Page 21 of Crack the Ice

I give her a small squeeze before continuing. “I know my mom carried that burden, and thank God we had a network of people to help pick up the pieces in the aftermath, but I never once thought she didn’t try for us. She gave us everything, and we’ve seen you do the same since we’ve known you. Those kids will never guess if they were loved by you. They know you’d never leave them by choice. You can’t carry that, Caroline.”

Her chest shakes, and wetness begins to sink through my shirt. She has to know that, though. Our whole team has watched her go to bat for these kids day in and day out, doing everything she could to make sure they were taken care of after she lost her husband. How could she ever think those kids would question her love for them?

“Thank you, Maverick.” She sniffles against me before pushing back, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I know this is a lot to ask, but they look up to you, and I know you’ll keep them safe.”

“Always,” I say, and I mean it. These kids may as well be the team’s kids at this point. While Lily soaks up that attention, Cade is definitely in that stage where he’s too cool to show emotion or ask for help. On or off the ice. But luckily for them, I’m about to give them a network who loves them so much, they’ll forget about the stress at home. At least for a little while.

“I’ll let you get some sleep.” Standing, I extend my hand and help her to her feet. “Do you need help, or are you good?”

Something I learned with my mom: never end with do you need help, it made her feel weaker than she was. “Always give someone the opportunity to stay in their power, Mav,” she’d say. “Never assume they can’t do it themselves.” I smile at the memory. My mom was the strongest person I know. Still is.

“I’m good, thank you.”

I nod, shoving my hands in my pockets to pull out my key and walking to the door. “Lock up behind me, yeah?”

Her arms are crossed over her middle, a smirk on her face, head shaking softly. “I now know why they call you Daddy Reed.”

My jaw drops seconds before my hands cover my ears. “Caroline!” I hiss. “You’re like my second mother, don’t say that shit.”

Her responding laugh is loud, her chest shaking with the force of it. I don’t care that she’s laughing at my discomfort, nor do I care that I just called a woman thirteen years older than me my second mom. She’s laughing, and after all the weight she’s carrying around, I’ll take that as a win.

Stepping through the door into the humid September night, I jog to my car, turn the music on, and shake my head side to side, as I desperately try to keep myself from spiraling down a rabbit hole I don’t need to go down.

“Last Night” by The Strokes comes on the second my car roars to life. It was one of Cecy and my songs, and suddenly I’m fifteen again sitting on my back porch, with a girl hellbent on making me smile. The music floating through my car speakers brings me back to the moment it floated through Cecilia’s phone as she walked through the back door.

It’s three AM, and I’m sitting on the back steps of our porch looking out at the empty acre behind our house. It needs to be mowed. I need to mow it. Obviously not right now because someone would call the cops, but in the morning. Just another thing that’s starting to pile up around here. Kelsey’s off at another weekend lacrosse clinic, doing all she can to secure a scholarship to college. She’ll get it. There’s no one better than her on the field. Lana’s inside, her nine-year-old self inquisitive as ever, but completely oblivious to the fact that something is going on with mom.

I haven’t quite figured it out myself, but I know it’s something. Maybe she started dating, and she’s worried we won’t like the guy. We probably won’t. No one’s good enough for our mom, but if she’s happy, I guess I’ll try to be happy for her.

The back door opens, and I’m about to tell my mom I’m going inside when her scent wraps around me. She always smells like pistachio and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. But it’s refreshing, and so uniquely her. “Last night, she said…” plays through her phone and I fight to keep a smile off my face. I love this song.

“Hey,” she says, ungracefully plopping herself down on the stairs next to me. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“I could ask you the same,” I say, turning my head to look at her. Her hair is up in a bun, but not the perfectly polished ballerina bun I’m used to seeing. No, this one looks like a beehive of sorts. I tilt my head to the side as I look at it, trying to figure out how she managed to get it in that shape.

Her laugh is light and airy, her hand reaching up and squeezing it. “I didn’t want to try to make it look nice, but it was wrapping around my neck wrong. I just needed it up.”

I nod, my eyes moving from her hair to her face. She smiles at me, but it quickly falls.

“I had a nightmare,” she whispers. “My head is too loud to go back to sleep.”

I hum. I get that in more ways than she probably knows. I may be quiet, but my head is anything but. “Want to talk about it?” I ask, leaning against the railing and turning toward her.

She shakes her head, but her eyes sparkle with mischief. “No, but if you’re awake, want to play a game? It’s how I move my focus to something else.”

“Sure, what game?”

“I don’t know what it’s actually called. Well, if there’s a name for it at all. But you set a sixty-second timer and dance the whole time.”

My left eyebrow hikes. “You want me to dance with you?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes off the stairs. “What, are you too cool for me, Maverick?”

“No,” I groan, brows threading together the further down the steps she gets.

“Fine, you can count to sixty while I dance, Grumpy Gills. Let me know when the time is up.”

“But there’s no music.” I stand, taking the first step, then the second until I’m an arm’s length from her.