Page 54 of Passing the Red Line
“But the house sits empty for six months if not more, at least let me use it. Besides, I always planned it around the cleaning schedule. So the house would be nice and clean just in case you pop out of nowhere like tonight.”
No shame, this asshole has no fucking shame whatsoever.
“Leave and I’m changing the codes to everything. Next time take the girl back to your place.”
“Have you seen my place? It’s disgusting half the time,” he complains thinking I’m going to give him some sympathy. I’m not.
“That’s what you get when you live with five other guys. Get a hotel for all I care but stop bringing women back here when I’m not home.”
“Fine, but don’t tell my mom about it. I’ll probably get a chancla to the head,” he whines out, already cringing at the thought.
“I’m promising anything,” I say, pointing toward the front door.
“Okay, okay. I’m out,” he says, holding his hands up in deference. “It was nice to meet you, Eliana. Sorry about freaking you out. Hopefully you can forgive my brother for whatever thoughts were running through your head.”
Eliana gives him a small smile. “It was nice meeting you.”
Without another word, my brother leaves the house, leaving me and Eliana to deal with the mess that he caused.
“I’m sorry,” I say, breaking the distance between us and taking her hands between mine.
“It’s not your fault. Maybe if I had interrupted them and saw it was your brother, I wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as I did,” she says, pulling a hand from mine and wiping her face.
“Why didn’t you interrupt them? I’ve only known you for two months, but I know that you wouldn’t stand to be disrespected like that. The Eliana I know would have run over and ripped me a new one, calling me every single name in the book, and threatened to cut my dick off.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I thought I would have reacted like that too, and I have before, but the second I saw them, I just froze. My head automatically said it was you and it felt like something in me started to break. The thought of you lying to me about going to Chicago and being with someone else just started to hurt and I couldn't understand it. It made me hate you so much and instead of confronting you, all l I wanted to do was get out of here. In my head, what I was seeing was just confirmation that you were just another hockey player that was using me and now that you had what you wanted, you were throwing me to the side like I didn’t matter.”
Another hockey player.
I hate that she lumps me with another player that I assume hurt her and hurt her badly. Whoever that was is a fucking asshole, and she should know my now that I would never do something like that to her. No matter how we started, I would never hurt her as badly as the asshole who made her hate hockey did.
“An asshole cheated on you,” I say, interlacing my fingers with hers and bringing her hand up to my lips.
She nods. “He did and when it happened, I swore to myself that I would never put myself in that type of position again. I didn’t give a shit if they turned out to be professional athletes.”
“I’m guessing the bastard was a hockey player?” She nods, confirming my theory. “And he’s the other ninety percent as to why you hate the sport?”
She gives me another nod. “Yes. He’s the reason.”
“Is he in the league now?” I have to ask.
I see her throat bob as she answers. “Yes.”
“Who?” Whoever it is, if I ever come across them on the ice, is going to pay for hurting this woman.
Eliana looks up at me, her eyes filled with uncertainty as she bites down on her lip, holding the name on her tongue.
“Ellie, tell me who it is,” I urge her softly.
“You’ve never called me Ellie before,” she says, the sadness in her eyes disappearing a bit.
“And you never call me Chris,” I say like it matters.
“Because it doesn’t suit you. I like your full name better,” she says with a smile forming on her face.
She’s deflecting, I know she is. She knows that the second she tells me the bastard's name I will try to hunt him down and make playing hockey impossible for him.
As much as I want to drop it, I can’t. What that asshole did to get made her lose her trust in me even if it was a misunderstanding.
