Our Overtime: Ice League Book 1 (The Ice League Series)

I watched her move up the metal stands of the rink. She’s still a tiny, bow-legged thing, but her waist and legs look slimmer than they did at 22. She’s less girlish and less muscular now, but she still moves with a sense of grace, like she always had.

I remember asking her if she thought she was a princess once, definitely drunk at the time, but she couldn’t help but move that way. I was always in awe of her. She was naturally pure gentleness, and she was trained in grace through her skating days; days that I’d been a part of.

I studied her long, light brown hair tucked under a baseball hat; it gathered in a low pony, and tumbled down her back, ending lighter at the bottom. It’s a lot longer than when I’d last seen it, but it still had a wave to it. Without even seeing the front of the cap, I knew it was probably a piece of old NY Rangers memorabilia with frayed edges, a hand-me-down from her late father. She could have walked right out of a memory, and that notion all but froze my fucking heart.

The only thing out of place was the fancy coat she wore. It didn’t match the hat and Nikes, nor the girl that I once knew under the coat. Unless she changed just that much.

I tried to do the math in my head… it’d been about nine years I think since I last saw her walk away from me. Everything about the way she moved and looked was unique, and I’d know it was her walking away from me anywhere, any day.

I’d bet a grand she had no clue that I was standing on the ice below her. I shook my head and blew out a breath of cold air. What a joke. Below. Her. Two words that made sense when it came to the two of us.

God. I needed to get her out of my head. This was supposed to be enjoyable for me, but her presence developed a twisted knot of regret, self-pity, and pure hatred in my very core- hate for her, hate for myself.

I closed my eyes and felt the cool air gently blowing against my face and absorbed in the hum of the rink around me. So, she got pregnant the same year she left me… Well, that hurt.

Nope, don’t even go there, man, I told myself.

I tried turning my focus to breathing and looking straight ahead, but the urge to see her again was too strong. I wanted to look at her. No, more. I wanted to look her in the eye and make her see how she left me…

Nope.

I needed to stop this.

To stop thinking.

The kids would be filing onto the ice soon. It didn’t matter that she was here. Not at all. I hadn’t thought of her in years. Why would I start now?

But that was the lie I always told myself. She was the reason every one of my drunk hookups were always with short brunette girls. She was never too far off my mind’s radar.

I felt my chest constricting and I squatted down against it to stretch out my legs.

So what? It’d be an hour that we were in the same place. She was somewhere out there in the world living her life every day, something I bitterly reminded myself of often when I was young and we first separated. I had a hat on, and I’d pull it lower. I’d ignore her son. And I’d have to cut her son. Just as long as I’d be able to figure out his last name.

I couldn’t bear to watch her in the stands every game knowing and thinking about the past. Seeing her with a husband would possibly make me mentally and physically ill. Just thinking about it brought bile to my throat. How could it not? For years I had thought- no, was sure- that I’d be her husband.

But we were just kids when I thought that. Why the fuck did it matter at all? It didn’t.

Damnit. I forced my dry mouth to choke down a swallow as I viewed her under the brim of my hat. Why did she have to look so small up there in the bleachers?

Only her presence could cause so much confusion, making me feel so utterly and fucking alone, but wanting to shelter her at the same time. Wanting to scream at her, but also ask why? Why not me?

I felt something tap the back of my leg pulling me out of my trance.

“Greys, man,” Max laughed at me. “Y’alright there, bud? Ya look a bit shooken up.”

For a split-second I thought about asking him if he knew she was up there, but I hesitated. I didn’t want him thinking that I cared at all. He had definitely been watching me a second before though, because he turned his head to where I had just been looking. I held my breath, waiting for him to realize.

“Hockey moms, man,” He revealed his toothless smile. He didn’t notice. Max should be smiling about hockey moms. He was exactly their type. Having the appearance of a professional athlete, but one who just missed the NHL, making him reachable in their eyes. He was the perfect mix of tough looking, with a missing tooth, slightly crooked nose, and a face that was never clean shaven, which paired perfectly with his boyish, goofy demeanor. The women flocked to him. I, on the other hand, having played a bit in the NHL, had no luck with women, and didn’t want any either. I used up my luck and I didn’t deserve or want anymore.

“Shut it,” I snapped too fast. Great, I’d probably tipped him off and made him think there was more to it. “Put your tooth in and get a damn haircut and maybe you’d have some luck, my friend,” I added, trying to distract him and check his ego a bit. “You’re wifed up anyway, you’ve got Paige.”

He’d been dating Paige since we were kids.

Max knew there was something though because he wouldn’t stop studying the stands.

“Hol-eeee shiiiit,” he whispered under his breath, finally realizing it and laughing out loud. “That can’t be…” he looked at me in awe, waiting for confirmation.

I clenched my jaw and stared straight ahead, “It’s her. I fucking know it.”

“Well shit, man! What’s her last name now?”

“Who fucking knows. Why do you care?” I snapped again and immediately regretted it. I chastised myself for letting it come out too gruffly, I usually excelled at hiding my emotions, but seeing her leveled me down to my teenage self. I spit a curse out.

“Oooh, sensitive,” he joked and shoved me in the gut. “I know she got married a while back though. Paige heard through some other girls from high school.” He watched me carefully like he was waiting for a reaction. Asshole. “Paige cried for days that she wasn’t invited,” he tested.

“Well. It’s Jules,” I closed my eyes and exhaled a shaky breath. Just knowing she was sitting up there made me feel like I was shrinking. “Fuck.”