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Chapter Forty-Four

S omething I oddly appreciated about my family was that I wasn’t anything special. I mean, not more so than anyone else.

They didn’t fixate on my career any more than they would anyone else’s. There were passing comments about a recent game or some jokes about how I could be playing better. But honestly? The hockey talk was brief, and I preferred it that way.

I could breathe. Relax. Just be a normal person.

Today more so than ever, because this time, Cassie was with me, and I didn’t know what the hell it was about her, but she put me at ease in a way nothing else in the world did.

She, on the other hand, was jittery and restless the entire drive to my mother’s house.

“Relax,” I told her, stealing a glance. “I promise no one there bites.”

“I’m just nervous.” She looked over at me with a wince.

“I know,” I told her. “But you don’t have to be.”

She clutched the pie on her lap as if it were grounding her to the earth.

I reached over to interlace our fingers, something I’d noticed always set her instantly at ease. I loved that something as simple as my fingers could have that effect on her.

We pulled up to my mom’s and for a second after I turned off the ignition, I just stared at the house I grew up in.

I don’t know why, but I’d gotten the hell out of there when I turned eighteen and never looked back. At the time, I didn’t really understand why I had the itch to leave as soon as possible. It was nothing against my mom or Maggie. I just felt… resentful, somehow.

Now, I wondered if it had more to do with my dad than I ever realized. I think, on some level, a part of me resented the way we all had to carry on with our lives as if the biggest presence wasn’t missing completely. The way we had to go on and pretend the space he’d once occupied was not noticeably empty.

My mom had worked her ass off to raise us, but the memory of him always lingered. Maggie never got over it. Mom sure as hell never got over it. And I guess I hadn’t either, much as eighteen-year-old me would’ve argued otherwise.

But now, the street was lined with cars from various family members, and the thought of going into the house my dad once haunted didn’t seem so daunting anymore.

“This is a nice house,” Cassie remarked as I came around to open her door.

I snorted. “Who knows what Mom’s done to the inside. She’s spent the last few months having it redone.”

“You don’t trust her interior decorating skills?” Cassie giggled.

“No, not at all, actually.”

Cassie jumped down from the car, looking on edge as if I were leading her to an execution.

“Relax,” I told her, using my hand to guide her to the door. “We’re fine.”

“It’s scary meeting people’s families. Especially all at once like this,” she admitted.

“They’ll love you,” I coaxed her.

Who wouldn’t?

She smiled up at me, trusting me that everything would be okay.

Before we even got to the door, Maggie was standing there, throwing it open and hurriedly gesturing for us to move faster.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said when we got to the steps. “I’ve been waiting by the window for you to pull up.”

“Why?” I snorted.

“I wanted to warn you. Mom has gone mental. The entire house looks like a cowboy ranch. She’s giving everyone guided tours as if it’s Buckingham Palace.”

“A cowboy ranch?” Cassie asked at the same time I said, “Guided tours?”

I’d grown up in the house. It wasn’t as if I needed to relearn my way around.

But as soon as I stepped inside, I was pretty much eating those words. It was true. The place was unrecognizable.

As if I’d stepped onto the set of an Old West film, the entire place was redone with solid wood, a stone fireplace, a—

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered.

“I think it looks… nice,” Cassie said.

“We live in Massachusetts.” Maggie groaned.

“Is that ?” I heard my mother before I saw her. We’d barely entered the threshold, but as always, she had some type of supersense of detecting my presence from a mile away.

“There he is,” she gushed, her eyes lighting when she saw me. “My son.”

And she pulled me into her traditional hug that always made it seem like she hadn’t seen me in years.

“Hi, Mom,” I told her, surprised by the strength of a 5’6 woman.

“And Cassie,” she said, turning to her beside me. With no hesitation, she pulled her into a hug of equal intensity. “I’ve heard so much about you from Maggie. I’m so happy you’re here with us.”

“Relax, Mom, Maggie said.

“Don’t break her,” I said, only half-joking as I tried to pull Cassie to safety.

“Thank you so much for having me,” Cassie responded when she was finally freed of the death grip.

“Thank you for coming.” My mother waved it off. “It seems you’ve made quite the impact on both my children,” she said before turning to me with a smirk.

I hadn’t talked to my mom since that day at Maggie’s, so I had no idea what she thought the situation was, but it clearly made a hell of a statement that I was arriving here with her by my side.

If Maggie was bringing her friend, that was one thing. But the fact that it was me— I had the feeling it sent an entirely different message.

One I didn’t really have the desire to contradict.

“Well, what do you think?” Mom gestured around us with eager eyes.

Again, I was forced to take in our setting. Totally unrecognizable from the home I grew up in.

I focused on the antlers above the fireplace while scrambling for something to come up with.

“It’s, uh, rustic,” I offered.

“It’s cozy,” Cassie added.

“If you’re Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid,” Maggie muttered under her breath.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Mom asked, still smiling.

