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Hold On Tight

[Fifteen] Maybe

Tyler was feeling defeated. It was the first game of the regular season – a game against a newly franchised team- and they lost without even putting a point on the board. Lost without any kind of fight. Lost against James fucking Neal.

He dropped his head into his hands, his elbows resting on his knees, as his stomach churned at the thought of Haley being outside the locker room doors. He didn’t want to see her, knowing that she was out there wearing that stupid jersey with a post-game winning glow. He knew what she looked like when her team won a game, having seen that brilliant smile of hers a handful of times when he allowed her to attend his games that first year they were together. A fit of unfounded jealousy ripped through him at the knowledge that someone else would be the cause of it.

A hand slapped him on his shoulder, making him jump. His head snapped up to glare at the smug captain in front of him.

“Come on, Segs,” Jaime teased, speaking through his high-pitched giggles. What kind of hockey player giggles? “Your girl is gonna be gone if you stay in here moping.”

Tyler let out a long sigh and let his head drop again. “I’m pathetic. I couldn’t even win the only game she’s seen in the past five years. Against him of all people.”

He felt his teammate’s laugh before he heard it. “It’s the first game, Segs. We have 81 more games left for you to win her over.”

Tyler groaned. “I really hope it doesn’t take 81 games before she’s fully mine again. I don’t think I could take it.”

“You’ll be fine. But you should probably go out there before she decides she isn’t going to wait for you to mope any longer.”

He nodded his head and grabbed his bag. His post-game shower didn’t do much for the smell that seemed to cloud around him as he made his way out of the locker room and he was counting down the minutes until he could take a decent shower.

Forcing a smile onto his face, not wanting Haley to know just how much the loss fucked with him, he pushed open the locker doors and searched the hallways for her bright blue eyes.

He came face to face with a sympathetic smile from his mom instead.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, she went home. Her brother was pretty much pulling her out the door.”

“Oh.” The drop in his chest shouldn’t have felt so familiar as it did.

Candace raised up on her tippy toes in order to throw an arm around his shoulders. “It’s alright, big bro. She’ll probably text you tonight if she hasn’t already.”

He didn’t say anything else to them, just nodded his head and lead the way out to the player parking lot so he could drive all of them home. He should’ve prepared himself for the fact that she wasn’t going to stay. She had told him that much, especially with her brother there. It was too soon. They had time.

Tyler sighed as he focused on the road that would take him home. Time. That was all he could think about anymore. Too much time wasted, not enough time to spend with her, the time it will take to call her his again. He was panicky because he felt like he was running out of it.

He ignored the looks he received from his mom and his sisters, knowing that they were the same looks he had gotten that summer he went back home after Haley left. A sympathetic pout with a cloud of pity in their eyes.

It wasn’t until he saw Candace start to go up to her room that he remembered the way she and Haley interacted before the game.

“Hey, Candace? Can I ask you a question?”

His voice was quiet, so quiet that for a second he didn’t think she heard him before he saw her pause on the stairs.

She slowly turned around to look at him. “It’s about Haley.”

He didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow and sat at his kitchen island.

Candace sighed. “I went to see her.”

Tyler’s heartbeat picked up and his mind started to race. “What do you mean you went to see her?”

“After you guys broke up, when I came to visit you. You were out of control, Tyler, and you weren’t talking about what happened.” Candace sighed as she slumped into the kitchen barstool closest to him. “So I went to her school. You talked about her so much that I knew what her schedule was like, and I pretty much ambushed her at that coffee shop you always said she loved. It was easy because she didn’t know who I was.” She looked at her brother with a disappointed look. “The girl you had dated for more than a year didn’t know what your sister looked like.”

Tyler’s face dropped.

“That’s when I knew what happened. You were a self sabotager, Tyler. You used to run when things got too personal, and things with Haley – they were serious. At least more serious than with anyone else you had been with. You talked about her all the time, you spent all your free time with her, and that just wasn’t you. So I introduced myself, and we talked in that little campus coffee shop for a couple of hours. We talked a little about you, but mainly we just talked about life. By the time I left, she didn’t feel like your ex-girlfriend, she felt like a friend, so I asked if we could keep in touch here and there. I promised that we wouldn’t talk about you, and we didn’t. She helped me through school, friend and boy drama - She told me about her trips to New York and her friends.” Candace shrugged.

“She became my friend.”

Tyler didn’t know how he felt. He was angry, so fucking angry at her. If she would’ve just told him earlier, told him when he got traded to Dallas, hell if she would have told him the countless of times he would just stare blankly in the distance with nothing but Haley on his mind, maybe it wouldn’t have been so long before he got to see her again. Maybe they would have gotten together sooner - maybe they would’ve been engaged, or married, or had kids by now.

Maybe she wouldn’t be so broken.

He opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t think through the pounding in his head. What was she thinking?

A ding from the pocket of his sweats stopped him from saying something he most likely would have regretted. Not able to look at his sister, he just shook his head as he checked his phone.

Ty… I’m sorry. Thank you for the tickets. Don’t be mad at Candace, I told her not to tell you

Haley always seemed to know when he needed her to be the voice of reason.

He slumped down in his chair, leaning forward to drop his head on his arms that were leaning on top of the counter. He couldn’t be mad at Candace, because even if she would’ve told him in the very beginning, nothing would have changed. Haley would still hate him, and if he was being completely honest with himself, it probably would have been worse. He wasn’t ready to face her back then. He still had years of growing up to do.

