Page 53 of Puck to the Heart
Honesty was the worst excuse. I wanted to warn him of what I was like, what he could look forward to if we stayed together.
You can’t fuckingletyourself be happy, can you?
Words Alex hurled during one of my self-destructive bouts of melancholia, and words I’d internalized in the years since.
And the way Ash turned inward after my story… maybe he was upset. Something I said switched off the playful gleam in his eye, and I needed to figure it out to fix it, but now wasn’t the time to drown in my personal shit.
The meeting… did not go well, and my plans for the day collapsed in one fell swoop. The Very Important Persons in the meeting included all the old men with the letter ‘C’ in their title, and they all treated the meeting like a boys’ club, joking with each other and Brad and asking me to make coffee. I wished I had the guts to be more assertive in those situations, but I also had to navigate the delicate balance of being one of the few women in the company with care.
Any ‘outbursts’, AKA normal decibel level assertions, would have me deemed emotional in one spin of a centrifuge, and as much as I complained, I needed my job.
I brought up my outreach idea after presenting excellent data and growth projection, hoping my positive impact would give me a leg up.
Nope.
Instead, they bypassed me and asked Brad for further details aboutmydata. I wanted to tear my hair out. Tear off their badly made hairpieces.
Seriously,that much moneyandthat’sthe toupee theyallbought? They all had the same fake hair glued to their foreheads.
The scraping of chairs announced the end of the meeting. Naturally, they invited Brad to lunch, leaving me behind to push their chairs back in place and toss their copies of my meticulous notes in the trash. At least there were a couple of donuts left, so I swiped those and headed to my office.
As I stuffed a Boston Creme in my mouth, I couldn’t help but overhear Brad’s overeager voice.
“—Knights game tonight. You know I met Ash Wilder? He’s a chill dude. We’re bros now.”
“Good on you, son. You should see if you can get tickets. Those Knights are tearing up the ice this season. I know it’s early, but they’re already talking about the playoffs on ESPN.” Richard, or Robert or whatever the fuck his old man name was, said. I wanted to smack Brad.
But he did give me an idea.
I neededto come clean to Olivia about why I’d been so enthusiastic about giving her what she wanted but hedging away when it came to my pleasure. Especially after she’d shared her history with me, something I realized must have been nearly impossible for her.
She wasn’t the problem.
I was.
All the times someone used me. Not just for sex, though that reason was the worst. I wasn’t kidding when I called myself a dick on skates. Even if Olivia wasn’t using me, no matter how selfishshethought she was being, it hung in the back of my mind, coloring our interactions, reminding me of past rendezvous.
And the possibility of it happening again left me sick. It hadn’t occurred to me until the morning after she stayed over and rushed out, and a million conflicting emotions rushed in like a hurricane.
When she texted me later, I’d nearly collapsed in relief.
All of this was too intense for conditioning because I’d already lost count of my bench press reps twice. Craig, our reserve goalie, stared down at me as I held the loaded barbell suspended in the air.
“Uh, do you know how many reps that was?” I asked.
“Maybe twelve?”
Well, I couldn’t fault the guy for not paying attention if I wasn’t either.
“Let’s call it. You want to go?” I racked the bar and sat up, mopping my face with a towel.
We ran through the rest of the workout, then headed to the equipment room for a gear check. I walked out as Dante walked in.
“Your girl is looking for you.”
I liked the sound of ‘my girl’. “And you know this how?”
“Eww, bro, you are nasty.” He eyed the sweat dripping down my face. “Iknow,” Dante rolled his eyes and dodged, avoiding the sweaty towel I threw in his direction. “Because she texted me asking if you were okay. Said you missed a bunch of messages.”
