Page 49 of Matched with the Player

A few heads turned from the seats in front of them. Obviously, they’d raised their voices. But Kyle was too ticked off to rein it in.

“I don’t know. I’m asking you, Murph. Did you fall for this girl and then just throw your hands in the air when it got rough after… what? A few days?”

“She was the one who didn’t want to try, Bro. Not me.”

“You know what your problem is?” Axel pointed a finger in his face, a ballsy move when Kyle was already walking a razor’s edge in this mood. “Everything comes easy to you. Do you know how hard the rest of the world has to work to accomplish things you take for granted?”

The rest of the conversations on the plane grew noticeably quieter. A few of the veterans popped in their own earbuds, knowing better than to get involved, but the rookies had their heads on a swivel to see what was happening.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Kyle removed the finger from his face, careful to keep his movements dispassionate so the coach couldn’t accuse them of fighting. “You’re going to spout off to me now when I just had the worst game of my life and my girl left me?”

Yeah, at this point, discretion was no longer at the top of his list.

“In your worst game, you still played twenty minutes. How do you think it makes Jocko over there feel,” he pointed to a rookie who hadn’t even dressed for the game “when you piss and moan about your missed shots when he’d give his eyeteeth to score at this level? You’re freaking gifted, man. From racing sailboats on the Cape to backyard football with your brothers, you kick everyone’s ass in any sport you try. So when an obstacle comes your way, do you even have any clue what to do about it?”

Somewhere in that little rant, some of Kyle’s anger seeped away. Possibly about the time Ax said he was gifted, whatever the hell that meant.

“You know that’s not true. Remember how I almost failed Advanced Finance?” They’d been college roommates, spending far more time on the ice than they had in the classroom.

“Because you got a girlfriend that semester.”

That was true, now that he thought about it. The class would have been a cake walk if he’d actually attended.

“I busted my butt to make up for all that material I missed.” He worked hard then and he worked hard now. Didn’t he?

Around them, the noise level on the plane picked back up again now that the possibility of a blow out seemed to have passed. Kyle grappled with the idea that he was a stranger to hard work when he’d devoted hours and hours and whole off-seasons to perfecting what he did best.

Then again, Axel wasn’t the kind of guy to start trouble for no reason. Kyle knew him better than that. Ax wouldn’t say it if he didn’t think there was some truth to it.

“I know, man. And you make a hell of a lot with what you’ve been given. But even with the women, you don’t have a lot of experience putting in the time to make a relationship successful. I tried it once and it was tough.”

Standing, Axel clapped him on the shoulder and cleared the trays away, taking them to the flight attendant at the front of the plane. Probably walking away from the conversation for good.

Leaving Kyle to wonder if he should re-think what had happened with Marissa. He couldn’t quit hockey. She hadn’t even asked him to. But maybe, if he dug deeper and worked harder, he could figure out more viable alternatives. Help Marissa see a way that she could be with him and still take care of her mom.

Because being without her now made him realize exactly how much he’d come to care about her. How much he wanted things to work out with her. He’d known even before the game in Pittsburgh that she was too important to let her slip away, but he’d gone and done just that.

Sliding his earbuds back into place, he turned up the music feeling less like he wanted to hit something and more like he wanted to fix something. He could do the hard work, whether Ax knew it or not.

How would he ever run a successful youth hockey camp if he couldn’t model strength off the ice as well as on?

Besides, Marissa Collins was worth bringing his A-game.

Now all he had to do was figure out what it would take to win back a traditional, romantic woman.

* * *

“Mom?” Marissa placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder, careful to wake her slowly. “You have a visitor.”

Brandy Collins had been taking her new treatment for five days. The doctors had warned Marissa not to expect miracles. But she was just grateful to try something different after months of seeing little progress. How could she live with herself if she hadn’t exhausted every possible avenue for her mother’s full recovery?

Now, with Stacy and Isaac waiting a few feet away in the dining room of the big, old house that had been Brandy’s home for the last ten years, Marissa watched as her mother lifted her eyelids.

“Hey, Baby Girl,” she said softly, the endearment falling easily from her lips as if she recognized Marissa—present-day Marissa—immediately. Her famous voice sounded scratchy from sleep.

“Mom?” Marissa felt a pang in her chest, the fresh stab of hope almost painful after all this time of waiting for signs of improvement. And her heart was all the more tender in the wake of her break-up with Kyle, her emotions all over the place.

Could she trust herself now- trust her belief that she’d just seen genuine recognition in her mom’s eyes? Or was she simply desperate for some sign of healing?

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