Page 34 of Puck Struck (Dirty Puck #3)

TWENTY-FIVE

logan

The scent of garlic and basil fills the kitchen.

It’s normally a comforting smell, something homey and warm but right now, my stomach is roiling and my hands won't stop fucking shaking.

I've checked my phone seventeen times over the last hour, waiting for another text from James, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for everything to go to shit like it always does.

"He'll be here," Tessa says, hip-checking me as she slides past to grab dinner plates from the cabinet. "Stop hovering by the oven like the lasagna is gonna burn if you look away for two seconds."

"I'm not hovering."

"You are hovering. And checking your phone like it's a ticking time bomb." She puts a stack of plates on the counter. "Is this what it looks like when Logan Shaw has feelings for someone? Because it's slightly terrifying. And completely foreign to me."

I glare at her. "I don't have?—"

"You do. Don’t even try to deny it." She grins, and for a second she looks like the little girl I used to make peanut butter sandwiches for when Mom was too drunk to get out of bed. "It's okay, you know. To care about him."

I heave a deep sigh. "It's not that simple."

"It never is. Doesn’t mean it’s not worth a shot." She leans against the counter, studying me with that too-perceptive gaze that always makes me feel like she can see right through my bullshit. "But it might be simpler than you're making it. He likes you, Lo. Anyone with eyes can see it."

Before I can respond, Ethan’s feet pound down the steps.

"Is Cam here yet?" he asks in an excited voice, a dinosaur book clutched to his chest. His cheeks are slightly flushed, but he seems energetic. It’s so much of an improvement and a relief that I smile even though my insides are churning.

"Not yet, bud. Why don't you help Mom set the table while we wait?"

"Can Cam sit next to me?" He pulls open the utensil drawer and grabs silverware from the drawer, counting out four place settings.

"Sure. Just don't talk his ear off about dinosaurs all night, okay?"

"But he likes dinosaurs." Ethan says it so matter-of-factly that something in my chest aches. "He told me so. I bet he’d like it if I talked about something he’s interested in."

Tessa stifles a chuckle and shakes her head.

That kid. I freaking love him to pieces.

The doorbell rings.

"He’s here! I'll get it!" he shouts, already racing toward the front door.

By the time I reach the foyer, Ethan has flung the door open and is staring up at Cam with blatant adoration.

"You came!" Ethan grabs Cam's hand and tugs him inside. "I have a new dinosaur book. Do you want to see it?"

Cam lets himself be pulled in. A smile stretches across his face but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks at me over Ethan's head. There's something uncertain in his expression, like he's not sure if he belongs here.

"Hey," I say.

"Hey." Cam shifts his weight, clutching a bottle of wine. "I brought, uh?—"

"Wine!" Tessa stops next to me, rescuing us both. "Perfect. Thank you so much, Cam. Come on inside. Dinner is just about ready.”

Dinner is shockingly easy, although I don’t know why I expected it to be anything different.

There’s no awkwardness. I don’t feel like I’m under a microscope.

We talk, laugh, and eat. A lot. Ethan monopolizes the conversation, peppering Cam with questions about hockey and dinosaurs.

Cam answers each one with the kind of patience I've never seen from him at the rink. He genuinely is interested in what Ethan has to say and Tessa’s smile is so bright, it could rival the sun.

After we eat, Ethan insists on showing Cam his dinosaur collection upstairs. “You have to see them. Uncle Lo helped me organize them.”

Cam turns to me with a glint in his eye. “Oh he did, huh? And how did he organize them? By type?”

Ethan shakes his head. “No, by name. Because I name all of them, you know.”

Cam nods and winks at me. “Gotcha. I’m somewhat familiar with your uncle’s organizational techniques. They’re so normal and easy to understand.”

Tessa snorts, almost choking on her wine. “Some might say they’re a little OCD,” she says out of the corner of her mouth.

“Funny,” I grunt, standing up from my chair. “They make sense to me.”

Ethan takes Cam by the hand and leads him up the stairs to his bedroom. He doesn’t stop talking and Cam just smiles, seemingly hanging on every word. Then he glances back at me with a smile that makes my chest ache.

It doesn’t go unnoticed, either.

"He's really good with Ethan," Tessa says, gathering plates from the table. "Better than I expected."

"Yeah." I grab the rest of the lasagna. "He's... not what most people think."

"Including you?"

