Page 131 of Unsteady

It took some intense scouring of the internet to find a video, as it seems someone tried to have it covered up. But there is a quick clip of the incident, shot on a shaking cellphone.

Someone says something taunting, spitting in his face. Kane grasps the kid’s cage and flings him off like an irritating insect, before entering some trance, easily seen with his helmet discarded. There’s a girl, a little redheaded Harvard student by the sweater she wears, sitting two rows from the glass, staring at him in that same wonder-filled way.

His teammate jerks on the collar of his jersey, pulling him out of the staring contest, and suddenly, he jerks forward and slams his glove against the glass.

“Get the fuck out of here!” he screams, and the already pale girl goes nearly white, standing and stumbling up the stairs to the exit, the boy next to her following blindly.

Still, Kane continues to wail on the glass for a moment before there’s a sound of shattering glass and the video cuts off.

“At least we won’t have to deal with him tomorrow,” Freddy says.

It’s a small gift, but I’ll happily take it.

FORTY-FIVE

SADIE

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been here in the past weeks, the Koteskiy household always looks like a dream house.

And lately, I’ve been here a lot. Even without Rhys.

Today, they’re letting me use Anna’s office for a meeting with my attorney, who seems a bit more motivated since Max Koteskiy and Adam Reiner got involved. Bennett’s father had apparently offered to help, but admitted that it wasn’t his area of expertise.

I have practice in an hour by the time the meeting finishes. I plan to get there early anyway—mostly to avoid standing awkwardly in the Koteskiy house with just Anna since my brothers are off with Max at a First Line Foundation event. Rhys is traveling to the Harvard game.

But just as I’m sliding on my thick jacket, Anna descends the stairs.

“Sadie.” She smiles. “How did it go?”

“Great. I think I’ll be good until January for the hearing—but, thanks for letting me use your office. I’m gonna head—”

“Do you have a minute, love?”

I do, but I wish I didn’t. She frightens me, and maybe if I looked a little deeper—or went to much-needed therapy, I would realize why.

She sits at the kitchen counter bar stool and taps the one beside her for me to follow.

“You know I was thirty-three years old and pregnant when I met Max?”

I don’t move, just sitting quietly as Rhys’ mother sits beside me. I can’t look at her, because it feels like too much.

“With Rhys?”

“No.” She smiles, shaking her head and scooting just a bit closer to my hunched form. “It was before Rhys, and the father was my ex-husband who I was running from, absolutely terrified. And when hiding from someone, running into the arms of an up-and-coming twenty-four-year-old hockey star was not a good start.”

“I didn’t know he’s younger than you.” The words slip free too quickly, and my cheeks heat at how rude that might’ve sounded. “Sorry, I just mean—”

“No, Sadie girl, I take that as a compliment.” She sighs. “Max was so mature for his age, but he should’ve been out galavanting around and being messy in his rookie years, not taking care of a woman pregnant with someone else’s baby. But he did. Because… well, that’s Maxmillian. He was so handsome, so sure—and the peak of his accent came out whenever he called merybochka, which I believed to be something sweet until he told me at our wedding it meant little fish!”

I can’t help the burst of laughter that pours from my lips.

“He didn’t.”

“Oh he did, and even worse he’d been calling merybochkain bed for years!” She laughs as I blush, remembering how much Rhys had stressed that his mother had no filter.

“Anyways, I’m not here to talk about that. I want to say that I was running from someone that hurt me, and as much as I begged Max to leave me alone, knowing how much shit I was pulling into his very public life, he never let it go. I was a secret for a long time, but only because I begged to be—I was still hiding and refused to tell him anything despite how much Max wanted to handle my problems for me.

“Rhys is a lot like his father; physically, I made a mini Max, but mentally, too. He’s strong and very capable and he loves with every cell in his body.”

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