If You Hate Me: Chapter 22

Everything sucks. Especially me. On the ice, I’m a mess. I keep missing easy shots, fucking things up during practice. Three times Coach Vander Zee has pulled me aside to ask if I’m okay. The answer is no. I’m not okay. I’m miserable.

I miss Bea. There’s a physical ache in my chest that won’t go away, and it makes me edgy. It reminds me of how I felt when my family fell apart.

And everything is worse because Flip still isn’t talking to me. Bea has been gone for five days, and it’s been nearly two weeks since he found out. I’ve been sleeping on the couch in Roman’s room during away games because I can’t deal with the tension. When we’re home, I hide in my room.

We’re scrimmaging today. Tomorrow, we play Philly for the first time this season. I’m not on starting line. That’s not a surprise, considering the way I’m playing. And the tension between me and Flip is bleeding onto the ice.

I’m only half paying attention as the puck comes my way during practice, and I’m not taking stock of my teammates, which is admittedly terrible form. I snag the puck before it passes and spin around, heading down the ice. But Flip is right there, so I slam into him, knocking him down. I should offer him a hand, but I’m pissed that he walked into my bedroom and fucked everything up. If he hadn’t found out, Bea would still be in the loft, and the empty, gaping hole in my chest wouldn’t feel so fucking huge.

He scrambles to his feet and shoves me. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

Coach Vander Zee blows the whistle, but I’m already in Flip’s face. “You got in my way.” I’m not really talking about on the ice, though. The hit was completely my fault.

“I got in your way? Are you even paying attention to what’s going on around you? Or are you so fucking self-absorbed that you do whatever you want without considering the goddamn consequences?” He tosses his stick aside.

“Everything was fucking fine until you got in the way!” I shout, sending my stick flying as well.

Yeah. We’re not talking about the game at all.

Coach blows the whistle again.

Dallas tries to get between us, but we grab each other’s jerseys, elbowing him out of the way.

“I got in the way? I got in the fucking way? You’re the one getting in your own goddamn way!” Flip yells.

“That’s rich coming from you!” I shout back.

Roman skates over and pulls us apart. “This argument doesn’t belong on the ice.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Coach looks to Roman. “You know what this is about?”

“I have an idea.”

Flip’s eyes flare. “You have an idea? You knew what was going on?”

Roman gives him a withering look.

Coach blows his whistle again. Shrilly. Two feet from my ear. “You two shower and change. I want you in my office in twenty. Roman, you go with them and make sure they don’t kill each other.”

I don’t argue. I head for the gate and Roman follows, Flip muttering behind him.

“I can’t believe you fucking knew, and you didn’t tell me,” Flip snaps once we’re in the locker room. He removes his pads, flinging them aside.

“That you didn’t know says more about your priorities than anything, Flip,” Roman fires back.

Flip frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means if you were actually paying attention to something other than yourself, you might have clued in that there was something going on! I haven’t looked at anyone else since Bea moved in with us, dipshit.” I toss my pads on the bench.

“You’ve been lying to me this whole fucking time!”

“No, I haven’t.” Not once has Flip asked me who I’m fucking.

“You were sleeping with my sister behind my back the entire time she lived with us!”

“That’s not the same as lying,” I argue. Which is idiotic. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. And kept doing it.

“You betrayed me!” He points a finger at Roman. “And you kept his dirty little secret.”

“Well, considering your reaction, it seems like I made the right choice.” Roman crosses his arms. “I get that you’re upset, Flip, but you need to step back and get some goddamn perspective. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Tristan is a fucking mess. He’s playing like shit, he looks like shit, he’s not eating, and he’s been walking around for the past week with a black cloud of doom hanging over his head, doing a solid impression of Eeyore.”

“Thanks, man,” I grumble.

“I’m trying to help you out, asshole,” Roman snaps, then turns back to Flip. “Do you really think, if Tristan didn’t give some sort of a shit about your sister, that he would be this upset about whatever the hell is going on?”

