Page 20

Chapter Twenty

W hen I was on the ice, everything stopped.

The pressure, the noise, the relentless pounding of my own thoughts in my skull. It all sort of faded into a dull buzz.

It was still there, of course. But it was easier to turn that feeling into something I could use as fuel. To propel me forward, rather than something I had to sit around and take.

It was funny, going to the ice to avoid thoughts of my father when he was the one who taught me how to lace up my skates, hold a stick, and get out there in the first place.

Sometimes, I wondered if I’d become so good just to spite him. Sometimes I wondered if I’d be here at all if he hadn’t walked out. Maybe I’d just be another normal, well-adjusted guy who had a good relationship with his parents, working in a cubicle somewhere.

I guessed if I ever saw him again, I might as well thank him for being a shitty father. He had, after all, landed me in the NHL.

I leaned into the shot and sent the puck soaring across the ice, nearly taking our goalie’s head off in the process.

He called me a less-than-stellar name, but I didn’t care. I had to stay moving. It was like if I skated fast enough, hit hard enough, then the thoughts couldn’t keep up with me.

Coach blew the whistle, signaling the end of practice, and I found myself regretting it. Off the ice, it wasn’t as easy to hide from all the shit threatening to consume me.

“Hey, you good, man?” Brody’s voice sounded as he skated up beside me.

“I’m fine,” I bit out.

“Uh, maybe try that again,” Brody said, eyeing me. “Because you’ve been like a machine out there tonight. And you know, normally, that’s great for a hockey player. But as your friend? Kind of concerning. You hit the ice, and it’s like all traces of human emotion just vanished.”

“So?”

“So, it’s not good to bottle shit up, man. It makes you get all weird and prone to outbursts.”

I scoffed. “I don’t have outbursts.”

“Well, not yet, but that’s why I’m nervous. What if you let all that stuff in your head fester for so long that you go crazy and kill someone? Then their blood will be on my hands because I’m your best friend, and I didn’t step in to intervene.”

“The only person I’m at risk of killing is you.” I shook my head at his ludicrous reasoning.

“You can’t kill me.” He placed a gloved hand on his chest as we made our way off the ice. “I’m your future brother-in-law.”

I raised a brow at him in question. “Is my sister aware of this?”

“Considering she walked out on me that night at the bar, I’d say the plan for making her fall in love with me is going to take a bit more time than I was anticipating, but don’t you worry, I’m no quitter.”

“Glad to hear it.” I chuffed out a laugh.

And to be honest, part of me was.

Maggie didn’t really date, at least not in any serious way, and part of me wondered if she was just scared, the same way I was. I wondered if maybe our dad had screwed her up more than she let on.

If so, then I really was a dick because I’d left her alone to suffer with the same things that tormented me when I should’ve been there for her this whole time.

It might be too late to repair all the ways that I screwed up with her, but if she was willing to give our father, of all people, a second chance, then maybe she would with me, too.

“Hey, by the way,” Brody said, nudging my arm. “Your girl’s here.”

My heart surged at his words, and damn it, if I didn’t picture Cassie’s face before I even saw her sitting there.

She looked up at me, a smile on her lips as I walked over to her. She was wearing a big pink jacket and blue jeans with a rainbow scarf wrapped around her neck. She waved to me as I approached her, showcasing an equally colorful mitten.

Clearly, she’d remembered how cold it was from her last visit and decided to overcompensate for this one.

“Hey,” I said cooly, even though my mind was racing at what she might be doing here.

“Hi.” She beamed, jumping to her feet as I got closer. Her smile was wide and genuine, feeling like a blast of sunshine in my direction that I didn’t deserve.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, grip tightening on my hockey stick.

“Oh,” she said, smile faltering slightly, and I missed it immediately. “Sorry. I probably should’ve asked you first. Or texted. Or just not come at all.” Her eyes darted away.

“No,” I corrected, wanting to fix whatever feeling was bubbling up inside of her, causing her to shut down on me. “No. You don’t have to ask. I’m glad you’re here.”

“You are?” Big blue eyes peeked up at me.

