Page 2 of Thunderstruck
She means the Portland Badgers, the football team I haven’t been a part of for a year and a half. I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that she’s still paying attention to any of the guys from my old team, but that’s not important right now.
“Javi says there must be something—”
“Javi?” As my eyebrows pull low, I try not to let my anger rise. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions about my former friend. “Why were you talking to Javi?”
“We bumped into each other the other day, and he asked if you and I were still together because you haven’t posted anything about me inmonths.”
“Sage,” I say, keeping my voice gentle. “You know that I have to be careful about things on the internet, especially with all the time I spend with Derek.” As one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, Derek Riley is too high profile to be casual about privacy.
Sage scoffs. “Ah, right.Derek. With all the time you spend with him, you might as well be datinghim!”
I hold back a groan. “He’s my best friend.”
“I thoughtIwas your best friend.”
Best friends talk more than once a week, but I won’t say that out loud. Despite my best efforts, it’s been so long since I regularly spent any time with Sage that sometimes it feels like we barely know each other. I’mtryingto fix it. To get us back to where we were when I lived in Portland with her. I’m the one who moved away, but it feels like she’s the one who keeps putting the distance in our relationship.
“Sage,” I breathe, curling my free hand into a fist to try to keep myself from panicking. I don’t like where this conversation is going. “I know it’s been hard since I moved back to California, but—”
“Hard?” She laughs. “No, I don’t think you know the meaning of the word hard, Cole Evanson. Not when you took the coward’s way out. You could have been something great—wecould have been something great—but you threw it all away. And for what? To pretend you weren’t going to be a legend? So you could always come second to those fancy friends of yours? You can’t tell me you’re happy living in mediocrity, Cole.”
I swallow the emotions that stick in my throat as her words settle over me, heavy and cloying. I feel like I can’t breathe. “Of course I’m not happy,” I say thickly. “Not when I’m so far away from you.”
“Socome back.” Her words are pleading, and they feel like a knife in my chest. One that could be lethal as soon as I try to pull it out. But I have to. I’ll never breathe if I don’t.
“You know why I can’t.”
“I know why youwon’t,” she counters. “Because you don’t have any backbone. You’re pathetic, and I feel like I’ve wasted the last eighteen months waiting for you to be someone you’re not. I’ve been such an idiot.”
“Sage,” I croak. “I’m coming to Portland next week. Just wait a few days, and we can—”
“I’m done waiting for you, Cole. You’re never going to grow a pair and be the man I need you to be.”
“Sage, don’t—”
The call drops. So does my phone, clattering on the sidewalk at my feet and landing face up so I can see the newly shattered screen.
I know the feeling.
Present day
This is not a hockey romance.
I don’t know why that line keeps running through my head, but it’s starting to get on my nerves. Maybe it’s because I watched a hockey game last night even though I tend to avoid watching sports other than rugby. The game was playing on the TV over Sage’s head in the restaurant, and watching it was easier than looking her in the eyes while she explained in detail why she broke up with me last fall.
I didn’t ask her to do that. In fact, I would have preferred it if she didn’t, but she said her conscience wouldn’t rest easy if she didn’t list out all the reasons she’d needed to tear my heart out of my chest seven months ago. She showed up at my house tonight without warning, dragged me to the restaurant, and dove right into her explanation like it was a completely normal thing to do on a Friday night.
This is not a hockey romance.
If it were, we probably would have ended the night making out in the bathroom instead of me left standing outside a Chili’s in the rain with a wedding announcement held limply in my hand, watching the love of my life drive away to the airport because she thought it was a good idea to rub salt into the wounds she inflicted over the phone.
For some reason, I put the announcement on the fridge when I got home, as if I need the reminder that I’m not the guy who gets the girl.
You are cordially invited to celebrate…
Javi and Sage only started dating a couple of months ago, and their wedding is in less than a month. It’s either a shotgun wedding, or… Or their relationship goes back further than our breakup. I don’t know which one of those makes me feel better. They both suck.
“You with us, Rihanna?”
