“The trap.” He said it so emotionlessly that I knew I was deep in the shit. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Yeah, a trap. The wedding industry has warped peoples’ minds. My folks had a small wedding at home. The pastor came to my grandmother’s house and married them, then they had their reception in a hay barn followed with a short camping trip by a nearby lake. Why can’t we do that? Why do we have to have canapés and silk tablecloths and two entire hockey teams?”
“Wow, so this close to Valentine’s Day you decide to finally be honest with me. That’s fucking great, Jacob.” He threw his hands into the air, hurt and ire rolling off him in waves that seared my flesh and heart. “Just so you know, I’ve always wanted a big wedding.”
“I know, trust me. It’s all you talk about,” I snapped, and his eyes widened. “It is! Ever since I asked you to marry me, you’ve told me over and over about how you wanted to find a pretty girl, have a big wedding, spend a couple weeks in Europe, and then settle down to raise kids.”
“I never specified it had to be a girl!” He was jacked now and so was I. “I mean shit, Jacob, you’re a gay man! Aren’t you the least bit into having the kind of wedding that straight couples have been able to enjoy forever?”
I rolled my eyes. His jaw tightened. “I don’t care about all the bullshit that goes with marrying you. I just want to marry you. I want a house and a dog and kids.”
“So do I!” he shouted and I winced. “And I want a wedding to be proud of. Not some hayseed hootenanny in some miserable barn.”
Ouch. Shit, that hurt. “Right okay, well, maybe we should just rethink this whole thing then since my dreams of a wedding are so below your standards!” Now I was yelling.
“Maybe we should!” He spun, grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch, and headed to the door. I gaped at him as he stalked out into the hall. “I’m going to Alex’s.”
He jerked the door shut. My hands were fisted in rage and so I did the one thing I could think of. I stuffed the chicken tenders down the sink, flipped on the garbage disposal, and ground them up. Then I fought back tears for a minute or two or ten.
Two
Ryker
I didn’t go to Alex’s place. He’d taken a puck to the chest in an energetic defense strategy that had happened because I’d fucked up and left him open. His courageous dive had been doomed to failure, and he had to be hurting, and the last thing he needed was his idiot friend to visit. No doubt Seb was tending to Alex right now, and I wasn’t about to go over and interrupt what would be a calm and peaceful wind down from the adrenalin of a spiky game with Boston.
A match-up we could have won if I’d kept my head in the game. If I hadn’t been worrying about Jacob, and the wedding, and that asshole Adam, and about my place in the Raptors team and wondering where the fuck my career was going.
“Fucking Boston,” I muttered and took the next left, fully intending to just keep driving, but instead ending up in the empty parking lot of a closed Target, engine off, doors locked, and not knowing which way was up. I was angry and ashamed and disappointed, and we’d lost the game, and I was tired, and somehow all of that had become one big ball of angst. I ended up shouting some real crap at Jacob, then stalked out like a freaking teenager fighting with a sibling.
I should text him. Call him. Go the fuck home.
But that wouldn’t make things right. It wouldn’t make the real deep understanding of my psyche right now any better. Because I had all the reasons why I was messing up in my head, and Gretzky-help-me but every single one of them still made sense, which meant I was so not over the adrenalin spike that had smacked into me. I was resentful and I couldn’t push it away because this Sunday together was going to be everything, and I’d been looking forward to it for so long. One day with Jacob, talking about our wedding, reaffirming that we actually wanted to get married, and he had to work. Fuck’s sake. I couldn’t help but resent his boss—Adam was a taskmaster who expected results, driven to the point of insanity, and he was taking Jacob with him.
Burning, evil, mind-numbing jealousy coursed through me, the same as it always did whenever I thought about Adam, the sexy, and newly single millionaire environmentalist, with his grip on my fiancé. Why would he make Jacob work on the one day we’d planned things? Why couldn’t Jacob say no?
This was the Raptors’ first home game in so long and that meant all of Sunday to myself, and I’d had a clear picture of how that Sunday was going to go. Jacob and I would have a lazy breakfast, get excited about the day, then make love like we hadn’t done even on Christmas-freaking-day, not that I was counting.
Sue me, I’m counting.
Every time I tried to start something, he would kiss me and tell me he loved me, and I sure as hell loved him, but then he would fall asleep, or tell me he had a deadline and would I mind if he came to bed later. Of course, I said I didn’t mind, but I worried. He wore a perpetual frown, had smudges under his eyes, and there had been more than one night when I’d woken up and the bed was empty. He defended that what he was doing was worthwhile, and told me I was wrong to tell him he needed sleep, but that was starting to piss me off. Only the argument tonight hadn’t been about sex, or sleeping, or any of those things; it was a childishly stupid lashing out, messed-up, and yet again I’d acted out of character, and I’d said some terrible things.
I could lose him. What am I without Jacob? I’m nothing. Just a hockey player with an attitude that stunk worse than the cowshed at his parents’ old farm.
I wanted him to be here with me now, so I could stop feeling as if my entire world was about to end. What the hell did I even shout at him? Did I really feel that the wedding he wanted was below my standards? Had I really built up this amazing day in my head as a way to show off what I had, and did I really think that the two of us getting married in a barn was such a bad idea? Was it all about me and what I wanted? What the hell is wrong with me?
I banged my head on the steering wheel a couple of times and then rested my forehead there.
“Fucking idiot.” My cell chimed with an alert, and I scrambled to get it out of my pocket. It had to be Jacob telling me to come home and that it was all okay, and we could talk. But it wasn’t, it was Dad posting to our messaging group with yet another picture of Lottie, lit by a lamp in an otherwise dark room. The caption was a ton of emojis depicting the various stages of a night feed from the poop emoji to zzz’s. I knew he and Ten were two hours ahead of us, meaning it was three a.m. in Harrisburg, and maybe I should call him if he was up? But, what would he tell me in his I’m-a-dad-and-I-know-things kind of way?
“You’re an idiot, Ry!” I mimicked my dad’s voice, which didn’t take much, given we were so similar. I sent a text asking if he was awake enough to talk. He rang back and I smiled as I picked it up.
“Ryker? You okay?” It wasn’t Dad, it was Ten, and he sounded sleepy but concerned.
“Shit, Ten, sorry, I thought my dad was up.”
Ten yawned. “Nope, my turn, no game tomorrow, day off means I get to be up with Lottie, but we leave our phones out here.” He yawned again, which made me yawn, and Ten chuckled. “Couldn’t sleep after your Uncle Brady messed you up?”