Page 15 of Playing for Keeps (Seattle Hawks Ice Hockey #4)

Jade

On the way to the botanical gardens, we sip coffee and Jay jokes about old times.

We say nothing else about the little incident with one of his many admirers back at the rink, thankfully that seems long forgotten, too.

Something about their whole exchange annoyed me. And that in itself makes no sense at all, well, it kinda does since Jay has been at the forefront of my waking thoughts for months now. But I’ve chosen to brush it aside.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise. Jay has always been popular with the female kind, and I know from the way Tanner has spoken in passing about Jay that he hasn’t had any serious relationships for years.

He always seems to go from one puck bunny to the next.

It serves a purpose, I suppose, but there’s a larger part of me that wonders why he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

Maybe he’s just happy with that whole arrangement and it works for him.

Part of me wonders, though, if it doesn’t stem from the past. His rocky upbringing was no picnic. I don’t know why, but my mind flicks back once more, as it often does, to that night of the storm when Dad brought him home. Dad’s words to my mom are something I’ve never been able to forget….

“On the cliff’s edge?” My mom’s voice is a high-pitched shrill, like she’s trying to keep it contained so none of us kids hear, but her shock at whatever my dad just said is greater than the latter.

Yes, I’m eavesdropping, but I didn’t mean to.

It’s late, and I walked out to grab a glass of water when I heard them talking about Jay in the kitchen.

He’s down in the basement with Tanner, where he sleeps with Robbie.

“What the heck was he doing there?” Mom continues.

“It looked pretty ambiguous to me. He was waving a bottle of alcohol around moments before I got there, he reeked of it.”

“That poor child,” Mom’s voice dropped several octaves. “We can’t let him go back to that household, Billy. Tanner said Jay doesn’t get along with his mom’s new boyfriend, and he’s pretty sure the black eye he had came from him.”

“Jay said that happened during practice.” Dad’s exasperated sigh sounds desperate, it’s laced with a type of concern that’s new to me.

My parents are the best, and they think the world of Jay, even though he’s only been here since the start of the year.

Jay and Tanner have been as thick as thieves ever since his first day.

“I think we need to report it and get the authorities involved, Billy.”

“I think so, too,” Dad agrees.

“Maybe we can get Jay to talk to the school counsellor if he doesn’t want to talk to us.”

“That’s a good idea.”

My heart is thudding so damned loud hearing their conversation, it’s ringing in my ears. It’s a wonder they can’t both hear it. I’m keeping deftly still, frozen against the wall, plastered to it in fact, straining to listen even though I know it’s wrong.

“Do you think he was going to jump?” Mom whispers.

And my heart shudders, literally, right in the center of my chest. I hold my breath, not knowing if I want to know the answer. I want to let out a cry, but I muffle it with my hand over my mouth.

Jay jumping off a cliff? What the hell?

Dad lets out a breath. “I don’t know, Ellen, I really don’t.

I’m just glad we got there in time. Tanner said he hadn’t seen him in a few days and I became worried.

Granted, the storm came in fast. I was scoping the area on the way back from the park.

I know he and Tanner like to hang out at that particular spot. ”

“I just can’t bear to think about what could have happened if you weren’t there.”

“Me neither, if I’m being honest. The strange part is, he seems in good spirits.”

“That could be the alcohol,” Mom’s voice is still a low whisper.

I shudder to think about the extent of what they’re saying. I knew Jay was acting a little out of character when he got to our place… I mean, I haven’t seen anyone rolling drunk before, and Jay didn’t seem that way, although he was a little off.

He was soaked to the bone, and his eyes seemed glassy and far away. And Dad wasn’t saying much about why they came in like that from the rain.

And now I’m putting all the pieces together… Dad found him on the edge of The Point after drinking alcohol and he thought he was going to jump off a cliff and kill himself?

I’m about to turn and take a step away so I can go and cry silently in my room, when I feel a presence behind me before the touch of someone grabbing me.

It all happens in a second and I gasp, albeit a little muffled, as my hand flies up to my mouth in the process.

I try not to shriek when I realize I’m confronted with Jay’s chest; he was standing right there behind me and I almost smack into him…

shit, did he just hear Mom and Dad talking about him?

“Jay!” I whisper-shout. “You scared the life out of me!”

