If You Need Me: Chapter 36

Wilhelmina, being the badass powerhouse she is, manages to get everything under control with the Milk campaign and Flip doesn’t lose his biggest endorsement. It was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully, everyone in that elevator was of legal drinking age, but it could have gone very wrong. As it is, the ordeal has taken all of Wills’s bandwidth the past couple of days, so I haven’t seen much of her. With training camp in full swing and season startup around the corner, I want to make the most of what’s left of preseason.

The team has just finished morning skate, and I have a two-hour break before we hit the gym for our workout. If the timing is right, I can get a little one on one with Wills and take her out for lunch. I peek my head into her office and take a moment to appreciate the fact that this woman is my girlfriend. Like most days, her hair hangs in loose waves over her shoulders. She’s dressed in a bright blue blouse and black dress pants. She looks beautiful, and like the woman of my damn dreams.

I knock on the door, and she glances up from her computer, lifting a finger in my direction before she continues typing.

“I can come back later.”

“Just a minute. I’m almost done.”

She’s in business mode, and I’ve interrupted her. But this feels a lot like how she responded before she stopped hating me and started letting me love her. But she’s not in love with you. That niggling voice in the back of my head has gotten louder lately. Every time I say those three little words to her, and she doesn’t say them back, it feels like a barb working its way under my skin. I question whether she’ll ever feel that way. I want forever with her. I want this engagement to be as real for her as it is for me. But every time she puts off another discussion with her moms, or tells the Badass Babe Brigade that there’s no rush to plan, it feels like reopening a wound that hasn’t healed.

She finally stops typing and looks up, her expression expectant. “What can I do for you, Dallas?”

“I’ve got a couple hours before my workout. Do you want to go for lunch?”

Her smile is pinched. “That’s sweet, but I’ve got a lot on my plate today, and a lunch date isn’t in the cards.” Her phone buzzes, and her eyes drop to find it on her desk.

I lean against the jamb. “Okay. We’re still on for tonight, though?”

“Yeah. But I might be late, depending on how all of this goes.” She grimaces. “I need to check in with Topher. And I need the scheduling conflicts with ice time to stop being a thing,” she grumbles as she pushes her chair back. “I can walk you out.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Let’s hope so.”

She meets me at the door, and we head down the hall, but she stops outside the staff break room to adjust her shoe.

“I wouldn’t date a player, but you can’t be mad at the paycheck,” one woman says.

“She’s set for life, isn’t she?” adds a man I recognize from accounting.

“I don’t get it. She’s so high octane.”

“Topher can’t stand her,” the guy says. “She’s kind of a bitch, just like he says.”

“Maybe he’s known about this longer than we have. You know it had to be going on for a while,” a third voice says.

“You think she took the job so she could get close to him?” the guy from accounting wonders aloud.

I take a step toward the room, but Wilhelmina’s fingers lap my wrist, and she shakes her head. She tugs me down the hall, not sparing the group a glance, but her jaw tics and her posture is stiff.

She stares straight ahead as we wait for the elevator to arrive. It’s empty when we enter.

I wait until the doors close. Keeping my cool is a challenge, but I don’t want her on the receiving end of my anger. “How often does that shit happen?”

“Enough that I’m used to it. Before I was dating you, it wasn’t quite as bad. But I’m still me.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t mince words, and I make things happen. Not everyone likes my style.” She inspects her nails. “I’m head of PR, and I’m dating you, the team golden boy. People have a lot to say about it.”

“They’re shit-talking you behind your back.” I can’t believe she puts up with this garbage.

“It’s nothing new, Dallas. It happened all the time in high school. I would love to be the office favorite, but then things wouldn’t get done. It’s obnoxious, but Bitches get shit done is true for a reason. And now we’re a thing. Everything they’re saying is exactly what I would think too if it was one of them and not me. Ugly or not.” She shrugs. “It’s why Hammer and I had more than one conversation about the logistics of her working for the team when her dad is a player and she’s with Hollis.” She taps the ring on her finger. “This is what I signed on for when I said yes to being your fiancée.”

“But it’s all bullshit.” What I’ve done to her is hitting me in a whole new way. She saved my career and put her own in jeopardy. No one should ever treat her this way. And I don’t like it one bit. Especially since the engagement part isn’t something she wants the way I do.

