Page 20 of Tempting the Goalie (Riverside U #5)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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“She’s here!” Eric screams as I walk through the front door.

“Hi,” I say out of breath from lifting my luggage.

Eric walks over to me and lifts me up and swings me around. “Good to see you, Bean.”

“Bean’s home, where are all you idiots at?” Eric hollers through the house.

He sets me on my feet. “You’re looking good. Another year of college down.”

“Yup, one more year to go,” I say.

Daddy walks into the main foyer. “There she is,” he says. I walk over to him and give him a hug.

“He made it home especially for you,” Becket, my other brother, says as he walks over to us. “Let me in here,” he states, moving Daddy out of the way.

“You’ve grown-up, Bean,” Becket notes.

“Seriously, I’ve been grown-up for a while now. Are you insinuating I gained weight?” I ask.

My brother releases me from the hug and takes a step back, looking alarmed with his hands up. “I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“Sure, you didn’t,” my youngest brother Asher goads, always the instigator. He’s the youngest of my four brothers and the biggest troublemaker of us all. Asher walks over to me. “Welcome home, Bean.”

“Thanks guys. Where’s Phoenix?” I ask.

“Working,” they answer almost unanimously.

I nod. That makes sense. My eldest brother has been working himself to the bone for the last eight years, ensuring his microbrewery does well.

“Come to the kitchen. You must be hungry,” Eric invites. He’s five years older than me and owns a bakery in town. He also has a small bakery on our property close to the orchards that does well.

I follow Eric to the kitchen and Daddy and my two other brothers follow.

“We’re all hungry,” Daddy says.

“Good thing you guys have Eric to feed you all.” I laugh.

“It’s not a joke. We would have gone hungry otherwise,” Becket says.

He isn’t wrong, growing up with four older brothers taught me how much guys like to eat.

Daddy picked up in the kitchen after Mom left, but he wasn’t very creative.

He was also working a lot. I remember eating spaghetti and meatballs for dinner for a year straight.

“Don’t I know it,” I agree with Becket, who is a police officer here in Val-Du-Lys. He always said he would leave our small town, but instead he followed in Daddy’s footsteps and went to the police academy.

We head into the kitchen where a bunch of pots simmer on the stove. “I told Phoenix I’d make dinner if he got you. Seems like the dude forgot,” Eric says.

“No, he offered. I took a taxi with Luc,” I say with nonchalance. There’s a vegetable platter on the island and I grab a carrot and pop it into my mouth.

“How is Chabot doing? Heard the kid won the championship,” Asher says.

“He’s good, and I don’t think you can call him a kid with you being only eighteen months my elder,” I remind.

Asher chuckles. “Respect your elders, Bean.”

“Cut the crap,” I retort.

He walks over to me and gives me a noogie on my head, messing up my hair.

“Are you ever going to grow up?” I complain.

Eric, Becket, and Daddy answer with a big no as Phoenix walks into the house through the sliding back door into the kitchen.

“No, Asher isn’t ready to grow up,” Phoenix says, eyeing Asher.

“Someone has to be irresponsible around here,” Asher feigns. “Besides, I’m only twenty-three.”

“Only,” Daddy says. “I was a police officer at that age and a dad for that matter.”

“Well, we aren’t all built that way,” Asher responds.

“So, what’s for dinner?” I say to break the tension, as Phoenix walks over and kisses the top of my head.

“Good to see you, Bean,” he mutters.

“Thanks, you too.”

“Meat pie, mashed potatoes, and petit rolls from the bakery,” Eric says. “Oh, and maple-glazed sausages.”

“You’re making us all look bad,” Daddy says to Eric.

“That’s nothing new.” Eric laughs.

“I’m starved, so bring it on,” Phoenix announces, taking a seat at our long breakfast island.

We have a kitchen table but for some reason, when we eat together, we usually gather at the island, which has exactly six stools, one for each of us.

There used to be a seventh, but Daddy got angry one day and chucked it outside on garbage collection day when we were younger.

We all sit around and enjoy a good meal. My brothers take jabs at each other, as usual. They all ask me a hundred questions about my life. How are classes? Do you enjoy them? What happened with that boyfriend of yours? The last question comes from Phoenix and everyone turns silent.

“Oh, you know hockey players,” I answer absently like it’s no big deal.

“What happened?” Asher asks, zeroing in on me.

