The rest of the day Mike paced around his house wondering if Hailey would text him or call with a response to his gesture. Mike wasn’t the kind to do very romantic things, but he wanted to show her that he had been thinking of her and that even though he wanted her to come out here for herself, he had missed her like crazy.

Around seven Mike heard his phone ring in his pocket. He had invited some friends over to get his worrisome mind off of things and was having a couple beers on the deck with them.

He pulled out the phone and found the text he had been waiting for:

Why now?

It wasn’t what he wanted or expected and he didn’t know how to respond ot it. It must have shown too because his brother, Matt, looked at him, “Didn’t work?” he asked.

“She just asked why now,” Mike responded in a bland tone as he looked over the lake in front of him.

“Tell her that you’ll explain it to her if she’s willing to meet up with you, this isn’t a texting kind of conversation.”

He looked back at his phone and typed out:

If you’ll meet with me later this week I can explain.

There was a long time before Hailey texted back, so long that everyone but Matt had left. Mike bounced his legs up and down on the deck, tearing the label off his beer bottle, and staring toward the trees in the distance. Matt chuckled, “You know she won’t give in that easily. She probably thinks you’re just saying this to get what you two had in Philly.”

“She knows I don’t charm my way into things with her.”

“She doesn’t know the side of you that actually wants something more with a girl, she hasn’t
seen that side.”

Hailey finally texted back:

Is it worth it?

Mike took a deep breath as he looked at my brother and read what she had written, “She asked if it was worth it.”

“Tell her that you think it is, but it’s up to her. Girls like to be reminded that they have the upper hand.”

Mike took his brother’s wise words and morphed them into his own:

I promise it is, but really it’s up to you. I have a lot of things to say, important things.

He tapped his foot on the deck waiting for her to reply back, but she took too long. Matt left and Mike was alone with his deep thoughts. Arnold laid in his bed in the corner of the bedroom just staring at his companion. Mike wondered if his dog sensed that he was trying to get both their girlfriends back.

He decided to be cute and called Arnie up onto his comfy bed. He took a quick picture of him and sent it to Hailey:

Arnie misses Lily and I miss you. the bed’s been lonely the past few months.

Mike still got no response from her and eventually fell asleep.

Hailey sat on the couch with her dinner and dog at her side. She hadn’t grown any fonder of LA in the past couple months but she had become more accepting of her new lifestyle. The lifestyle that she had made for herself in the west coast city was quiet and calm, very unlike her hectic life in Philadelphia.

She set her plate on the coffee table at her feet and turned her head toward the beautiful flowers that sat on her counter. They were gorgeous, a perfect mix of her favorite flowers and favorite colors. When she first saw them she figured they were from her parents or even Jeff sicne he knew all about her rough transition. After reading the short card, she knew that her world was
about to be turned upside down again and her calm life would be interrupted by her past.

After hearing about the shocking trade in the hockey world Hailey immediately felt bad for her two friends. Jeff and Mike both had large contracts with the Flyers and were both set in their city, enither of them were prepared to move at that time.

She thought about calling Mike to let him know that she was still supporting him or sending him a text that expressed the same, but she could never find the right words. She didn’t want him to think that she was looking for the same thing she had been in Philly because she wasn’t. hailey didn’t want the frivolous sex relationship anymore, she wanted something with substance, something to feel good about.

Mike had hurt her in more ways than she could count over the years, but she never told him. He made her look like a constant asshole when she went out with him and to his Flyer’s events. She knew how stupid she looked to the public eye and to her circle of close friends. However, it was something she had come to terms with because she didn’t want to rock the boat. She wanted to have him any way that she could so she accepted that he screwed around on road trips and probably in Philadelphia, she let all those things slide so she could have her fleeting moments with him.

That decision had taken its toll on her though. She hadn’t realized just how awful he made her feel until she was away from him and the situation. Back home, she was clouded with the sex and the good times they did have both in and out of the bedroom. They had always been good together and seemed good with what they had established, but deep down it killed her to know that she was sharing him and that he didn’t seem to see the pain it caused her.

Now, as she texted back and forth with Mike, she felt the pain again. It was mixed though, she felt the butterflies in her stomach again, the giddy, school girl feeling she would awlays get when he would call her every night while on the road, or when he would show up unexpectedly and take her to dinner or bring dinner to her place, the random days he would show up at her office just to brighten her day a little. Those were the moments she liked to remember, not the moments in which they argued or when she would see him flirting with another girl at the bar or hear about him
and Jeff bringing girls back to their hotel rooms.

When Mike texted her and told her he had a lot of things to say to her she wondered if he regretted their entire relationship or if he just needed someone to talk to about his concerns about being traded. At the same time, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had realized he loved her or that he at least wanted to attempt to have a relationship with her.

She ran her hand over the puck he had left at her apartment, the one she had hidden in a box in her closet until after she read the card to the flowers. She set it on her leg and then read the tiny card one more time, “I wish I had the right words to say then, but I do now.”

What did that mean? She felt as though it could have meant a number of things, possibly things she didn’t want to hear. Maybe he planned to come out and tell her that she had just been a stupid bitch to him, something that was simple and easy, that he knew wouldn’t require a dinner or tickets to a game, someone who wouldn’t stalk him afterwards.

Somehow, she was able to fall asleep that night though, wearing one of his old t-shirts she had stolen that she managed to keep smelling like him.