Page 43 of The Fall

“Also, Cam’s stalker is being released in two days and Tess is a hot mess over that. She’s begging Cam to move back in with us.”

“I’m pretty worried about it, too,” I admit. “Is Cam willing to move back in?”

Dom shakes his head. “She’s all about taking care of herself and her kids on her own, but we can tell she’s freaked out. This guy’s no joke. He had a gun on him when I caught him.”

“I’ll see if she’ll let me sleep on her couch when we’re home.”

He shakes his head. “You can try. She won’t let me hire the security guys I hired before. She said she’s not living every day in fear.”

That’s not gonna work. I won’t be able to sleep at night wondering if that asshole is after her again. He might hold a grudge over going to prison. For all we know, his number one to-do could be to come back and hurt her or her kids.

“I’ll talk to her,” I say.

He stands up and starts changing clothes. “Are you ever gonna tell me what happened with you guys last week? All she’ll tell Tess is that she’s not dating El Cheapo anymore and she saw you on the night they went out for coffee.”

I’m relieved to hear that. Every time I’ve seen Dom since that night, I’ve wondered if he knows what I said to Cam about my parents. Usually Tess and Cam tell each other everything. It means a lot that she kept that conversation between the two of us.

I get ready for practice, deep in thought, as I skate onto the ice. My conversation with Dom is still running through my mind as we do shooting drills.

When I was a kid, I was in Cub Scouts. It was only for two years because I got more serious about hockey after that and it took up all my time. It was also a big financial commitment for my parents, so they told me I couldn’t add any other sports or activities to the mix.

That was fine with me. I loved hockey and all I wanted to do was spend as much time getting better at it as I could. It’s only when I looked back as an adult that I realized how much the two years of Cub Scouts meant to me.

My dad was with me at every meeting, every campout, every project we did to earn badges. I still remember the pride I felt when he cooked bacon and eggs for everyone one morning over the campfire.

I didn’t realize as a kid how important those memories would become to me. That one day, far sooner than I ever would have thought, memories would be all I had of my parents.

“Hey,” I say to Dom as we’re finishing up practice. “What if I do the campout with Sam and you go to Hannah’s dance thing?”

He lowers his brows, taken aback. “Are you serious, dude?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll have to make sure it’s okay with Cam first. But Sam knows me. We’ve always gotten along great.”

“That would be...great. Yeah, that would be really good if we can make that happen.”

I nod. “I’ll talk to Cam.”

As soon as the idea came to me during practice, I knew I had to try. It’ll be hard for me to go on a scouting trip with Sam because of the memories I have of doing them with my dad, but it’ll be more than that, too. I’ll get to see Sam being part of something he deserves to be part of. There’ll be new memories made.

As long as I can convince Cam it’s a good idea, that is. Part of me wants to call her this second and another part of me isn’tready to talk to her yet. I haven’t forgotten the vulnerability of being stripped bare emotionally in front of her.

I wanted to be a man she thought was sexy and fun. Nice is good, too. But I showed her the other night that I’m a fucked-up mess inside. We can’t go back to the way it was.

Tomorrow, I have to face her. It’s Thanksgiving, and we’re both going over to Dom and Tess’s house. I just hope she still looks at me the same way she did before.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cam

Tate looksdown at the cheese he’s slicing into bite-size pieces, then longingly into the family room, where Sergei and Rowan are talking about something.

“Do you want me to finish that?” I ask him.

He doesn’t even respond. Instead, he drops the knife and runs into the family room, slamming into Rowan.

“You almost knocked me over, my guy,” Rowan says with a smile down at him. “You been putting on some muscle?”

Tate flexes both arms and Rowan touches the spot where a bicep would be if Tate had one. “Yeah, dude. I can feel some muscle there.”

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