Page 75 of Like A Daydream
She doesn’t hear from him two weeks.
“I don’t get it,” she says to Ainsley over a cup of coffee at the bookshop. “He left knowing that I wanted to give this a real try, and he called me less than twenty-four hours before the game, and now he’s just ignoring me? After heknowsthat I was adopting Harper?”
“They have been in their preseason,” Ainsley says, looking out the window, “he might have just lost track of time. When Jamie was in college, it was really hard for us to keep in touch, so the NHL has to be a lot harder.”
“Did you ever go almost a month?”
Ainsley chews her lip, shakes her head. “No. It never went longer than a week, usually, before one of us was on the train to the other.”
“Do you think he’s trying to break up with me?” Danielle asks, not even wanting to think about it, but having the sinking feeling that it might be true.
“I think he would at least call if he was,” Ainsley says, “maybe he’s just in his head about things, because that’s happened a few times.”
“Has Jet heard from him?”
“He’s sent him a couple of texts,” Ainsley says, “but nothing in-depth.”
Danielle lowers her head into her hands with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” Ainsley says, “you can sit here and whine to me about it, or you can get on a plane.”
“What about Harper?” she asks. “This is a conversation I have to have with him, I can’t bring her into it.”
“She can stay with us,” Ainsley replies with a shrug, “I can do pick up and drop off at school, depending on when you go, and she can stay in one of our spare rooms.”
“You would do that?”
“We love her as much as anyone does, and I don’t want to see you and Andy give up on a good thing,” Ainsley says, finishing her cup of coffee, “talk to Jamie, he’s still got connections with the team and can get you tickets to a game, and you can catch Andy after.”
“I don’t know if I want to ask for that when I can get them myself.”
“Jamie loves being able to flex his connections with the team,” Ainsley says, rolling her eyes, “if you let him, he’ll put you in a suite all by yourself.”
Andrew
Danielle is waiting for him in the player’s parking lot after their home opener.
It’s been almost a month since he’s heard from her and started trying to heal. He hadn’t known how much he had loved her until he tried to pull her from every part of his life. From his camera roll, to his favorite shirt she had stolen from him that night he’d stayed at her house, only returning it when she knew he was leaving, to the smell of her in his truck.
He’d had so much cleaning up to do since she’d left that he hadn’t even been able to think about anything else, but all he’d been able to see while he was trying to get rid of her washer.
He never thought he’d be one to relate to the ‘achy breaky heart’ genre of country music until he’d found himself living in it.
Now, looking back, he wonders if it was a sign. But, she’s here. All five-nine of her, wearing his name and number on her back and looking every bit his.
He does his rounds with the few fans that have waited outside after the game, feeling like his old self again as he interacts with them. He’s grinning as he takes pictures and signing autographs, nodding along as they tell him their own hockey stories and compliment him on his third period goal.
This is so much better than last year.
He even gets a couple of numbers slipped to him, and he considers pocketing them so that Danielle can see, but even he isn’t that mean. And, if he’s being completely honest with himself, he’s already had the best woman the world has to offer.
None of these ones will ever compare to her.
After about half an hour, he looks over his shoulder at Danielle, and tells himself to just walk by her. His brain has other plans, though, because instead of taking him to his truck, his feet walk him right over to stand in front of her.
He sets his gear bag on the ground, thinking that if he’s going to have this conversation, he’s not going to be a hockey player. He’s going to be Andrew. Hurt, frustrated, vulnerable Andrew. It’s the side she knows, and the side she barely deserves, but he wants to give that to her.
She looks as uncertain as he feels, hands shoved in her pockets, and chewing at her lip. He doesn’t know what she’s expecting, and he didn’t know that his heart was going to slam into his ribs and his hands were going to shake seeing her again.