“He’s upset that Rix moved out and he can’t get into her pants.” Flip storms off to the showers.

Roman shakes his head. “You two are idiots.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Get your shit together, Tristan.”

He’s right. I’m in this predicament because I can’t be honest with myself about my feelings for Bea, let alone anyone else. But that doesn’t give me a way out of it.

I shower and change, and Flip and I get chewed out by the coach. Flip throws me under the bus and tells him I’ve been sleeping with Bea behind his back. Coach tells us to keep our personal lives off the ice and deal with our shit. If I can’t, I’ll end up on second line for more than just tomorrow’s game.

Flip and I ignore each other in the locker room and leave the arena separately. I can’t deal with being home. Everything about the condo reminds me of Bea. She left half a bottle of her lotion in the bathroom—it fell behind the garbage can—and I routinely sit around sniffing it, wishing she hadn’t moved out. So I end up going for dinner with some of the guys at our local watering hole, including Dallas, Roman, Ashish, and Hollis. It’s the one place we can go and no one makes a big deal about our presence. My appetite is for shit these days, but I order food anyway, hoping I’ll feel like eating it when it arrives. I miss Bea-made meals. I miss Bea period. Hollis gets a salad with cucumbers, and I barely resist the urge to yeet it across the room.

“So you and Rix, eh?” Dallas chugs a glass of water. “Can’t really say I’m all that surprised with the way you two look at each other.”

“Which is how?” I ask.

Ashish offers his perspective, “Like no one in the world exists but her.”

“I honestly can’t believe Flip didn’t see it,” Roman muses.

“He’s too busy getting laid to pay attention to anyone or anything else,” Hollis says. He checks his phone and composes a message before setting it facedown on the table. “It’ll be easier for him to get over it if you give him a reason to.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I tell him.

He doesn’t have a chance to answer because Flip appears. The smile slides off his face. He points at Dallas. “Fuck you.” He aims the double bird in my direction and spins around.

Hollis grabs the back of his shirt before he can go anywhere. “You two need to sort your shit out, and we’re here to moderate.” He slides out of the booth and forces Flip in before he takes his spot again. Flip is stuck between Hollis and Roman. And I’m sandwiched between Dallas and Ashish, so I can’t go anywhere either.

“You assholes orchestrated this.” I glare at Roman.

“You two got into a fight on the ice during practice. Your personal drama directly impacts this team. We have a home game tomorrow night against Philly, and last season they handed us our asses. If they get wind that there’s dissension in the ranks, they’ll use it to their advantage. So yeah, we orchestrated this little chitchat,” Roman snaps.

“And as much as I appreciate being on the starting line, I don’t need the added stress that you two are going to fuck our game if you end up on the same line later in the game,” Hollis adds.

“I like the nachos here,” Ashish says.

“I’m mostly here because I wanted the dirt on this little development,” Dallas admits. “But Hollis and Roman are right. You two need to solve your problems, and we’re here to make sure you don’t kill each other in the process. We can’t have two of our best players suspended this early in the season.”

“Flip, I understand you’re upset, but you and Tristan have a lot of years of friendship under your belt,” Roman says. “Before you go throwing it all away, maybe you need to talk this shit out.” He motions between us.

Flip glares at me, and I stare at my half-empty beer. Guilt is heavy on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have gone behind his back, but he wouldn’t have understood. And now I’ve lost Bea, and I stand to lose my best friend. It’s the worst possible outcome.

Roman huffs. “Tristan, maybe you can start by apologizing for keeping your involvement with his sister from Flip.”

“We’re not involved anymore, thanks to him,” I spit. Being angry is better than being hurt.

“Thanks to me? You were sleeping with her behind my back for two months!”

“I don’t understand how you didn’t notice, Flip,” Ashish muses.

Roman sighs.

Dallas shakes his head.

“Why is it Flip’s fault that you’re not involved with Rix anymore?” Hollis asks.

