Shit. He knew he was letting Cam and Gannon both see his true feelings, but he was a little shaken by the knowledge that Seg had come to see him. It had been hard enough for him to ignore the text Seg had sent the other night, but he'd managed. For Liam.
Although a spark of hope flared somewhere deep inside him, Roan knew he had to tamp it down. He didn't have time for this. Not for dealing with Seg or the unexpected and ill-timed feelings he'd managed to brush under the rug.
Hell, it was all he could do right now to keep going through the motions.
SOMETIMES SEG WISHED THEY HAD more games on the road. Especially on nights like tonight when he could do little more than drink beer at the Penalty Box and wish like hell Roan would show up out of the blue. He knew it wasn't going to happen, yet he still sat at the table with a half dozen of his teammates, pretending to be celebrating last night's win.
Truth was, Seg would've preferred to stay home tonight. After his trip out to the marina today-in which he'd hoped to find Roan-he'd been filled with disappointment. According to the guy he'd talked to in the small office, Roan was taking some time off for personal reasons.
Knowing he couldn't look too interested, Seg had played it off, pretending he'd been in the area and wanted to stop by. Since the guy had been the one who had taken them out on the boat when Arrows management had attempted some sort of team-building exercise last summer, they chatted about the possibility of doing that again. The conversation had gone on far too long, but Seg had hoped it put the guy's mind at ease, not leading him to believe that Seg was seeking out Roan for romantic reasons. Then again, he was pretty sure the guy in the office thought he was full of shit, but what could he do?
"What's up, Seg?" Spencer Kaufman asked, bumping Seg's shoulder as he passed by.
Seg didn't bother to respond. It was simply Spencer's way of checking in.
"Gorgeous, I think you might wanna go talk to my buddy over there," Mattias Valeri-their first line right winger-said to one of the puck bunnies who had snuggled up around the table.
Seg damn sure wasn't interested. A year and a half ago, he would've made a big production about some cute chick wanting to hop up on his lap and take a ride. That had been before Roan had blown his mind and made him seriously question what it was he really wanted.
"Chelsea," the little blonde said by way of introduction, coming around to stand beside him.
Casting a glare at Mattias, Seg pushed back from the table and let the woman perch on his leg.
"How old are you, doll?" he asked, both to make small talk and to ensure he wasn't about to make the world's worst mistake ever.
"Twenty-two," she said sweetly.
Twenty-two, his ass. She was nineteen if she was a day.
"You know what, sweetheart, I gotta hit the head. Keep my seat warm?"
She gifted him with a radiant smile, turning her attention to something being said across the table, as though in the past thirty seconds, she'd been pulled into the inner sanctum of the hockey underworld.
Christ Almighty.
Without feeling an ounce of guilt, Seg walked right out the front door and into the night.
It wasn't until he got home that he pulled out his cell phone. Rather than send a text to Roan, he decided to give the man a call. He was gearing up for what he wanted to say on Roan's voice mail when the rumbled, "Hello?" surprised him.
"Hey," Seg greeted, feeling a little tongue-tied all of a sudden.
"Hey."
"Got a minute?"
"Not really, no."
Seg smiled. "Then why'd you answer?"
"No fucking clue," Roan said with a snort of derision. "None whatsoever."
Seg liked Roan's honesty, even if it made him bristle a little.
"I heard you stopped by the marina today."
"Yeah. Wanted to talk," Seg explained.
"I won't be around much for a while. Did you need something?"
Seg swallowed, debating on how he wanted to do this. He could go with the truth, or he could use the same lame excuses he'd used for too long now, making up some bullshit that would likely get him no closer to seeing Roan again.
"Look," Roan began before Seg could get a word out, "I know you're worried that I might say something. I swear to you, what happened between us will stay between us. I don't have some crazy vendetta. I'm not looking to hurt your career, so you don't have to worry about that. It's been what? A year?"
"Fourteen months," Seg blurted.
What the fuck? Desperate much?
"Okay." Roan sounded surprised. "It's been fourteen months. I haven't said anything yet. I'm not gonna say anything now."
"I know that. That's not … " Fuck. Why was this so damn hard?