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I make a show of focusing on finishing the set then drop my weights and straighten up, rubbing my hands. “But it’s been eight years. She’s not the same.” And hell, I’m not either. “So, yeah, weird.”
Bowie grunts. He gets it. As much as he can, considering he was a grade ahead of us and wasn’t around for that last year of high school. Or the summer after.
I move over to an open area and, propping the phone beside me, get on the floor to stretch out. Even after months of PT and healing, there’s a twinge that wasn’t there before my surgeries last season. According to Doc, it’s to be expected and nothing to worry about. It doesn’t get in the way on the ice but still catches me off guard when I move certain ways. I don’t like it. I don’t like any reminder of how precarious my career is— My security. Future. Life plans. But focusing on Bowie’s barrage of questions about Lara isn’t any better.
He rattles off one question after the next, and I sound like some reel on a loop. “Don’t know, man.”
He stares. “What the fuck, Boomer? You didn’t ask about her family, the job that brought her to Chicago, or whether she’s been in touch with any other classmates? You even bother to say hello?”
I switch legs, pulling my chest toward the floor. “Fuck off. She was freaking out, not sure about staying at all.”
Same as I should have been, but no. I had to convince her what a great idea her moving in was, how it would work out for both of us. And when she finally met my eyes and asked if I really didn’t mind? The level of relief I felt was… well, a little fucking alarming.
“But then she did agree,” he says, giving me one of those pointed looks that is clearly a prompt for more info.
“And I didn’t want to overwhelm her. Figured less was more.” Sounds totally rational when I say it now.
“Less is more?” Bowie’s brows pull together over confused eyes. “What does that even look like from you?”
I flip him off. “It looks like me telling her to make herself at home and then making good on the part where I promised that I was gone more than I was there. Met Tyrell out for tapas at that new Spanish place he’s had a hard-on for since he found out who they hired as head chef.”
Bowie blinks. “You and Ty tried the new Spanish place without me?”
I sigh, going for another deep stretch and ignoring the twinge near Lefty. “You moved into your new place without me, didn’t you?”
He grunts again, this one signaling the back-off I hoped it would.
There are things between Lara and me I need to figure out. Shit no one knows about. Not Bowie, not Piper. No one… Okay, no one except my mom, but April Boerboom is a saint and a vault.
And until I do figure it out, I don’t need my former ride or die asking a million questions.
But speaking of questions… “Bowie, dude, I need the name of that cleaning service you hired. Not the one that hates me. And not the one with the girl I did before I knew she was working for us either. And I need a grocery shopper too.”
* * *
Lara
Last night, it all seemed so reasonable.
I was already at the apartment. Piper had made up the room she and Bowie used to occupy with new bedding for me. Hotels were expensive as hell. And my biggest concern about connecting with Piper— her brother —turned out to be a non-issue. The guy was completely indifferent to whatever I decided.
He was indifferent to me.
There was no awkward silence. No questions. Just the offer of an organic apple and the unoccupied room in an apartment he apparently spends next to no time in.
It would have been nuts to turn down over a past with a player who’s been so deep in puck bunnies for the last eight years, Piper probably had to remind him who I was.
So I thanked him as profusely as possible while he nodded, grabbed his keys off the catch-all by the door, and took off for the night. Probably a date. Hookup. Whatever it was, he didn’t tell me. The days of being this guy’s confidante are long over.
This morning though, I’m trying to hold on to that reasonable feeling as I sit at the table that feels like more than a breakfast nook and less than a dining-room fixture, laptop open to redirect my shipment from Denver.
The front door opens loudly, and Ben comes in, belting out a Taylor Swift song. His blond hair is sticking up in twelve directions, his heavy cheekbones wearing the evidence of time in the sun as he breaks out some dance move a guy his size shouldn’t be good at.
It’s so Ben, all I can do is smile as he drops his gym bag by the door. But then his eyes come up and land on me with a start.
That’s right. The girl you invited to move in is actually here. Sorry!
“Morning, Boomer.”
