Page 13 of Whirlwind (Seattle Blades #4)

“ Y ou had control of the puck two minutes and twenty-four seconds longer than Vegas in that period.”

“We,” Zander says.

“What?” I ask.

“We,” he repeats. “You’re part of the team, now. We’re a we.”

“Oh,” I say, smiling. I like the sound of that.

“Yeah, that’s a long time. We should have had more shots on goal than we did.”

“You can’t win them all,” I say.

“We can sure as hell try, though. That’s kind of the job description.”

“True,” I say.

“No more hockey talk,” Willa says, setting down a fresh plate of cookies. Damian is the baker, these days, and every time I come over, he’s baking some new recipe for dessert. “I want to know what’s going on between you and your neighbor.”

“I don’t know,” I groan. “He wants to date.”

“That’s great,” Zander says. “Isn’t it?”

“Are you comfortable with that?” Damian asks.

“No.”

“Does he make you uncomfortable?” Willa asks.

“Only because I’m so comfortable with him.”

“That’s great, though,” Zander says again. “Isn’t it?” He wears a mixture of confusion and concern, one that I’m sure mirrors my own.

“I mean, yeah. I’m not normally so easy with people, and I am with him,” I confess. “Except, I don’t know how to trust his feelings or intentions, I guess. He hasn’t had a relationship since Isla.”

“Okay, let’s back up a step,” Willa says. “Do you want to date him? If there was no past history with my sister, no baggage whatsoever. Would you want to date the Tyson Murphy you’ve gotten to know the past couple of months?”

“Maybe.”

“Kit, a maybe from you is about the same as yes from anyone else,” she says, reaching to hold my hand. “That one word is a big statement.”

“I like when he’s around,” I say, my voice a little shaky. The edges of my vision darken, that familiar sense of being somewhere outside of my body creeping in. “But I don’t know how to be with him.”

“You mean, physically?” Willa asks.

“Do you want us to leave?” Zander asks before I can answer her. I’m about as close to him and Damian as I am to anyone, but they don’t know my history.

“I appreciate the offer, but no. I think I need everyone’s opinions. You guys are who I trust most, and if I can’t be honest with you, I can’t be honest with anyone,” I tell him. “Yes, I mean physically. But also, emotionally. Mostly physically. I haven’t so much as kissed a man for a decade.”

“It’s kind of like riding a bike,” Damian says. “You’ll pick it back up quickly enough.”

“I never learned to ride a bike.”

“Never?” Zander asks.

“Never. Dad wouldn’t have made the time, and Grandma wouldn’t have been able to keep up with her bad knee.”

“I didn’t learn until I was in my teens,” Damian says. “It wasn’t a needed skill growing up in New Orleans.”

“Especially when you had a private driver to shuttle you around,” Zander adds.

“Precisely,” Damian agrees. “I only learned when I was brave enough to go camping with some friends. One of them brought a bike and I was drunkenly determined to figure it out. I nearly fell into the river about a dozen times, but they all had a good time at my expense. As a sidenote, camping in the bayou is not something I recommend any of you ever attempt.”

“I’d never sleep outside in a state that has two million alligators,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “That’s nearly one alligator per two people, so the odds of one crawling into your sleeping bag are too high.”

“Yeah, figured that out the hard way,” he says, grinning. “I grabbed my shit and drove my ass home at three in the morning after we woke up to one trying to nose his way into our camp.”

“Maybe serves you right,” Willa says, laughing.

“Definitely. Spoiled, rich kids with no fear don’t make the best decisions.”

“I’ve never been camping, either,” I say.

“Is that something that you want to do?” Zander asks. “Not everyone enjoys it.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like something I’d like, but how do I know if I don’t try?”

“You know I love how curious you are of everything,” Willa says. “But you know you don’t have to try things you don’t want to.”

“Maybe I could try glamping,” I say. “I think I’d survive a camper with power and a toilet that I could be in a semi-committed relationship with.”

“You’re my kind of girl, Kit,” Damian says. “I agree with Willa, you know. I’ll support you in anything you want to try, but don’t feel like you need to do things because others might think it’s weird you haven’t.”

“Like dating?” I ask, and his grin turns sad.

“Yes, like dating. Do you want to date Tyson, or do you think you should date Tyson?”

“I think I want to,” I say, tears pricking my eyes.

“Why does that make you sad?” Zander asks.

I don’t want it to be like last time. The only guy I was ever with was not at all who I thought he was.

“What if I’m not who he thinks I am? What if he’s not who I think he is?”

“There aren’t guarantees like that in life, but from what I know of him, he’s a good guy,” Willa says.

“You know I’m not very good with no guarantees.”

“I know,” she says, smiling softly. “I also know that it’s your nature to gather data before making decisions.”

“Dating is like data analysis?” I question more to myself than my best friend.

It’s an idea that my mind perks up at. Love isn’t something I understand, but data makes sense.