“Yeah.” I laughed. “I am.”

“I’ve sort of had a crappy day.” She sighed and held out her arms.

“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement, not understanding what that had to do with her being here and not caring in the slightest as long as I got to keep looking at her. “Me too.”

She gave me a half smile.

“Do you want to go get some pizza?” I asked, feeling the weight of the day leaving my chest as I stared down at her.

She nodded up at me—that smile returning to her face as if I’d just offered to take her to the moon rather than a little joint down the street from the apartment.

“I’d like that a lot.”

“I don’t mean to brag,” Cassie said, bells chiming as we walked through the door of the restaurant, “but I’m sort of a pizza connoisseur.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, grinning down at her.

“Mmhm.” She nodded. “I can probably put away more slices of pizza than you and your hockey team combined.”

I snorted. “Doubtful.”

Her eyes flared with the challenge.

“I mean it. There’s a hundred percent chance I’ll outeat you tonight.”

At that, I let out a deep, genuine laugh.

“What!”

“Nothing, it’s just—” I said through laughter. “Have you seen you? Or better yet, have you seen me? ” I gestured between us to our drastic size difference. “In what world do you think you can eat more than me?”

She tsked, waving away my comment with a gesture of hand.

“You’ll see.” She smiled sweetly.

“Hi, sorry about the wait.” The hostess rushed over to the host stand when she noticed us waiting. “Table for two?”

“Yes, please,” I said and found myself placing a guiding hand on Cassie’s back as we followed the host to the table.

It was stupid , I thought as soon as I did it. It was a small place and nowhere near crowded enough for her to get lost. But I did it without thinking and then thought it would be weirder to rip it away, so I kept it there, reveling in the feeling of her beneath me and feeling like an asshole for doing it all the same.

“Thank you,” Cassie told the hostess as she sat us down with menus.

Cassie said ‘thank you’ a lot, I’d noticed. Over and over again for the littlest things. She said thank you when the waitress brought us to the table, thank you when she sat us down, and thank you when the waitress left, promising she’d be back soon.

Not to mention the dozens of times she’d said it to me for doing absolutely nothing.

She was really polite, something I could probably learn from, considering everyone loved to remind me what an asshole I was.

But around Cassie, I didn’t feel like such an asshole. In fact, I found myself feeling like the type of guy who was nice to people just because I wasn’t so damned tense about who they were, why they were talking to me, or what they wanted from me.

Something about her put me at ease in a way that almost scared me because why the hell did a girl I’d only known for a few days make me feel more relaxed than anyone I’d known in my entire life?

And how was I going to react when she was gone?

“So, what’s the move?” I asked, shaking the thoughts out of my head.

She was here now, in front of me. I wasn’t going to waste the time worrying about what would happen later.

“Um, well, extra cheese is a must,” she said very seriously.

“Obviously.” I nodded. “What else?”

“Um, I was thinking… mushrooms?”

“Why do you look shy about mushrooms?” I laughed.

“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh. “Sometimes they’re a controversial topping.”

“Well, I don’t have anything against them, so if you like mushrooms, then load the pizza with them for all I care.”

“Okay, your turn to pick toppings.” She groaned in frustration. “You’re going to be eating it too, after all.”

I was about to tell her that I really didn’t care, that I’d happily eat anything she could possibly order just because of how excitedly she looked at the menu.

But by now, I knew her well enough that I could predict how she’d react to that. With a nose scrunched and protestations that would leave us going back and forth in circles. So I offered up a suggestion.

“Pepperoni?”

Her face fell. Barely visible, but some of that warmth radiating behind the smile fell away, leaving a distant, insincere look in its wake.

“Great. Yeah. That sounds good.” She nodded her head in agreement, but I saw right through her.

“You don’t like pepperoni?”

She shrugged her shoulders, looking at me bashfully. “Not really. But, of course, I don’t mind eating them if you like them.”

“I honestly don’t care either way,” I said, and when she opened her mouth to protest like I knew she would, I shushed her with my next words. “I promise.”

“Fine.” She relaxed, “Well, if you really want to know, my favorite pizza is mushrooms, black olives, and extra cheese.”

