Bombshell

The restaurant James chose for us to meet for lunch was a cute little place right near Annie's apartment that had a few little wrought iron tables out front shaded by maroon umbrellas. He was already sitting down at one close to the wall in the shade when I walked up, but his back was to me so I had a moment to take to prepare myself before he noticed my presence. I took a few deep breaths before I pressed onward and walked up to the table, dropping into the seat across from him, as he looked up from his menu and smiled widely in greeting.

"Hey, I hope this place is okay. I heard the food's pretty decent."

"Oh, yeah, it's fine."

He was watching me a little too closely and I refused to look him in the eye so I settled for opening the extra menu on the table and scanning the lunch options. I could just feel that he wanted to say something, but I wasn't going to be the one to initiate it. The pretty young waitress that came to take our order tried to flirt with him but he seemed to have too much on his mind to even notice it and he handed his menu back without even looking at her once he'd ordered. Because I was still avoiding his gaze and also I wasn't a rude person, I looked at her and gave her a polite smile when I handed mine back but she looked a little deflated that he hadn't given her a second thought.

It was silent between us for a few moments before I finally decided I should take control of the situation. I had a pretty good feeling I knew what he wanted to talk about so instead of waiting for him to start talking, I decided to go ahead with a different topic. It was something I knew he probably didn't want to talk about yet, but I couldn't help myself.

"So how are you doing with the trade?" I asked carefully, watching the expression on his face change from hesitant curiosity to straight up disappointment.

He let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. "Still doesn't feel real to me yet. I was just kinda blind-sided by it so-....I mean, I'm here in Nashville and I've met with some of their front office guys and shit, but it's weird. This is officially my team now, but Pittsburgh is still home."

It made me hurt to see him like that. I didn't think I'd ever seen James Neal sad before that moment and the look on his face broke my heart. "Have you talked to any of the guys yet?"

"Not yet," he said, raking a hand through his slightly overgrown hair. "I just....haven't been up to it. I know what they're all gonna say and I'm just not ready to hear it yet."

"Well, I don't know if this is part of all that cliche stuff you're not ready to hear yet, but I'm really sorry. I know how much you love playing in Pittsburgh and it really fucking sucks that this happened. I'm gonna miss seeing you in a Penguins jersey. I'm gonna miss seeing you."

"You haven't seen me in months anyway," he retorted but then almost immediately he looked up at me and shook his head apologetically. "It didn't sound that rude in my head."

I cracked a smile and shrugged. "It's true, I haven't. I'm sorry for that too."

He leaned forward, propping his arms on the table as he found the perfect segue into the conversation he really wanted to have. "Speaking of avoiding me and the rest of the team....Tell me what happened with you and Bennett."

"C'mon, I'm sure you heard the story," I replied, keeping my eyes on my glass as I twirled my straw around in the water. I had to do something to keep from looking at him.

"What, the cheating story? Yeah, I heard it but I never believed it."

So, it had been turned into a cheating story. It wasn't just that I'd supposedly broke up with him for another guy; apparently I had cheated on him with another guy too. The fact that James hadn't believed that lie did make me feel better, if only a fraction. "Why not?"

He chuckled. "Because I know you were in love with him."

My heart rate sped up until I was sure it was going to beat right out of my chest but I tried to keep my expression neutral. I'd never admitted that to anyone except Beau and my sister. "What makes you say that?"

"Come on, Aud. You were walkin' around with hearts in your eyes for like three months. Besides, even if that weren't true, you're not the kind of person who would cheat on a guy. Especially not a guy who was your best friend."

I was indescribably glad to hear him say that, but at the same time, I couldn't help but wonder how he could see it but none of the other guys could. If we were as close of friends as I'd thought, they all should have known that I would never do something like that, especially to Beau.

"That whole chain of events was pretty weird," he continued, a suspicious tone in his voice. "I mean, you were best friends for a long fucking time. And then you guys started dating and you just kind of stopped coming around. One day he gets in a fight with Sutter and you just disappear off the face of the earth? What the fuck was that?"

I sighed, letting my eyes close for a moment, but when I opened them again, he was watching me intently, just waiting for me to respond. "Before we started dating, I kind of-....I slept with a couple of guys on the team. That's why I stopped coming around after we got together. The guys started acting weird around me, Beau was jealous. He tried to get past it, but he just couldn't. It was too weird for him."

James looked very surprised by my confession. His jaw had even dropped a little as he stared at me with widened eyes. "Did he know already?"

"Yeah, of course."

"But he wanted to date you anyway."

I shrugged my shoulders. "At first, I guess. Yeah."

"So what happened to make that suddenly change?"

