Raul probably wasn’t expecting me to take that quite so literally, but I did. For the next hour and a half, we sat outside the apartment, and he held me until I couldn’t cry any longer. Only then, did I feel strong enough to head inside and make some plans.
Seventeen
José
September…
The summer had been a whirlwind of conditioning camps and skill camps. I got to go to a training camp with a team on the East Coast, but I guess they were only curious, as they signed a five-year deal with their backup goalie, promoting him to starter and from what I could see, they already had four perfectly good candidates waiting in the wings doing time with their AHL teams. Despite all the hard work I’d put in over the summer, there was still something off about my game, and for whatever reason, I couldn’t put my finger on what was going wrong. Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Scouts were interested and rumor had it a couple of big teams were lined up to visit some of our preseason games.
I dropped my stuff in my room, and I couldn’t help but notice Nora’s door was ajar. She’d been on my mind a lot over the summer, and I started to believe I’d been rather too hasty ending things with her. I rubbed my hand over my chin and stared at her door. God, how I missed her at night. It wasn’t just the sex that I missed, though that was most definitely part of it. I hadn’t been with anyone else since we split, and I was seriously missing the physical stuff. But it was more than that. I missed our chats and just holding her in my arms—and I really missed confiding in her about my anguish with my career. Nora was the freaking yin to my yang. The stuff I got caught up in—my OCD and the issues that ate at me in the middle of the night–had all seemed far less important when we’d been together. She calmed my soul, took a rational stance I was unable to see, and then everything seemed clearer to me.
Stepping closer to her door, I knocked and pushed on it. The room was empty—like completely empty, only an unmade bed and a desk remained in there. I went to her closet and there was one hanger swinging on the rail. All her stuff was gone, and so was she.
Shit. I’d been so wrapped up in all my stuff over the summer, I didn’t even know she had left. A sick feeling filled my stomach as I realized she’d probably done that because of me, too. I wandered back into the kitchen and began to prep the coffee maker. It was halfway through the brewing cycle when Kai and Angie came in.
“Hey guys, how’s things?”
They both stopped and stared at me, then Angie shook her head and turned to Kai. “I’ll be in my room, I need to do some stuff.” She glowered at me and flounced down to the room she shared with Kai.
“Hi, Angie. Yeah, I had a great summer, did you?” I called after her, my voice laced with sarcasm, but she ignored me completely and slammed the door behind her. I turned back to Kai to see his expression was as black as thunder. Ugh-huh, lovers’ tiff? “Did you guys have a falling out?” I’m not sure I’d ever seen Kai and her argue, but something was rattling the girl’s cage.
“No,” snapped Kai.
Jesus, what a welcome home!
“I see Nora moved out. Guess we need to find another roommate to help with rent.”
“Already done. Compton’s moving in tomorrow.”
“He is? Shouldn’t we have discussed this first?”
“I don’t think I ever want to discuss anything with you any more, José.” If Kai’s scowl was beginning to unnerve me, his words had me puzzling their meaning.
“Did I do something?” It wasn’t clear where all this animosity was coming from, considering I’d only been back five minutes. Surely, I couldn’t have upset anyone already.
Kai didn’t answer, he just took a leaf out of his fiancée’s book and walked away from me. The door to their room slammed for a second time, and I was left thinking, what the hell?
I scooped up the coffee pot and poured a huge mug of it. Just as I was sipping the scalding liquid, raised voices came from Kai’s bedroom. Huh, I guess there was trouble in paradise after all. There was a lot of indistinct shouting, and then the door flew open. A red-faced and tearful Angie came marching out.
Kai rushed out behind her, grabbing her arm. “Angie, don’t! It’s none of our business.”
She shrugged him away and put her hands to her hips. “How can you say that? Nora’s my friend. I thought she was yours, too.”
“She is, baby. It’s just not our call.”
“Fuck that! I’m making it my call.”
I was quite taken back by Angie’s vehemence, as I was not sure I’d ever heard her cuss before. Whatever they had fallen out about, it must have been a humdinger, because this couple never said a cross word to each other.
Then my head latched onto her mentioning Nora, and something made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Had Kai been fooling around on Angie? With her friend? My eyes went to him, and for a moment I wanted to fly at the guy and pummel the shit out of him. If he had been seeing Nora, I didn’t think I could keep my hands off him. At the last second, I managed to get a grip on myself. Fuck, I didn’t have any right to say who she did or didn’t see.
The next thing I knew, Angie flew at me, her red hair was wild, and her green eyes narrowed. “You are one hell of a bastard, José Estrada. How can you live with yourself after what you have done?”
I choked on the coffee I was swallowing. Woah! Wait a sec. “What the hell has any of this got to do with me? Sorry, Angie, but I have no clue what you are talking about.”
She folded her arms in front of her chest. “No, I bet you don’t. You were all up for the fun and games, but now that she needs you, you’re acting like you are covered in Teflon.”
“Angie, please.” Kai put his arm around her and tried to turn her around, but she was having none of it. She dug her heels in resolutely, throwing more daggers at me. “He needs to know, Kai. No way is he walking away from this guilt-free.”
