27

DINAH

“I need to take a sick day,” I called into work. I wasn’t really sick, I just needed a mental health day.

“Are you okay?” My boss Stacey asked with concern in her voice. I sighed as I laid on my couch still in my pajamas. I thought I had covered the phone, but she heard it. “I get it, it’s the anniversary of Jason’s death, that must be really hard for you.”

I closed my eyes. No wonder I had decided to just call it quits on Noah like a fucking asshole. I called quits with a really good guy, because I was scared of losing Noah like I had lost Jason. It had been a couple weeks since I had done it, and I still felt sick to my stomach. He had wanted to know why, and I couldn’t even tell him. I would have to wait to talk to him when he got home from his road trip, if he would even speak to me.

“I’m ahead of deadline, but call me if you need anything.”

“I understand. You guys pulled me out of the gutter after my divorce. Take the day, we’ll see you on Monday.”

I hung up my phone and just sighed some more, dropping my head onto the arm of the couch in defeat. I turned in my final edits on my second novel, and now I just wanted to wallow in my sorrow. Losing my husband had been really hard, and everything that came after it had been the worst thing that ever happened to me. But watching Noah get slammed into the boards like that had broken me. It was like everything about Jason’s death came crashing back down over me. I was helpless and I couldn’t find a way out of it. I had messed up big time, and if I was Noah I wouldn’t have forgiven me either. I wasn’t even sure if I could win him back.

My phone buzzed on my chest where I had dropped it. I saw Fi’s name scrolling across my screen. “Hey,” I answered.

“What are you doing?” she asked briskly without any real introduction.

“Um...wallowing?”

“Why the fuck did you break up with Noah?” she demanded.

“Hi, Fiona, it’s nice to hear from you too.”

“At least you finally answered me this time.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Riley has been getting on my shit about sorting this out, because Noah’s a sweet baby angel and you have gutted this boy’s poor heart!”

I picked at a loose thread on my throw blanket. “I know.”

She sighed on the other line. “Fuck, I’m coming over.”

“Why?”

“We’re getting drunk and are going to figure this shit out!”

She hung up before I could protest. I was still hungover from last night from getting drunk with my brother Tony. Who was also nursing a broken heart, which I only found out when I had to finally admit to my family that I wasn’t calling them back because Noah and I had broken up. Tony came over with a bottle of wine that we polished off in no time. I threw my phone on the floor and just flopped back on the couch. I had made my own bed and now I had to lie it in. In no time, Fiona was at my condo, with a bottle of whiskey. I let her in reluctantly, and she immediately made me a drink.

She shoved the glass into my hand and I took it. It wasn’t like this woman was giving me a choice. We clinked glasses and both of us took a huge gulp.

She looked pointedly at me. “Okay, what the fuck?” she finally asked.

I just shrugged.

She was still glaring at me. “Do you know how up my ass my husband has been to get you and Noah back together?”

My eyebrow raised at her phrasing. “Um, I didn’t really need to know that about your sex life.”

She gave me the finger. “You know what I mean.”

I sighed and took a large sip of my drink. “I’m sorry.”

She placed a hand on my arm. “What happened? You were all ready to tell him how you felt and then you freaked out when you saw him take that bad hit.”

I downed the rest of my drink, hoping I didn’t have to answer her question. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the tile of my kitchen floor impatiently.

I ran a hand through my messy hair. “I just...I had flashbacks about Jason dying and feeling so hopeless. I just couldn’t go through that again.”

Fi put a hand to her heart and then she pulled me into a hug. “Oh, honey. You can’t sacrifice your happiness just because you’re afraid of what’s gonna happen.”

“I know, I know,” I agreed and ran a hand through my hair in frustration. “I just don’t think Noah’s gonna give me the time of day.”

“You did kind of break his heart,” she agreed.

She poured another drink and we slunk into the chairs at my island counter. “We’re quite a pair, eh?” I asked with a laugh.

She smirked but nodded in agreement. “I think Noah will listen to you. I think he was really hurt you wouldn’t even tell him why.”