"I guess it was harder to deal with than he thought it would be. He said he couldn't help thinking about it every time he was around them. Looking around the locker room every day at all your teammates and knowing your girlfriend fucked four of them has to be-....I mean, that's a hard pill to swallow."

When I finally glanced up at him, his brows were raised and he was trying but failing to hide a shit-eating grin. I rolled my eyes at him when he spoke. "Four, huh?"

"I didn't mean to say-"

"So who were they?"

I scoffed. "I'm not telling you."

"Ah, come on!"

"Nope."

"Audrey-"

"No, James."

"Why not? It's not like I'm gonna see them anymore to blab it."

We just stared at each other, another wave of sadness hitting us both at the realization of what he'd said. He'd meant it as a joke but I guess neither of us were really ready to joke about it.

"C'mon, just let me have this one," he finally continued after an awkward beat of silence.

"I'm not telling you."

"If I guess, will you at least tell me if I got it right?"

He grinned and sat back in his chair in satisfaction when I shook my head but only because I didn't outright say the word no. "Let's see," he sighed thoughtfully. "Wait, is that why he got into it with Suttsy in practice?" I winced at the mention of Brandon and that fight and that day and it must have been enough answer for him because he laughed loudly. "Holy shit!"

"He made some inappropriate comment and Beau overheard him. It was kind of the final straw, I guess. That's the day we broke up."

James looked a little guilty for bringing up the fight again and he gave me an apologetic look before quickly moving on so that we didn't dwell on that for too long. "So who else?"

"I told you, I'm not saying."

"Alright, fine. Give me a hint at least."

"Well, none of them were over thirty or married. That narrows things down for you drastically."

He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously and leaned forward in his chair again. "Aud, you didn't-.....Not Bortz, right?"

"No!" I scoffed, wrinkling my nose in disgust at the suggestion that I'd actually sleep with my best friend's other best friend. "He's Beau's roommate. Of course I wouldn't do that."

"Okay, okay," he backtracked, holding his hands up in surrender. "Just checking."

"I wasn't that terrible a friend."

"I didn't mean-....." He cut himself off and shook his head, probably just deciding he should move on from that particular direction. "Okay, so guys under thirty who aren't married and aren't Bortz or me or Bennett."

"You act like this is such a feat trying to figure this out. I mean, c'mon, James, there's only like six or seven guys total that fit into those criteria."

I just watched him for a few seconds, waiting for that to click in his head before his eyes widened. "Tanger?" he finally guessed. "I thought he was still with Marguerite when you and Bennett got together."

"They'd been broken up for a month or two."

He nodded in understanding and shrugged his shoulders, accepting my answer. "Um....Geno?" I bit my lip and looked down at my lap to avoid his eyes and he laughed when he inferred what that meant. "Shit, really?"

"I don't know why you're acting so surprised. You know I always kind of had a thing for him."

"It was the accent," James joked. "So who does that leave then?"

"Think higher."

I waited for about two seconds before watching the realization hit him for like the millionth time since the conversation of me and Beau started but, from the look on his face, I gathered this one was the most shocking of all to him. "Are you fucking kidding me? Sid? Sid, who never hooks up or has relationships or has any female contact at all? That Sid?!"

"Shhhh! God, I think they heard you in fucking Pittsburgh!"

"Sorry, I just-.....Fuck, no wonder Beau was so messed up."

"What do you mean?"

"His captain, Audrey. You fucked his captain."

"I didn't actually sleep with Sid. It was just-....well, it didn't go quite that far."

James was quiet for a second, processing that before shrugging and shaking his head. "Still, that's a tough blow to the ego."

"Why? James, he knew about it before we started dating." My eyes were starting to tear up again and I cursed my inability to keep my emotions in check. I'd never been able to hide my feelings and one of my unfortunate idiosyncrasies was that I cried if I was sad or angry. "He knew all of it," I finished, but it came out almost like more of a whimper.

His eyes widened and he started to panic a little when he realized he'd upset me. "Fuck, Audrey, hey, I didn't mean to-...."

He reached across the table for my hand but I quickly drew it back and set it in my lap as I focused on my shaky breathing. It was stupid, I knew that; Beau and I had been broken up for months and I'd known that whole time that it was because he couldn't get past the fact that I'd done that challenge. I guess it was that James understood and agreed with Beau's feelings that upset me. I'd just confessed something very private in hopes that maybe he would understand my perspective, but he only saw Beau's. Basically, I was selfish and now I felt stupid and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"Don't," I interrupted, waving him off. "I fucked up. I know that."