I don't answer. I cover the lasagna tray with tin foil and then rinse the plates Tessa puts into the sink before loading them in the dishwasher. Tessa waits a long minute before speaking again but I know she’s got something to say. She always does.

"I like him. He looks at you like you hung the moon. And he looks at Ethan like he actually cares."

"He does care." The words come out before I can stop them.

"I know." She stands against the counter and studies me. "That's what scares you, isn't it? That he might actually be the real deal."

My heart flips in my chest at those words. The real deal. Jesus, is she right? I know I’m falling for the guy. Evidently, my sister knows it too. But a future? What the hell does that look like with all the unknowns littering our path?

Before I can respond, Cam comes down the stairs. "Ethan was a little tired after telling me the names of all his dinosaurs. He wanted to lie down.”

"Thanks," I tell him. "I'll go tuck him in."

Twenty minutes later, Ethan is asleep. When I go back downstairs, the kitchen is clean and quiet. I wander down the hall and find Cam in my office, running his fingers over the spines of the books lining the shelves. He looks over to me then back at the books .

“You read a lot of self-help books,” he says as I head to the bar cart to pour us drinks.

“Yeah, well, I had a lot of shit to overcome as a kid. And the books were cheaper than the therapy I couldn’t afford,” I say, filling two glasses with Bullet bourbon.

I hand one glass to Cam, then sink onto the leather couch. He follows, sitting next to me.

"Your family's great," he says. “You’re really lucky to have them.”

"Yeah, I am." I take a sip of whiskey. "It's been just the three of us for a while now."

"What happened? To your parents, I mean." He pauses then waves his glass toward the bookshelves. “The reasons for all of those books?”

“Yeah.” I stroke my chin, silent for a long minute.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”

"No, it’s fine. I was just thinking for a second.

My dad walked out when I was fourteen," I say, staring into my glass.

"Just picked up and left one day. He never came back, never called.

Mom tried to hold it together for a while, but then she started drinking.

By the time I was sixteen, she was more interested in vodka than me and my sister. "

"Fuck," Cam breathes. "Logan?—"

I shrug. "So I raised Tessa. Always made sure she had lunch money, clean clothes, someone to sign her school permission slips.

I tried to make things as normal as possible for her.

She was just a little kid." The words scrape against the sides of my throat on the way out. "When Tyler died, I wanted them close. I promised him I’d always take care of them and I wasn’t about to let her handle everything with Ethan on her own.

So they moved in with me, and it's been the three of us ever since. "

"That's why you're so protective," Cam says. "Why you need to be in control of everything."

"Someone had to be." I drain my glass. "Someone had to make sure everything would be okay."

Cam sets down his glass on a coaster and turns to face me fully. "I get it," he says quietly. "I get why you think you have to handle everything yourself."

"Do you?"

"Yeah." His voice gets gruff. "Because I've been doing the same thing my whole life." He blows out a shaky breath. "I didn't have the perfect family either. Never had doting parents, brothers, sisters. It was just me. Pretty much on my own."

"Shit, Cam. I’m sorry,” I say, my throat tight. I knew he had it rough financially, but I never asked about his family. I guess it was because I never liked talking about mine and didn’t want to answer questions, especially questions from people I didn’t trust.

And I didn’t trust Cam for a long while.

But I do now. And I want to tell him. I want him to understand me, just like I want to understand him.

"My dad was a mean drunk," he says, drumming his fingers on the side of the glass. "The kind who used his fists to make his point. He left my mom and me on our own with no money. We lived in a shitty town in upstate New York. She worked all the time, trying to make ends meet, and failing pretty miserably. Then one day, she checked out too. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and away from that hell. We didn’t always have heat or food. I spent my time alone or on the ice. When I made it to the juniors, I hightailed it out of there. Never looked back. And nobody cared.”

"Jesus," I mutter.

"My dad was an evil bastard. An alcoholic junkie who used me as a punching bag for most of my childhood.

" His voice cracks. "He burned me with cigarette butts while I slept, sometimes when I was awake.

If I didn't follow his orders, he'd lash me with his belt or throw bottles at me.

Sometimes both. Hockey was going to be my out.

The only hope I had for something somewhat normal.

It was hard because you know how expensive it is.

But I got help and I had talent. Then…" His shoulders hunch. “Well, you know what happened next.”

I reach for him without thinking and pull him close. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."