Page 54

Chapter Fifty-Four

A mazingly, she texted me first. I was staring up at Brody’s ceiling when the phone dinged. I swear, I’d never dove for something faster in my life.

The message was simple and to the point and left me wanting a hell of a lot more.

Can I come to your game tomorrow?

Why was she even asking? She could go anywhere I was, anytime, no questions asked.

My fingers wanted to type a hundred messages that I couldn’t send:

Can you come home tonight? Can I come pick you up right now? Can I be wherever you are?

But I didn’t know where the hell her mind was at, so all I typed back was a simple, Yes.

She didn’t answer, but a while later, Maggie texted, saying, “I fixed all your problems. You’re welcome.”

That couldn’t be true because Cassie and all of her stuff were still at Maggie’s house instead of where they belonged.

I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning on Brody’s couch, trying to figure out how to convince her that she was supposed to be with me. Because I knew she was. Even if she didn’t.

By the time morning came, I was ragged and weary and wasn’t sure how the hell I was supposed to play another game tonight with all the chaos in my head.

I stayed with Brody all day, obsessively checking my phone for messages that never came and going through my usual game day routine with him by my side to keep me in check.

When it came time to get ready to go to the game, I realized I’d screwed myself. I didn’t have a clean suit with me, and Brody’s would’ve fit me like a second layer of skin the absolute worst way.

The logical thing would’ve been to run home and grab one of the many I already owned, but I couldn’t fucking do it. I couldn’t go there alone.

Instead, we left early and bought one on the way. It might’ve created some mayhem in the local Hugo Boss, but the employees were good about getting me in and out of there in record time.

“Now, remember,” Brody said in the locker room as we changed into our gear. “Everything with blondie is going to be fine, but everything with Coach will not be if you don’t keep your head in the game tonight.”

I knew he had a point, but suddenly, hockey wasn’t the biggest deal in my life anymore. It wasn’t real. It was my career, and I loved it. But if I lost it? It wouldn’t destroy me. Not the way it would destroy me to lose someone I loved.

Cassie was real.

This? It was a game.

I’d used it as a distraction from real life for so long that I’d stopped building a world outside of here. But now I had, and I was scared like hell to lose it.

The crowds were seated, and even from here the volume of the Garden was thunderous, but it had nothing on the noise in my head.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Brody, beelining for the tunnel.

Brody called after me, but I knew I had time before my absence would be noticed. At least a few minutes’ worth of it.

I shot Maggie a text, telling her where to meet me away from the eyes of the rest of the stadium. She answered immediately, telling me she’d be there.

Cassie. Cassie. Cassie.

My thoughts screamed her name on a loop as I raced to meet Maggie. Would she be there with her? Would I get to talk to her before I went on the ice?

Every question was answered when I saw Maggie standing there alone, looking breathless and a lot more anxious than I was comfortable with.

“, I—” she started, looking behind her quickly.

“Is she here?” I asked. “I thought she was coming.” I couldn’t hide the way my voice cracked at the question. “What happened?”

“She is here, but I have to tell you something.”

“Are you sure?” I looked around, relief flooding my chest. “Where is she?”

“She’s in the bathroom, but , I really need to—”

And then my heart stopped as another figure appeared behind her, approaching us

I didn’t know what to do at first. Couldn’t process what was happening as I looked at their face.

“,” the voice said, and my blood ran cold.

I was staring at the man whose face I would wear in thirty years. I hadn’t realized it when I was a kid, and certainly not in all the time he’d been gone, but I saw it now. How eerily similar everything about us was, as if his genes were copied and pasted onto me.

I wondered if that’s why it hurt Mom so much to look at me, the way I knew it sometimes did when I watched her avert her gaze from me.

I resented that I could have gotten so much genetically from a man who provided so little to my life.

I clenched my jaw hard enough to break it.

This was too much.

All of it was too fucking much.

“What is he doing here?” I looked at Maggie, the sting of betrayal settling over me as I stared at her for answers.

“I was trying to tell you,” Maggie said, having the decency to at least look guilty.

“,” his voice said to me for the first time in fifteen years. “Son—”

“Don’t call me that.” I scowled, my focus snapping to him. No part of me wanted anything to do with the man standing in front of me.

“Why would you bring him here, Mags?” I bit out. “Why?”

“I—” She opened her mouth but came up empty.

“I wanted to see you. Talk to you.” He stepped in as if he had the right. “To tell you how sorry I am and explain what a mistake it was to do what I did.”

I laughed humorlessly.