"But you didn't. I mean, yeah I get Beau's point of view, but you didn't actually do anything wrong. Did you even know he liked you then?"

I crossed my arms over my chest but silently shook my head.

"Then that's it. I get that it was probably hard for him, but that didn't mean it was your fault. Maybe you guys just-.....can't work. And that's not anybody's fault."

I was pretty sure he meant that to make me feel better, but it had the opposite effect. Granted, he didn't know that Beau and I had recently started speaking to each other again or that we were going to be sitting down to have a talk when he returned to Pittsburgh ahead of the coming season or that I was still in love with him. The fact that James obviously didn't think we could work was just another blow to the steadily declining level of hope I'd found when Beau and I talked a few weeks before.

The waitress brought out our food but I couldn't even find the voice to say thank you when she set it in front of me. James dug into his immediately but I just stared at my plate, no longer hungry. He was halfway done before he finally glanced up at me and noticed I was just sitting there motionless and it was only after he called my name and asked me if I was going to eat that I actually picked up my fork. Still, I barely ate anything, mostly just twirling the pasta on the end of my fork and moving it around on the plate. Neither of us really said anything for the rest of the time and James didn't even wait for the check to hand of his credit card to our waitress.

"You didn't have to do that," I protested weakly, taking a sip of my water.

He still wore the sympathetic expression on his face and I was trying not to look at him too much because of it. "It's the least I could do, Aud."

We both got up from our chairs as soon as the waitress returned with his card and once we left the restaurant, we walked a little ways down the street before stopping next to a little park area where some kids were playing on a jungle gym.

"Well, I'm that way," he said, nodding his head in the direction we'd just come from.

"I'm right over there," I replied, pointing across the street to the faded brick apartment building my sister lived in.

James nodded awkwardly, running a hand through his dark hair. "Look, I'm sorry about before. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Don't even worry about it. I was just-....It's just a shitty situation, ya know?"

He nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, I know it is."

"But hey, it was good to see you," I told him, changing the subject, and he actually broke out into a smile as he pulled me into a tight hug. "I'm definitely going to miss your stupid ass."

"Nah, you won't," he chuckled as he let go of me. "But if you ever come visit your sister in Nashville again, give me a call."

"Drinks on me next time you're back in Pitt."

"I'll hold you to that. And you know how much I can drink."

"I'm well aware," I replied with a laugh, shaking my head, but quickly went back to more serious. "Hey, do something for me."

"Anything."

"Call your teammates back. I'm sure they're just as upset about this trade as you are."

His smile quickly faded and he sighed heavily. "I know."

"Call them, okay? They're still your friends."

"Yeah."

"C'mere," I said, wrapping my arms around him one more time and he hugged me back tightly for a few moments before kissing the top of my head and letting me go. "You be good now."

"Only if you are."

I cracked a smile and we both stood there silently for a few seconds before both turning away to walk in our respective directions. I made my way down to the stop light to wait for the 'walk' sign and when I glanced back at James, he was looking over his shoulder at me. I gave him a little wave and he smiled before turning back to continue on his way while I crossed the street with a small crowd of other people.

Annie and Taylor were cuddled up on the sofa when I got back to the apartment and I was so not in the mood to deal with that so I went straight to my temporary room and collapsed face down on the bed. She didn't bother me and I ended up falling asleep for over two hours. When I finally rolled back out of the bed, it was after four so I got up and changed into some comfortable clothes for the plane before I started packing up all my stuff.

Taylor carried my bag out to the car for me and we all loaded up in the little silver prius to head to the airport, but not before stopping for dinner on the way. I got to know Taylor a little bit more and by the time we finished eating, it was pretty safe to say I liked him for my sister; they were a good match. He parked the car so that they could come in with me to say goodbye but he stayed back a few feet to give Annie and me a moment alone.

She threw her arms around me, squeezing tightly, and I could hear her sniffling already. "Don't cry, Banannie. I'll see you when you come visit me in October."

"I know, I know," she sighed, pulling away to wipe her cheeks. "It's just so far away. I don't get to see you enough and it sucks."

"We'll skype more, okay?"

"It's not the same," she pouted and I rolled my eyes at her dramatics but pulled her into another hug.

"Be good, okay? I love you and I'll see you in October."

"Love you too, Sissa. Have a good flight."

I squeezed her tight before letting her go completely and Taylor came over to hand me my bag and say goodbye. I hugged him too before giving my sister one final kiss on the cheek and heading off toward security. The line was clear so I got through easily and once I got on the plane and situated comfortably in my seat, I pulled my phone out to turn it off and saw that I had my first text messages of the day from Beau.

Nealer finally called me back

p.s. fly safe