When Jakob walked into the locker room, Shea’s teammates greeted him like he was the captain. Not that it bothered Shea much. He probably did deserve the title more than Shea did. Jakob wasn’t a future mental patient, he was doing great. With a ring on Harper’s finger and a baby in her belly, Jakob was on cloud nine, while Shea was trying to find some place to crawl to and die. Jakob’s happiness actually made Shea sick. He was so jealous of Jakob that he was disgusted with himself. He should be happy for his best friend, not wish the man was down in the dumps too.

But hey, misery loves company.

“I see you made it,” Jakob said under his breath as he sat down beside Shea, slipping off his shoes.

“Yeah, I was with Grace this morning.”

“Good. I’m glad, and will excuse the fact that you weren’t at practice.”

“Thank you, captain,” Shea said sarcastically, receiving a glare from Jakob.

They didn’t say much else to each other as they started to suit up.

“Are you going to make it tonight?”

Shea looked over at Jakob, with his eye brows raised.

“What?”

“The last time we played here, you had that-”

“I’m fine, Jake. I’ve prepared myself,” Shea said, interrupting Jakob from telling the whole locker room his business.

The last home game they played, Shea hadn’t prepared himself for the pain that came. When he skated out and saw that she wasn’t there in her regular seats again, Shea had to leave the ice because he couldn’t keep it together. The first time she wasn’t there he wrote it off as her needing time to heal. Even the second and third time and even the seventh, he thought nothing about it, but the last time he went out and she wasn’t there, he lost it. Why it took eight times for him to realize that she wasn’t going to be sitting there was way above his comprehension, but it hurt him bad.

“Okay, good,” Jakob said, with a nod of his head as he started to lace up his skates, “Have you talked to Damon? He called me again today.”

“No, I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Have you made a decision yet?”

Shea shook his head, “No.”

“Well if it’s worth anything, I vote you stay here. Just saying.”

Shea smiled weakly over at him, and Jakob returned the smile with a bigger one.

“I don’t want to play without you, and I can’t leave. Harper would flip.”

“I know.”

“You know, with her running the studio and with the house,” Jakob continued. Shea didn’t want to seem rude, but hearing about Jakob’s perfect life was not what he wanted at the moment.

“I know, dude,” Jakob looked over at Shea nodding before going back to lacing his skates, “I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”

“Okay.”

They were silent again as they continued to suit up. All Shea could think about was, “am I ready to skate out on that ice, knowing I won’t see her? He wished like hell that when he went out on the ice, she would be sitting there, grinning. She would have; her hot dog and beer, a number six on her cheek, and his jersey on her beautiful body. God, how he wished for that. How if he could, he would go back in time. Not take Victoria with him to get her engagement ring, go alone, because he knew that if he had left that crazy bitch at home, he would be engaged right now, living in their house together, being happy.

But that was all a dream, this was his realty.

“Are you still going to the event tomorrow?” Jakob asked, knocking him out of his dream land and back to real life.

“Yeah. I have to get back to the way I was, starting with practice in the morning and the event tomorrow night,” Shea answered with a nod.

Jakob smirked over at him.

“Good, I feel good about tomorrow.”

Shea didn’t know what the hell there was to feel good about, but whatever. Jakob was a weird dude sometimes.

When Shea was fully dressed, he got up and headed towards the hall that would lead to the entrance to the ice. He grabbed his stick, and with every step the roar of the crowd got louder. This is what he loved; hockey which always loved him. He was good at it, he loved it. Why couldn’t it be enough? When he stepped onto the ice, his eyes immediately went to her seats. Two older guys sat there, both pointing at the opposite team. And for the love of hockey, they didn’t even have Assassins’ jerseys on, but Duck ones.

Shea was sure that the tightness in his chest was from the fact that she had sold her tickets to Duck fans, and not because she wasn’t sitting there.

Who was he kidding?

When Shea’s phone alarm when off the next afternoon, he rolled over, turning it off. He moved to his back, looking up at the vaulted ceilings of the room that they would never share. He figured the nap would do him some good after the vigorous practice he had that morning, but he probably needed to sleep for the nap to help. With a huff, he got off the air mattress and headed into the bathroom to take a shower. He really needed to bring his things over from the condo. The damn air mattress was doing hell on his back, and he missed sleeping in his bed.

As Shea washed his body, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring that bed over to the house to sleep in for the same reason he couldn’t sleep with a female in that bed. She had slept in that bed with him for months; they made love in that bed. Even after kicking the females out of the condo, he always slept on the floor or on the couch. The bed held too many memories, and he couldn’t handle it.