Page 2 of Back in the Game (Pride in the Game #1)

“I need help.”

“What do you need help with, shithead?”

With Arlo it could be anything from advice on how to talk to boys, towing his piece of shit car because it broke down on the side of the road for the hundredth time, or something stupidly impossible like coaching his university hockey team.

Arlo was an up-and-coming pain in his ass, and a good hockey player too.

Whatever was in the Killinger DNA needed to be studied.

There were enough of them in his family that if they did some tests, they might be able to scramble enough decent hockey players on a Canadian team so they could bring home the Stanley Cup more often.

Arlo was above decent; he would end up in the NHL one day without a doubt, but Harrison would never tell his cousin that. The kid’s head would get so big that he would float away.

“My car broke down.”

Bingo.

“I can hear you smiling through the phone, Harrison. This isn’t fucking funny. Shit is happening at the rink today, and I can’t even get my car to start so I can spin a few wheelies out of here to make myself look cool.”

“Dude.” Harrison felt old in that moment. So very old. “Please don’t tell me kids these days still think burning rubber on public property is cool . That is so eighties boring.”

“How the fuck would I know?” Arlo snapped, and Harrison could picture the pissy look on his face. “I’m like, the most uncool guy we’ve both met. I like anime, and I have a pet goldfish that I swear is going to outlive me. I don’t know how to be cool.”

“Well, I can tell you with great certainty that having your cousin stop by to fuck with your car isn’t going to help.”

“It might if your cousin owns an old sports car that’s super loud and can distract a bunch of jocks while you turn whatever knobs under the hood that’ll make mine start again.”

“Arlo, you’re a jock too.”

Now it was Arlo’s turn to scoff into the phone.

“I’m aware of that. But for the sake of separating myself from the collective long enough to escape with my pride intact today, I’m just a guy who has a cousin with a cool car.”

Harrison sighed and began rubbing the bridge of his nose to ease the pain in his head. Whenever he talked to Arlo, that one spot would hurt worse than the chronic pain in his leg, and all his depression combined.

“What’s in it for me?” Harrison asked, already knowing he would bail Arlo out, but he liked messing with him. “I’m a very busy person.”

“Yeah, so fucking busy,” said Arlo . “You need to visit all five bedrooms in your haunted old lake house, and pause to take a long, contemplative sips of your gross coffee with nothing in it. And then maybe go down to the water after that to stand on the dock and stare at the surrounding nature while you remember what it was like to get your dick hard.”

The laugh that left Harrison wasn’t for show. It was so explosive it nearly gave him a stitch in his ribs.

How he loved tormenting Arlo to his breaking point. He always went on one of his famous rambles that rarely made sense.

“Don’t bullshit me, Harrison. I know you don’t have anything to do. Now come save me!”

The line went dead, and Harrison shook his head as he stared at his cellphone. He was going to the rink to see Arlo, if only to put him in a choke hold and give him a healthy dose of fear again. The kid was getting too comfortable with bossing him around.

Still, he had already taken a shower and had something to eat. He didn’t have an excuse not to go into town other than the fact that he hated being around people, especially young, rambunctious hockey players .

He brushed his hand over the scruffy beard he was sporting and sighed into the silence of his home. He knew there wasn’t a chance anyone would recognize him, but there was always that small bit of doubt that made him hesitate.

He was old news now, even with the drama surrounding his career and the accident. After all the surgery, recovery and rehabilitation, Harrison took the extra step and moved out of Kentville completely to avoid the small-town gossip.

Moving to his family’s lake house outside of Windsor had been the perfect way to escape from his past. It was far enough to evade anyone he knew, and other than having to go to town once a month to stock up on food, he had no interactions with anyone.

Arlo was the only person who visited him, and that was a hard-fought battle between them that involved a lot of stubbornness from both parties, with episodes of sleeping on the porch because Harrison refused to let him come inside.

He could have lived without seeing anyone from his family again. Harrison would have happily died alone in the woods and become a local legend that faded into myth, but Arlo refused to let it happen.

He had been dealing with the consequences of his actions ever since the night he finally let Arlo in to sleep, even if he did say it was because he didn’t want to clean up the mess the wildlife left after they had their fill of his scrawny ass.

His screen lit up, and Harrison opened the message.

Arlo: You and that awful beard better be getting in that stupid car of yours and driving to come see me.

Harrison rubbed the spot between his eyes.

He wasn’t quiet about stomping around his house, picking up the tools he thought he would need from the kitchen island and throwing them into his tool bag. Not that Arlo could see how grumpy he was, but it made him feel better as he shoved his boots on and forced himself out the front door.

The lake house had air conditioning, so the summer heat felt like a sweaty smack to his face as he jogged down the stairs into the garage.

