Breaking Away by Toni Aleo
Best friends are people who make your problems their problems just so you don’t have to go through them alone. This last year has been the hardest year of my life and without my best friends I wouldn’t have made it.
So this book is for you, Nortis, Bobbie Jo, and Stacey.
I love each of you so much more than you’ll ever know.
PHILLIP ANDERSON never thought it would be easy, but this was fucking ridiculous. Driving through downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, he let out an annoyed breath as he searched the streets for his sixteen-year-old niece. After a very heated conversation with Phillip’s great aunt, Alice, he not only got cussed out, but he also inherited a very angry teenager. How did this happen? Everything seemed like it would work out after the death of his older sister, Rochelle, three months before. Claire would stay with Alice, and she would make sure Claire had a good life until she went off to college, or whatever the hell she wanted to do. Phillip didn’t know what that was, but not from lack of trying. Claire wouldn’t talk to him, all she did was glare, and he was sure she was planning his early death. However, who could blame her? After Rochelle had been killed, Claire was supposed to come to him, but when Alice offered, saying that a twenty-nine-year-old man couldn’t properly raise a teenage girl, Phillip jumped at the offer.
But now, he realized that it was a mistake. Maybe he would have been a better guardian than his seventy-three-year-old great aunt was. After only two months, Claire had run away four times, been found drunk in the back ally with a bunch of guys, found in bed with one of those guys, and then tried to physically fight Alice. She refused to go to therapy, she refused to talk to him, and he was at his wits’ end. He was tired of the angry phone calls from Alice, and that’s why he decided to fly out to Minnesota. He thought he might be able to talk some sense into Claire but, when he got there, Alice informed him that Claire had took off again.
Thankfully, he had taken a leave of absence from playing hockey with the Nashville Assassins. He had never taken a leave but, thankfully, the owner and close friend, Elli Adler, completely understood and granted him the time off. This was good because he now knew this wasn’t going to be a quick trip. He was going to have to figure out how he was going to raise a sixteen-year-old girl and play in the National Hockey League. Not an easy feat. He was hoping it would be easy and he’d figure it out quickly, because he missed playing, but above all, he had to help Claire.
He had already lost his sister and mother; he couldn’t lose Claire, too.