“Abandoning your family isn’t a mistake. It’s a fucking choice.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, infuriating me to my core. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. I needed space. Time away from your mother.”

“And your children?” I asked coldly.

“Let him talk, ,” Maggie snapped as if I were the bad guy here.

He swallowed. “I thought if I wanted to see you kids, I’d need to deal with your mother, and I just… wasn’t ready. But then time went by. Too much time. By then, I figured it was too late. Six months had passed. I was scared you wouldn’t want to see me.”

I shook my head. “Well, if you thought I wouldn’t want to after six months, I bet you can imagine how much I don’t want to after fifteen fucking years,” I snarled vehemently.

I was disgusted by his presence, feeling my skin physically crawl as I looked at him. I’d resented him since the day he left, and seeing him in the flesh only amplified that feeling tenfold.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, shooting a heartbroken look that did nothing to soften me. “I’m proud of you, . I tell all my friends about what you’ve accomplished.”

“No,” I spat. “You don’t get to be proud of me. Nothing I’ve done has anything to do with you.”

He tried to interject, but I didn’t let him. Didn’t want to hear another word. “It might be your last name on my jersey,” I told him, staring him dead in the eye, “but I created a name for myself without you.”

He faltered,

“And I can promise you,” I said, enunciating each word to ensure he heard loud and clear. “When people hear the name Brynn, they sure as hell aren’t thinking of you. And neither am I.”

He flinched. Maggie had her head in her hands. And I needed to get the hell out of here. I’d wasted too many minutes on this guy already.

“Enjoy the game,” I tossed over my shoulder as I left, hoping to God that I would never see that man again for the rest of my life.

I’d never taken a drug in my life, but I felt wired as if I’d taken a hit of something. My brain was fried—between the confrontation with my father, the anger I felt toward Maggie for bringing him here, and the cyclone of a mess going on with Cassie, it was a wonder I managed to play the game at all.

I paid enough attention to get by, but I’d be lying if I tried to claim that most of my focus wasn’t on the stands.

Did I see a blond head anywhere? It was hard when so many were screaming for my attention, holding up crazy signs that seemed borderline illegal to be shown in a public setting.

But finally, I spotted her a few minutes into the night. The last time I saw her, her lips had been on mine and everything was perfect. Then she was gone before I had a chance to process how it happened.

She sat beside Maggie in a replica of my jersey, with a long white-sleeved shirt underneath. She looked so beautiful it hurt to breathe, even as relief flooded through me.

She really was here tonight. Everything would be fine because I was going to talk to her and make things right. It didn’t even matter if she wasn’t ready for a relationship or any of that. I’d rather have things go back to the way they were before than not have her at all. And if she was here, it meant she wasn’t giving up on me yet.

I played like hell to prove a point to myself and to my father, who was there in the stands beside Maggie. I didn’t need him and never did. But most of all, I played like hell because of that girl in the stands watching who held my heart in the palm of her hands.

I hoped she’d go easy with it.

We were unstoppable for the first half of the game, to the point where I was entirely locked in, concentrating only on what I needed to get done in front of me.

The guys and I moved like clockwork, seamless, unstoppable. The rest of the world faded into a blur—just noise beyond the rink. The puck belonged to us, and we made damn sure the other team knew it. Score after score, the crowd roared louder, the announcers raving about how this game would go down in Harbor Wolves history.

But I barely heard them.

I was locked in, breathless, running on pure muscle memory. Somewhere between passes and checks, I remembered why I loved this game. How it shut everything else out. How it let me forget, let me escape, let me feel nothing at all.

Lately, I hadn’t wanted that. But tonight, I let the adrenaline drag me under—just until the game was secured.

Then, somewhere in the third period, as the energy swirled around me, I glanced up for a glance at Cassie, only to come up short.

Fans screamed in every direction I turned, but I ignored them, searching for the one face that wasn’t there.

Where the hell had she gone?

As soon as I was able to look in the direction of where Maggie was sitting, I mouthed the question through the glass.

“Where is she?”

She mouthed back, “Her mom.”

That was all it took to take me out of the game. Like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head, I was done. I skated off, Coach yelling, trying to block my path.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he shouted. “This game is going down in the books. You’ll see it through to the end!”

“I can’t.” I yanked off my helmet. “It’s Cassie. I have to go.”

“Who the hell is Cassie?”

I met his eyes dead-on. “My girl.”

Whatever he saw on my face made him step back. He clapped my shoulder, letting me pass.

As I stalked down the tunnel, the announcer’s voice echoed behind me.

“ Brynn is leaving the game due to a family emergency.”

And then I was gone.