Page 84 of Puck You Very Much

“Um.” Lucy cleared her throat audibly. “Why haven’t you cooked me anything yet?” she asked…which made Anna widen her eyes.

“You cook for her? I don’t understand. What exactly are you now? Ice hockey player and PR consultant don’t really fit. But it can’t be a fling either, because Dax never takes his flings anywhere. So…”

“It’s a sore subject, Anna,” Jack interrupted. “Dax doesn’t dare tell Lucy what they are.”

“What?” Lucy blinked in confusion and looked at him.

Dax’s jaw cracked. “Quiet, Jack,” he warned. “Or do you want to become a traitor again and destroy the beautiful progress we’ve made?”

“Traitor?” Jack echoed, pressing his lips together. “What kind of progress are you talking about? I don’t believe you’re even trying to forgive me.”

“Oh no,” Anna whispered, sighing and putting a hand over her eyes.

“Excuse me?” Dax replied sharply, frowning. “Are you blaming me for everything?”

“Yes, maybe,” Jack said abruptly. “Honestly, you act as if you two were the only ones who suffered back then. As if you were the only ones who lost somebody. But I lost you two!”

“It was your shitty choice!” Dax replied incredulously. “You left, and all I had left in my life was hockey.”

“You’re wrong, Dax,” Jack said, his voice eerily calm. “It was me who had nothing left but hockey. You always had Anna. Always a family. I had a bunch of people who didn’t want me.”

“We wanted you,” Dax responded tightly. “You were our family. Mom’s family!”

Jack laughed dryly. “Yes, Mom’s son—but only until I became too much.”

“Come on, please,” Anna murmured, though both ignored her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dax demanded.

“Mom didn’t want me there, Dax,” Jack said, his tone still disturbingly calm. “She may never have said it out loud to you, but it’s the damn truth. I caused too much trouble. Stealing, skipping school, fighting. I was a bad influence on you, and she let me know it. But she was too cowardly to tell you.”

Dax was on his feet before he even realized he was moving. The chair he’d been sitting on crashed backwards, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anna and Lucy flinch, but he didn’t pay any attention to them. The anger pumped hotly through his veins, pushing every other emotion aside. “Shut your damn mouth, Jack. If you say one more bad word about Mom…”

“Dax,” Anna pleaded, reaching across the table for his arm. “Please. We don’t have to talk about this now. Can’t we just forget the whole thing?”

“Forget?” he echoed in disbelief. “Is that what you were hoping to achieve with this meal? That I’d forget what happened?”

His sister sighed heavily. “I simply want everything to be…normal again. Like it was back then, okay? I’m tired of mediating. Tired of you being angry and Jack being cold. Why can’t we start over?”

“How can you ask that question?” he shouted. “He abandoned us. He ignored us. For years! He was…he didn’t even go to Mom’s funeral, Anna! How can…how can you…”

“I was there,” Jack interrupted harshly, and Dax’s head whipped around.

“What?”

“I was there,” he repeated sharply. “Of course I was!”

Dax opened his mouth, stunned. “No, you weren’t. I didn’t… What?”

“Just because I wasn’t in the front row like I should have been doesn’t mean I didn’t love her! But it was…complicated, okay?” Nervously, he ran his hand through his hair. “If I had just marched in, then…well, you would have yelled at me. Your father would have yelled at me, and hey, I probably would have knocked him out. Honestly, I’m still mourning the fact that I didn’t. The police would have come, Anna would have started crying even harder, trying desperately to calm everyone down and mediate between us. You or your father might have attacked me, so Anna would have ended up with no one to comfort her.” His eyes shone brighter, and, swallowing several times, he rubbed his neck feverishly. “It would have been a disaster. And…I wanted to give you the chance to mourn her properly. I couldn’t give you anything else, but at least I could do that. A day that was all about Mom and your good memories. Not about me and my bad ones. So my gift to you was…that afternoon. Without me ruining everything. I snuck into the church when everyone was seated and left before you saw me.”

“What?” Anna whispered, appearing as shocked as Dax felt. “You were there…and didn’t even say hello?”

“For good reason, Anna. Were you not listening just now?” Jack said tensely.

“You’re talking nonsense,” Dax said stiffly, shaking his head. “You weren’t there. And what the hell are you talking about when you say you had bad memories?” His jaw cracked. “I know she wasn’t perfect, but she tried. And she cried for days after you left.”

“Did she?” Jack’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

---