Page 89 of Slash & Burn

He sat back giving me the evil eye for a beat before he huffed out a breath. “You’re about to be made captain, you’re not fully healed, we’re coming off a losing season, and now our left wing just got shit canned. That last one only just happened, but all the rest should have been more than enough to keep your eye a little more on the prize.” He took a drink before adding, “And she ain’t it.”

It had been years since I’d had the urge to clock AJ McCaffrey, but the impulse rose strong and quick as he talked that way about Jill. But given the shit place we were in as a team, knocking out our goalie was not on my list of options.

“Fuck you.” That one was, though.

His stoic mask faltered, his brow lowering as he looked at me like I was nuts. “Come on, Holloway. Now? With ahometownchick? Please, even you know better.”

Of course I knew better. Any other day and I’d have been the one delivering this lecture to some other sorry sap who’d been foolish enough to let himself get distracted by a woman on the eve of his greatest career achievement. For his part, Cooper didn’t seem surprised or disappointed at AJ’s mention of me becoming captain instead of him—which only made me respect the guy even more.

The fact that I hadn’t set out to fall for Jill, or that I’d actually thought it would never happen at all, seemed like a pretty big failing at the moment. But I still didn’t think I’d change anything about what had happened this summer.

“She’s not somehometownchick,” I said, even though she very much was. But she wasn’t the puck-bunny climber he was talking about. Jill couldn’t have been further from the type.

“Even still,” he grumbled, his scowl back in place. “Cut her loose.” He looked me up and down, assessing me and sniffing out another laugh. “Cut yourself loose, actually.”

“Maybe it’s not the best timing,” Cooper interjected, his positivity grating on AJ so much the goalie drained the last half of his beer in one gulp. “But it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

Cooper had been dating the same woman since high school. Evie. We all knew her name, even if we almost never saw her at games. I’d met her once at a holiday party, but she’d cut out early and taken Cooper with her. It was no secret AJ and the rest of the guys thought their relationship was a little odd. So, naturally, he was exactly who I wanted giving me relationship advice.

“Yes it is,” AJ said. “How the hell were you going to make that work, anyway? You driving three hours every night after a game? And then three hours back when we have morning workouts? And how does she feel about the fact that you’re on the road more than half the year? She cool with that?”

AJ was speaking as if he had some experience with this but I knew better than to ask him about it. Nothing he’d said was wrong. It was just all shit I hadn’t thought about. I’d been distracted by Jill, and happily so, but I never looked any further than the summer. But after last night—fuck, after the last few weeks, if I was being real—my feelings were not going to be as easy to walk away from. But the hockey life wasn’t for most people. I didn’t have to ask how well Jill would take to it, because I knew with almost certainty she’d hate it.

“That’s an awful lot of time in a car for a relationship that’s not likely to last anyway.”

“Hey, man, project your own past fuck-ups on someone else, all right? You don’t know shit.”

He laughed, the sound of it almost foreign to me I heard it so rarely. “Fine. Give it a whirl. See how it goes.” He pushed his chair back, standing and looking down at me. “It’s none of my business till you start fucking up on the ice, man. So don’t.”

AJ wanted to win the Stanley Cup as much as the rest of us. He’d been with Boston for almost ten years and I wasn’t sure how much longer he planned to play. It was just his own fear of losing another chance at that cup that got him so riled up. At least that’s what I told myself as he gave Cooper and I a half-assed salute and walked out of the bar.

“I’m sure you two would be fine,” Cooper said, trying to clear the air as I finished my own beer. “If you want it to work, you’ll figure it out.”

I tossed him a nod, appreciating the words of encouragement even if they tasted stale and limp after the sting of AJ’s doubt. Because it wasn’t just whether I wanted to keep seeing Jill. It was her call too. And given the price she’d have to pay for being with me, I wasn’t sure it was even fair to ask her if she wanted to.

CHAPTER 34

JILL

Ihadn’t seen Grady in three days. I hadn’t heard from him much either. Every time I started to feel sick about that, I reminded myself that I had no business being upset about him going back to work in Boston; this was always the plan, and I was perfectly fine going back to my life sans hunky hockey player.

The tough love approach was working about as well as you’d expect.

My stomach was in a near permanent knot and I was having trouble getting to sleep at night. But it was nothing compared to the full-on meltdown I had when Adam left me, which felt like a real marker of growth. Still, it wasn’t pleasant, and doubt had begun to creep in about the wisdom of this arrangement after all.

And then I woke up to Grady on his knees in my garden, his hands covered in dirt as he carefully planted the last of the stash he’d gotten me.

“Would this qualify as trespassing?” I asked, leaning against my back door and giving him a start.

He sat back on his heels, his shorts pulling dangerously tight around his thick thighs. “I’d tell you to ask your brother, but I don’t need to give Joey probable cause to arrest me.” His eyes dimmed as the words came out and my heart sank.

It had been all over the news. The fact that Grady knew the guy, that they were teammates and friends, only made it more awful. The woman that had died was young, a nurse. She had a fiancé and a golden retriever puppy and her whole life ahead of her. None of it made any sense.

“You doing okay?” I asked, stepping out onto the flagstone patio, the dew from the grass collecting on my bare feet as I walked toward him.

He plugged the plant in his hand into the fresh hole and nodded, but his sigh was deep. “It’s been rough on everybody.”

I squatted in front of him, catching his eye. “But how areyou?”

---