“Then, we’ll get exactly that,” I said, taking our menus and putting them back in their spot. “I figured you should get the advantage of having a pizza you actually like, considering all your talk about how you’re going to outeat me.”

The waitress came back before whatever words were on the tip of Cassie’s tongue could tumble out, and I almost regretted that I didn’t get to hear what she would’ve said.

The waitress took our order and scurried off to the kitchen, leaving us alone in a mostly empty restaurant. It was quiet, not in a bad way, but rather the type of silence that made me breathe easily for a bit. It wasn’t the dead quiet of my apartment that I used to think was the perfect escape, and it wasn’t the overwhelming roar of fans screaming my name in the arena.

It was a reprieve from it all. And I had the feeling it wouldn’t be that way if it were anyone else in the world sitting across from me.

The blonde in question had shed her winter attire and was currently tugging on the sleeves of her floral sweater.

She looked cute in her normal clothes. They suited her personality much better than the dark, black outfits my sister had styled her in the last few times when Cassie’s clothes had been in limbo at Dave the Dick’s house.

Should I ask how she’s doing about it all? Should I avoid the topic? Would it be more insensitive of me to bring it up or, worse, to ignore it?

Shit, maybe I really didn’t know how to talk to girls.

I felt like I was on a first date, nervous to say the wrong thing, nervous that I’d screw it all up before I even got a chance to know her.

I had to force myself not to shake my head to get the thoughts away because it absolutely was not a date. Just two friends eating pizza before going home together.

Fuck.

“How’s your hockey going?” she interrupted my inner anguish to ask.

“My hockey?” I laughed at her choice of wording. “It’s good.

“When’s your next game?” she asked. “I’d love to come to one and see you play! Maggie says you’re really good.”

I pictured her sitting in the stands, watching me, and the idea of it filled me with warmth. I cleared my throat, annoyed with how idiotic I was being tonight.

Maybe I did need a girlfriend because, apparently, I was projecting all my fantasies onto Cassie, which I was sure she wouldn’t take kindly to.

“The season hasn’t started yet.” I smiled.

“It hasn’t?” She looked surprised. “But you’re gone all the time!”

“Training,” I answered. “You live in Boston, and you don’t know when hockey season is?”

“I already told you I’m not much of a sports person.”

“But you still want to come see me play?” I asked, a feeling blooming in my chest. “Why?”

“Well, because it’s you,” she answered in a way that made me want to beg her to elaborate.

“How’s your school going?” I phrased it the same way she had.

Her eyes brightened as she dove into an explanation of how cute her class was this year, how much progress they’d made in the first few weeks, and how proud she was of them already.

“I mean,” she said animatedly, “At the start of the year, they couldn’t even walk in a straight line! Now they’re doing it with verbal cues only!”

“That’s… great?” I offered.

“It is!” Her eyes shone. “So, yeah. The kids are great. The school is great. It’s just that some of my coworkers really don’t seem like they like me.”

“Why?” I asked, wondering how it was possible someone could spend five minutes with the girl in front of me and not like her.

Hell, I had issues with most of the population, but she drew me in.

“I don’t know,” she said, shrinking into herself. “I know it sounds stupid, but I feel like sometimes people don’t take me seriously just because I try to be happy. It’s like they think I’m dumb for trying to stay positive. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy. And a lot of them like to sit around and complain about things—the kids, the parents, the administration, whatever. And it’s almost like they hold it against me that I don’t.”

“You’re not crazy,” I told her. “Misery loves company.”

“That’s what they say.” She shrugged sadly. “It just sucks to be excluded because I don’t want to gossip.”

I felt a surge of anger at the thought of Cassie going to work every day feeling anything less than accepted and loved. She had to deal with the shit with her ex, plus shitty coworkers on top of it?

Thank God I had come to my senses fast enough and got her to stay with me. If she had to deal with figuring out a living situation on top of it all, I don’t think I could bear it.

The pizza came before I could tell her to fuck all those people and keep doing her thing. But somehow, I figured that it wouldn’t be the type of advice she wanted to hear.

