Page 80 of The Fake Out

I peered up at him. “What?”

“My dad said and I quote, ‘Tell your girlfriend to stop screaming so loud.’”

“Blaise! I didn’t know Hal was home. You told me you wanted to hear me scream.”

He shrugged. “Me neither. I thought he was at the bar tonight.”

I laid on my back and put a hand over my face. “I can never look your dad in the eye ever again.”

He shrugged. “I’m one of six. You think my older brothers didn’t pull this shit before? I told you, my dad doesn’t have those hangups.”

I pulled my hand off my face. “But I do! I would have tried to be quiet if I knew he could hear me. I’m dead. I cannot come back from this.”

He chuckled beside me.

“Maybe you should get your own place,” I suggested.

As much as I loved having Blaise at my place, the commute was killer when he had to travel all the time. A lot of times, it was easier to come back to his dad’s. Especially if I was already in the city.

He grunted.

I gave him a suspicious look. “Why do you still live at home?”

He rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I thought he needed me, and I didn’t want him to be alone. Dad and I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. We clash so much because we’re too much alike.”

“How so?”

He grimaced. “You know why I got traded, right?”

I shook my head.

I barely understood the rules of hockey; I hoped he didn’t ask me to understand the business side of it. My brain immediately shut off when Dinah and the girls talked contracts. Numbers and legalese? No, thank you.

“Because I let my breakup take hold of me. I let my emotions cloud the game, so Toronto traded me. Dad threw it in my face that he did the same thing when Mom died.”

“Maybe it was good you moved back home so you could hash those things out, then? Blaise, I miss my dad so much. Some days I want to call him up and ask for his advice, but I can’t. You’re lucky you still have time with Hal.”

He leaned onto his side and cupped my cheek. “Oh, sweets, I’m sorry. Tell me about your dad.”

I grinned as I told him about my dad. Paddy O’Malley was such a rough and tumble blue-collar guy, with tattoos all up and down his arms and legs. But my dad was a total softie. He never pressured Alex or me to join the family business. He actually wanted us to do something more stable, but when Alex and I followed in his footsteps, he couldn’t have been more proud.

While I told Blaise all of this, he listened intently beside me and twirled my hair around his finger. And I knew he was actually listening and not pretending.

“How did your dad die?” he asked.

I scoffed. “Being a stubborn man! He didn’t take care of himself. Heart attack. I had told him time and again to listen to his doctors. It was before Seth left. Seth had been there for me through that all, but now I wonder if he had been pretending then. Had he always been terrible? What is it about me that makes everyone leave?”

Blaise pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Oh, sweets, no. Your dad didn’t leave you on purpose. And Seth? Fuck him. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. We’ll show him, okay?”

I nodded and wiped the tears from my eyes. I barely talked about my dad these days, but it felt nice to talk to Blaise about it. Even though I really shouldn’t have.

I snuggled into his chest, and he let me, holding me like we did this every single night. Like this was our life.

“I looked at houses last week,” he admitted.

“So you do want to move out?”

“I’m not in a rush, but maybe I should find my own place. Dad’s dating again…”