Page 79 of Anatomy of a Player

Within ten minutes, we were in Beck’s Land Rover, waiting in the long line of cars to get out of the parking lot. Usually we left after everyone else, and I’d forgotten how difficult it could be to get out of here right after a game.

Anxiety like I hadn’t felt in years rose to the surface, reminding me just how much I hated feeling helpless and out of control. I drummed my fingers on my thigh, focusing on each tap. Whitney had become a huge part of my life in such a short time, and the thought of her being hurt and me not being there shredded my insides.

I counted the cars in front of us. Five more and we’d be at the exit. “Would Lyla leave in the middle a game unless it was an emergency? Like say, something bad happened to her roommate who never showed up?”

Beck glanced at me. He was tenser than usual, too, but he appeared to be handling it better than I was. “Not usually. But an emergency for Lyla could be that she found out she got a B on a test and thought she had to go study that very second, or there could be a stray cat in need…” He smiled and shook his head, but then his expression turned serious again. “Although that scenario seems unlikely while she was at the game. She gets scary focused, though, and whatever she’s working on takes over and becomes an emergency.”

When the car in front of us didn’t move, even though the car in front of it had, Beck honked the horn. “Go already.”

We crawled forward a few inches and Beck glanced at his phone again. “Then she doesn’t answer her phone, which drives me crazy, because I start thinking of every bad thing that could’ve happened. And if it’s an actual emergency, I need to get to her, and these cars are all going so damn slow.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t handling it as well as I’d thought. We finally reached the exit, and he punched the gas. We lurched out of the parking lot, and he took a sharp right onto a side street to get away from the busier roads.

“I never thought about all the things that could happen to a person in a day when you’re not around them,” I said. “Car crashes and muggings and crazy people with guns…”

Beck accelerated through a yellow light, and I braced a hand on the dashboard. “My mind has never done this to me before. I care about the guys on the team, of course, but they can take care of themselves. Not that Whitney can’t, but…”

“But you want to be there to protect her from everything at all times?” Beck asked.

“Yeah. Forcing her into a bubble and slapping a tracking device on her suddenly doesn’t seem like a crazy idea. What’s that all about?”

“I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it,” Beck said. “I didn’t handle it so well when it happened with Lyla, and if you bail out of the truck right now, the girls will gang up on me. They’re surprisingly scary when they combine their death glares.”

Despite the worry still digging at me, I laughed.

“You’ll see,” he said, and I realized I wanted to see. I wanted to know Whitney and the people who were important to her that well.

I’d spent too much of my childhood feeling like I didn’t have any control, and when I left home, I swore I’d never have to live that way again. If I controlled a situation, I could predict the outcome with fairly accurate certainty.

On the ice, I completed the plays. I conditioned and practiced, giving my all to compete at the level I did. Yeah, there were situations that arose, or mistakes made, but I learned from them, made the necessary changes, and then I was back in control. In school, I put in time and did what I needed to pass classes, even when I hated them and it required extra help.

With Whitney…I’d never fully be in control. It’d been that way from the beginning. Part of the reason I craved being with her was that I didn’t have to think about being in control. I could let go and just be myself, without being afraid it’d come back to bite me.

The uncertainty of how it would ultimately end scared me, though. If I went all in, it meant I had something to lose, and I might try my hardest and still fail. Because being me meant I screwed up a lot.

I didn’t tell people that I cared about them, either. I was sure Dane knew, but it wasn’t like we sat around talking about it. My mom made it hard to say aloud, and lately she rarely expressed anything but her disappointment that I wasn’t making it easy for her to marry her abusive ex. I thought I’d shown Whitney, but judging by our earlier conversation I hadn’t, not well enough. If she knew how I felt about her, she wouldn’t worry that I’d treat her the way I had girls in the past. I still didn’t know if I could give her everything she deserved, though. If I even had what it took to make a real relationship work—I’d certainly never seen or experienced one that hadn’t ended badly.

The thought of asking for relationship advice made me cringe, but I was desperate enough to do it anyway. “How do you make it work with hockey and school and everything else? I want to, but sometimes it feels like I’m barely hanging on as it is. I worry that I’ll try and fail, and then the only thing I’ll have accomplished is hurting both of us.”

Beck slowed as he made the turn that would take us to the apartment complex. “It’s one thing to realize you’re in love with a girl, but it’s another to discover you can’t live without her. When that happens, you just make it work, whatever it takes.”

The statement made the hair on my arms stand on end.

Truth was, I still equated caring with pain. But it was too late not to care, not to be involved, not to have whatever happened to her tied to me.

The thought of not having Whitney in my life… My lungs flattened, like they’d refuse to work if that ever happened.

I didn’t want to live without her.

Icouldn’tlive without her.

Earlier I’d thought I could get by with just her friendship, but fuck that. She was everything I wanted, end of story.

I was in love with her.

And as soon as I made sure she was okay, I was going to tell her.

Chapter Forty-Four

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