Page 67 of Mr. Charming

As my feet hit the main floor, I heard the sob from the kitchen. Tedi’s back shuddered, and she was trying to catch her breath.

I broke the distance and wrapped my arms around her from behind, sorrow and frustration and fear filling me. “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t do it.” Her voice was a raspy whisper.

I looked over her shoulder to see the phone on the counter. Her screen was black, and I didn’t want to see what I’d uncover if I opened her phone. I didn’t want to know that she was still checking the hockey blogs. But I was the delusional one, because I honestly didn’t know it had gotten this bad between us.

“Babe, we’ve talked about this. It’s all bullshit.”

She nodded and slid out of my grasp.

I shouldn’t have given her the space from me, because she grabbed her phone and threw it across the room.

“Tedi.” I’d never felt weaker than that moment. I didn’t know what to say or do that I hadn’t done already.

She walked over to the couch and sat down, burying her head in her hands.

When I joined her, her body stiffened.

As if some other creature emerged, her back straightened, and she lifted her gaze and set her eyes on me. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Her words crushed me like a hit from behind into the boards. Sure, she was different, we both were. But it was all temporary, and we’d get back to who we were.

I couldn’t find the right words to say.

“See? You know it. God, Tweetie, you know it too.”

“It’s just all the shit we’ve been dealing with. It will pass. All of it will pass.” I didn’t know if I was trying to convince her or myself.

She shook her head, and when I felt the devastation of that one small movement sink into my soul, my walls went up. I couldn’t deal with the feeling of abandonment I knew would follow if she did this. I’d been ignoring that creeping feeling since I went to Nashville, thinking that if I didn’t give it room, it couldn’t grow, but it did. Like a slow creeping vine, it had been winding its way around us, and we didn’t notice until it choked the life out of us.

“Say something. Please.” She looked at me with as much devastation in her eyes as I felt inside.

“It’s all my fault.” My voice didn’t hold any emotion as I mentally prepared the walls around my heart.

This was it. We were ending this right now, right here, and I knew in that moment I would never have with another woman what I had with her. I’d never even be able to sit in my family room again without envisioning Tedi’s tear-stricken face.

“It’s not either of our faults. But we can’t go on ignoring it. I loathe myself. I’ll convince myself one day that everything is good, we’re happy, then the slightest thing will set me off and this version of myself that I loathe comes out and I want to book a flight to Nashville so you can reassure me everything is fine.” She cried into her hands, deep, racking sobs. “I can’t do it anymore.”

My body went cold, and I went numb. I had no idea what to do, how to change this. Suddenly, I was that twelve-year-old kid again, sitting on the step and waiting for my dad to show up. Not worth anyone’s time. Anyone’s attention. Not worth sticking around for.

“So that’s it. It’s over?”

Her head popped up. She narrowed her eyes at me.

I didn’t know what she wanted me to do to fix this that I hadn’t already tried. It was my fault we were in this position. It was my injury, my trade, my job that had fucked this all up. All the hockey blog bullshit was because of me and my need to be the center of attention and Mr. fucking Charming all the time, and it wasn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Then my earlier conversation with Aiden and Ford ran through my head.

“If you want her, you have to show you’re serious. You’re asking her to give up everything for you. You need to give up something too.”

They were two men I’d looked up to. Two men who had found and kept the women they loved. I looked up to them as examples of great men and hockey players.

So I did the only thing I could. I fell to one knee and grabbed her hands.

“Tedi, will you marry me?”

Thirty-Three

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