Bombshell

I had a serious problem.

Ever since the day Beau and I talked, I had become a nervous wreck counting down the days until he returned to Pittsburgh. He had texted me when he got home to California to apologize for just showing up at my apartment unannounced and somehow we ended up talking back and forth for almost four hours. It wasn't any substantial conversation about our relationship or anything, but it just felt good to talk to him, even if it was about stupid shit, like who was going to win the Stanley Cup or when he and his siblings were going back to the Santa Monica Pier.

The texting quickly became an everyday thing. Granted, it wasn't for four hours every single day, but it was definitely on a regular basis. I'd get a random text around noon because, with the time difference, he was just waking up when I was going on my lunch break. I'd reply before I went back to work, he'd reply a couple of hours later, I'd reply when I got home, and then he'd reply late in the evening when I was eating dinner. It was sort of a sobering moment when I realized we'd already gone back to goodnight texts just that easily. I wondered if he'd realized it yet.

By the end of June, I was getting ready to pull my hair out. I'd missed him before when we weren't speaking for months, but now that we were back communicating and I still couldn't see him, it was just more torture. Work had slowed down a little so we weren't as busy and with the summer intern they'd hired, Courtney and I didn't have as much work to do. Because of that, I decided it was the perfect time to get out of Pittsburgh for a few days. Dylan was the one to approve my vacation time and I think he knew better than most how much I really needed it. He let me off early that Thursday so I could go home and finish packing before my flight early Friday morning. He knew me too well because I hadn't even started yet.

The flight from Pittsburgh to Nashville was quick and uneventful except for my chatty seat neighbor with the screaming baby and once I grabbed my carry-on from the overhead bin, I threw it onto my shoulder and headed over to exit the plane. When I got down to the main doors, I looked around for the familiar head of dark brown hair matching my own and it took me nearly ten minutes before I finally caught the movement of my baby sister running directly at me.

"Sissa!" she squealed for the whole airport to hear and I just laughed at the looks she was getting. She couldn't say my name when we were little so instead, Mom started referring to me as 'sister' but Annie couldn't say that either. The nickname kind of just stuck, despite the fact that we were now twenty-three and twenty.

Annie launched herself into my arms when she got close enough and I stumbled backwards under her weight, almost falling on my ass and taking her with me. "Jesus Christ, how much sugar have you already had this morning?"

"I had a chocolate glazed doughnut and a cup of coffee for breakfast and then another cup in the car on my way here."

"So basically, your limit for the entire day," I clarified, rolling my eyes.

"That would be correct," she giggled before looping her arm through mine. "Come on, let's go! I wanna show you around!"

She dragged me through the glass doors of the main entrance and we trekked all the way out to where her little silver prius was parked. I tossed my duffel bag into the back seat before climbing into the front and I didn't even get my seat belt fastened before she jetted off, obviously in a major hurry to show me her town. She'd just finished up her sophomore year at Vanderbilt in May but this was the first time I'd ever made the trip down for her to give me the big tour. I was waiting for her to explain why she was staying in Nashville for the summer instead of going back home to our parents' house in Arizona, but I figured she'd have to tell me sooner or later.

We went back to her apartment first to drop off my bag and park the car; she'd decided a walking tour would be more fun than driving around town. She shared the apartment with a roommate but the other girl had gone back to her home in a small town on the outskirts of Memphis after school had let out so we had the place to ourselves for my visit. It was a tiny little place just off of campus, but the two of them had decorated it so cutely and I kind of wished my apartment in Pittsburgh looked more like it. My apartment was boring compared to their bright, colorful one.

"Thanks for letting me come down for a visit, Banannie," I told her as we walked out the front door to start our tour. "I really needed to get out of Pitt for a few days."

"Something happen?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at me from behind her bright red-rimmed sunglasses.

"A lot, actually, since our last long skype session." Annie just stared at me, waiting for me to continue so I sighed and slid my sunglasses down over my eyes as we stopped to wait for the 'walk' sign to light up on the other side of the street. "I saw Beau at a gala back in May."

"You what?! Why didn't you tell me sooner?! It's almost July!"

"Because we didn't actually speak that night," I told her, launching into the whole long tale from the beginning, all the way up to now where I was currently conversing with him daily, despite the topics never being anything of substance. When I was finished, she just stared at me for a moment before she laughed.