I ran a hand down my face. “God, I really fucked up.”

I looked at my phone and saw a text from TJ.

TJ: OMG! Will you two just talk to each other? I am sick of this.

I furrowed my brow and started texting him back.

ME: What do you mean?

TJ: Can you please just get back together, already? You’re both annoying when you’re not together.

ME: I really FUCKED up.

TJ: Then un-fuck it up, girl! I miss hanging out with you and I’m not allowed to hang out with you if you and Noah aren’t together.

ME: Says who?

TJ: BRO CODE, girl!

TJ: Just apologize.

TJ: And then get it in, because he’s annoying when he’s not getting laid on the reg!

I put my phone down and laughed out loud. Fi gave me a quizzical look, and I just shook my head. I needed to figure out what I was going to do to get Noah to talk to me again. He wanted to know why, and I could tell him that but I didn’t know if doing it via text was a good idea.

Fi and I spent the day brainstorming, and drinking a lot of whiskey, which in hindsight was probably a bad idea. I didn’t even like whiskey! At the end of the day she was lying on my couch moaning about her issues with her weird marriage of convenience, while I was lying on the floor below her trying to text Noah without making it appear that I was drunk as fuck.

“Why don’t you just tell Riley you love him, you weirdo,” I finally told her.

She leaned down to look at me with a confused look. “Are you high?”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “No, just drizzunk!”

She eyed me texting on my phone. “Are you texting Noah?”

“Trying to! Your drunk ass keeps on interrupting!” I exclaimed and glared at her. “Why did you bring over a bottle of whiskey during the day? This was a bad idea!”

She laughed and leaned back on the couch again. “I feel like this is the experience that makes us best friends! Two strong-willed writing women who ended up with hockey players. What are the odds?”

I shook my head at her and looked back at my phone where there were just a bunch of question marks from Noah. Oh fuck. I looked down at my phone to see I actually had hit send on it. Oh no!

ME: heyyy....we nedz to talkkkk whennn you get.........

NOAH: um...okay?

ME: Supperrrr

NOAH:????

NOAH: Are you drunk?

ME: no?????????????

NOAH: What do you mean no? Like you don’t know??

NOAH:????????????

“Oh, fuck!” I exclaimed, but Fi just erupted into laughter. I put my phone down so I wouldn’t continue to make a fool out of myself. “Now he’s never gonna take me seriously!”

“Oh, that shit doesn’t matter! Riley has never taken me seriously, but somehow his dumb-ass decided to marry me. Still don’t know why!” she laughed.

“Girl!”

“What?”

“That dumb-ass loves you, that’s why.”

She leaned down at me. “What are you smoking? No, Riley’s just a good guy. There’s just no way. He can’t.”

I gave her a dirty look. “How does that equal, ‘hey let me marry my best friend who was left at the altar?' No! He married you because he wanted to be your knight in shining armor and hoped that maybe you would fall in love with him in the process.”

She was shaking her head at me slowly. “No. No way!”

“Why else would he want to stay married to you? And loyal to you?” I asked her, but she was still shaking her head. “TJ said he doesn’t even look at other women when they go out anymore.”

Her eyes darted back and forth as if she was thinking about this a little too hard. “No, I don’t believe you.”

“Yeah, girl!”

“But...” she trailed off and sat up on my couch. I sat up from my position on my floor and stared her down. “Ohhhh!! How are we both so dense when it comes to these hockey boys?”

I shrugged, but had to turn away when my phone buzzed across the table. Noah’s name came across the screen, but Fi jumped at it and answered it for me. Oh no, this was not good.

“Uh huh,” she said into the phone. “Hey, is my husband with you?” she was quiet for a minute while she listened to Noah saying something on the other line.

Then she handed the phone to me. I heard the laughter in Noah’s voice. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back. “We need to talk.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I gathered that, but maybe we can do it when you’re not completely hammered?”

