“Chicken shit,” he busts my balls. “Did you get the new place situated?”
I shake my head. “I ordered a bunch of furniture that’s gonna be delivered while I’m gone. Kenzie’s gonna get it all set up for me. I guess I’m gonna move in when I get back.”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, man. I can barely get face time with Lindy now. I don’t know how much worse it’s gonna be when I move out.”
“I hope your girl’s worth it.”
“My girl’s always been worth it, dick,” I tell him and throw my napkin at his face.
“I knew she was your girl.”
Yeah, deep down, she’s always been my girl.
Lindy manages to avoid me all day.
She was gone by the time I came down this morning, and she’s not home when I get home from practice that night.
My whole fucking body aches from the extra conditioning Fitz threw at us when Jace and I got into an argument in front of the team during practice . . . again.
Neither of us touched a puck for the rest of the session.
It was all suicides and sprints until we were both puking in trash cans.
My mood is shit, and I leave tomorrow.
The stairs outside of the loft creak, and I look up just before Kenzie pops her head in.
She looks at the bruising on my face and gasps. “Oh my God, E. Your face.” She rushes over to me like I’m a kid who just got hurt on the playground.
“It’s fine, Kenz.” I shrug her off. “It happens all the time.” As soon as the sentence is out, I know I shouldn’t have said it.
Her eyes narrow, and her mouth tightens into a line. “Okay, am I supposed to be okay with you getting hit all the time? Aren’t goalies supposed to be out of most of the fights, Easton?”
“It’s professional hockey, Kenz. Shit happens.”
“Oh yeah? You’re supposed to get into a fistfight with your captain?”
“It wasn’t a fight. Jace is pissed because I married his little sister.” Looking at my own little sister, I can understand why he’s mad. But it doesn’t change anything.
She plants her hands on her hips. “Did you hit him back?”
“Sometimes words land harder than fists, Kenz.”
She blinks up at me, shocked. “That may be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Easton Hayes. But I’m still going to kill Jace Kingston.”
I laugh and tug her hair. “You’re not gonna kill Jace, sis.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “I’ll do one worse. I’ll tell Juliette, and she’ll do it for me.”
She pulls her phone from her pocket, and I yank it from her hand before she can sic Jules on Jace. I don’t need anything to make things worse for me with my new team. They’re already not sure what to make of me, judging by today. They loved Jonesy, their former goalie. But whether they want to accept it or not, his injury from two weeks ago was career-ending. And the backup ain’t cutting it. Jace is the fucking captain, so they’re gonna take their cues from him, which means, right now, it’s not looking too good for me. “No, you’re not,” I tell her and stick the phone in her pocket. “I don’t need Jules fighting my battles for me.”
I bend my knees to bring myself eye to eye with my sister. “I’m not even sure Jules would fight them right now anyway. She’s pretty pissed.”
“No, she’s not.” When I lift my head in disbelief, she laughs. “She’s not. Well, not exactly mad you two got married. She’s hurt you didn’t tell her. She’s coming home from DC tomorrow morning.”
Kenzie smiles when Myrtle makes her way into my room and rubs herself against Kenz like a cat instead of a fifty-pound bulldog. “I swear to God, if you tell Jules I told you that, I’ll sic Jace on your other eye.”
I touch the pale bruising from when he hit me the other day and cringe. Not a great week. “I won’t say anything.”
She huffs and looks at the clothes laying on my half-packed bag that Myrtle just made herself comfortable on, and her body goes rigid. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got an away-game stretch. I’ll be back next week. I told you yesterday. It’s why you’re getting the condo ready, remember?”
“Yeah. I just hate that you’re leaving. You just got here.” Kenzie and I aren’t the greatest with people leaving. That’s what happens when your perfectly healthy, young mom dies of the fucking flu.
“It’s the team’s schedule, Kenz. I can’t control it. But I’m coming back. I promise.” I wrap my arm around her and squeeze. “I signed a five-year contract. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“Promise?” she whispers, and I suddenly feel like a dick for staying away so long. I was so wrapped up in my own shit, I didn’t think about how being away would affect her.
“Promise.” We sit quietly for a minute, then I decide to test the waters. “So . . . any chance you’d want to help me?”
“With what?” She perks up.
“Lindy.”
Her smile stretches across her face. “Let’s see . . . do I want to help my brother win over my best friend so she can literally be my sister? Hmm . . . What do you think?”
“I think I need to romance her.”
“Yes, you do,” Kenzie laughs before she drops her head on my shoulder. “I guess there’s hope for you yet.”
I sure as hell hope she’s right.
I haven’t been a light sleeper in, well, ever. Even as a kid, I heard every noise. Every beep of a horn. Every conversation my mom thought she was having in private because her kids were sleeping. Everything wakes me up, and that’s if I’m even able to fall asleep in the first place.
If I’m lucky, I get four hours a night. It’s not healthy, especially for an athlete. But I’m used to it. I’ve adapted. So when the stairs leading up to the loft creak at two a.m., I’m wide-awake and looking at the open doorway, waiting to see who’s coming. I’m half expecting my new best friend, Myrtle, to be looking for a warm spot to crash when I see Lindy hesitate at the opening.
“Easton,” she whispers, and my stomach drops because I know that tone.
“You okay, princess?” I force myself to stay in bed. The last thing I want to do is push her right now. She came up here. The ball is in her court.
“No,” she tells me softly but stays frozen at the door. Her long hair is a tangled mess around her shoulders as she stands in front of me in the white t-shirt I helped her put on Sunday morning before she stormed off. “I had a dream and picked up my phone to call you . . . but you’re already here.”
“I’ll always be here. Come here, baby,” I whisper.
Lindy pauses, then slowly tiptoes over to the bed where I lift the blanket and make room for her next to me. She looks down at the mattress with such hesitancy that until she gently climbs in and fits herself against me, I’m not completely convinced if she’ll get in or go back to her room. “I haven’t had one this bad in a long time,” she admits so quietly, I barely hear her before she lays her head against my chest. “I could feel the barrel of the gun pressed against my head. It was so cold. And he just kept saying over and over again that he was going to make Mom watch as he shot me. Make her watch as he killed me.”
The tremble in her voice breaks me because that’s not a nightmare.