He grabbed a bottled water and twisted off the top.

It also didn’t surprise me he dove right in. Dom wasn’t much for bullshit or surface-level talk.

“Okay. So I get it. You’re helping out your friend’s sister. But is that all this is?”

I took my first drink, squinted from the sun where I’d headed outside to the backyard. From my view into the house, the girls were still crowding around Emmersyn, but there were smiles and laughter. She seemed to be doing okay, so I refocused on Dominick.

“What else would it be about?”

“You’re the one who told me about Ava, remember? On that bus?”

“It’s not about Ava.” I’d changed after she left. Closed myself off to everything but being there for the guys and playing the best hockey I could. Watching Dom struggle with a woman he cared for had loosened some of the mortar I’d built around myself. He also wasn’t entirely wrong. “At least not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Which way am I thinking?”

That I was still in love with my ex-wife.

He wouldn’t be wrong about that either. But it wasn’t entirely about that.

At his silence, I sighed. “Fine. It’s about Ava, but only because she’s getting married soon.”

He dropped his water down to his side and his features tightened. Dom had the ability to be one of the meanest assholes in the league. Hell, he’d battled with his own team once or twice.

Even I took in the scary look on his face and had to look away.

“It’s just…” The conversation with her from months ago was so bright and vivid I couldn’t kick it out of my head. “I want her to think I’m happy, is all. It’d make her happy.”

“You getting remarried will make your ex-wife happy?”

He didn’t get it. Didn’t understand Ava. How even after we got divorced, she still texted after a game. I’d never told her to stop. It made her feel better to.

It made no difference to me if every communication from her was a shiv to my chest. It was the same even if I didn’t hear from her.

No one knew she called me to let me know about her engagement before she called anyone else. “I didn’t want you to hear it from your parents or anything. I’m sorry.”

I’d told her not to be. Wished her well. Gotten off the phone as soon as it was done and a cement wall of awkward silence slammed through the phone line right after she said, “I want you to be happy, too, you know.”

Of course I did. It’s all Ava had wanted. And I wanted it for her, too.

“Woman doesn’t have a mean bone in her body,” I told Dom. “But I know she still feels guilt for leaving, even if she shouldn’t. That was all on me. But she knows she walked away, so she feels bad for hurting me. If I told her I’m happy, moving on… it’d give her some peace.”