Page 6 of Shoot Your Shot

He stands, charging toward me. “Yeah, my team, Kolt. Because lately,myteam has been the last fucking thing you’re concerned about. So, guess what. You are going to stay here, in this fucking room, and talk to me. And decide where to go from here. Because I’m not standing by and watching you ruin your life and our season.”

“I’m fucking fine,” I say, heaving deep breaths in and out and staring at him.

His eyes darken, and he smirks angrily. “I don’t think so, man. I think your wife left you, and now, you’re pretty fucking set on fucking up your entire life. That’s what I think.”

“Fuck you!” I scream. So fucking pissed that I’m not even considering my voice might wake up his daughter, Amelia. Thatshould prove to him and me both how much of a shitbag human I really am.

He shoves his hand into my chest. “Tell me I’m wrong, Kolburne. Tell me that Paige leaving doesn’t have anything to do with what a fucking loser you’ve been the past few months.” He leans closer, his eyes narrowing. “Which, by the way, I don’t fucking get. Because you pretty much showed that girl the door. She might have been the one to leave, but you drove her to do it.”

I grasp his shirt as an animalistic growl comes from inside of me. My jaw tenses, and I feel my veins bulge in my neck. “You don’t know the fucking half of it, Sterns, so shut the fuck up.”

“Maybe I don’t.” He cocks his head to the side. “So, tell me.”

“You’d never get it,” I hiss. “You haveeverything.You don’t give a fuck about my problems.”

I’m drunk and angry. And even though I know nothing I’m saying makes sense, I can’t seem to stop.

“Everything?” His eyes widen. “I have a baby whose mother is dead, Kolt. One day, I’ll have to tell her that her mom died the day she was born. So, as much as I love you, buddy … fuck off.” He steps back, pulling out of my grasp.

“At least you have a fucking kid!” I roar. “At least you know you can fucking have kids!”

There’s no missing the confusion and shock on his face. Dragging a hand down the back of his neck, he frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t push my wife away for the fucking hell of it, Logan,” I mutter. “I did it because all Paige has ever wanted is to be a mom. And thanks to my fucking weak-ass swimmers, I was never going to be able to give her kids.”

His face pales as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “What are you saying? Are you saying you sabotaged your marriage? Did you even give her the option to stay?”

“Fuck no.” I scowl. “She would have just told me it was fine. Then, she would have hated me for the rest of our lives because I’d stolen the chance of her having a baby.” I plop down on the edge of the bed and look at the ground. “Fuck that. That girl deserves the world. I’m not taking it from her.”

For a moment, Logan is quiet before he eventually sits down beside me. “Kolt … I love you, man. You’re like a brother to me. But I have to tell you something.” He pauses, looking over at me. “I think you fucked up, man. I think you really, really fucked up.”

Something about those words sobers me. Because … fuck, he’s right.

IwatchThe Notebookfor God knows how many times now. Even after all the previous times though, my lip quivers when Noah says the famous line—that it isn’t over between them.

That’s a man who truly waited for his woman.

It’s been two months since Kolt pushed me to the point of no return, and I was the idiot who assumed he’d chase me. Or at the very least, that he would show up a few days later and drop to his knees to apologize and beg me to come home.

He never did though. If he did, I probably wouldn’t be here, watchingThe Notebooklike a loser on my parents’ couch.

This isn’t exactly how I pictured my life would be when I was twenty-seven. As cliché as it sounds, I thought Kolt and I would have a few kids by now and be doing things like dressing up for Halloween in those corny family costumes and decorating an obnoxiously large Christmas tree for the holidays, living in bliss. I’d be married to an NHL star, but at home … he’d just be my husband and my babies’ dad.

Life certainly steered off the course I had planned for myself—that’s for sure.

When Kolt and his little brother moved in with my family when Kolt was a junior in high school, I had the biggest crush on him. But he had that whole broody, angry-at-the-world, came-from-a-broken-home, and couldn’t-love-or-be-loved thing goingon. And because of that, he wasn’t an easy man to get close to. Yet one night, I found myself walking home, and he gave me a ride. Somehow, it felt like something shifted between us, though I can’t explain how. We felt connected in some way after that.

Although that somehow connected us, he still went back to ignoring me to stay on my father’s good side, yet my heart would still explode when I felt his stare on me after I walked into a room or when we’d brush against each other in passing.

On the night of homecoming, when I found myself in a scary situation with my date … Kolt saved me. And from that day until the day I walked out the door, we were inseparable.

My whole life, I’ve watched people get divorced. Countless aunts, uncles, and cousins of mine. Heck, even my mom and dad had a close call years ago, but they worked it out. But I never thought that would be the fate of Kolt and me. But then again, does anyone actually enter into a marriage and think it’ll end in divorce? Doubtful.

Without him, it feels like there is no me. Because for ten years, my world revolved around that man. I didn’t know who I was if he wasn’t beside me. And now, I have to figure it out.

One of the first things I am going to figure out is why my reproductive organs hate me.

For years, doctors brushed it off like I was being dramatic and that it was part of a woman’s monthly cycle. But there’s a nagging inside my head, telling me that isn’t true. Before Kolt and I separated, I was scared to learn the truth because I didn’t want to be told straight up that my chances of having a baby were slim. Now, I want to know what is wrong with my body. Because watching the calendar and dreading that time of the month has been taxing on me for years and I’m ready to fight back.

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