He felt a hand run across his shoulders before Candace squeezed him into a hug. “I’m sorry Tyler.”

He lifted his head and sent her a small smile. “It’s alright, C. I’m gonna go up to bed. Goodnight.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond before he was up and walking to his room.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Haley's heart jumped to her throat when she saw his name flash across her phone screen. It was late, the game having ended hours before this phone call, so she knew he was probably exhausted. She was hoping that her text wouldn’t have been read until morning, giving her time to decompress from the argument with her brother and feelings she didn’t know what to make of yet.

Taking a deep breath, she held up the phone to her ear. “Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?”

A soft chuckle on the other side made her stomach flutter. “Yeah, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“You played good today, Ty.”

He snorted. “Not as good as James Neal.”

She laughed at the mocking way he said his name. “Hey, don’t get mad at him for doing his job well.”

There was silence and she mentally kicked herself for making fun of it. She remembers how he got after a loss, and as much as she hated those nights where she would wait for hours for him to call only for him to be at some random bar drowning his miseries, she didn’t mean to hurt him more than he was already.

“I’m sor-”

“Please don’t apologize.” He cleared his throat before quickly changing the subject. “So, Dylan’s sign was…. Something.”

Haley felt her cheeks heat up and she because glad that he couldn’t see her. “Yeah, that. Can I apologize about that?”

Tyler laughed. “No. Hell no. That was all my fault too.”

“He was pretty proud of it.”

“I bet. Jaime sure got a laugh out of it.”

She hated that there seemed to be so many lapses of silence between them, but she didn’t know what to do to fix it - if there was even a way to fix it. Is it ever going to get easier?

“I don’t know, Hal, but I hope so. God, I hope so.” Tyler’s voice startled her and she ran her hand down her face as she realized that she spoke those words out loud. “I- Uhm, I actually have something to ask you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had already met my sister?” He was hesitant, almost as if he didn’t want to hear the answer.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She knew this was going to come up, knew that he had probably talked to his sister about it before calling her. She just hadn’t prepared herself to answer her. If she was being completely honest with herself, she didn’t even know why she kept in contact with Candace throughout the years or why she even entertained her that day she found her in her favorite campus coffee shop. Back then, it was because she was lonely in her heartbreak and she just wanted someone to talk too, who kind of knew what was going on but didn’t pressure her for answers. Then she had come to enjoy their conversations so much that the middle Seguin stopped being the little sister of the guy who ruined her and instead became one of her friends. “I don’t know. I never thought I would ever talk to you again, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. Then, I didn’t know how to tell you, so I just let things happen and hoped it wouldn’t come out.”

He let out a dry laugh. “Yeah.”

“I really am sorry, Tyler. At least you know she already likes me.”

“Yeah, too bad your sibling hates my guts.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“Will he? I don’t even know if you’re going to get over it, Haley.”

“Yeah, well, we have time.”

Her stomach dropped when she heard his sad sigh. “Yeah, time.”

Haley didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to rush into anything with him just to get hurt again. She had done that the first time. She dove headfirst into him with no doubt that he was going to catch her, and when he didn’t - it was the worst pain she had ever felt. She had formed her life around him, and the hole that he left still wasn’t fully closed.

She needed to be smarter this time around. She had her own life, her own friends, her own career to think about now. She couldn’t - refused - to allow him to become the center of her world, because if - when - he leaves again she’ll need to be stronger.

“When can I see you again?”

She didn’t even notice that she hadn’t responded until he spoke again. Rubbing her eyes, the long restless nights since New York catching up to her. “I don’t know, Tyler. You’re the one with the busy schedule here.”

And there goes not allowing him to become the center of her world.

She really needed to get better at this.

“I’m leaving early tomorrow morning to St. Louis, but I will be back in Dallas after that game. I’ll have two days where I’ll only have a skate and a workout. Can I see you then?”

“So Sunday or Monday?”

“Both?”

“Tyler-”

“Please. I - Hal, I miss you. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I do, and I want to spend as much time with you as I can.”

Her heart felt like it literally stuttered in her chest. She looked down at the blanket that covered her body, tracing the design lightly with her finger. “I - okay. We can do something, dinner maybe. Just text me when your back and we’ll make a plan.”

She could hear the lightness in his voice the next time he spoke, and even though she was still so unsure about it all, she could admit that she was a little excited to see him. “Thank you. Thank you, Haley. I’ll let you sleep, you sound tired.”

“Okay, Ty. Goodnight. I’ll see you Sunday.”

There was a smile in his voice. “Sunday and Monday.”

She let her lips curve slightly at the emphasis. “Sunday and Monday.”

Notes

Wow, it's been so long. I promise I am going to start writing this story more frequently - with a new update a week, sometimes even more frequent. With hockey starting up again soon I've come into newfound inspiration!

Let me know what you think!

Comments

My heart almost collapsed when I saw the new chapter! Reay well written, Iove how are you able to describe all those feelings of the main characters. Keep writing please, really enjoyable story. Looking forward for the next one :)

blake blake
4/1/19

Yes please keep going. I love this story

tangerine21 tangerine21
3/8/19

oh interesting being asked for dinner like that though she's clearly thinking about tyler so hopefully she'll phone him soon

FootieJo FootieJo
7/7/18

Love this!

Staalgood11 Staalgood11
4/4/18

loved it! cant wait to see what he says to get her back

tangerine21 tangerine21
3/27/18