This was some kind of mind fuck. Why the sudden change of heart? Why the sudden confession? She knew where he was the whole time.
He shoved away from the desk, cursing.
Three game road trip. Three days before he could even consider the possibility of seeing her. Should he go see her?
No, he shouldn't jump at the bait. It had to be bait. He would keep playing it casual. He wouldn't act eager to see her. Why the hell should he be? She had a kid with another guy. He had no idea how much that other guy was in the picture. Sure she lived with her son, alone, he was pretty sure. She hadn't come out and said that. Had she married that other guy? Did she love him? This guy, who Kip was currently feeling angry with and jealous of, was the father of her child.
Kip refused to go down the road that she had gotten pregnant. They'd talked of having kids, that year they lived together. She wanted to finish school first, and he had to decide what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Amateur hockey didn't pay the bills, especially for a family. And he was damned if he was going to let Mandy support him.
Hello stupid, anyone home? Mandy had sent him off to play hockey. Sacrificing one happiness for another. Right, wrong, the road that ended with him and Mandy married had stopped a long time ago. His only choice was to be friends with her now.
And if he planned on being friends with her he was going to have to figure out how to stop living in the past. Stop all the what ifs. Not imagine that she would beg to have him back, that one had been in his dreams the night before. They met and it was the same old Mandy he knew a decade before. And she told him she hadn't stopped loving him, she hadn't ever loved anyone else and did he feel the same?
He woke from that in a cold sweat. It left him distracted all day, which showed in his practice that morning. Which got him an ass kicking. That kind of performance wasn't going to get him any game starts. He managed to pull it together for the game, pocketing a win in his stats.
He sat back down, poised his fingers over the keyboard. Okay. He was going to play it casual. He wasn't going to hope that they would get back together. They would just be friends who ended a romance of a lifetime so he could play a stupid game.