Page 77 of Heartbreak Hockey

It’s far too late to save my heart. I’m Jack’s until he doesn’t want me anymore.

There’s nothing I can do about that.

Chapter16

Break ‘em All to Hell

JACK

It takes three weeks for the bruise on Casey’s torso to heal after the Boston game. He’s hungry for the next game against Boston and boasts a lot of trash talk in the dressing room about it. “Coach is going to bench you if you don’t cut that out,” I warn him.

“Not worried,” he says. His smile is too confident.

I shake my head. Good luck, bud. I’ve got my own shit to deal with. We’ve got a game in Vancouver, which means I’m having dinner with my parents, which means Dad’s going to sit me downagain—he hasn’t said it, but I know him.

Not the bakes me muffins when I have a bad day Dad, the strict Navy captain one. The other one might be there and if he is, he’ll be nodding along. They rarely disagree. I don’t know how they do it. Is it wrong for me to be jealous of how perfect my parents’ relationship is? Yeah, that’s probably fucking weird, but I dunno. It’s a thing that exists.

I want someone who I can be just like them with. That was supposed to be Rhett for me.

And then, well, the Mercy thing was getting kinda cool. Apparently, I can’t get casual relationships right either. Something’s off about Merc and me. Nothing bad happened, but that feeling of flying on ice skates is … well not gone, but it’s not taking flight either. It’s just stayed where it was. That’s fine. It’s all I wanted.

All I thought I wanted.

Fuck. Me.

“Can’t you just, I dunno, suck his dick on my behalf?”

“We’ve been through this. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Well, it should.” He stuffs a bunch of chips in his mouth he shouldn’t be eating. Casey needs a disciplinarian of his own. “Your situationship with Coach has been a fucking waste of time. There have been zero benefits. Also, you stopped smiling.”

“Stopped smiling? That’s not a thing. I’m smiling right now.” I smile wider to prove my point.

“Yeah, but it’s not your happy one, dude. Doesn’t reach your eyes. You used to light the night sky with it, now it’s, like, one lonely star trying to get through the rough night.”

“Weird analogy.”

“But you know what I mean, right?”

Unfortunately, I do. “You know, I was thinking about seeing if Merc wanted to hang out when we’re home.”

“Like a date?”

“Maybe? What do you think about that?” I work on stuffing some clothes into a duffle bag.

He’s lying on his back, one leg hanging off the bed, eating chips irresponsibly. I swear to fucking God if he chokes, I’ll let him just to teach him a lesson. Casey’s got lucky boy syndrome though. The rules of the world, like gravity, don’t seem to apply to him.

“You know what I think. You don’t like what I think.”

I take whoever’s ball cap is on the nightstand, pop it on my head, and zip up my bag. Maybe I should find out whose this is, or maybe I shouldn’t. Merc doesn’t like it when I wear other people’s stuff and it would be nice to get some kind of reaction out of him. It’s like he’s on his best behavior around me or something.

“I know you don’t like Rhett, but you’ve never really given him a chance.”

“Ugh,” he says, sliding off the bed.

Yeah, I know he’s sick of me and that topic. I’m sick of me and that topic. “All I wanted to know was if you thought Coach was a good first choice for me to break my rule with, jerk face.”

He was walking out, but he spins around and squeezes me from behind, his wide arms encircling me. “Fuck yeah. Break ‘em. Break them all to hell.” He kisses my cheek. “That’s my hat by the way, but you can wear it.”