He gives me that lopsided, cheeky smile he always wears and shakes his head, pulling me by the wrist toward the back of the hallway, where the stairs lead to the basement. Luckily, Mom and Dad don’t appear to have heard us. “Sorry I scared you, I just came to grab a glass of water,” he whispers.

“Me too.”

“So why were you pressed up against the wall like a creeper, listening to your parents’ conversation?”

“I wasn’t doing that!” I bite back.

“Oh yeah? What were you doing then?”

I don’t have any words without giving anything away and I feel my cheeks instantly heat from the notion. “Mom and Dad were talking, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Were they talking about me?” He leans back on the wall opposite me and runs a hand through his floppy hair, not taking his eyes off me. His eyes have always reminded me of the ocean; always blue, mostly calming, but even when they’re rocky, there’s still something comforting about him.

I find myself involuntarily nodding. I can’t lie to save myself. And right now, I wish I could because I don’t want to tell him what I heard. The last thing I ever want to do is upset him, nor do I want to think about something bad happening to him.

I know from some of the things Tanner has said in the past that Jay doesn’t exactly come from a great home life and that he’s moved a lot.

He doesn’t get along with his mother and his father is nowhere in the picture.

Then there’s her boyfriend who I know as ‘Gus’ to contend with, and that doesn’t seem to be any picnic for him, either.

I first try to back track, but fail miserably. “Umm, no, they weren’t talking about you. I mean, I guess… well… kinda.”

His head tilts as his eyes stick like glue to my face. “Which is it, Little JJ?”

I gulp. Unable to understand why my heart is racing at the same undeniable pace as it was just moments ago, listening to Mom and Dad talk about him. But this feels a little different to that. My palms feel sweaty and my pulse is through the roof. I also have this nervous tingle in my stomach…

I may be a junior and have never had a boyfriend, but I know enough to know when a guy is being a little cute. And Jay is being cute with me.

I blink several times, trying to form an answer for him. Trying to get past the ‘Little JJ’ nickname.

He’s always been very gracious to me if I’m hanging around when he and Tanner are trying to do homework and other shit they don’t want me privy to.

Not that I don’t have my own stuff to do, or my own friends, but it’s kinda hard to avoid them in our medium-sized suburban house.

And Jay has been around here with Ben more often than not lately.

“They were just saying how bad the storm was,” I say, which isn’t exactly an all-out lie, but not how I heard it, either.

I mean, what am I supposed to say?… my parents are having a quiet whisper in the kitchen about you because they think you’re suicidal?

“And they’re worried about you,” I add. That part is definitely no fabrication of the truth.

They’re going to call the authorities because of it.

“Did they tell you I was drunk?” He presses his lips together like he’s fighting a smile, but something behind his eyes catches my attention.

And I only notice because of how dark they are today, and how every girl in high school has noticed how pretty they are, too.

Only right now, they’re not shining and mischievous like normal…

they’re something else. I just don’t know what. It’s intense, maybe even a little sad.

“No, they didn’t tell me anything.” I shake my head. “But I heard Dad say you were waving a bottle of alcohol around.”

His chuckle causes me to look up from the hardwood floor we’re standing on.

I keep looking down because it’s hard to keep my eyes on him.

“They worry too much. It was just a bet from a couple of the guys down the rink. Nothing to worry about.” He waves it off with a flail of his hand like it really is no biggie.

I bite the corner of my lip as I take in his words and try to work out if he means it. His eyes catch mine again.

“It’s horrible stuff, by the way. I wouldn’t recommend it,” he tells me matter-of-factly.

“Good to know,” I all but squeak.

His eyes finally shift down to the ground for a moment.

“I’m just lucky your dad came along when he did.

I could have perished out there.” The corner of his mouth pulls up in an attempt at a half smile.

But his cheeky, unrelenting, and sometimes ridiculous, sense of humor is all but gone. At least, for the moment.

“Are you sure that’s all it was? Just a bet and getting stuck in the storm?” I ask.

His eyes flick back to mine and I gulp from the deep sense of intensity I find there. Jay seems so much older than his seventeen years. It’s like he’s seen everything, and nothing surprises him anymore.

“I had a fight with my mom, it’s no big deal,” he sighs. “And I have a lot of pressure on me going into finals, I shouldn’t have taken that stupid bet. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not, don’t say that.”