“I said you should give the tour while I talk to Cassie all the way over here,” Maggie said, lacing an arm through Cassie’s and attempting to pull her off into No-man’s-land.

Yeah, uh, no.

“Or,” I interjected, grabbing Cassie’s hand and tugging her back. “I could go introduce Cassie to the rest of the family.”

No way was I getting wrapped into one of Mom’s all-encompassing conversations on my own.

“Nope,” Maggie said. “You have her all the time. My turn.”

“Stop it, you two.” Mom frowned. “I mean, really. The poor girl isn’t a toy for you to fight over.”

She looked at Cassie with sympathy.

“I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of my children.”

“It’s okay.” Cassie smiled. “It’s nice to be loved.”

Then she looked at me and cringed.

“I mean, it’s nice to be included. Like part of the family. No—not part of the family like that. But for the day.”

“Here’s a solution,” Mom said, apparently not noticing whatever was malfunctioning in Cassie’s brain. “How about I take the three of you on a tour?”

“I already went on the tour,” Maggie pointed out grimly.

“And did you think I wouldn’t notice how you disappeared halfway through?”

“Halfway through, meaning thirty-two minutes into it,” Maggie whispered to Cassie, causing her to giggle. “And I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Mom said, charging ahead.

“Giddy-up.” Maggie swung an imaginary lasso over her head, and the three of us followed Mom into the depths of her psychotic breakdown.

It got worse the further we went.

“Since when are you into horses, Mom?” I asked, unsettled by the bizarre imagery decorating the hallway walls.

“Oh, you know I’ve always loved horses,” Mom said off-handedly.

“I mean, as much as any other person does, I guess,” I mumbled.

“I see the vision you’re going for.” Cassie nodded along with my mom’s excitement. “It’s very cohesive.”

“Thank you!” Mom beamed.

“You don’t have to suck up to her, Cassie.” Maggie giggled. “She’s going to like you on account of you being the only girl has brought home, ever.”

“Anyway,” I jumped in. “Here’s my old room.”

And I opened the door which I was hoping was a portal to another dimension.

But then, I saw that nothing had been changed. It was as if I’d just left last week and not almost ten years ago.

“No redecorating in here?” I asked, voice thick.

“Of course not,” Mom said. “It’s your space. I wouldn’t touch it.”

“I just want you to always feel like you have a room here if you ever wanted or needed to come home.”

Considering I was an NHL player with a couple of million dollars cushioning me, I knew that Mom knew I would never have to come home.

But still, something about the sentiment touched me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I told her, looking around at the time capsule that was my past life.

“Well, now I’m going to be personally offended if you kept ’s the same and turned mine into a home gym or something.”

“Yours is the same too, sweetheart,” Mom soothed while she and Maggie walked off down the hallway together.

Cassie trailed behind, lingering with me in the silence of my childhood room.

Posters of hockey players I’d admired still hung on the walls. Trophies lined the shelves. Pictures of me with old high school teammates.

I went over, picked one up, then put it back down with a sigh.

Hockey had been my whole world. It still was… before Cassie entered the scene.

She came up behind me silently, looking over my shoulders at the memorabilia of my life.

“You know,” I said, “I spent my entire life praying and working and wishing for what I have right now. And then I spent the entirety of my career scared as fuck to lose it.”

“You made it,” she said, squeezing my arm encouragingly. “And you’re not going to lose it.”

“No?” I asked her, suddenly desperate for reassurance. “Do you think there’re some things in life we get to keep?”

“I do,” She said breathily, staring down at the space between us that was barely existent. “Especially you.”

“Why me?” I asked, feeling breathless as I looked down at her lips.

My hands weren’t even on her, but I knew in one second they could be. I could grab her and kiss her and make her mine.

Her eyes fluttered, and I could swear she glanced at my mouth, too.

“Because you don’t seem like the type to let things you love go easily,” she said, and I made up my mind.

I took her by the arms, holding her in place. I let my forehead fall against hers and felt the warmth of her breath against my skin.

I tilted my head, moved toward her, lips hovering an inch away from hers, and—

“Guys?” Maggie’s voice came from down the hall, and Cassie jumped away from me as if a bomb had erupted.

“There you are, come on.” Maggie’s head poked in, staring at Cassie, who looked guilty as hell, and me, who looked—well, I didn’t know how I looked, but I felt pissed the hell off, and I didn’t doubt my face reflected that.

“Or.” Maggie stared between us with assessing eyes. “Maybe don’t.”

And then she took off like a bat out of hell.

“Cassie—” I started, moving toward her once more.

To explain. To tell her how I felt. Hell, maybe to even try to kiss her again.

“Let’s go downstairs,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “I can’t wait to meet the rest of your family.”

I ran a hand through my hair, looking around as I tried to recuperate from whatever had just happened or decidedly not happened between us. And what that might mean.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay.”