"I knew it. I knew he still loved you."

"Technically he never even said it the first time so...."

"Oh please, Audrey," she scoffed. "He's been in love with you since day one. Honestly, I can see it even in those awful old pictures of you guys as tiny babies in your dorms."

"Well he never said it."

Annie broke out into a grin and threw her arm over my shoulders, pulling me in close to her side. "You know he did though, right? He does. It's all gonna work out, Sissa. I betcha."

I nodded just to appease her and mustered up what was probably the most pathetic reassuring smile I could ever have given. "I hope you're right."

"I am," she declared confidently. "Now come on! I wanna take you to my favorite brunch place. The waffles are to die for!"

-

Annie dragged me all over Nashville, showing me all the little places that she and her friends had discovered in her two school years of living there. I ate more in one day than I'd eaten the entire week leading up to my trip and probably gained a couple of pounds along the way. I had no idea how Annie was still as thin as the day she left Arizona for her freshman year. If she ate that way all the time, she should have been about as big as a house. We returned to her apartment in the wee hours of the morning and immediately collapsed, her in her bedroom and me in her roommate's empty-for-the-summer bedroom.

I relished the idea of sleeping late since I was on vacation, but that was short lived. It was barely ten on Saturday morning when Annie pounced on me, shaking me awake and giggling the whole time. It felt like we were kids again. I'd lost many hours of sleep over the years thanks to her.

"Come on, wake up, Sissa! I've got a surprise."

"GetoffmebeforeImurderyou," I grumbled before burying my face back into the pillow.

She scoffed at me and crawled off the side of the bed to stand next to it. "Audrey Noelle Lane, get your ass out of bed right now!"

"Why can't you let me sleeeeeeep?" I whined, rolling over onto my back to glare at her.

Her hands were planted firmly on her hips and, combined with the look on her face, she was a carbon copy of our mother in that moment. That thought made me laugh despite being annoyed at her for waking me up and I threw the blankets back off my legs before I begrudgingly scooted off the edge of the bed. She smiled triumphantly and skipped back into the living room while I took a moment to stretch my stiff limbs and shake out the rat's nest that my hair had become through the night. I shuffled out of the bedroom to the living area, yawning, and froze in my tracks when I saw two people sitting on the mustard colored sofa.

So, that was why she decided to stay in Nashville-- she got a fucking boyfriend. But he wasn't just any guy. I recognized him from somewhere.

"Babe, this is my big sister, Audrey. Aud, this is my boyfriend, Taylor."

"Nice to meet-" he started, but I was so preoccupied with figuring out where I knew him from that I interrupted him.

"Taylor what?"

"Sorry?"

"What's your last name?"

His brows furrowed as he glanced over at Annie but she only chuckled. "She's just trying to figure out how she knows you. Audrey, he plays for the Preds. I'm sure that's where you know him from."

"You're dating a fucking hockey player," I blurted out, my mouth working faster than my brain, but she giggled, obviously finding my reaction funny.

"Guess Mom and Dad were right, huh? You have too much influence over me."

I scoffed at the mention of that whole argument I'd had with my parents a few years ago when I was still in college. I had always been nothing but a shining influence in front of Annie, but somehow they always blamed me when she did something dumb. "You even went to college in the damn South and somehow still found one."

"I know," she grinned. "What are the chances? We're even more alike than you thought." Poor Taylor was just sitting there on the couch, looking between the two of us in confusion. Annie didn't even notice until she saw me looking at him and then she laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Remember, babe, I told you about her and Beau."

"Oh my God, Annie," I groaned.

"Don't worry, I didn't tell him the whole story. Just that you guys were friends and that you dated."

I raked my hands through my hair and sighed, ready to be done with the direction of this conversation. "I'm gonna go take a shower."

"Well hurry, because we've got stuff to do today!"

I ignored her as I made my way back down the hall to grab some fresh clothes for the day and then I went to the tiny bathroom to have a shower. I took my time washing my hair, just thinking. It wasn't that I didn't like Taylor; it was just such a foreign concept for me that my sister was dating a hockey player. It was so far on the opposite side of the spectrum of her usual type that I almost couldn't believe it. I wondered if my parents knew. Well, obviously of course they didn't know because I hadn't received any calls about my father having a heart attack yet.

