Page 21 of Puck My Heart

Right now, I needed to focus on the sibling in front of me.

And the sight of Anya, wrapped in a different pair of my old sweats that swam on her and the first jersey I was ever given that looked far older and more worn than I remembered it ever being, sparked a fresh bout of that most dangerous of emotions.

She looked up at me, all big, wide eyes. Her pretty curls were pulled off her face in a low ponytail, the unopened box I left in the car in her hands. Her legs were crossed under her and she sat in the middle of her bed. My old bed, and she wore my clothes.

My heart beat a little faster.

“Hi,” I said, my voice as hoarse as it had been in the car.

“Hi.” Hers was just as soft, and maybe not as flat.

Or maybe I imagined that.

“Can I come in?” I leaned against the doorframe, my hands stuffed into my pockets.

She turned the box over in her hands, not looking at it. “How long have you had this in your car? That was where you went, right? When you left me?”

The run of questions left me airless. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat when the single word stuck in it. “Yeah, that’s where I went. I had it in the glove box. As a birthday present.” I shut my mouth before I rambled on, but she kept looking at me, all wide eyes like she was waiting for something. Me, maybe. “Uh, I’ve had it since—”Fuck. Man up.“Since the day you turned eighteen. I was gonna give it to you before dinner. After lunch. Something like that. I didn’t have a plan.”

Bullshit. I wanted to take her out to the pond, skate with her for a bit, pull her in and kiss her.

My chest ached at the omission, but I didn’t need to say the words. She seemed to have heard them anyway, or maybe part of them.

“The day your parents died.”

The floor fell out from under me. I yanked one hand out from my pocket and strangled the door frame in a death grip to keep myself upright. “Yeah. That day.”

“It’s been there ever since.”

“Yeah.” Conversational skills of a shittily packed snowball. That was me.

“Because…”

“You’re gonna make me say it, huh?” My skin prickled, the room zeroing down to just her. It had always been just her.

She nodded.Once.

I blew out a breath and risked a step into the room. Another. When she didn’t object, I approached the bed, kneeling down to rest my forearms on the edge. That was as close as I came to her. Just in case she bolted, and from the way she looked at me, like I might attack her at any given moment, I didn’t blame her.

“I fell in love with you years ago, Annie. I was gonna tell you—try to tell you, if I didn’t lose my nerve. That day. But your brother and I…we signed with the Chimeras and our careers took off…” It was a pithy excuse and I winced at the egotistical self-portrait I painted. Not that it mattered; she’d always seen me just as I was, without any glam mirror. Or maybe not. Maybe I was still kidding myself. I blew out a slow breath. “I ran that year. I got busy and I stayed that way. It stopped me from thinking, from feeling. I filled my life with hockey, with the team. Responsibilities that weren’t mine to start with, but that have become mine now.”Like Tabitha, and I’m still fucking up.“Bythe time I wanted something more than the superficial bunnies and ego trip, everyone else had found their person and I…”

“Was left alone.” She finished the thought for me in that same quiet way that left me spinning.

A shiver ripped through me that I suppressed, but it was a near thing. “Yeah. Alone.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it.” Her voice was still flat and quiet.

I swallowed. “I think I like bratty Annie better.”

“I like you grumpier. You’re less scary then.”

“No emotions, huh?”

She nodded, still turning the box over and over and over. I reached out a tentative hand, risking it all on a simple gesture and covered her compulsive motion with my fingers. She stilled, letting me close my hand around hers.

“Have you opened it?”

She shook her head. “No.”

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