Page 19 of Puck My Heart

“No, it’s not.” He huffed out a breath. “You just gave me a free pass for fucking up in the house with your brother. I shouldn’t have done that.”

I nibbled my lip. “So…make it good?” I looked at him hopefully, some of the tension in my chest dissipating when he didn’t let me go.

Hope. Such a dangerous damn emotion.

Hux let me go. “I’ll—” He swallowed and backed up. The door opened and closed, and suddenly I was sitting in my car, alone.

Cold, and alone.

Hux was gone. Right when I needed him to stay.

Fuck.

More tears should have appeared but I’d already cried myself dry. If he wasn’t careful, Sol would be out here ripping him a new one and thathurt.I knew from personal experience that no one wanted my brother coming down on them. Nor did I want to be in the vicinity when Hux and Sol went at it on a seriously personal level.

Instead of climbing out of my car barefoot and trudging back to the house on the walk of shame, or ramming my car into Hux’s truck half a dozen times, I sat frozen in the driver’s seat,the warmth of his last embrace fading with every passing second. My heart, that shattered mess I stuck back together with glue dots after I walked away from my last fucked up relationship, splintered. The cracks I thought I held onto—just—split apart as I curled in on myself in the seat, and just sat there.

Not another single tear fell. I stayed in the overheating car, my cheek resting on the leather driver’s seat, and went numb. Snow drifted around my windscreen in tiny eddies that grew steadily heavier. So much for the weather clearing up. Not that I’d checked before I ran out here. The idea of being buried in a snow drift suited my mood.

I closed my eyes, blocked out the world and tried my hardest to forget.

It would never be enough.

CHAPTER NINE

HUX

I slipped back into Anya’s car amidst the fresh snowfall to find her curled into a ball in the driver’s seat. Her hair tumbled forward over her face, and her arms were tucked into her chest. It didn’t take a genius to work out that she thought I’d run off on her and left her alone.

Swearing not so softly, I closed the passenger door and reached out to rest my fingers tentatively on her knee.

“Annie,” I murmured. “I meant to tell you I’d be back. But…that bit of information got jammed in my brain and never made it to my mouth. I’m sorry.”

It took a moment—an eternity—while I waited with my heart in my mouth and a tiny rectangular box in my hand, the long foxed edges cutting into my palm, but eventually she raised her head and looked at me. In the worst way.

The sparkle I’d always loved about her had dulled. Not just from her eyes, but all over. That inner brat I fought with, fought against—that part of her was gone.

Hidden.

I gritted my teeth hard. “I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry,” I said again, but she barely responded.

The look of a girl who had been hurt too many times. I remembered Tabitha’s battered face as she stared at me from her hospital bed and told me she never wanted to see another hockey player in her life. I hadn’t blamed her then, only myself for not fixing the culture on the team when I had a chance.

Now, I saw the same thing at a different scale play out on the stage of my personal life and fuck…

Ithurt.

A puck sized lump filled my throat.Not again.Someone else I’d pushed away from the culture I tried so hard to cultivate a healthy image for and failed, this time on a much closer front. Another girl damaged because I couldn’t see the danger.

“Get out,” she said so quietly that it took a second for my brain to register her words.

“Annie,” I whispered. Nothing else came out when it mattered. When it really mattered. My heart constricted in my chest, running cold like ice chips were injected into my soul.

“Hux.” She stared straight at me, and those eyes broke me inside.

I swallowed and nodded, giving her the time I hoped she needed as I backed out of the car and left the tiny package on the front seat with the note inside I meant to give her years ago but never had the opportunity.

The day I lost my entire family. And now, just when I thought I found a new part of it again, it looked like I’d lost her, too.

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