Once I decided I'd taken long enough, I jumped out out of the shower and dried off then pulled on my clothes before quickly blow drying my hair. When I finally got back to the living room, the two of them were making out and I just rolled my eyes before clearing my throat. Annie giggled again as she pulled away from him and stood up, holding out a hand for him to get up too.

"So where are you taking me today?"

"Well, that depends. You wanna meet some of Taylor's teammates?"

I didn't want to seem rude by saying no, but I really didn't think I could handle a bunch of hockey players at once. I was still a little gun shy from my last experience with them. Instead, I just asked, "It's almost July. Do you even still have teammates in town?"

They exchanged knowing looks before Annie grinned at me and shrugged. "A few. Come on, let's go!"

Once she slid her feet into her flip flops and Taylor put his shoes back on, we all left the apartment and went down to the parking lot to get into Taylor's fancy black car. I guess there was just something different about the boys in Pittsburgh because most of them had normal cars, but everyone else seemed to get the pretty sports cars and I wasn't used to it. We all climbed into his car and luckily where we were headed wasn't too long a drive because I was crammed up in the back seat.

-

I met Carrie fucking Underwood.

Of course I knew that her husband played for Nashville with Taylor and that she lived there full time because, hello, she was a country music superstar. But Mike Fisher was definitely not the teammate I was expecting to meet, and I sure as hell wasn't expecting to go up into his house where he was just chilling like a normal person watching television with his wife, who just happened to be Carrie fucking Underwood.

I was busy trying not to faint at the goddess in front of me while my sister just went and plopped herself down on the couch with her, chatting away as if they were old friends. My sister was friends with Carrie fucking Underwood. I tried to keep my cool, but I think I just came off as shy, which wasn't me at all, but better than them thinking I was a lunatic. They were super nice and wonderful just like I imagined they would be and when we were leaving, Carrie fucking Underwood hugged me and said it was so nice to meet me. I was floating on a cloud the whole way back to Annie's apartment where Taylor dropped us off.

Annie and I just sat on the couch and watched a movie while we waited for dinner time so we could go eat something, but I couldn't even say what the movie was because I wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to it. My phone vibrated in the pocket of my shorts and I pulled it out, not even bothering to read Beau's text before I sent him one back.

i'm dead. i died and went to heaven. RIP me.

oh no who killed you

my sis. but it's okay, i died happy

and how exactly did you die

i met carrie fucking underwood

shit really???

yeah because apparently annie dates taylor beck now

hockey player? chip off the ole sister block

All it took was that one text message to dissipate that cloud I was on and slap me back down to reality. Just a reminder that I was no longer dating him still felt like a punch to the gut all this time later. I wanted to retaliate with something like 'not really, she chooses better' just to hurt him, but I knew he didn't mean to hurt me with what he said, and even if he had, I couldn't hurt him back.

surprise i'm a bad influence after all!

nah, the best

tell my parents that ha

lol i did remember?

Oh God, did I remember. I thought my dad was going to disappear into nothing he was so embarrassed when Beau respectfully disagreed with him over dinner once after we first became a couple. My dad had been constantly making little comments all night about me, about my relationship with Beau, about how my sister looked up to me and how I should be setting a better example. But then Beau just jumped in and defended me to him, somehow still maintaining his politeness while he did so. The whole table was silent for a moment after he was finished and my dad eventually cleared his throat but didn't say another word for the rest of the meal. My mom tried to make small talk with me, but dinner was pretty much ruined after that.

you embarrassed the fuck out of my dad

well i couldnt just let him say that shit about you

it shut him the hell up right quick

youre welcome ;)

did i say thank you? weird, i don't remember that....

RUDE

thank you :)

youre welcome

I finally put my phone away after Annie made the comment that I was grinning like an idiot at it for twenty minutes straight and successfully deflected any questions by suggesting that we go hunt some food. She decided she knew this great place but it was a little fancier than the way we were dressed. Both of us decided we were too lazy to change our outfits but we went anyway, looking like street urchins. We had just ordered our food when I noticed she kept glancing over my shoulder. I didn't think much of it at first, but the longer it went on, the more strange it got. She looked harder and for longer periods of time at who or whatever was behind me until finally she let out a breath of air and leaned forward to put her elbows on the table.

