Page 101 of Cherry Picking
“I love you, Riley, but be honest. We fell out of love with each other—if in love was ever what we were—and stayed together because we knew each other were safe. You were my security blanket, and I was yours. There’s nothing for you to feel bad about.”
The breath trapped in my lungs skitters out, and before I can be bombarded by the emotions overcoming me, Matty scoots out of his side of the booth and slides into mine, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling my face to his neck.
“You need my permission to be happy?” he whispers into my ear as I soak his faded I Prevail t-shirt. “Be fucking happy. Be happier than anyone on the goddamn planet. You find that man, and you tell him how much you love him. If I find out you let him go, I really will haunt you this time.”
My laugh is a wet sound, but there’s a lightness that falls over me, that lifts the weight keeping my heart heavy, and each new breath in feels like that first burst of sunshine after a storm.
I pull myself free to grasp at his cheeks with shaking fingers, drawing our mutually wet eyes together.
“I love you, Matty Nichols. I will always fucking love you.”
He smiles in that vibrant way that I used to swear was my reason for opening my eyes some mornings, and it fills me with peace. Peace and longing for the man I gave my heart to after. Who patched me up and who bore my battle wounds so I didn’t have to face them alone.
“Now go love someone else more.”
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 24
RILEY
SIX MONTHS LATER
There’s a huge difference between knowing you have a problem and taking the time to work that shit out so it doesn’t bog down the people you care about.
Accepting that Griff makes me happy and I deserve to be happy was only the start of the equation. The next step was remembering who the hell I was outside of hockey and my relationships.
Which means I spent a lot of time at home, staring at ceilings and looking for anything that made me feel as alive as playing did.
Coach called me one day about going over film with some of the guys. He sent me the tape to review, and for a couple of hours all of the questions and insecurities melted away.
One game, and then two—then next thing I knew it was routine for me to watch the games online, for Coach to immediately send a copy to me, and then have a virtual meeting with the team and other coaches to make game plans.
Even if I’m not on the ice, I know this game like the back of my hand.
Seeing Griff, talking about games when we haven’t talked about anything else, it felt strange. Like a string tying his chest to mine was being plucked and twisted, like this was a tease egging us on to dosomethingabout our current non-relationship.
We’ve had a few phone calls and FaceTimes, but we always seem to avoid the topics at large: am I coming back, and are we doing this again?
The twenty hour car ride I just took with my little brother should answer the first question, and the second … well that’s going to depend on what happens when we’re face to face again.
Escorting Parker to the summer hockey camp Griff and a couple of the other guys are hosting at the practice arena isn’t the homecoming either of us had anticipated, but after six months it’s a wonder I have any nerve at all.
“The fact that Mom and Dad kept all of your old hockey gear is some serious hoarder shit.”
I laugh at Parker’s indigent attitude as he stares out the window to the sunny Chattanooga sky.
“You’re lucky they kept mymiddle schoolgear, because my freshmen stuff would have swamped you.”
Parker is starting his first year of high school this fall, and thanks to Dad making him keep up exercise, he’s got a surprisingly athletic build. But he’s still small compared to me as a teenager.
“Do you have a plan?” Parker asks, arms crossed and turned to face me. “To win the guy back?”
“Wasn’t aware I was trying to win anyone. We’re going to talk. Like mature adults.”
“Lame. Aren’t you supposed to do, like, some grand gesture or something? That’s what Mom does in her novels.”
“Why do you know that?”