She sighs. “What can I do about it, Dallas? Tell them they’re wrong? They won’t believe me. Why should they?”

I cross my arms. “But it’s not true.”

“Neither was the gossip about why you told everyone not to ask me to prom, but people still believed it. I believed it. You were and still are the popular hockey player, and I was and still am me. Too intense. Too bossy. Unlikable.”

“You’re powerful and exquisite.” I remember what everyone said in school, but they were wrong. They just wanted to project their own shit onto her, tear her down to make themselves feel important. Wills has always been the most competent person in the room, but she wasn’t unaffected by the petty things people said like she pretended to be.

“I don’t have the softest touch, which sometimes doesn’t go over well,” she continues. “I’m better at it now than I was growing up.” She pats my chest as the elevator doors open. “It is what it is, Dallas. Just let it go.”

We step out of the elevator, and Wilhelmina says hi to a couple of women. They’re polite, but their demeanor changes when they see me. Their smiles widen, and they stop to ask if I’m excited for the coming season. They’re proving her exact point.

“I’ll see you later.” Hemi waves and heads down the hall without a backwards glance.

What we heard in the break room sits with me for the rest of the day. How often does that happen? How frequently is Wills the focus of water cooler chats? I did this to her. Again. I made her life difficult because I did what I always do—act without thinking through the consequences.

I’m distracted all through the workout with the guys, and I’m not surprised when Ash asks me if everything is okay once we’re on the way home.

“I overheard a bunch of people shit-talking Wills in the office today.”

He arches a brow. “Did you say anything?”

I shake my head. “I wanted to, but she was with me, and she shut me down before I could.”

He nods. “Was she upset?”

“She brushed it off, but she’s not immune.” I tap my thigh. “This is my fault, Ash. I made it like this for her. Pulling the shit I did with one drunken mistake—I turned her work environment into the thing she never wanted it to be.”

He glances over at me. “What are you really upset about? That people are saying nasty things about the woman you love, or that you can’t protect her from it?”

“Both? It just makes me think of how she was treated growing up. I guess this explains why she wasn’t super thrilled when I stopped by her office.” I don’t like the tightness in my chest. How can I make it worth her while to put up with that kind of office gossip?

“How so? What happened?”

“She just…didn’t seem all that happy to see me.” She seemed bothered by the distraction more than anything.

“It’s a busy time of year in the front office. I usually message Shilps first, so she has a heads-up,” he offers.

“Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I probably wouldn’t love it if I was focused on game tape and she tried to get me to take a break.”

He inclines his head as he pulls up to my building. “You want me to come up for a bit?”

“Nah. It’s cool. Thanks for the chat.”

I get out of the car and head up to my penthouse. I should do something nice for Wilhelmina. Something to show her I appreciate her, and that I’m sorry for all the stress that comes with being in a relationship with me.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and find a new message from her.

The weight in my chest lifts a little. I need to remember that work Wills isn’t the same as the one I get to see when it’s just the two of us.

When six o’clock rolls around, she appears on time, and we make dinner together. But when I try to bring up what happened in the office, she distracts me with her mouth. We end up having sex on the couch, and then again in bed. She stays the night when I ask her to, and I wrap myself around her, wanting this to be how every night ends.

I wake alone, which isn’t a surprise. She tends to go in early to tackle emails before morning meetings. I shake off the vestiges of my dream. In it, Wilhelmina was pregnant, with a rounded belly and soft smile. She radiated total contentment. I want that with her. I want to love her, take care of her, spoil her, tell her every day how fantastic she is, watch her become a badass mother, teach her it’s safe to show her softer side. I know it’s there. When she’s with her girlfriends and every time she’s come to a church fundraiser or the retirement village, I see that softness. I want a family with her. Four kids and a house on the lake. And isn’t it so fucking ironic that I can see this life unfolding with her, how amazing it could be if we can put the past behind us, but I’m the reason it sucked in the first place? I’m the reason for so much of the hurt, and I want to fix it, but I can’t.

I’ve bound her to me with a promise of forever in the form of an engagement ring. But what if she can’t ever love me the way I love her? What if the walls she built around her heart never come down? High school might be in the past, but it doesn’t mean she’s not still guarded. And how can she move forward when shitty office gossip has replaced all the crap she’s tried to leave behind? Am I signing her on for a lifetime of people misjudging her? What if where we are right now is as close as she ever gets?