“Don’t you know, dumbass?” Eric responds.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask. Do I have to go beat his ass?” Asher offers. Trouble may be his middle name but if I ever needed him, I know he’d drop everything and come to me.

“No,” I answer. “I should’ve known better. Luc warned me.”

“Yup, we need to kick his ass,” Daddy says. “No one hurts my girl and gets away with it.”

“I’m fine. Honestly.” I shift on the stool and shovel some meat pie into my mouth.

“I wasn’t that upset to find out he cheated.

I felt betrayed but my heart didn’t hurt, which means I wasn’t that invested,” I assure my family.

If there was one trait the Thorne boys got from Dad, it was being protective about those you loved.

I knew without a doubt that each of my brothers would come to my rescue, but I didn’t need rescuing.

“Okay, Bean,” Daddy says. “If you’re fine, you’re fine. You seem fine.”

“She looks happy,” Asher notes. “Is there someone else?”

I almost choke on my mashed potatoes. I don’t lie to my family. It’s always been one rule Daddy likes to enforce, that and to always be there for one another.

“Can’t a girl just be happy with her life? Does happiness always have to involve a guy?” I ask, and I shovel some more meat pie in my mouth.

“Someone’s hungry,” Asher jokes, since he’s sitting beside me,

I shove him. “Shut up, idiot.”

“I restocked the shed with your pottery stuff,” Phoenix says.

“Thanks, that was thoughtful of you,” I say to my eldest brother, who gives me his version of what a broken smile would look like.

The shed used to be Mom’s. She’s the one who made pottery out there when she wanted breaks from life.

It took me a few years after she left to even step a foot into the shed.

I was angry the first time I entered and threw some stuff around, but then it became a place I felt close to her.

I started making my own pottery and I found it relaxing to have my fingers running through the clay.

It was my private little haven, and I only did pottery when I was home.

A knock comes from the front door. “Who could that be this late?” Daddy asks.

“I’ll get it,” Phoenix offers.

My brother opens the front door, and I hear Luc’s voice. My heart skips a beat and I put my fork down.

“It’s Chabot. Can you two not be apart more than an hour?” Asher asks.

“Why are you such an idiot? I barely see Luc at school. We basically live different lives,” It’s the first lie I’ve told my family. That may have been true before we hooked up but since that night everything has changed. We see a lot of each other now. No pun intended.

I hear Phoenix invite him in. When Luc walks into the kitchen, I try to keep my cool. My brothers and Dad all shake his hand and they have a million hockey questions for him.

“Sign any contracts?” Eric asks.

All I can focus on is Luc’s arms in the wifebeater he’s wearing and the basketball shorts that are slung low on his hips.

“Not yet. But I’m hoping something will come through soon. I have an agent working on something,” Luc says and his gaze cuts to mine.

“Want to go for a walk, Izzy?” he asks.

I nod. “Sure.”

“You’re eating dinner,” Eric says.

“Sorry, I can wait,” Luc cuts in.

“I just finished. It was delicious. Thank you,” I say to Eric. I take my plate to the sink, rinse it off, and place it in the dishwasher. I give Eric a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for feeding me.”

With that I tell Luc to follow me. We head outside through the sliding kitchen door. The sun has pretty much set and it’s getting dark. Luc waves to my family and says bye as he closes the sliding door.

We head down the deck and onto another patio area.

“Is it me or did that feel really awkward?” Luc asks as we make our way to one of the many trails on our property.

“It was definitely off. Everything has changed, huh?”

“Yeah,” Luc blows out a breath. I think we are about to have the relationship talk when he goes off on a rant about his sister living at home with his dad drinking again.

“Can you believe how irresponsible she is?” he asks, looking at me with an incredulous look.

I feel like crawling out of my skin. Just like I don’t lie to my family, I don’t lie to Luc. But does withholding information fall under the same category as lying?

“You knew?” he suddenly says before I have a chance to answer.

“Elyna called me. She asked me not to mention anything because of the Frozen Four,” I explain, but my best friend turned lover doesn’t look appeased.

“You know how much I worry about her and Braden. How could you keep this from me? Something could’ve happened to them. Papa could’ve burned down the house, or who knows what?” He flails his hands and his voice is raised because he’s clearly upset.

“I know we always share things, but Elyna is an adult. She made a choice. I felt the need to respect it. I told her to speak with Phoenix about staying in one of our cabins.”

He exhales. “I don’t like that she left me in the dark, not about my dad. You out of everyone should know how he gets when he drinks.”