“Okay. When do you get home?” I asked quietly. God, even though I was drunk as a skunk, I had missed his voice. I missed him so much, and I had been so foolish for just up and ending it over text. I didn’t even let him respond before I blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

“I know, Lovey,” he said quietly. “We’re on the way back, but we have an afternoon game tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

He sighed on the other line. “I don’t think you and Fiona should hang out together, you two seem to get up to bad things together.”

“Noah...” I cried.

He sighed again, and that just made my tears fall more, because I really fucked up with this amazing man.

“Lovey, we’ll talk about this later, I promise.”

***

I WOKE UP THE NEXT morning with my head pounding and my mouth felt like the Sahara desert. I slowly opened my eyes and I felt like I was still spinning even though I was lying down in my bed. I tried to move, but there was a large forearm wrapped around my waist. I blinked for a second, that was a familiar muscular arm. I shifted around in my bed and squinted at my alarm clock, it was 3 AM.

What the fuck?

I managed to slide out of the bed, and downed the entire glass of water that was sitting on the bedside table next to me. My head was still pounding when I padded into my bathroom. I honestly didn’t remember anything after talking to Noah on the phone.

I glanced back into my bedroom and saw his sleeping form in my bed. His six-foot-two frame was stretched out across the length of the bed. He was shirtless and I watched for a moment the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. I shut the bathroom door behind me and splashed water on my face. I felt like complete and utter death and I thought I might vomit. I was never drinking with Fi ever again. She might be slightly worse than Rox, and I didn’t think that was possible. I brushed my teeth, but still felt like hot garbage, so I decided to hop in the shower. I didn’t even wash my hair, I just wanted to feel the water on my hot skin. I haven’t felt this hungover since—oh the last anniversary of my husband’s death. I guess I was predictable.

I wrapped a towel around my body when I got out, trying to squeeze all the water out of my long hair. It was too late, or rather too early to try to blow dry it, but the damp feeling of my hair actually made me feel good. The shower maybe helped by a percentage, but I still felt like complete and utter shit. I tip-toed back into my bedroom and changed into a different pair of pajamas, trying to be as quiet as possible, so I didn’t wake up Noah.

I still couldn’t remember why he was here. Did we talk last night? I was still really thirsty, so I went into my kitchen to get another glass of water, and ended up drinking two glasses right at the sink. I needed sleep, but now I had so many questions that I wanted answers to. I didn’t want to wake Noah though because he had a game today. What the fuck was he doing here? Did we have sex last night? No, Noah was very good on the consent thing and if I was blackout drunk he wouldn’t have done anything like that.

I filled up another glass of water and returned to my bed. I slid into it, hoping not to wake Noah, but he turned over and his strong arms gripped my waist. “What time is it?” he murmured all cute and sleepily. God, I loved this man so much, and I just wanted to tell him and fix the mess I had created.

“Late...or early, go back to sleep,” I whispered.

“Why’s your hair wet?” he asked, his face nuzzled into the crook of my neck.

If I didn’t feel like absolute death I would have been pulling him on top of me now, or getting down on my knees to show him just how sorry I was.

“Go back to sleep,” I ordered and I shifted onto my side to stop the spins.

He pulled me close to his chest. I had really missed this, just being with him and having him hold me. He stroked my hair, and I felt like I came undone. “Noah...”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, Lovey. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Did we...” I trailed off and let the question hang in the air.

He seemed to get what I was asking. He laughed. “Oh, you definitely wanted to, but you were very drunk when I came over here.”

I cringed. “I’m sorry. I would like to blame Fi for bringing over that bottle of whiskey, but—”

“I know,” he cut me off. He knew what yesterday was, and I wasn’t sure if that made it hurt more. “We’ll talk about it later, okay? Let’s just get some sleep before I have to wake up for morning skate.”

“I feel like absolute garbage,” I admitted.

He laughed again, his breath tickling the back of my neck. “You were very drunk last night.”

I groaned.

He stoked my hair some more, and it relaxed me so much that I found myself falling back into the black hole of hungover sleep. I was out so hard, that I didn’t even hear when he left.