Page 151 of Forbidden Hockey

“Don’t take your marital problems out on me.”

How does he know about me and Dirk’s spat? There are too many possibilities to know for sure.

“I’ll have soda water, lots of lemon and lime.”

“No scotch today?” I raise a brow. Most twenty-somethings drink beer, while he sips Johnnie Walker Blue.

“No more booze for me, period. Hockey season’s on the horizon. I take my career seriously.”

I might have gotten a tad too invested in the drama this summer, because I’m curious to know what kind of solution he’s got in store for him and Bryce. Their situation is especially challenging—it’s not one but two hockey schedules to sort out. Maverick will play for Vancouver, and Bryce travels with his older brother’s team in New York to help with Stanley.

“Who’s gonna keep an eye on your boyfriend while you play hockey?” I pour him the soda, shoving the insert filled with lemons and limes toward him.

Maverick looks around, eyes darting toward the kitchen door. “Don’t call him that. He gets pissed when I call him that.”

“You didn’t care before.”

“Things change. I’m on thin ice with him. Didn’t you notice he wasn’t speaking to me?”

It’s hard to say if Bryce is ever really speaking to him, but I’m shocked that he cares, especially with him following Bryce around like an overprotective guard dog. That can’t be wanted either, or is it? I dunno, it’s hard to keep up with them.

“But anyway, I’ll have someone tailing him, of course. They’ll report to me daily.”

“You think stalking him’s gonna get you on his good side?”

“Call it whatever you want, he’ll be alive.”

“Is Bryce … in danger?”

“Not yet, and it’s gonna stay that way. Having him followed’s the only way I can monitor every threat.”

My questions today aren’t critiques, even if I’m making them sound that way. I wanna know the way he thinks just to make sure it’s not too close to my own. But at this point, I might as well admit—at least to myself—that Maxwell is right. There’s at least some part of me that’s like the Elkingtons. It’s because the darkness isn’t a theory to us, a written warning, a flight of the imagination. We know the darkness exists. We’ve seen it. Lived it. Dealt with it.

We don’t tell our kids there’s a monster under the bed to scare them, we tell them because we met him, have felt his claws ripping through our skin, and never want him to get to them.

Fuck, maybe it’s not assurance that I don’t think like them, maybe it’s more like assurance that it’s okay that I do.

I shouldn’t be getting any kind of assurance from Maverick.

The door opens again, this time it’s a different oversized hockey player who doesn’t come in here alone too often. Sutter talks to the hostess first, and she points toward the bar. He plunks down beside Maverick at the bar top.

“Here to pick up an order to-go. Casey says you make the best poutine and now—thanks to a conversation he had with your son—I have to try to be romantic. Getting him his favorite poutine’s romantic, yeah?” He reaches for the bowl of nuts, helping himself to a handful. Don’t think he’s actually looking for confirmation.

“Beer?” I offer.

“Love one.”

I pour him a pint and slide it across the bar. “On the house. That’s for putting extra locks up in the house. I know they were for Casey, but they’ll protect Dash, too.”

“’Preciate it, but it’s just a standard thing I do. I’ll do the same when we move into the new house. They told us about Robin—you know we’ll keep an eye out too, yeah?”

I nod. I did, but it helps a lot having him say it.

“And you know, Trav, if I were you, I’d have Robin followed, too.” He hitches one shoulder in a crooked shrug. “Just sayin’.”

The expo appears from the kitchen with Sutter’s to-go order. He downs his pint. “Thanks, Trav. I’d better go. I walked here, and that means I gotta walk to Kits. Case is already relentlessly texting me.”

But he’s grinning as if he’s lucky to be pestered. Doubt he’d say as much.