Page 68 of Levi

What if she’s like Ally?

Nope. She’s not.

I don’t question that for a second. She’s nothing like her sister. I can tell Quinn cares about me. Hell, I can feel that Quinn cares about me. We may have never said it—fuck, we may be really late to realize it, but we’ve always loved each other. It’s just always been in our own fucked up way.

“Crosby!” Coach shouts, and Cooper nudges me, nodding towards the door as Coach glares. “Are you fucking listening to me?”

“With all due respect, sir, my focus has been on finding your niece and making sure she’s okay, not seeing how many times I can hit a puck at a net while you yell at me.”

“What do you mean? She didn't come home? I thought I overheard the guys talking about going out with the two of you last night?” Coach Ronnie says, his voice rising, and I can tell he’s irritated, his tone getting everyone's attention as he walks over to me.

“No, sir. Well, yes. I was with her, and we went to the Penalty Box with Miles Henderson, his girlfriend, Stella, and some of the guys. I had to leave early, though, because the nurse who works with my nana called. I guess while they were at the game last night, there was a bit of an incident,” I start, and he raises a hand to pause me.

“Your nana came? Damn, I would have said hi,” Coach says, surprising the fuck out of me. I didn't think he cared for her all that much “Sorry to hear something happened. Is she okay?” he asks, and I glance around, not really wanting to have this conversation with an audience. While I try to be an open book with most things, my family—and my emotions—are not included in that.

It's one thing to talk about this with a handful of people, but it’s another thing entirely when the whole team knows your struggles.

“Can we walk and talk?” I ask, nodding towards the hall that heads down towards his office.

“Lead the way,” he grunts, and I nod to the guys before heading to talk to Coach. I notice the guys all giving each other a look, a weird one. One I can’t quite decipher but wish that I could.

I just don’t have time for this right now.

“My nana came, but she’s been struggling. She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's, and before, she had very minimal symptoms. Lately though, it’s been tough. She's been more out of touch and forgetful,” I tell him as we walk into his office. “At the game last night, she was going to the bathroom and got lost. To the surprise of no one, Nana got a little spicy with a worker when he wouldn't let her go into the employee only area after insisting that's where her seats were.”

Coach chuckles, shaking his head a bit. “That doesn't surprise me. The first time I met her, she said I was lazier than a sack of potatoes because I wasn't helping carry your stuff in when you and Ally decided to move in with each other. What she didn’t know was that I had just carried all of Ally's shit and was exhausted!” he says, and I smile, the little story of my nana making it hard not to.

“She wouldn’t have cared even if she had known.” I laugh. “She's definitely sassy. Back to the story though…I went to the nursing home for a bit to check in on her, and then when I got home, Ally was there waiting on my front porch to talk to Quinn.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear it because I need the girls to get along and I don’t want to have to fire anyone. I'd like to reassign her somewhere to teach her a lesson, have her learn some responsibility. I just haven’t decided what it'll be. Waiting for the perfect moment,” he says, and my eyes widen in shock. “All out of love though. Call it a life lesson.”

I don't think I've ever heard that man say anything remotely negative about Ally in all the years I've known him, ignoring her selfish tendencies and bitchy remarks. This is different, and I'm not sure what's changed.

“You’re looking at me like I've got a shark head or something. What's the matter with you Crosby?”

“Just didn't expect you to call Ally out like that. I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about her like that…ever.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t expect her to lie to me for years making an ass outta me in the process,” he says, and he has the decency to look embarrassed, but I'm still processing what he's saying.

Did Ally finally fess up? Did she finally decide to tell her uncle what actually happened between us?

“Oh?” I say, and he rolls his eyes like he was hoping I wasn’t going to make him actually address the elephant in the room.

“So yeah…about that. I guess I owe you an apology for the way I treated you. In my defense—you never told me otherwise. No one did. I just went on thinking you cheated on one of my girls, and I gave you hell for it. Now I just feel like an ass since it turns out, this whole time, it washerwho fuckedyouover.” He shakes his head in disbelief.

“It's all in the past. I actually talked to Ally last night. She apologized, and we cleared the air a bit, put it all behind us because none of that matters anymore. Lately the only relationship that's really mattered is the one with Quinn.”

“Then what seems to be the issue? What do you mean you can't find her.”

“I don't know where she is, and her phone just rings a million times before going to voicemail. I'm just trying to figure out where she is and make sure she's okay.”

He looks at me for a minute before glancing down at his phone. Clicking Quinn's name, he tries to call her. I hear Quinn’s line ring and ring until going to voicemail, just like it's done for me.

“Here's what you're going to do. I'm going to let you out of practice to go find her—I guess I owe you this one.”

“I don't even know where to start,” I tell him. Leaning against the wall, I look down at my phone, trying to recall anything that might help me figure out where she went.

“Go find Ally and tell her to use my phone account. She should be able to check her location—both of their iPhones are in my phone, and I have access to their little sims, as the girls call it. It'll tell you where she is.”

---