I was getting tired of all this drama. It had been a long journey, and I was tired. The last thing I needed was my friend’s girlfriend speaking in riddles.
“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Angie stepped closer and stabbed me in the chest with her finger. “Nora has moved out because of you. She has quit her damn courses because of you. And you don’t give a damn, do you?”
“Angie.” Kai looked fiercely at his woman. “Leave it. Go back to the room, I’ll talk to him.”
Surprisingly, she stopped ranting at me and looked back at her guy. Then, with tears in her eyes, she nodded. “Make sure you do.” She huffed and then ran back to her room.
“Kai?”
“Sit down, José, we need to talk.”
I went to the sofa, dumbfounded. “Is what Angie said true? Has Nora really quit college?”
“Yes, well, sort of. She is taking a year off.”
“But why?” I mean, I could understand her moving out. I’d considered doing that myself. It was a little awkward always wondering if I was going to bump into her in the kitchen. Though as I thought about it, we never had. She’d done a pretty good job of avoiding me, and I supposed I deserved that. But to pack in her courses? Our classes never crossed, so that didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Kai rubbed his face in his hands, then stared at me sideways from the couch. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. Nora made us promise.”
“Telling me what? Come on, Kai, out with it.”
“She’s taking a year off because… she is pregnant.”
It was like the whole world just grounded to a halt. Every sound in the house seemed muted at the same time, and all I could hear was the word pregnant ominously echoing around me.
“H-how long?” was all I could stutter out.
“It’s yours, if that is what you mean.”
I got up and walked to the window, staring out across the street but not really seeing anything. Eventually, I turned back to my friend. “But how?”
“For fuck’s sake. I think you know how fucking babi
es are made, José.”
My cheeks heated. “I didn’t mean that. We used protection. She was on the pill.”
“But did you suit up?”
“Sometimes, um, not always. Actually, no not for a while.” Now I thought about it, it had been hardly ever. I’d loved the feeling of us being together, skin on skin.
“Well, maybe you should have been more fucking careful, then.”
“But… she was taking birth control,” I repeated lamely, like that was going to make any fucking difference now.
“Yeah? Well, when she got sick with that food poisoning, it was compromised.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
It was probably ten minutes before I could speak again. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a father.”
“No, you’re not going to be anything. She doesn’t want your help. In fact, she didn’t want you to know. Nora begged us not to tell you, but Angie has been… a little emotional about this.”
“Jesus, what the hell should I do, Kai?”
“Well, that is up to you. The way I see it, Nora doesn’t want you involved, so you have two choices. You ignore what you now know and pretend this never happened. Live your happy-go-lucky life and you will never know if you have a son or a daughter. Or, you behave like a man, and go see her and work something out.”
“Is she keeping it?”
“Of course, she is fucking keeping it.”
“You think, I should talk to her?”
“You know what I think?”
“What?” I guess it was shock, but I literally felt like I couldn’t move.
“I think that unless you want to be one hundred percent committed to this kid for the next eighteen or twenty years, then you should leave Nora the fuck alone.” Kai stood up. Anger was radiating off of the big guy. “You have fucking done enough, don’t you think? Leave her be. She is handling all this really well. Nora’s going to have the kid and her parents are supporting her. Next year, she’ll finish her degree, and she will bring the kid up by herself. She doesn’t need you messing with her any longer. The best you can do is keep the fuck out of her life.”
Finally, I stood up and made my way back to my room. All I could think of was how terrified I was right now. What we’d had was supposed to have been fun; it wasn’t meant to turn out like this. I had my career to think about, and I had no idea how to bring up a kid. Perhaps Kai was right, and I should just let Nora think she has kept her secret.
Except, my mother brought me up better than that. That kid had my DNA, and I knew only too well what it was like for a single mother to bring up a kid on her own. After my dad died, I’d watched my mom struggle to put food on the table and juggle multiple jobs while bringing us up. I’d seen the loneliness she dealt with, watched the sacrifices she made, the way she’d scrimped and saved to get us what we needed.
My kid deserved more than that… but I didn’t have anything more to give it. I wasn’t Charlie with a nice little NHL contract squared away. I was still a nobody, still trying to find my fucking way, and with no guarantee I ever would.
I tossed and turned all night long. In the kitchen early the next morning, Kai found me looking like shit. He looked like he’d had little sleep either. I’d heard him and Angie talking half the night–arguing too, which I knew was also on me.
He stopped dead when he saw me at the kitchen table. “You decide what you’re going to do?”
I took a deep breath. I’d gone back and forth on this all night but still hadn’t come to any conclusion. “Not yet.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me.” He walked past me, grabbed himself some coffee, and then went to sit in the other room.
I grew restless, and in the end, decided to go out for a run to clear my head. Once I started running, I didn’t want to stop. The pounding anesthetized my brain, and I moved around the city of Madison without thinking about anything. I was on autopilot, just putting one foot in front of the other. I didn’t return to the apartment until I’d made a decision.