“Because we said it would end when she moved out. And when Flip found out, he was a real fucking asshole about it. Bea shut down, and I didn’t know how to make it better, so now she’s living with Hammer.” I mean, the last part is pretty damn obvious.

“I think I have a right to be pissed off. She’s my little sister, and you hid it from me.” Flip tries to cross his arms, but he doesn’t have enough room.

“What could we say? Hey, Flip, hope you’re cool with us sleeping together? We didn’t even like each other to start with. We drive each other up the wall! Drove each other up the wall. Past tense.”

“If you irritate each other so much, why did you end up sleeping together? Repeatedly?”

“I don’t know. We pushed each other’s buttons until we broke, I guess.” I poke at my cheek with my tongue. “It was only supposed to be one time. It just happened. And we never planned to let it happen again.” I give him an imploring look. “I tried, Flip. I really tried not to want her. But she just…smells so good all the time, and she’s sassy and smart, and she was there every day, being beautiful and kind, even when I was a giant dick.”

“So you kept giving her yours,” he mutters.

“I thought maybe it would last a week or two.” I was sure her tolerance would give out. “We said it would stop when she moved, but then I convinced her to stay until after the season started,” I admit.

“Why would you do that?” Flip taps agitatedly on the table.

“I didn’t want her to leave.” I focus on my beer.

I wanted her to be there when I got back from away games, and practice, and on weekends, and every fucking day. I wanted to see her smiling face, to push her buttons, to touch her, be close to her, absorb some of her goodness since I have so fucking little of my own.

“So it was just about sex, then?” Flip grinds out.

“It wasn’t supposed to be about feelings.” That was the agreement. I don’t know when it changed, but it did. And now I’m screwed because she moved with no warning. Just up and left me.

“For the love of fucking God.” Hollis slaps the table. “What this idiot is trying and failing to say is that at some point, it stopped being just about sex. If it was just about sex, Tristan wouldn’t be a mopey, depressed, lovesick fool. And we’re learning that he’s apparently more emotionally repressed than most serial killers, since owning up to his feelings seems to be impossible, despite his team’s welfare and his relationship with you being on the line—not to mention his relationship with Rix.”

“I don’t know if I’m lovesick.” Apparently in addition to being emotionally repressed, I’m also a complete idiot.

“Does all food taste like garbage?” Hollis asks.

“Yeah.”

“Do you intentionally listen to her favorite songs or watch her favorite shows because it reminds you of her, even if it makes it feel like your heart is being shredded? Or, conversely, are you avoiding all those things for the same reason?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Does it feel like there’s a giant, empty hole in your chest and the only thing that will make it go away is Rix?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re lovesick.” Hollis turns to Flip. “And maybe I’m going out on a limb, but I’m guessing the reason they tried to keep it under wraps was to avoid upsetting you. Especially if they both thought they would be able to keep feelings out of it. That might have worked if it had lasted a couple of weeks, but no one sleeps with someone they claim to hate for weeks if they don’t actually like them.”

“So you have feelings for Rix that extend beyond getting into her pants?” Flip asks.

It doesn’t make sense to lie anymore, even if my feelings aren’t reciprocated. Can’t say I’d blame her after the way I acted the day she moved. I hadn’t expected to only have an hour. I frittered away my last days with her because I couldn’t tell her how I felt. Feel. “Yeah.”

“So why haven’t you tried to contact her since she moved?” Roman asks.

“How do you know I haven’t?” I challenge.

“Because Peggy lives with her, and I see my daughter every day. There’ve been an unreasonable number of ice cream bars consumed over the past week. And not even the good kind.”

“The no-name brand vanilla and chocolate sandwiches?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Bea only splurges on the good ones once a month. The rest of the time, she buys the cheaper stuff.” Her favorite are the Oreo ones, and second are the Oreo Drumsticks. But nothing hits the mark quite like a pint of Kawartha Dairy Moose Tracks.

