Page 81 of Hot Puck
“You think about it because if we aren’t friends, we can’t do what we’re setting out to do with the girls. We can’t be partners.”
“Of course we can.”
“No. We can’t. Look what happened last time you tied yourself to someone you weren’t friends with. If you can’t accept me as your friend, then we have to rethink this whole thing. I’m sure it will be easy enough to find a place for me and the girls.”
“You’d move out?”
Ignoring my question he says, “I gotta go. I’ll be late and that means suicides.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to protest, to question him again, keep the discussion going. He’s out the door, and it’s closing softly behind him before I can get my brain to come unstuck and tell my body to stand.
But it’s too late.
He’s gone.
And if he’s serious, my office isn’t the only thing he’ll be gone from in the near future.
Chase
I didn’t mean to give Gem an ultimatum. Except that’s exactly what I did.
And now we’re barely talking. Walking on eggshells. Tiptoeing around each other as though we’re afraid to break the fragile connection we have left.
The strain between us didn’t stop us from getting married or submitting the paperwork for her to adopt my sisters. Nope, it was full steam ahead on both fronts.
Three days after I walked out of Gem’s office, she came home with paperwork for me to sign and an appointment the next day for us to go to the courthouse where a judge joined us in ‘holy matrimony’—his words, not mine—and while our vows were simple, I meant every word of them.
I never thought about being married, what it would be like, and I only have Mom and Dad’s as a benchmark, but I can say without a doubt my marriage to Natalie Redding is nothing like what my parents had.
It’s like two enemies being forced to work together for a common cause—my sisters. There are days when I wonder what the hell I was thinking to go through with it when there was conflict between us.
Not that looking back helps. Wearemarried, have been for almost a month, and I will honor my vows. Because even with this fractured weird relationship we have right now, I love her.
It seems impossible. Half the time I don’t believe it. But I can’t deny the way I feel about her. And I’m at a loss as to how to turn things around. How to show her I’m in this for the long haul, and not only for my sisters.
I’m in it forher.
I have no idea when I made the decision to make Gem my wife for real, probably before I brought up the subject of us getting married to secure the girls’ futures.
I’ve discovered I’ve lied to myself, or stuck my head in the sand and ignored things concerning Gem for most of our acquaintance.
Hard to believe we’ve only known each other five months, lived together for less. It seems like a lifetime since we lost Mom and Dad, forever since I made the difficult decision to move us all to the other end of the country to live with a stranger so I could give the girls a good life and follow my dream.
And it is a good life.
All the girls are thriving.
The twins love school and have made friends other than Whit, although she’s their closest one. Candace goes to the Rogues Arena childcare a few mornings a week and is growing so fast it’s hard to believe she’s the baby I first held.
But it isn’t just the girls who have benefited from the move south.
I’m having a blisteringly good season. Like my first year of college, I’m having more shutouts than not and the Rogues are at the top of our conference and on a trajectory for the Cup.
I know we all talked a good game back in August when we first hit the ice together and then during pre-season when we won our first game, and again at the beginning of the regular season. But I’ll be dammed if we aren’t following through on our boasting.
The media is having a field day with the way the Rogues are carving up the opposition. Not that we’re mopping the rink with all the other teams. Miami has given us stiff competition, and the Knights are finally getting their shit together and pulling off some wins.
Every part of my life is coming up roses except my relationship with Gem.