Cassie struck me as the type of person who deeply cared about people and what they thought of her, and while that wasn’t necessarily a trait we had in common, I couldn’t fault her for it.

She dug into her slice, making a noise of pure bliss after the first bite. There was enough cheese that it stretched off the pizza in long, white strands, and I had to try it myself to see if it was as life-changing as Cassie’s expression made it out to be.

It was.

“So, what about you?” she asked me between slices as she wiped her fingers on the napkin.

“What about me?”

“Well, I just told you about my job, and I think it’s pretty clear that despite some minor drawbacks, I’m pretty much living my dream. So, what’s yours?”

“Hockey,” I answered simply, somewhat confused by the question. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Right, but is that all you ever want to do? Like, what else? Any other big ambitions, or goals, or secret aspirations?”

I felt myself withdrawing. Through no fault of her own, Cassie had struck a nerve, venturing into a dangerous topic for me. Because the truth was, I had been grappling with the very questions myself for the last few years.

What’s next?

“Being in the NHL is no small thing,” I said. “In fact, I think it qualifies as ‘dream job’ territory.”

“Right, of course,” she said, quick to correct. “I only meant, what else do you see for yourself in the future? You’re more than just a hockey player, you know.”

Was I? No one else seemed to think so.

“If I’m being honest, that’s kind of a tough subject,” I admitted, leaning back in my seat.

“Is it?” Her eyes widened as if afraid she’d offended me, but still, she dared to ask. “But why?”

“Why?” I repeated her question, mulling it over in my mind. “Because I don’t know who I am other than that.”

“That can’t be true,” she said.

“It is,” I confirmed solemnly. “All I ever wanted to be was a hockey player, and I spent my life working toward that. There wasn’t much time for anything else. And now…”

“And now,” she pressed softly, willing me to continue.

“Now I only have a few good years left in my career, and I’m terrified of what my life will look like after that.”

“What?” She balked, mouth opening in utter shock. “You’re only twenty… something years old—”

“Twenty-six,” I said. “And most NHL players retire somewhere between now and thirty.”

“That’s crazy,” she admitted. “You’re like the fittest guy I’ve ever seen. You could play for years. ”

I laughed at the way she blushed after she said it.

“The fittest guy you’ve ever seen?” I smirked.

“Well, in person, yeah,” she said, blushing. “But then again, I don’t know any other professional sports players.”

I was glad she didn’t. Guys like my teammates would take way too eager an interest in her.

“But anyway,” she rambled. “I mean, even if you had to stop playing hockey, you have all of the opportunities in the world to do whatever you want after!”

“But I don’t know what I want to do,” I responded, uncomfortable with the question.

Life was long. It stretched on past the point of being comfortable sometimes. Who would I be when my body couldn’t do the only thing I’d ever needed it for? What would my life be like when my hockey days were a thing of the past, left behind in the age of unattainable youth?

“Sometimes,” I admitted, “it feels like the rest of my life will be just too much time I have to fill.”

“Isn’t that exciting? I mean, you could do anything. You could find a new passion or follow a new dream, or if you were really that attached to hockey, you could coach a team or find some way to still be involved in some other way.”

She was right, but how could I tell her that everything else would feel so insignificant in comparison to what I had already done? How I felt like I was being demoted into a life of insignificance. That hockey was the only thing that made me feel worthwhile.

“Well, what about you besides teaching?” I deflected. “What else do you want for your life?”

“Oh, you know.” She shrugged, apparently doing some deflecting of her own. “The normal things. Nothing as glamorous as the life of an NHL player, I’m sure.”

Some part of me wanted to press her, to ask what exactly that entailed… but I didn’t know her like that and couldn’t bring myself to pry when that was the very thing I hated most that people did to me.

We sat in silence for a moment, both aware that we were creeping around things we’d rather not talk about but content to let it be. For now.

“So, pizza,” I said, landing on a safer subject. “Is it like your favorite food or something? Since you claimed to have outeaten the state of Massachusetts in it?”

“Actually, no.” She laughed. “It’s just the only thing I really ever ate growing up.”