It was nice living in such a secluded area of woods, but the dense trees often blocked any breeze from making it up the hill off the lake.

Being outside at midday was nearly impossible, which was why he usually avoided going out around this time.

Fucking Arlo.

He got in his car and tossed the tools onto the passenger side seat so he could grab them and run when he got to the rink. He knew the drill since this wasn’t the first time Arlo had broken down there. They had already tried this diversion tactic several times.

Harrison backed the car out and gunned it down the dirt road, taking advantage of the private access to go as fast as he wanted without the fear of hitting anyone.

Arlo could make fun of his car for being loud all he wanted, but there was nothing more fun than ripping down a flat surface with the engine roaring loud enough in your ears to block out everything else.

Everything else. Every thought, every memory and even every pain.

It was the closest thing he had to being on the ice, racing down the rink as he chased the puck, his mind focused on nothing but the space between him and the back of the net.

Harrison tore into the parking lot, both prepared and not prepared for the number of people standing outside the rink. It occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Arlo exactly what was going on that had everyone so worked up, but that was his dumbass mistake.

Still, he had a job to do, and that job was to distract what looked like 50 puckheads with his muscle car so he could save his cousin’s lame ass.

Priorities.

He made a show of gunning it toward the crowd, chuckling as all eyes went wide with envy as he drove close to them, revving his engine loudly. When he rolled to a stop and put it in park, he grabbed his tools and got out, glaring at their hopeful expressions.

“Boss 429 Mustang,” he shouted over the rumbling engine, gesturing to the car. “Get one scratch on her, and I’ll hogtie you to her and drag you over the asphalt until you die. ”

There were excited cheers from the guys who had experienced Arlo’s rescue missions before, but a few new faces seemed more scared than excited.

Good.

He looked around the parking lot, his eyes searching for Arlo and his piece of shit car, but they landed on a pair of wide, golden eyes and a head full of soft, golden curls.

Harrison felt like he had been suddenly slammed against the boards hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

No one in this godforsaken town would recognize him other than Arlo.

Arlo, and Jett fucking Fraser.

Harrison spun around, ignoring the uncomfortable tug in his bad leg. He knew there wasn’t a point in trying to hide his face because Fraser had recognized him—it was apparent from the way his eyes lit up—but he was going to get out of there as fast as he could.

Ignoring the hooting and revving engine, he picked a direction and walked as fast as he could, determined to find Arlo so he could throttle him.

The chances of running into Fraser, here of all places, was zero. Nil . He was supposed to be anywhere but in Nova Scotia, too busy being an NHL star to bother coming home. This wasn’t even Kentville, their shared hometown, this was fucking Windsor.

Some would argue that it was in the middle of nowhere .

He didn’t personally know Fraser. He was a few years his junior, and they had never met in person, but they had gone to the same high school and probably skated on the same damn lake in the winter.

Hockey was in Harrison’s blood. He still watched every game and paid attention to all the up-and-coming rookies trying to make something of themselves, and he would be lying if he said it hadn’t hurt to see Fraser take the hockey world by storm.

Watching Fraser over the last few years had been his own personal hell. It was like he was being taunted with images of what his life could have been had he not ruined it by getting in his car that night.

It was exhausting to have his story dragged through the mud each hockey season. All the parallels between them and the small age gap had sports reporters gushing every time the kid got on the ice .

Harrison couldn’t stand it—and he couldn’t stand Jett Fraser. He wanted his story to die so he could fade from history, but it was impossible when Nova Scotia’s literal golden boy was always on the front page of Canadian sports news.

Harrison left the crowd and quickly located Arlo, who was parked far enough away to keep from drawing attention. He angrily strode toward him, and the second Arlo saw his furious expression, he started sputtering apologies and ran behind his car to keep the vehicle between them.

“Arlo—”

“Don’t kill me!”

Harrison threw his bag of tools on the hood of Arlo’s car hard enough to dent it. “Come here, little cousin.”

Arlo’s blue eyes were wide with panic, but he stood his ground…from behind the car. “He was talking about you—”

“If this car isn’t broken, I swear to fuck—”

“He looked bummed out about being here, so I was trying to cheer him up—”

“Arlo Townsend—”

“It’s Jett Fraser, Harrison! There’s no way you don’t want to meet him—”

The look he sent Arlo must have been impressive because his mouth closed with a snap of his teeth, and he finally stopped talking.

Harrison leaned against the car, trying to get weight off his leg, which was burning badly.

This was bringing up too much crap to the surface.

He couldn’t think about hockey without thinking about his dead brother and his leg being broken in three places.

He couldn’t think about Jett Fraser without thinking of everything he wasn’t.

Fuck, maybe he did need therapy. Had he finally reached his breaking point?