Page 34

THIRTY-THREE

Joey

I’m frowning as Damon excuses himself from the table, lifting his phone to his ear, trademark scowl in place.

“He’s off,” Kylie says and I glance over at her, see that her eyebrows are drawn together, worry written into the lines of her face.

“Yes,” I agree. “Something’s off.” I wrinkle my nose. “But he’s not talking to me about it.”

It’s been a week since I first crawled into bed with him in Vancouver, a week since I sensed that tension in him.

A week during which I’ve asked him multiple times if he’s okay, asked him multiple times to talk to me about whatever it is that’s clearly bothering him—and all of those asks have gone unanswered.

Or well, the only answer I’ve been getting is that he’s busy but otherwise fine.

But sometimes I catch him looking at me like…

Like he’s living a nightmare.

While I’m living a fantasy.

I rub my hand over my chest, trying to soothe the ache there.

But it doesn’t help.

Kylie sighs, putting down her fork and reaching across the table to squeeze my arm. “He can be stubborn like that.”

“As his sister, do you have any insights about how to break through all of that stubborn?”

She chuckles. “Don’t I wish.” She squeezes my arm one more time then draws back and returns to her pancakes. “If it’s any consolation, these moods of his don’t last very long. He’ll shake it off and be the Damon of old in no time.”

I look out the window, watch as he paces, his phone pressed to his ear.

And I can’t beat back the feeling that for all that’s good between us, all that feels like everything—and more—I’ve ever dreamed of, I’m still waiting for it to all go bad, for the other shoe to drop, for…

“Damon mentioned that you had a meeting with Cal.”

I jerk, gaze swiveling from the man who practically owns my heart to his sister, who’s quickly making her own place in it. “Yeah, I did.” Cal’s the team’s owner and I met with him a couple of days ago to disclose that Damon and I are dating.

“How’d it go?”

My response…is a sigh.

She winces. “That good, huh?”

“Well, I still have a job,” I hedge. “And HR did their thing, so we’re covered.”

“Eh.” She waves a hand. “With your record and the health of the team, did you expect anything different?”

“Considering that Hiller was fired for inappropriate conduct and I’m banging the GM…I thought it was a possibility.” But I hold myself to a high standard and Damon and I are…well, I hope that we’re something that’s going to be around for a good long while—despite his moodiness of late—so I knew I needed to have that awkward conversation with Cal.

The press hasn’t picked up on our relationship yet.

But Colt has, and obviously so has Storm, and I know the rest of the guys haven’t missed it either.

The only reason I’m not getting shit is because I can bench them.

Sooner or later, though, I know the teasing will be coming my way.

It’s the way of the hockey world.

“Okay, for one”—she shovels a bite of pancake into her mouth, her next words slightly garbled—“please don’t discuss banging and my brother. For another, nothing about you and Damon can compare to the awful shit that Hiller did.”

My teeth clamp together, and she curses softly.

“Damn,” she says again. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s—” I shake my head. “I’m fine. It’s in the past—” But even as I want to push out the rest of the half-truth, the words stopper up in my throat.

“Yeah.” She sighs. “That doesn’t work all that well for me either.”

I hate that she knows that.

Almost as much as I hate the fact that she can see right through me.

“What does?” I ask.

“What?”

“What works for you?” I ask. “I did the therapy thing. I’ve put in the work, and sometimes…” I sigh and shrug helplessly.

“Sometimes it’s there anyway,” she murmurs, sitting back in her chair, pushing her pancakes away. “Truthfully?”

I nod.

“For a long time, nothing helped. Especially when Damon was serving time for me.”

Damn. “Shit, Kylie,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have brought this up?—”

“No.” Her eyes are damp and she shakes her head, her hand finding mine. “This is good. I hate pretending everything is perfect all the time.” A long, shaky breath. “Because, truthfully, even after Damon’s sentence was up and he was going back to living his life, I still wasn’t ready to get out there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She exhales, sits back. “Because even though it took time, even though it took a long time, I can tell you that it eventually changes, that life gets better, becomes normal again. Yes, there are blips were the memories pop up, the grief takes over, but they…fade, I guess. Or maybe it’s that I’ve become stronger, so they’re easier to deal with.”

My lungs spasm. My eyes burn.

But I think about my childhood.

I think about Beth and John and the years after.

I think about sharp pain growing dull and achy, slowly, incrementally, day by day by day .

I nod. “You’re right,” I whisper.

Her smile is sad, but her eyes tell me enough.

She knows I’m telling the truth when I agree with her.

“But you know what makes everything get better faster?” she asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “What makes it better faster?”

She shoves my plate toward me. “Pancakes. But also”—her expression softens—“having someone to talk about it with.”

Now I know she’s telling the truth.

Because the dark secret that had been eating away at me for so long is out in the open—or well, it’s not completely hidden any longer. It’s not just me sharing with my therapist. Kylie knows and Damon knows, and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst if my truth was out there in the world. Maybe people wouldn’t look at me like I’m broken.

Because I know that Kylie isn’t. She’s so damned strong, it fills me with pride.

So…why can’t I be that strong too?

The chair next to me slides out with a screech and I turn to watch Damon sink down next to me.

“All good?”

He glances as me, mouth turned up into a smile I both love and hate. Because his expression is soft but his eyes are distant. “All good, Red.” A beat. “Except for the fucking phone calls.”

I bump his shoulder with mine, try to coax a real smile out of him. “Burden of being the big boss?”

“Exactly.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, leans in and presses a kiss to the hinge of my jaw. “Eat your food, baby.”

I pick up my fork, oblige the soft order, but as the meal goes on, I don’t miss that he doesn’t touch his plate of French toast, barely sips at his mug of hot coffee.

Mostly, he broods.

And even though I give him the sass he loves and Kylie chatters away, her cheery brightness seemingly impossible to dim—even in the face of all her brother’s brooding—nothing breaks through.

Something I know she doesn’t miss it because her eyes keep coming to mine then sliding to her brother.

Who replies at all the right times.

But isn’t engaged in this conversation at all.

Something is definitely up.

And I need to figure out exactly what the hell it is.

Kylie lifts her brows and I shrug slightly. I have no clue how to fix this. I’ve barely begun to fix myself.

Her blue eyes, so much like Damon’s, turn shrewd.

Even before the words come out of her mouth, I know her brother isn’t going to like them.

I also know she isn’t going to hold them back on his account.

Because she announces, “…and that’s not even the best news because guess what?”

I brace, hold myself perfectly still.

Damon sets his coffee down, seems to do the same exact thing I’m doing.

Kylie, meanwhile, just smiles wide, beams of sunshine practically filling up the breakfast restaurant, and blithely continues on,

“I’m moving out!”

My mouth drops open.

And I watch Damon’s already dark expression grow even darker.