Page 72 of Kitty Season
I shake my head and eke out , “Sorry.”
Tutting, and sighing, the four women exchange glances, eyes and brows twitching and I get the feeling they’re communicating via Morse code style blinks. Once their message is decoded, Claire shifts in her seat to fully face me.
“Fifi and Delphine are—” There’s a sudden banging on the Plexiglas wall. The five of us jump, I squeal and we all turn toward the ice. Troye is there, eyes wide, mouth agape, pure panic coloring his face.
“No. NO. NO!” Each time he says it, it’s louder. More desperate. Even when Shane skates up behind him and drags him away, he’s clenching his teeth and swiping his index finger across his neck.
“What the hell is your son talking about?” The blonde stranger asks the redhead.
“Oh, so he’s mine when he’s acting like a fool?”
“Exactly.”
“Ahhhh, what now?” I don’t mean to yell, but I do judging by the way their eyes, and those of half the stands we sit in, fall on me. “Your son?”
“He’s not told you a damn thing about us, has he?” one says.
“So typical.” The other.
“Boys,” adds Claire.
Kelly keeps munching on Doritos.
I want to say something but there’s too many thoughts and emotions running through my head. These women. Troye’s moms. Look like they could be his sisters. Sisters that look nothing like him. A second ago I thought they were his mistresses.Nothis parents.
Why didn’t he tell me they were so young? And that they were coming tonight? And their God damn freaking names.
When I think about it, the them being here part is my fault. I told Troye I wasn’t coming in the hope he would beg me too. He didn’t. Now I know why. Serves me right for playing games, but still. How. The. Hell. Do. I. Not. Know. Their. Names?
Like an avalanche barreling down a mountainside. There’s the overwhelming rush of nothing I know about the boy I love burying me.
Shit.
I just realized I love him, and that he’s a fucking stranger in the same breath.
Fifi and Delphine, Troye’s alarmingly beautiful moms, not my sister-wives, seem to be struggling to process the events of the evening as the stupid fucking goal horn blares, and the game puck drops.
Troyeand his line’s almost non-stop attack sees the Bears up 4-0 at the end of the first period. A semi-finals birth is looking almost certain. But no matter how much I love hockey, howmuch is riding on this game, or how brilliantly Troye and Brady are playing, nothing can entice me to give two shits about it.
“He didn’t tell us about you either, if that makes you feel any better.”
No, it does not make me feel better. Not one incy-wincy, teeny-weeny bit.
I’m sure Delphine, or was it Fifi, offered this knowledge in a conciliatory manner. Was angling for a light-heartedboys will be boys, moment. But somehow it made me feel worse.
As much and as loudly as I declare I love my hockey boys,Troye isn’t a boy. He’s a man. And I am a woman. One who’s been living in a dream-state for far too long.
I can’t deny his touch ignites a spark in me I’d never felt with anyone else, Brady being the only possible exception to that rule. And yes, him not telling his family about me should come as no surprise. And it doesn’t. Not really.
But still, it hurts.
I’ve let the aforementioned touch, accompanied by lingering kisses and whispered poetic prose, fool me into thinking that one day, one act, one moment, would crack that iced-over shell guarding his heart and he would look at me and see how good we are together. I can’t imagine my life without Troye in it, but perhaps it’s time to be open to that possibility. To accept that a lasting us is just not going to happen, and decide if the kind of limbo, and loss of self-worth, loving a man who will likely never love me back brings, is worth it.
The weight of that sinks me deeper into my seat as the boys—men—come out for the final period and the four women I’m sitting with return from their trip to the concession stand.
Plastering on a smile, I rise to my feet, letting Troye’s moms, then Kelly shimmy past me to resume their seats.
“I bought you some Twizzlers.” Claire smiles as she passes, dropping the pack into my hand and her now empty one onto myshoulder. “Lotte says they’re a surefire cure for whatever ails ya, though I’m more partial to a Junior Mint.”
