Page 105 of The Trade Deadline
“It’s not the moon, Lars. There are phones. Text messages. Video chat?—”
“And those might work for couples, but that’s not us.”
The words hung between them, the final bombshell that Ryan hadn’t expected, even though he should have.
“Ryan,” Lars started apologetically. “I didn’t?—”
“No, no, it’s fine.” It wasn’t. “Better to know before I leave that there’s nothing left for me in Baltimore.”
“That’s not…” Lars huffed in frustration. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“I knew it wouldn’t be simple,” he agreed. “Keeping this going long distance would definitely not be simple. But if you’re not willing to even try, then it actually is really fucking simple.”
Lars flinched at the curse. His shoulders sagged and he looked like a scolded child. “Maybe if it weren’t Ohio,” he started, and Ryan had heard enough.
“Nope. That’s it. Go home, Lars. I have to finish packing,” he lied.
“I could drive you to the airport,” he offered miserably. An hour ago, Ryan would’ve said yes, but he couldn’t deal with dragging this out. Whatever they had, it was apparently more fragile than he’d thought.
Though he shouldn’t be surprised. They hadn’t been able to talk about it, to say the words to give it more shape and stability. If their relationship couldn’t survive a conversation, how could it possibly have survived this?
“Tanner’s driving me,” he said. He hadn’t asked, but he was sure Tanner would. “Please go.” Then, conciliatory, “I’ll text when I land. If you want to talk then, we can.”
Lars nodded glumly. The fact that he didn’t put up a fight wasn’t a great sign. He left without a word, without a kiss goodbye, without a look back. When the door clicked shut behind him, Ryan doubted very much that they’d ever be in the same room again.
Chapter31
Lars
It wasn’t likehe’d never lost teammates before. Lars had been on the Prowlers long enough to see players come and go. Some he’d barely known. Some he hadn’t even liked. There’d been a few, ones he knew better from being linemates or hanging out, that he’d kind of missed. But he’d neverfeltanyone’s absence. He’dnoticedthey were gone, waded through the somber, heavy atmosphere in the locker room as the team pretended they hadn’t lost a friend all while having to put on a smile to welcome their replacement.
Lars felt Ryan’s loss.
It wasn’t just in the locker room or on the bench. It was every moment of every day. All the places in his life that Ryan used to occupy and were suddenly empty. No one to carpool with. No buddy on the bus or the plane. Meals alone, a lonely bed, quiet in his condo that the TV and music did nothing to fill.
It was like he had a hole inside him, and he couldn’t fix it.
The Crabs reeled a little at the loss, blindsided by it as much as he was. Lars enjoyed that the other players struggled, because it meant they had to recognize that they’d lost a key piece of the team. He also resented that they somehow thought their loss was in any way equal to his. And then two new guys appeared, one to take over as center and one to make the defense fight amongst themselves to keep a spot in the lineup. Lars kept out of it, and did his best to be distantly polite to the new center.
He played like shit, too. If he was lucky, he could fall into the game and disassociate long enough to score. His production definitely suffered, but they played mostly struggling teams and he was able to rely on muscle memory to get by. It hadn’t gotten so bad that Thompkins had said anything, but Lars knew his play sucked.
His heart wasn’t in it.
On some level, he understood it was his fault. Not the trade, obviously, though maybe if he hadn’t pushed Ryan into the limelight, other teams wouldn’t have noticed him. But his current loneliness and isolation from Ryan were definitely his fault. He had plenty of texts where Ryan had reached out to bridge the gap, to at least stay friendly until they could talk in person and figure out the other parts.
The texts had trickled to a stop, almost assuredly because Lars never sent a genuine response and had never initiated one.
arrived in Cincinnati
??
game in a few hours. I haven’t even had a practice
with these guys and they put me on the top line
Hope I don’t blow it
you’ll do fine
