Page 36 of Goalie Lessons

“It was…it was bad, Grayson.” Astrid puts a bit more distance between us, and I wait for something to follow that,Not because of you,orWe’re just not compatible, but nothing does. The sex was bad.

“Sorry,” I choke, shaking my head and skating back until I hit the edge of the rink and have to step off, onto the mat. “Sorry—I’m trying to—”

“No, yeah,” She shakes her head. “I knew it was a bad idea to tell you. I’m sorry—”

“I asked,” I say, holding my hands up. Right now, I simply cannot meet her eyes. “I asked, and you told me the truth. I just…yeah.”

Without looking at her, I hear her skate to the other exit, hear the sound of her skates on the mat, then her taking them off, then the gentle sound of the door closing behind her.

I stand there in my skates, blinking against the white of the ice, reeling in the aftermath of what she’s just said. Maybe I haven’t been with a ton of women, but the ones I have been with…they’ve been satisfied.

Right?

Astrid

IfIwasthekind of person who threw up in stressful situations, I’d have my head in the nearest trash can.

I’d told myself that I would not tell Grayson the truth, that I could wait it out. But with him standing there, looking at me so openly, so honestly—it just came out.

And now, I feel like a total bitch. A real one. Why didn’t I just lie? Tell him I was sick, or that we just weren’t compatible? Even after I’d told him the truth, I could have augmented it. Told him it was my fault.

But itwasn’tmy fault.

“Fuck,” I mutter, dropping my head into my hands when I reach my car and realize my keys are in my bag. I’m digging through it, trying to find it, when my phone starts to vibrate.

A California number. I chew my lip. It could be a research facility calling back about an application. I’m not in a good state to talk to someone in a professional setting, but I don’t want to let it go to voicemail. I don’t want to risk them moving onto the next person on the list.

“This is Dr. Astrid Foster.”

“Astrid?”

“…Brianna?”

“Hey,” she says, her voice sounding purposefully deflated, flat. “I think I left a necklace at your place.”

I blink against the bright Milwaukee sunshine, trying to parse this previous reality with the one I just experienced. Grayson O’Connor and Brianna don’t just feel like different chapters in a book—they feel like two different worlds. And I don’t have the bandwidth to quickly transfer from my experience with him, to this experience with her.

“Hello?” she says, making me startle, her accent getting stronger the longer she speaks. I wait to feel something—to miss her, to be angry with her for what she did. But it doesn’t happen.

I realize, with a start, that with Grayson in the arena, I experienced more emotion in five minutes than I did with Brianna in our entire relationship. And that it most certainly was not her fault.

She goes on, “Listen, I wouldn’t normally bother, but my grandmother gave it to me, and it’s important. I could come over after work any day this week—”

“I’m sorry, Bri. I’m not home.” I turn, put my hand against my car, feel the hot metal under the skin. “I can—let me talk to the doorman. Maybe he could let you in to look around.”

“You’d…let me do that?” she asks, voice small.

I laugh. “Why, are you planning on stealing something from me?”

“No. But, Astrid—you just don’t make any sense to me. I also…I mean, I wanted to apologize. For that whole…crazy thing.”

“Don’t call it crazy, Bri.”

“Sorry, I know. The stigma. But if I’m bein’ honest, that’s how bein’ with you made me feel.” She laughs, then sobers quickly. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter now.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel that way.” I’m talking to Brianna, but all I think about is Grayson. What is it about him that makes me feel wide-open? I never would have told Brianna the truth about any bad sex we might have had, so why the hell did I tell him?

“Well—it’s—I accept your apology,” she says.

---