Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(116)

After kissing me on the forehead, she heads back the way she came toward the seating. I don’t move at first; I just watch her walk away while wiping the tears with the back of my hand. I jump when hands land on my shoulders, but immediately relax as soon as I hear him murmur my name.

Spinning around, I find Henry standing behind me dressed in his normal gym clothes, his bag slung over his shoulder. His face is calm, but there’s something missing. A spark, I don’t know. I know my instincts are right and something has happened.

“What happened? Why aren’t you playing?” He hears the murmurs of people hanging around behind us at the same time I do.

He nods toward the rink exit. “Can we talk outside? Or in your car?”

“Do you want me to give you a ride somewhere?” I ask. “You’re in your clothes and you’re leaving with your bag, so I’m guessing something has happened? Right?”

“Do you not want to watch the game?” he says, voice steady in a way that makes me want to shake him and find out what’s happened.

I feel like I’m losing my mind a little as I shake my head. “If you’re not playing in it, absolutely not.”

“Okay, let’s go home.”

I’d love to say that the car journey from the rink to Henry’s house is filled with a very detailed and interesting conversation about what the hell happened, but the reality is Henry doesn’t say one word until we’re walking into his house.

“Do you want a drink?” he asks, dropping his bag next to the couch and walking toward the fridge.

“Do I want a drink? No! I want to know what the fuck is going on before I actually lose it.”

He sighs, dropping onto the couch. I immediately take the spot beside him, not touching him, as much as I want to, because there’s something about him that’s off, and I don’t want to do something to push him over. When I’m finally close to him I see the top of his cheekbone is starting to swell. “Is that swelling? Did you get into a fight?”

“Fighting is for fools, and I’m not a fool,” he says, smiling at first then grimacing when he rubs his hand against the growing bruise. “He fought. I just got in the way of it.”

My hand covers my mouth, because if I don’t I feel like I’m going to scream this house down from frustration. Lowering my voice to a whisper, I give him a look that hopefully shows that I’m pleading with him. “Please give me a straight answer and just tell me what happened.”

“There’s a small area between the home and away hallways that meets before it goes into our respective tunnels. It’s because they confused the designs when they were building the arenas because of the other rink and they’d already started constructing and—”

“Henry, please.”

“Sorry. We call it no-man’s-land, but it’s basically just a short hallway that links us to the visitors. Under no circumstances do we stray into it and mess with the other team; Faulkner would have our heads. Will didn’t get the memo and had some shit to say. I said some stuff, he said some stuff, I said some stuff back. He was being aggressive. I’m not playing.”

“I feel like I’m a sim and someone is canceling the action where you give me a full explanation. He was being aggressive, I’m not playing doesn’t help ease how sick with anxiety I feel right now. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be hard work, but give me something. What’s so bad that you’re avoiding telling me?”

His face tells me I’m right immediately. He reaches for one of my hands and brings it to his mouth, kissing the back of it. “It isn’t nice, Halle. I don’t want to say it.”

“If it was worth fighting over, I think I have the right to know.”

“I didn’t fight; he fought. I know you don’t like fighting, so I didn’t,” he says seriously.

I’m confused beyond words. “So if you didn’t fight, how come you’re not playing?”

Henry rubs his jaw and looks everywhere but me. When I don’t look away, he kisses the back of my hand again. “Because I wouldn’t tell Faulkner what Will said. He said if I wasn’t going to be honest with him then I wasn’t going to play. I said fine. He said if I wasn’t prepared to do things I didn’t want to do for the sake of my team, maybe we needed to talk about if I have the right attitude to be captain.”

My heart is breaking for him. I know how hard he’s worked. “Oh, Henry.”

“And then I walked out after he was gone.”

“What can I do?” I ask, the desperation clear in my voice.

“I need to feel you. Can I?” I nod as he holds out his arms, and I’ve never needed to touch someone as much as I do right now. I think he feels the same because he tugs on my leg to pull it over his until I’m straddling his hips. He keeps my head to his chest, breathing deeply as he kisses my forehead.

His mouth works down the bridge of my nose gently, until he kisses my mouth, hesitant at first until it deepens. We don’t talk as we begin to pull at each other’s clothes. I have this frantic need to feel close to him, to keep him near me, almost like somehow deep down it feels like he’s slipping away when he’s right in front of me. I can’t explain it, but I think he feels it too.

Henry holds me close as he lowers me onto the floor. Every touch serves a purpose to get us closer together until he sinks inside me. He’s careful and tender, telling me everything and nothing in every kiss, every thrust. I cling to him tighter, and when stars burst behind my eyes, I still don’t want to let him go. I want to believe that it’s grounding to him, that it rids him of all the extra energy plaguing him. But it feels like an apology. Or maybe, it feels like a goodbye.