with it. I don’t need your help.”

  That was pretty clear. It felt wrong to pretend there was nothing going on, but it also felt wrong to ignore her instructions. “So you want me to just leave? Can you at least call home and check in with her?”

  Karen whirled toward me. She wasn’t trying to control her tears anymore. “You need to go to your game. Do you not understand that? This is a big year for you, and you can’t…you can’t…” She stopped talking, then, and turned right around so only her back was facing me.

  “I’m fine,” I tried, but she shook her head really hard, making it clear she wasn’t listening to me. “What the hell?” I said, mostly to myself. Everything had been fine, and something had happened, and now everything was wrong. And Karen was suddenly obsessed with me playing hockey? “Should I call your step-mom?”

  She shook her head then sat up straight. I could see her taking a deep breath, and then letting it out and taking another. Trying to calm herself down. I was definitely in favor of that idea. Except that after another breath, she turned to face me, and something in her expression made my stomach clench.

  “This isn’t working for me,” she said. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I need more space.”

  “What? Because of…what? Because you heard someone say something mean about you? Is that what happened? Jesus, Karen, who the hell cares what someone else says, and what does that have to do with you and me?” I needed to figure this out. “Did you hear someone say something about me? I honestly don’t think I have any secrets, but if you heard something you don’t like, you should tell me what it is. You need to give me the chance to at least explain it, okay?”

  “It’s not about you,” she practically snarled. “It’s about me. And I don’t have to explain it to you, or give you a chance to explain it to me, or anything else. It’s not your choice, it’s mine.”

  “But—”

  “Leave me alone, Tyler. It’s over. Go play your stupid game.”

  It didn’t make any sense. But maybe these things never did. Maybe I was just one more in a long line of idiots who thought things were going well when they really weren’t. I mean, Karen wasn’t the first girl I’d slept with, but she was my first real girlfriend. And this was my first real dumping. Maybe they always felt this way. Maybe one person was always mad, and the other one was always shocked, almost dizzy with confusion and fear and denial. “I could call you later,” I tried.

  She stood up and took a few steps away from the benches. “I won’t answer.”

  I had no idea what to do. I don’t remember deciding to go back to the truck, but somehow, I was in it, staring through the windshield at Karen, back on the bench, with her knees all curled up like she was hugging herself. Hugging herself because she had no one else to do it. I found my phone and dialed, and when Mrs. Beacon answered I said, “Karen’s at the park, the one down from your house, with the forest. She’s…upset, I
guess. She didn’t want to talk to me.” Didn’t want to talk to me ever again, but I wasn’t going to tell that to someone I barely knew. “But maybe you should go see her and make sure she’s okay.”

  “I’m on my way,” Mrs. Beacon said, and she hung up.

  I sat there in my truck until I saw Mrs. Beacon pull in a few spots down, and then I backed out and headed for the arena. Karen didn’t want me. I might as well go play my stupid game.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  - Karen -

  At first when the shadow fell on me, I thought it was Tyler, and I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to send him away again. I’d barely been able to do it the first time. I was too selfish to do what was best for him, even if I knew I’d end up hating myself for ruining his chances.

  So when I half-turned and saw Natalie standing there, I was torn between relief and disappointment. It took me a moment to realize how upset she looked, and to trace her expression back to any sort of source.

  “I’m so sorry you heard that,” she said, and I honestly thought she was talking about hearing what Tyler’s agent had said to me.

  I figured out what she meant before I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have to change the words I was going to say. “It’s good that I heard it. I needed to hear the truth.”

  “The truth?” Natalie sounded angry. “The truth is that I’m not a little girl and my parents don’t make my decisions for me. The truth is that you’re part of this family. Part of my family. You have a home with me, a home with your brother and your sisters, for as long as you want it. Do you understand?”

  It should have made me happy, but it didn’t seem nearly as important as it had a couple hours earlier. “I wrecked your marriage,” I said.

  “Oh, please.” She still sounded kind of impatient. “You don’t have that kind of power, Karen. Will and I damaged our marriage. His actions and my inactions. He ignored our vows, and I let him. That’s nothing to do with you.”

  “So it’s just a coincidence that it all went wrong a couple weeks after I moved up here? Seriously?”

  Natalie sighed. “No, I guess it’s not a coincidence. I suppose you were a bit of a catalyst. And Matt’s behavior was a bit of a catalyst. Honestly, hearing about Miranda and Tyler, realizing that my daughter was becoming a woman and was looking at me as an example of how to deal with relationships and how to demand the respect we deserve? Another catalyst. Sending my babies off for their last year of high school, starting to look seriously at where they’ll be this time next year? That’s another doozy.” She pulled her legs up onto the bench and sat cross-legged, facing me. “Life is complicated. Relationships are complicated. But there are some things that are simple, and one of those things is your place in this family. I know it’s not traditional, and I’m sure we’ll still have plenty of adjustments, but you absolutely belong with us. And I made that crystal clear to my parents.”

  I tried to say something, tried to at least nod in a coherent way, but instead I just sort of—crumbled. I don’t know how else to describe it. If Natalie hadn’t been there, I probably would have fallen off the bench, all curled up and sobbing, but she was there. She caught me, wrapped her arms around me and let me cry into the hollow between her neck and her shoulder, just like my mom had always done when I’d needed her to.

  I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but finally I more or less got control of myself and realized that I was probably snotting all over her shirt. But when I pulled away, she smiled gently at me as if she wasn’t too concerned about that. “Tyler said you didn’t want to talk to him,” she said.

