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“You’ve seen the posts?”

“Yes.” My voice cracks.

“Oh, baby, I really wanted to speak to you before you saw them.”

I don’t know how it’s possible, but more tears emerge. I thought they’d have all dried up by now. “They’re comparing meto your ex. They’re saying I’m not your usual type. Some of the comments are so mean, and I knew this would happen.”

“Luna, it’s going to be okay. They’ll wash over in no time.”

“And what about the next time? And the time after that? I don’t belong in front of a camera, Zach. I can’t take being scrutinized and compared like this.”

A long stretch of silence descends upon us.

He breaks it first. “I promise it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be fine. Right now, you’re new to them. Something for them to fawn over. I know it sounds bad, and it is. That’s the way they are, and honestly, it’s made ten times worse because Amie is in the media more than me these days with her business.”

“Exactly,” I choke out. “She’ll never let this go. She’ll never let me, you, or us have peace. She thrives on attention, positive or negative.”

“I know.”

I drop my head and almost bash it on the partially open door, my body still twisted to the side, one foot in the car and the other on my driveway. I look up at my home, and the sanctuary and safety it brings come rushing back to me. I need to lock myself away for as long as it will take these pictures and posts to pass.

“I need some space.” I hate the way the words taste on my tongue. “I need space away from everything and everyone.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

ZACH

It’s the first game of preseason. We’re up two-nothing against Nashville and on a power play.

No thanks to me—my head has been up my ass for weeks, but tonight, and out on the ice, even I can see I’m a fucking liability.

Jessie loses the puck and turns it over to Nashville. Their winger’s tearing down the ice straight toward me.

I can feel my pulse in my throat as he bears down on goal, Jensen screaming at me to take him out. The Zach of last season wouldn’t hesitate to check him to the ice.

But how can I be sure we’ll both come off it uninjured? What if my hit isn’t clean? One last roar from Jensen above the crowd, and I take off, heading straight for him. He tries to outmaneuver me, but it’s no match as I drop my shoulder and Kronwall him, hard. Maybe too hard. I don’t know. He hits the ice, and the puck spills out. Picking it up, I send it straight back up toward Jon for a breakaway. A few seconds later, he lights the lamp, and it's three-nothing.

“I thought I’d lost you in there for a second.” Jensen taps his glove on the top of my helmet as we skate off the ice at the end of the second period.

The family box is tough to make out from all the way down here, but it doesn’t stop me staring up at it every thirty seconds. I see players have their families watch them each match, Felicity and his brother Adam for Jon, Jensen’s parents who frequently make the trip from Canada. Occasionally my parents make it over when they aren’t working, but it’s never bothered me before.

Until now.

We’ve barely spoken since she told me she “needed space” three weeks ago. The number of times I’ve hovered over her contact, typed out a text, and then deleted it before I hit send is too many to count.

I can’t get her out of my mind. And the truth is, I don’t want to either.

Turning my attention back to my goalie, I pull off my left glove as we step off the ice and make our way to the locker room. “Just messing with him, making him think he’s got the better of me.”

He puffs out a disbelieving breath. “Yeah, well can you not mess with me at the same time? I thought my key defenseman had checked out.”

I swipe a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge and take a seat on my bench. We’re in complete control of the game, but when Coach Burrows bursts through the door, you’d think we just got our asses handed to us.

Jon drops his head between his shoulders when he sees the look on Coach’s face. “For fuck’s sake.”

“How the hell we are three up and still on for a shutout, I’ll never know,” he booms across the room. Turning to me, I know what’s coming. “Evans, remind me again why I haven’t benchedyour sorry ass? What were you doing out there in the final play? Waiting for a fucking written invitation?”

He knows what’s been going on in my head lately and the effect the hit I took in New York last season has had. But that doesn’t stop him from going all in. I’ve been seeing the team’s psychologist for over a month, and he expects me to have made progress, but I haven’t. Not even close.