Page 40

CHAPTER 40

THE RIGHT WAY

KAYDEN

Each word from Emory falls like a hammer, cracking and shattering any illusion I held between us.

Love has to flow in both directions.

I let myself hope it did.

If this were any wedding other than Brant and Lily's, I would leave. I could give a basic speech and then tell everyone I have to get ready for my flight to Detroit. It would be the truth. But for Brant and Lily, I'll stay until the last guest leaves. No matter where I am, though, Emory's words will follow me, breaking me all over again.

"Fucking. Tell. Her." Brant leans close and grips the top of my thigh so hard it hurts. "Before you both fuck this up."

He's my best friend, and I'm thrilled for him. Ecstatic that he found his person. His people. His family. I never thought I needed that for myself. I thought I was happy.

I shake my head as I stand and take the microphone. A few people in the crowd chuckle before I even look up. They might as well. I'm a joke, aren't I? Here to entertain them. Awing them with the things I do on the ice and making them laugh with the things I say off it.

It's the mask I've forced myself to wear my entire life. What's one more time?

I draw in a shaky breath, hoping the mic doesn't pick it up. "I was going to open with a joke about how you all already know me and know that I'm awesome, but the maid of honor beat me to it. Now I have no choice but to talk about Brant instead of myself." The guests laugh, and the sound of it scrapes across my raw nerves like blowing sand over a sunburn.

"I was traded to Salt Lake City five years ago, and this was a much different team then. They'd only been around for a couple of years, and they didn't exactly have the reputation as winners. But one thing was the same. Brant. He was still the cranky, grizzled old man on the team. His hair was grey—this was before he became famous and started getting weekly dye jobs—and he was always muttering under his breath about 'the kids these days' and 'the music they listen to.'" I frame my words with air quotes.

"I was twenty-eight when we met, jackass! The only music I've ever complained about is the garbage you listen to." Brant laughs. "And I've never dyed my hair."

I walk behind him and run my fingers through his hair. "Hmm, you really should start. Anyway, we didn't get along at first. For some reason, he was convinced I was cocky. Not sure where he got that impression. In fact, I would say Brant and I started out as foe. But after a courageous act he showed me, I knew maybe one day we could become friends. Friends who ride majestic, translucent steeds and shoot flaming arrows."

I pause, looking around the quiet room. There's no laughter. Just confusion. "Seriously? Nobody knows that movie? It's a brilliant deconstruction of toxic masculinity. A treatise on the infantilization of men and the societal assumption that women will always be there to mother them. You really should?—"

"I would follow you into the mists of Avalon, if that's what you mean." Emory's whisper is so soft, I'm not sure she intends for me to hear it, but it makes the pulse roar in my ears .

Of course she knows that line. That movie. Me.

Just give me one sign that you want this half as much as I do, Nyx.

My throat grows tighter with every second I wait for her, but her eyes are glued to the untouched salad in front of her. Her silence says everything I need to hear, so I force myself to look away. I have to go on. To make it through this speech. This night.

"Brant and I did become friends. Then brothers. And I thought no one could ever be closer to him—or to me. Then the Sting got a new athletic trainer.

"I loved Lily the instant I met her. Every single one of us did." The players and coaches from both the Sting and Gulls all cheer. "I don't know how anyone can not love her, but Brant got a little carried away. He was obsessed.

"For a while, I worried he might do something crazy if she didn't agree to go out with him. Of course, his idea of crazy would be to visit a new barber." I turn to him. "Hopefully one who can color that grey. It's really bad, my dude." He flips me off.

"But Lily did say yes, and neither one of them has stopped saying yes to the other. Now they're here with Chloe, who is already a part of their family even before the judge makes it official."

"Our family too!" Sammy shouts.

"Absolutely. A member of our Sting family too." I encourage the applause she's receiving.

"I couldn't be more proud to stand up here tonight and give this toast to the Morrison family, but especially to the best man I've ever known. I've never told him this, but he's been a role model to me since I came to this team. I always looked toward him to learn the right way. The right way to lead a team. The right way to welcome a new rookie into our dressing room. The right way to handle a heartbreaking loss. And now…"

This is it. I walk on numb legs between the wedding party's table and the rest of the room. I know Emory wants nothing to do with me after tonight, but I have to tell her how I feel. If I don't take the shot now, this missed moment will haunt every second of the rest of my life.

My ribcage feels too small to hold everything inside as I turn my back to the guests and face Emory. I hold the mic to my mouth with a trembling hand, and the long breath I blow out sounds like a howling wind as it's amplified over the room's speakers. "And now he's teaching me the right way to love someone.

"Brant was transformed the instant Lily came into his life. But even watching him go through it, I didn't really know what love could do to a person until three hundred and seventy-five days ago.

"That's when I was transformed too. The night I met a woman who ended my old life.

"For the longest time, I told myself it was just lust." A few people around the room chuckle. "Sorry Chloe. I shouldn't be saying this in front of you."

"I'm practically an adult. Or would be if Brant and Lily would ever let me take my driving test."

"Fair, and I guess you know all about this feeling anyway because of you and?—"

"If you say another word, I will sic Silver on you right here and now."

Since I'm pretty sure she's not kidding, I hold my hands up in surrender and take a step back. "Anyway, I had a suspicion it wasn't just that, but I didn't realize what it really is until sixty-two days ago."

Emory finally looks up at me. Her eyes don't give anything away, but her lips are pressed tight. I wait for her to say something, but it's like she's frozen. An icy pond waiting for me to fall through.

"I've carried that realization every day since then without telling anyone. Not even?—"

"We all knew," Lily interrupts. "And we've known for a hell of a lot longer than two months."

"Okay, apparently other people knew before me. There's a reason I have a reputation for being a dim bulb. But the point is, I know now, and I have to make sure everyone knows before it's too late. "

I'm barely aware of the confused murmurs behind me as I switch off the mic and walk closer to Emory, my knees threatening to buckle with each step. The only sign she's heard a word I've said is the white of her knuckles as she tightens the grip on her fork.

"Nyx…"

I'm only able to utter the one lonely syllable before my throat closes off to everything else. All I can do is look at her. The woman who's unraveled every story I've ever told myself. Who makes me dream of being more than I've ever thought I could be.

"Why do you do that?" She breaks the silence after what feels like minutes. "Why do you always pretend you're dumb?"

I swallow back everything I wish I could say. "It's just easier."

Her nostrils flare as pain sweeps across her eyes. "Pretending is easy for you, isn't it?" Her words are quiet but as fierce as a snake's warning. "So easy for you to stand up here with a microphone in your hand and pretend. Well, congratulations Kayden. You're legitimately great at that too. Just like hockey. The greatest pretender who ever lived. But I deserve more than just pretend." Her chair screeches as she shoves back from the table and storms out the door to the balcony. It happens so fast I can't respond.

I don't know how to respond.

I feel like I'm falling away from the world as I watch Emory disappear into the dark. I've plunged through the ice, and now the cold is taking me before I have a chance to scramble back up to the surface. When the door closes behind her, the ice sheet above me shifts and locks me in the freezing waters.

"I don't have a boyfriend," Chloe says so loudly that Brant, Lily and every guest in the entire front half of the room hear her, "but if I did, I would want him to go after me if I ever did anything like that. Not that I would do anything like that because I would need a boyfriend first, and that's something I definitely don't have. So it would be pointless for anyone to ask me about someone who one-hundred percent doesn't exist. "

"Listen to my daughter, and get your fucking ass out there," Brant snarls. He's standing now, glaring at me with one eyebrow raised.

They're right. This isn't over. I don't give up. Especially not on the woman I love.