Collect it, evaluate it, then make a determination based on that evaluation.

It’s how I live, how I make so many of my decisions.

I’m the gal that reads every brand label before I choose which granola bars to buy, comparing ingredients, size, price. If I do that for even the mundane things, why wouldn’t I do it for the big, important things, too?

“In a way, yeah.”

“Nothing says you have to commit to it, either. If you don’t like dating, or it makes you too anxious, you tell him that,” Zander says.

“Are you comfortable enough with him to be honest about your concerns, or even your past experiences?”

She means Derik. He’s not someone I talk about. Willa knows, of course, but she’s the only person I’ve told my whole story to. It’s not a pleasant tale, it’s shameful and tragic. Triggering.

It’s not something I’ve told Zander, Damian, or even Isla.

I probably need therapy. No, not probably . I’m sure I should have been in therapy for years. But that would mean I have to face my trauma with a stranger, and that freaks me out more than facing it with a friend.

I don’t think anyone is born with an innate sense of self-awareness. I’ve always believed it’s a learned trait, and one most don’t ever accomplish. Mostly because it’s not in our nature to evaluate our own weaknesses, downfalls, mistakes. We’re always taught to focus on the positives.

I’m no different. Coping, and learning to live with flaws or quirks, allows for me to pretend that my past doesn’t live like an anvil chained to my ankle.

I hear what she’s saying, though. If this is something I want, any kind of relationship with another person, I need to be able to share the most vulnerable things about myself. Because I’d ask the same of them.

In a way, I already have asked that of Tyson by prying into his feelings about Isla. While simultaneously sidestepping the topic every time my lack of a dating life comes up.

“No,” I admit. “I want to be brave enough to try, though.”

“It can be scary,” Damian says. “But we’re here for you in whatever way you need us to be.”

“Not only does it scare me to open myself up, but statistically, it almost seems like a complete waste of time. About seventy percent of new couples break up within the first year.”

“Glad we made it past that,” Zander says.

“We’re only a few months past it, let’s not jinx it,” Willa says with a playful wink.

“Maybe it’s the relationships that start with a foundation of truth and trust that stand the test of time,” Damian says.

“Not the ones that are based on societal pressures or that look good on Instagram. But the ones that embrace the ugly moments as much as the beautiful ones. Love is more than a kiss with a pretty sunset as a backdrop. Find the person that will hold your hand through the stormy days, too.”

“What he said,” Zander says. “I wouldn’t have made it through the whole ordeal with getting custody of my sister if not for these two.”

“I don’t believe that. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for,” I tell him. “But I understand what you’re saying. Where is Callie, anyway?”

“At a movie,” he says, crossing his arms across his chest. “With her boyfriend.”

His face morphs into a disgruntled frown, and I stifle a laugh.

“Max is a good kid,” Willa says.

“There isn’t a horny teenage guy on the planet that’s a good enough kid for my sister.”

“Well, the way you scared the shit out of him when he came to pick her up, I’d be surprised if he has the guts to do anything more than hold her hand,” Damian says.

“He fucking better not.”

“Zan opened the door wearing just his workout shorts,” Willa explains. “Poor kid had to see that thick neck, bulging biceps, and the biggest hockey thighs on the team.”

“How big is Max?”

“Oh, God, Kit,” she says through laughter. “He’s a scrawny thing. So damn sweet, but he’s not the athletic type. His eyes got so big when Zan opened the door, he looked like Barrel from Nightmare Before Christmas .”

Zander looks smug as I laugh.

“As amusing as it was, we need to be careful that we don’t alienate him so much that Callie hides things from us,” Damian says.

“Shit, I hadn’t thought about that,” Zander says. “I was just focused on making sure nobody touches my kid sister.”

The three of them go back and forth on what the best gameplan is, trying to find one that allows Zander to feel like he’s fulfilling his duty, while also giving Callie the freedom to grow into a young woman with agency.

It’s endearing, really. I don’t know how many times I wished for a protector like Zander. A big brother, an uncle, a father who gave a shit. Someone who loved me enough to care. Or at least saw me as something other than a burden, or a tool.

Instead, I had a father that reminded me I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, talented enough. One who told me I was good for very little in life, and that I shouldn’t have dreams because they’d never come true.

Dreams are dreams because they’re fucking unattainable, he’d say.

Fantasies are lies we tell ourselves, was another of his favorites.

He pounded that mantra into me day after day.

More days than not, I believed him. I didn’t lie in bed at night imagining a life outside of small-town Maine, not until I was old enough to recognize that he was the lie.

Luckily, that was early enough to know I had to work my ass off in high school to get scholarships and acceptance letters from enough colleges to give me choices. The first choice in my life that was mine alone.

I’ve savored the ability ever since. Even if sometimes it seems like it would be nice to surrender that to someone else, occasionally. I don’t know how to share responsibility or control. I don’t know how to share life.

Which is only another reason dating Tyson Murphy feels too daunting to ever work.