I stumbled into the apartment, my legs like jelly after the twelve-mile run. Sweat dripped from my forehead, and I had to swipe it from my eyes. Wiping my face on the running shirt that I pulled off, I went straight towards Kai’s room and banged on his door.
When he pulled it open, I took a deep breath. “Tell me where she is.”
Eighteen
José
When I pulled up at Nora’s father’s lake house, I still didn’t know what the hell I was going to say to her. For the entire drive, I had gone over everything in my head, from that first night she slept in my bed, when all we did was watch movies and not sleep together, right up to the moment I’d found her room empty yesterday.
The more I analyzed what we had, the more I knew I missed it—no, it was her that I missed. It was a revelation that hit me quite hard, as I was not sure exactly when it was that I fell in love with her. What I did know, though, was that I was still in love with her.
Seeing her room empty had saddened me, and even if other factors hadn’t taken over, I knew I’d have dwelled on her leaving. When I’d returned from the summer, there was a large part of me looking forward to seeing Nora again. If I was honest with myself, I’d missed her like crazy, and I was beginning to think breaking up was hands down the stupidest decision I ever made.
But the bombshell about the baby had me flip-flopping all over the place. One minute I was glad she’d decided to go this alone and not tell me, and the next I was mad as hell that she made the decision for me to not be a part of my own kid’s life without even giving me the opportunity.
Taking a deep breath, I climbed from the car and headed around to the back of the house. A weight settled on my shoulders knowing Nora was not going to be pleased to see me. I’d toyed with the idea of calling her, but there was a fair chance she would have hung up on me and then vanished.
She was sitting on a sun lounger on her deck, her knees bent up against her chest as she hugged them. Looking out over the water, she didn’t move, but her hair blew gently around her face, shielding her expression from me.
When I appeared in front of her, she didn’t seem surprised to see me. “Angie said you were on the way. Why did you come, José?”
Damn it, I might have known Kai’s girlfriend would have given her a heads up. Still, Nora hadn’t bolted, so that was a good sign. But her comment threw me. I kind of hoped by the time I’d arrived I’d have figured out the perfect thing to say to her.
“God, Nora, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You said no strings.”
“I know, but this…”
“This is shackles and a prison cell for you, José. What point was there in telling you? You couldn’t handle me saying that I loved you! Honestly, there was no use telling you I was carrying your child, after you already made it clear I’d crossed the line by admitting my feelings for you.”
She looked radiant as she sat there, a little thin and pale, but radiant, nonetheless. Her hair seemed ten times thicker than I remembered, and she wore a loose dress that covered her feet while she was sitting. I wondered if she had a bump yet, and tried to calculate just how far along she would be, but my knowledge of this stuff was a little shaky.
I knelt beside her and put my hand to her beautiful face. For a fraction of a second, I thought she leaned into it, but as my thumb stroked her cheek bone, she pulled away from me.
“You never answered my question. Why are you here? If it is to try to persuade me to get rid of my baby, then it is too late for that. I’ve made up my mind, I’m keeping it, and I will bring it up myself.”
The thought that she might have even considered an alternative sent a constriction across my chest, and I backed away.
Nora climbed off the sun lounger, and when she did, her dress fell around her calves. Her breasts were bigger, full and heavy, their soft swells peeping out of the floaty fabric. She gathered up her hair that wa
s flying around her and corralled it into a ponytail that hung over her right shoulder. Her hand went to her belly, and, for the briefest second, I could see the small roundness there.
Then she was gone, striding across the grass back to the house, and I was rooted to the spot letting her walk away from me. What did I think would happen? Had I really expected her to be grateful I was there, or that she would immediately forgive the way I treated her?
When she reached the house, I realized I was in danger of losing both her and the baby forever, and the thought terrified me. Despite everything I’d ever said about no attachments, about needing to focus on my career and not a relationship, I knew I had been lying to myself. When I looked at my sister and Charlie, or Kai and Angie, there was a part of me that was jealous that they had found that one person who made them happy. They all knew who they wanted to share their successes and failures with.
I wasn’t sure if Nora and I had been quite at that point before I broke up with her, but I had gotten used to sharing my life with her the few months we were together, and I knew for sure there was no one else I was excited to tell any good news to, and she had become the first person I went to when things got on top of me.
My eyes drifted to the window on the second floor where we’d slept when I was last at the house. I remember her standing in that window after she told me she loved me. She had scared the hell out of me that night, which was why I ended things. Now, again, she was standing at the glass, looking down at me with the same disappointment I saw that last night. As soon as I saw her, my whole world turned upside down.
I ran to the door, but the thing was locked. “Nora, please let me in, we need to…” I pounded on the door and then laid my hands flat on its smooth surface. “No… I need to talk. I need to explain what a fucking idiot I am, and…” I rested my forehead against the wood. Think. She can’t walk away from me. “And I need to apologize for the way I treated you.”
Shut Out: Contemporary Sport Romance (Hockey Boyz Book 3) Page 12
