Fuck, I wish I could be. We made it into the playoffs last year, and with each game, I felt like I was losing more and more steam. I didn’t even put up a single point. That’s a problem. General managers aren’t just looking at what you do in the regular season. They’re looking at how you perform when it gets the hardest it’s going to get. If I’m not putting up numbers, there’s an issue somewhere that needs to be addressed. It’s a hell of a lot easier to pinpoint what it is with younger players, butwith the older ones, there’s usually only one thing it can be—we can’t keep up.
I don’t want to be the guy who can’t keep up. I want to win. I want to lift that Cup over my head and have my name inscribed on it for all time.
“Fucking nice,” Hutch says as I join him in the back of the line. We’ll probably go through this a few more times before swapping out goalies and running it again. “Feels good to be back out on the ice again, yeah?”
“Always does. Can’t wait for the season to start.”
“Same. It’s going to suck being away from Auden and Alana, though. I can’t believe how much I already love her. It’s only been a few days, but I’d lay my life on the line for her.”
I grin at him. He seems happy. A bit tired, but happy, which is why this is so hard, standing here talking to him like I’m doing nothing wrong. Like I’m not hiding something huge from him. I’ve had this knot in my gut since Nessa first showed up, and all it does is get heavier and heavier as time passes.
“How are the girls doing, by the way?”
His smile is so big it’s almost unnerving. “Amazing. I’m so damn in love with Alana already. I don’t even know how it’s possible, but I am. And Auden is great too. You should see her as a mother. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
I laugh. Seeing him so happy is such a one-eighty from where he was two years ago.
“Oh, by the way, I don’t know if I said it—these last few days have been a bit of a blur—but thanks again for driving Vanessa home the other night.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. It was no problem. How are things with your sister? I mean, with the baby home now and all?”
Yeah, that’s it, Gavin. Ease into it.
“Great. She told me a few days ago she found a place and is moving out. Shit, that’s today, actually.”
Okay, here we go. We’re doing this.
“Anyway, I offered to help her, but she laughed and told me she has like three bags, so that would be pointless.” He shrugs. “I’m happy for her. She seems to have had a weight lifted off her shoulders, and Auden gets to settle into a routine with the baby. It’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.”
And that’s it. That’s all he says about it. He doesn’t cuss me out or lay into me about moving his sister into my place, which tells me what I suspected: she didn’t tell him. Hutch doesn’t know Nessa is moving in with me in a matter of hours.
That knot tightens even more, and it’s so damn taut I might puke. Or maybe that’s all the skating I’ve done today, I don’t know. All I know is the second Coach cuts us for the day, I get as far away from Hutch as possible. I don’t sit by him like I normally would during our meeting or when we watch tapes from other preseason games. I don’t even say goodbye to him before I race out to my car. I avoid him at all costs because I don’t knowwhatto say to him.
Twenty minutes later, when I step out of the elevator, she’s there, and fuck is she a vision. Her hair is pulled up into a bun that looks intentionally messy, showing off a pair of small hoop earrings. She’s wearing a simple navy t-shirt and a pair of jeans that hug her in all the right places, and she looks like a fucking knockout. Just as Hutch said, she has three bags sitting by her feet, and that’s it. This time, when my stomach aches, it’s for a totally different reason. She had a life at one point. A big, beautiful life. She had a house and a car and a future.
Now, all she has is this.
“Did you find it okay?” I ask as I approach, cursing myself for not thinking about giving her the code to get in.
“Kind of hard to miss the gigantic glass building, but yes.”
Oh, so she’s sassy today. Got it.
“Is this everything?” I nod toward the stuff by her feet.
“For now. It’s all I brought with me to Seattle. I technically have a few boxes of things back in storage in New York, but it’s nothing I need right now. Or at all, maybe. I haven’t decided just how far I’m willing to go with this whole starting-over thing.”
I get it. Sometimes you have to purge it all to really be free of whatever haunts you. I enter the code into the door, then grab all three bags and push into the penthouse, Nessa right behind me.
“I had a key made for you,” I say as I set her stuff down just inside the entryway. “It’s on the kitchen counter. But there’s a code for the door too. It’s 4646.”
“So just your jersey number twice?”
That makes me smile. “You know my jersey number?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s literally stitched into the towels in your bathroom.”
I wince. “It’s a tradition from my parents. Whenever I get moved to a new team, they buy me towels with the team and my number on them. Cheesy, I know.”
