Page 14 of The Chase

It was better to avoid TJ at all costs. TJ didn’t want something more with me. Besides, I didn’t deserve to feel for anyone else what I had felt for Charlie.

Charlie had been the love of my life, and a love like that only comes around once. You only get one soulmate, and I found him as a teen. When my mother found out Charlie and I had sex, she told me God would punish me for my sins. I thought she was being unreasonable, but then a drunk driver hit our car after coming home from graduation. When I was the only one who survived, it made me feel like she had been right.

I didn’t deserve to be alive when they weren’t. I didn’t deserve any happiness. So thinking about the ‘what ifs’ with a guy like TJ Desjardins was a waste of my time. I’d just avoid him until he gave up on me. I was pretty sure he’d already had multiple women in his bed since me. He wasn’t a guy who lingered on one woman. Everybody knew that.

God, or the universe, or even the hockey gods, weren’t on my side today though, because when I got into my car after work, it wouldn’t start.

“Crap,” I swore under my breath and got out of the car.

I popped the hood and looked inside, but I didn’t know what I should look for. I had just gotten an oil change, so it couldn’t be that. Did I leave my lights on? Was it the battery? I heard loud rap music from a car driving by, but I didn’t pay attention to it because my mind was running a mile a minute, trying to figure out why my car was dead.

“Hey! You need a jump?” yelled out an all too familiar voice.

A voice I had been avoiding.

Oh no!

Of all the people to spot me stuck in the arena parking lot, it had to be the one man I couldn’t stop thinking about. And the one I was actively avoiding at all costs.

I cursed silently to myself but didn’t turn around. “No, I’m fine. Um…just checking something!”

I heard the car pull up in the empty spot next to mine and the engine cut. I turned and watched TJ Desjardins get out of his shiny black Maserati. He looked ever the hockey player in that backwards baseball cap, Bulldogs sweatshirt, and tight jeans. Hockey players and their backwards hats. I swear it was like a law that they always had to wear them. I had to admit, though…he looked good.

He walked over to me with his brow furrowed. “You okay?”

“No!” I snapped.

His hazel eyes widened at my harsh tone, and I felt like a jerk. “You try to turn the key?” he asked.

I sighed and put my hands on my head. I felt them shaking, and I was breathing a little too hard right now. Crap, I felt the pressure of a panic attack coming on. I didn’t need this right now. It was bad enough I had a panic attack in Rox’s office a month ago and ended up telling her my whole sob story.

“It’s a push to start,” I muttered.

I heard my heart beat loud in my head and nothing else. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe, but I was breathing too hard, too much.

No, please. God no.

My palms were sweaty, my chest felt tight, and everything in my head felt too loud.

Suddenly, his hands came over mine and pulled them off my face. “Hey, Max, look at me. Breathe, okay?” he asked me in a calming voice. His calloused hands rubbed mine soothingly, and I felt comforted by his touch almost immediately. I hated myself for that. “Can you breathe for me?”

My car was dead and the man I had been avoiding came riding in like he was my obnoxious knight in a shiny sports car. This was just my luck.

“Maxine, it’s gonna be okay. Breathe with me, okay? Listen to my voice,” he urged.

I nodded and did as he asked. Slowly, my chest stopped heaving, and my breathing went back to normal. TJ cupped my face, and I couldn’t help but remember how he had gingerly cupped my face when he kissed me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice hitching up in concern.

I nodded and pulled away from him but refused to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He tilted my chin up to look at him. Worry etched across his face, and when his thumbs brushed across my cheeks, I realized I had been crying.

Great! I had a panic attack over my car dying in front of one of the hockey players. Specifically, the one I never wanted to see again. Why was this my life?

“Hey, talk to me. Are you okay?” he asked again.

“I get panic attacks when I’m overwhelmed,” I explained.