“The only thing?”

“Well, no,” she said. “But it was definitely a top staple in the house. My mom wasn’t much of a cook, and pizza was easy to order or throw in the oven with little effort.” She shrugged, apparently still enjoying the dish she’d eaten more times than I cared to believe.

The idea of it struck me as… kind of sad. Even in my mom’s darkest days after my father first left, she still managed to throw together some type of meal for me and Maggie to come home to.

“Sorry I brought you to have more of it, then,” I said guiltily.

“No!” She held her hands up. “I really do love pizza a lot. And this.” She held up the last slice in our box. “Is better than most.”

Before I could get another word in, Cassie looked behind us toward the back of the restaurant before telling me she was going to the bathroom and would be right back.

I nodded, watching as she disappeared down the hallway before slipping my phone out of my pocket. The guys’ group chat was flooded with texts that I didn’t bother to sort through, and I had the usual text from Brody that seemed to pop up every time I looked at my phone.

This time, it was a link to some online social media thread. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have even bothered to click on it, except for the text that came along with it.

Brody: U and ur girlfriend are making the rounds on the internet ??

My stomach tightened, and morbid curiosity had me clicking the link that brought me to Twitter.

@sam_3xo: met liam brynn at a bar and he’s an asshole.

Pretty tame and consistent with what everyone else wrote about me, but when I clicked on the girl’s profile picture and zoomed in to see the redhead from the bar, my blood boiled.

In all fairness, I had been pretty polite about her harassing me. I didn’t think it counted as me being an asshole because I rejected her advances, but apparently, I was alone in that mindset.

I read down the thread that had multiple responses, retweets, and likes.

@hannahbby: nooooooo, he’s so hot

The redhead responded,

@sam_3xo: don’t tell him that, apparently he has a gf and can’t even have a conversation without letting you know about her.

My jaw ticked. I had only brought out the imaginary girlfriend card after multiple attempts to get the girl to back the hell off. Now she got to spread shit on the internet where people would just believe it as fact? It was fucking stupid. And I couldn’t say anything about it without getting bad press.

Like a masochist, I kept scrolling.

@bCassiebuns13: receipts???

@sam_3x0: oh, I got them

Followed by a blurry photo beneath the tweet that had me sucking in a sharp breath.

It was me, standing by the karaoke stage, my body angled slightly toward Cassie. Our faces weren’t visible, but anyone who knew me would be able to tell it was me by my posture alone.

Cassie was barely visible. A blurry face and long blond hair were the only things you could really make out about her figure.

The only thing that was incriminating was how close we stood to each other. I didn’t even realize I’d been leaning into her that much.

But it had been loud? Hadn’t it?

My grip on the phone tightened, my jaw working as I tried to figure out a solution. I knew better than to believe the story would just die out. Social media was like a curse to humanity, spreading lies and misinformation as rapidly as fire, with no way to drench the flames.

The replies were endless, each comment written by people who clearly had no real lives of their own.

My fingers threatened to crush the phone they held, but still, I couldn’t put it away. This wasn’t just my life they were messing with now, but Cassie’s.

Cassie, who clearly would rather hide under a rock than face any type of public scrutiny like the type that came along with my life.

My mind was racing, my blood was boiling, and then, a soft voice cut through the static of my thoughts.

“Hey,” Cassie said, sliding back into her seat as she tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Are you okay?”

I blinked at her, the anger still vividly thrumming in my chest.

Her bright blue eyes were open, searching mine for an answer.

I swallowed anxiously. Did I tell her? That right now, thousands of strangers were likely zooming in, analyzing, trying to track her down, all because of me? That some random girl was spreading rumors about her just because of her connection to me?

Did I tell her the idea of her life getting muddied and messed up with and put under a magnifying glass because of me made me want to throw my fucking phone across the room?

She tilted her head, eyes pinched nervously.

“?” she asked again.

I inhaled deeply through my nose, pocketing my phone once more, though it now felt like more of a bomb waiting to detonate.

“Yeah,” I said, voice rougher than I intended. “I’m fine.”