“Wasn’t she doing all the shopping? And weren’t you giving her money for that?” Dallas asks.

“Yeah, and we kept telling her to buy for herself, too, but she refused,” Flip explains.

“And neither of you could manage a ten-minute trip to the store to pick her up a fucking treat for cleaning your house, making all your meals, and whatever else she did for you?” Dallas looks appalled.

“I bought her a cake and all her favorite candies.” After I ate her treat with her name on it for the second time, but he doesn’t need to know that part. “And I got her ice cream a few times.”

“You two have been sleeping together for two months and you bought her ice cream a few times?” Ashish is looking at me like I’m the biggest idiot in the world.

“I took her out on a date, too. But it had to be low-key, ’cause no one was supposed to know,” I admit.

“When did that happen?” Flip asks.

“Before Thanksgiving. I would have done more of that, but for obvious reasons, I couldn’t.” This whole conversation is making me antsy and uncomfortable.

“Maybe you should check on her,” Roman says.

“What if she doesn’t want to hear from me?” She wasn’t responding to my texts when she was still living with us. I don’t know why she’d respond to them now.

“You won’t know unless you make a move, will you?” Hollis asks.

“And it wouldn’t hurt to send her something nice,” Ashish adds.

“Noted.” I can’t believe I’m getting relationship lessons from these guys.

Roman turns his judgy eyes on Flip. “Rix isn’t very impressed with you.”

“I’m not the one sleeping with her best friend behind her back.”

“You freaked out and didn’t let either of us explain, and then you gave her the silent treatment for a week,” I say.

“You’re the one who said all you were doing was fucking,” Flip points out.

“Because that’s what we were supposed to be doing! I didn’t expect the feelings part.” I still don’t know how to manage that. But the guys are right. If I don’t make a move, I’ll never know if I’m alone on feelings island. “And you sure didn’t help things by bringing home women we’d been with before after you found out.”

“You did what?” Roman looks like he wants to flip the table.

Dallas shakes his head. “Are you telling me that after you found out Rix and Tristan were sleeping together, you brought home women you and Tristan had previously tag-teamed? While your sister was sleeping in her doorless, wall-less loft above you?”

Flip looks at the table.

“Yes. That’s exactly what happened,” I say, since he won’t confirm or deny it.

“That was a real asshole move.” Ashish sounds disgusted.

Dallas shakes his head in disapproval.

“I thought they both needed a reminder of what Tristan is really like,” Flip says, then grimaces as he takes in the horrified expressions around the table. “Which was a really shitty thing to do.”

“Ya think?” Hollis scoffs. “Like the stakes weren’t already high enough with Rix being your sister, then you gotta throw his past, which you’re complicit in, back in their faces?”

“I didn’t think about it that way until now.” Flip looks embarrassed.

“Going behind your back was a shitty thing to do, though,” I say. “And I didn’t mean for it to happen. Or keep happening. Or to catch feelings for Bea. But I did. Catch feelings.” I rub the back of my neck. I feel like I’m about to have an allergic reaction.

“I mean, you passed up a repeat with Tiff and Trinity, and those two were up for anything,” Flip says.

“I don’t want to talk about other women’s pussies. Especially not other ones I’m familiar with, because it makes me feel like a steaming pile of garbage, and I already feel shitty enough.”

“At least I’m upfront about who I’m sleeping with instead of hiding it,” Flip counters. For a moment it seems like he’s going to say more, but then he takes a swig of his beer and sighs. “I guess if you want to try to date my sister, I won’t punch you out again.”

“For real? You’d be okay with it?”

“Yeah. For real. Just don’t break her heart,” Flip warns. “If you do, I get to punch you in the face again.”

“That’s fair.”

Dallas claps me on the shoulder. “Look at you two. That’s some real personal growth.”

Now I need to grow a pair of balls and apologize to Bea for being a giant asshole. If I’m lucky, maybe she’ll let me do more than make up for that orgasm I shortchanged her. Maybe she’ll let me try to date her, too.