"Hey, Aud, do you know anybody else that lives here?"

"Don't think so, why?"

"Because there's some guy who keeps looking over here."

"Where?" I asked, looking over my shoulder to see who she was talking about. I should have known better, considering what had happened the last time someone said that to me at the gala. It took about a tenth of a second for my eyes to connect with a pair of blue ones halfway toward the other side of the restaurant and I cursed under my breath as I whipped back around in my seat to face my sister. "What the hell is he doing in Tennessee?"

"So you do know him," Annie stated skeptically.

"Yeah," I sighed. "I do."

"Do we like him or do we hate him because he's coming over."

I groaned. "Ugh, great. This is just what I need."

He cleared his throat right behind me but I really didn't want to look him in the eye. He took another step so that he was directly in front of our table, towering right over me, and my sister just stared, waiting for me to say something. When I didn't, she rolled her eyes and looked up at him with a polite smile. "Hi, I'm Annie. And you are?"

"Oh, uh, I'm James."

"Nice to meet you, James."

"You too."

Still smiling, she shifted her eyes back to me and kicked me under the table. I hissed in pain at her pointy shoe coming in contact with my shin but I knew I had no choice but to acknowledge them now. James was watching me carefully and when I finally looked up at his face, he smiled. "Hey, Aud."

"Hey, Nealer," I said quietly. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He was dressed up, probably like I should have been in a restaurant like that. But I couldn't think of a single reason why he would be in this city, in this state at all. He lived in Pittsburgh during the season obviously, but now that it was summer, he should have been back home in Canada like always. He didn't even have friends here that he could be visiting.

"I, uh, kinda got traded here. To Nashville."

My mouth dropped open as I stared at him in shock. "You what?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, but the expression he wore was less than cheerful. In fact, he looked pretty bummed about it, awkwardly rubbing his palm over the back of his neck. "Yesterday actually."

"Holy shit."

"What about you? What are you doing here?"

It took me a moment to digest the information that the Penguins had let him go, but I eventually nodded my head and moved on enough that I could at least formulate an answer. "I'm just here visiting my sister for a few days."

"Well, how much longer you gonna be in town?"

"I leave tomorrow night."

"Me too. You wanna grab some lunch tomorrow or something? Catch up?"

I glanced over at Annie, unsure, because going to lunch with him was pretty much just opening up that can of worms all over again, but she nodded encouragingly. He was looking down at me hopefully and I sighed, finding it impossible to say no. He grinned when I hesitantly agreed and after confirming that my phone number was the same, he promised to text me later for a time and place before he left us to return to his table. As soon as he was out of sight, I pulled my phone from my pocket, suddenly having a reason to be the one to text first.

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME JAMES GOT TRADED

It was only four in the afternoon California time and, if he was still doing what he'd been doing an hour ago, Beau was still lazily hanging out on the beach with his older brother, Wade. Unsurprisingly, because of that, his reply came immediately.

it just happened yesterday. big surprise to all of us

have you talked to him at all?

texted him this morning but no reply. hes prolly pretty bummed about it and doesnt wanna talk yet

i can't believe they did that. like that was so unexpected

yeah i know. gunna be so different without him next season

no don't say that. i don't want to think about it :(

It didn't dawn on me until that very moment that he was probably really sad about it too. James was one of his best friends on the team and it was probably hard on him to see him go, knowing that he wouldn't be playing with him next year and, even more, that he'd be playing against him next year. It didn't matter that trades were just a part of the business; they were still really good friends and James being traded still really fucking sucked.

sorry if bringing it up was insensitive. i wasn't thinking

nah its ok. i was surprised when i found out too

i'm really sorry. i know you guys are close and that this really sucks for you

just the business i guess

well if you want to talk about it

thanks

I put my phone away just as our dinner arrived at the table and Annie didn't question me about it, but that was probably because she had a pretty good idea what was going on anyway. She skillfully changed the subject to something completely different and unimportant and I was grateful to get my mind off of it for a little while. It was when we got back into the car to drive back to the apartment that I felt my phone buzz again and when I pulled it out of the pocket of my shorts, I saw that it was from Beau.

really. thank you

that's what i'm here for