Scored (EBOOK)

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My teammate’s first game back after his life-changing injury was a huge success.
But the impromptu wedding at center ice meant that the game hadn’t started on time.
Which meant that it hadn’t ended on time either.
And I still had to do my post-game routine—making sure I keep up with my conditioning, my strength training.
My rehab.
And, honestly, I don’t mind getting home late.
Roxie will already be asleep, so I won’t miss out on time with my daughter.
It also means less time in an empty bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out how I’d managed to so thoroughly fuck up my life.
Well, not all my life.
My daughter is awesome. The team is doing great. It’s just—
Stefan—my husband—has been distant lately.
Cold and unreachable.
Well, honestly…
That distance has been around much longer than lately.
Empty beds. Not coming to the team’s home games. Missing meals.
Just…distant.
And every time I try to talk to him about it, we end up in a fight. Me frustrated because he’s not talking to me. Him frustrated because I’m pushing.
Sighing, I hit the button to close the garage door, waiting until it shuts completely before I unlock the door into the house and step inside.
Then pause as I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
No under-cabinet lights left on for me in the kitchen, their soft glow illuminating my walk down the hall, making sure I don’t trip over a stray toy or shoe or jacket or mini hockey stick or ballet tutu or karate belt from my tiny crazy, wants-to-do-every-activity little human.
I don’t have that now.
I may not ever have it again.
I sigh, hang up my coat, then toe off my shoes and shove them into the rack before padding into the kitchen.
Dark.
Quiet.
I need water, a snack, and then to sleep so I’ll be rested enough to get up with my rambunctious kiddo.
Which will likely happen far too early tomorrow—er—this morning.
Stretching a hand across the wall, I hit the switch to turn on those under-cabinet lights.
Then gasp, clamping a hand to my throat.
Stefan is sitting on one of our barstools, elbows resting on the island. Silent. Staring at me. After having sat in the dark for who knows how long.
“Hey,” I manage to push past my pounding pulse, my suddenly tight throat.
Where had the warmth in his eyes gone?
Had it just disappeared one day?
Or had it slowly, incrementally just faded away, slipping from his blue irises like grains of sand in an hourglass, so slowly that I hadn’t noticed?
Not until that hourglass was empty.
Not until his eyes had transformed from Caribbean warm waters into…ice.
He doesn’t reply—not to my gasp, not to my greeting. And he doesn’t take me close, lips curving as he nuzzles my throat, drawing me against the warm, strong expanse of his chest, whispering a soft apology in my ear for startling me before complimenting me on the game.
Before taking me up to bed, exhausting me in other, more pleasurable ways.
And I don’t know what to do, what to say to this man who’s become a stranger by millimeters, so I…
Turn for the fridge, for the snack, for the chocolate milk I prefer to drink post game, the veggies I precut that are waiting for me. I’ll dip them into some hummus, drink that chocolate milk, plenty of water, and call it a good enough recovery meal.
Our team’s nutritionist, Rebecca, will be pleased.
After grabbing the container with sliced carrots and celery, a pepper, some kale, I spin back around.
Set it on the counter.
Pop open the top.
Go back for the hummus and slop in a couple of tablespoons.
Wash the spoon, slot it into the dishwasher. Rinse the lid.
All the while, my heart is pounding and I’m waiting, wishing, praying.
Because…this is wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Meanwhile, my husband just sits on that barstool, not in any hurry to break the silence, and neither am I, I suppose.
Because I’m a coward.
Because I’ve pushed and been rebuffed so many times that I’m scared to reach out again, scared to be burned again.
But…
It’s the hard stuff that’s worth doing.
Advice I’d given my former teammate, Rome, not long ago.
Advice that might be sound but is really fucking hard to do in actuality.
But…
I have to do it.
This is the love of my life. The man I’ve been with for more than a decade. The other half of my soul.
Isn’t that worth risking a few burns?
Heart lurching, I open my mouth.
Then bite back whatever words I was about to say when my husband finally speaks.
And does it in a tone that’s, unfortunately, become familiar.
Cold.
Sharp.
Resolute.
“I want a divorce.”