Page 38 of Pucking One Night Stand

McCullum’s voice didn’t crack. Didn’t shake. Just delivered it straight. Cold.

Still didn’t feel real. Still doesn’t.

Thumper. Loud, reckless, fast-talking bastard. Always the first to fight, last to shut up. Drove us insane, but we loved him for it.

Nobody moved, and nobody said a thing.

I’ve never seen Bishy cry before. Not once in all the years I’ve known him. But in that office, with his shoulders hunched and his face twisted up, his tears just came.

He and Thumper were close. Real close. Friends since they were kids.

***

Now here we are at the Woodlawn Cemetery. The air’s heavy. Dense with grief that nobody knows what to do with. A cool breeze cuts across the rows of black coats, sweeping the mist that clings low to the grass.

The sky is the same color as wet concrete. Flat. Silent. Even the sun couldn’t bring itself to show up today.

We stand shoulder to shoulder. A solid line, but it feels like we’re barely holding each other upright.

Shoes crunch softly into the damp earth. That, and the rustle of the trees overhead, is all you hear.

No words. Just presence.

On one side of me, Brody, Mariana, and the medical team. On the other, Cassy and Riley, flanked by a few of the media department. The rest of the guys and Aces staff stretch out behind us, a wall of black under a low sky. Thumper’s family is upfront, his parents and his younger brother, tight together.

Off in the distance, a handful of photographers hang back near the tree line. Telephoto lenses up. Vultures. But they’re not the story today.

I was going to ask Cassy out when I got back from Vancouver. Had it all planned out. Nothing big. Just something real. I wanted to tell her how I felt. I mean, really felt.

But now?

Now we’re here, staring at a coffin.

The grave gapes open before us, the polished mahogany box nestled deep in the earth. It's too shiny. Too perfect. Doesn't fit him.

It’s all too final, and he’s gone.

Hell. I’ll miss him. We all will.

McCullum stands nearest the edge. His jaw is clenched tight, and the lines in his face are deeper than I’ve ever seen them. But his eyes…they don’t say a thing. Not grief. Not anger. Just blank.

Brody shifts beside me, his thumb and fingers pressed against his lips like he's holding something in. Bishy’s not even blinking, just staring at the dirt, unmoving.

McAvoy exhales, slow and steady, but there’s a shake in it he can’t hide.

Peters is as still as a statue, fists clenched as though if he let go, the world might crack open.

Danny jams his hands into his pockets, eyes shut, breathing like he’s trying not to lose it.

No one moves. Except her. Cassy.

Her hand lifts, brushes mine. Just a whisper of contact.

Her eyes flick to me, quick and uncertain, then drop back to the ground.

My fingers twitch. That’s all I give her.

The silence is unbearable. Then—