  “We shouldn’t start on that unless you want to get a lot more snot-covered.” I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding more like a sob.

  “I can always change my shirt.” She reached out and took my hand. “What did he do?”

  And that set me off again. “Nothing,” I managed to say, and then her arms were back around me and I was crying again. This time, though, I tried to keep talking. I didn’t want her thinking this was Tyler’s fault. I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone blaming him for anything—not when he already had way too much to worry about. “It’s not him. I just…he needs to focus on the game…this is his draft year. He needs to…needs to…”

  Then Natalie’s hands were on my shoulders, stronger than I’d expected, and she was holding me away from her so she could look me in the face. “What are you saying, Karen? If he broke up with you to focus on hockey, that’s—well, I suppose it’s understandable, if that’s his priority, but why would you say it’s not him?”

  “He didn’t break up with me.” I wanted back at her shoulder, but she held me away, so I kept talking. “I broke up with him. He wouldn’t want to hurt me, but that doesn’t mean I should be allowed to hurt him. I can’t distract him from…from…” I tried to remember all the words that had made such horrible sense when his agent had used them.

  “You think you were hurting him, by being with him?” Natalie sounded truly confused. “Oh, baby, why would you think that? Did he say that?”

  “Of course not! He wouldn’t say something like that.” Now it was my turn to want a little distance. “I keep telling you, this wasn’t Tyler’s idea.”

  “It was your idea?” She sounded kind of skeptical.

  “Not…not entirely.”

  Natalie pulled her sleeves down over her hands and used the fabric to wipe my tears away. Then she took both of my hands in hers. “Okay. We’re going to start at the beginning. When you left the house this morning, everything seemed good between you and Tyler. So tell me now—what changed that?”

  It felt good to go through it all. I hadn’t been able to tell Tyler, but telling Natalie felt almost as good, without worrying that I was guilting her into anything. When I was done, she shook her head at me and said, “Do you really think it’s your place to make that kind of decision for Tyler?”

  “I care about him. So, I should do what’s best for him. Right?”

  “How can you know what’s best for him without talking to him about it? How would you feel if he made that sort of decision on your behalf?”

  “I wouldn’t like it,” I mumbled. I wasn’t convinced by the argument, yet, but there was a tiny flicker of hope growing inside me that maybe I could be convinced. Maybe I didn’t have to give Tyler up. I gripped her hand more tightly than was probably comfortable. “But don’t we have to look out for people we care about? Don’t we have to…I don’t know, make sacrifices for them? Worry about their happiness instead of our own?”

  She leaned back a little, and I could tell she was trying to decide just how much she wanted to say to me. Finally, she smiled and said, “When I first found out about you—about Will and your mother—I thought about leaving him. I had two little babies and not a lot of money, and it would have been hard on my own, but that wasn’t why I stayed.” Another little smile, this one sad. “I stayed because I loved him. And when he cheated on me again, and again, and again… I stayed. I turned away and pretended I didn’t see. I sacrificed my self-respect because I was worried about his happiness. You know what I wish I’d have done?”

  “Kicked his ass?”

  Her laugh was quick and light, and even though her eyes were wet now, the sound felt real. “Yes. I wish I’d kicked his ass. I wish I’d demanded that he either follow the vows he made to me or have the guts to call off the marriage for good.” She shrugged and squeezed my fingers. “I think he’d have stayed. Because he loved me, and he still does. I just never… I never trusted that love. I never let it be tested, never relied on it to pull us through a tough time. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “I think so. But Tyler’s not cheating on me. If anything, he’s cheating on hockey, by being with me.”

  “Do you think hockey cares?”

  “Maybe! The way the agent was talking, it could really matter. If Tyler doesn’t pay complete attention to everything this year—”

  “Or, alternatively, if Tyler doesn’t ha
ve the release of being able to have fun and be with someone who doesn’t care so much about the game?” She tucked a chunk of hair behind my ear. “I can’t say what’s best for Tyler’s hockey career. But I don’t think you can, either. I think it’s Tyler’s job to figure that out. I think you need to talk to him about it, and, no. I don’t think you need to sacrifice for him and worry about his happiness instead of your own. I think if you’re going to be a real team, you need to worry about team happiness. Both of you. Not one more than the other. And I think you need to talk to each other to figure out the best way to make sure you’re both happy.”

  “I can’t decide if I believe you because it makes sense, or just because it’s what I want to hear.”

  “Maybe both?” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I mean, I am very wise. Very, very wise. So obviously what I say makes sense.”

  I couldn’t believe it, but I actually smiled at her then. “I wish—” I stopped. It might be what I wanted to say, but that didn’t mean it was what Natalie would want to hear.

  But she peered at me, gently curious. “What?” she prompted.

  “I know it wasn’t a good situation. I know you got hurt. But it wasn’t my mom’s fault, really, and I wish you could have met her. I think—I mean, in a different world, one that was less messed up? I think you would have liked each other.”

  Now it was her turn to be a bit blubbery. Or, okay, maybe we were both crying a little. “I’m sure I would have, sweetie,” Natalie said, and then we leaned together and there was one more hug before she pulled away. “But, now. There’s a handsome young man about to step on the ice at the arena, and I think he’s probably feeling a bit confused about a few things. Probably a bit upset. Do you want to splash your face off in that fountain over there and I can drive you to the rink? Maybe you can get a word with him before he goes on the ice, or we can make a sign and hold it up in the stands, or we could engage in a madcap scheme to have you apologize over the PA system, or—”