Page 308 of Branded
Sigh.
But the having my back? That was good. That was what made the teasing, as light-hearted—and girthy—as it was, bearable. Because the guys were my friends, my family. Teasing came with hockey, and as much as I might grumble about being on the receiving end of it, I could dish it out just as well.
And I would.
Would!
Fuckers.
“Shut up and finish getting dressed,” I ordered, moving out the door and snagging my stick off the rack.
It was time to play some fucking hockey.
And hopefully impress the girl I was crazy about.
Twenty
Jules
“Whoa,” Ethan breathed as we walked across the street and approached the arena.
I knew the feeling.
It was huge and brightly lit and surrounded by people who were dressed in the trademark royal blue and black of the Breakers.
Ethan and I didn’t have jerseys like so many of the fans approaching the entrances had, but I’d managed to track down a beanie for him at a local secondhand store that morning. For myself, I had settled for wearing Breakers colors—blue top and earrings, black scarf and beanie. We both wore our thickest coats, which, luckily for my attempts at team spirit, were both black.
Easy to match the home team’s colors.
But I’d chosen black coats for a reason—they were utilitarian. Plus, the color meant that it was easy to hide the stains.
Ethan tugged on my hand, and I realized that I’d slowed down to practically a crawl, trying to see everything, trying to take it all in, trying to commit it all to memory. And, yeah, maybe I was also trying to glean every bit of insight about what Cas’s life was like, what it was like for him to play here, to work here.
He knew my biggest secret—or maybe not secret, since it wasn’t like I was hiding Ethan, hiding that he was mine. I just…didn’t talk about where he came from. But now Cas knew that Nate was his father, that he’d broken my heart and faith in myself. Knew that my father had disowned me and blamed me for my mother’s death and thought I was a slut. And he knew that I wouldn’t have been okay without Lake’s help, but I couldn’t bring myself to allow him to get close to me again.
But parts of me had been permanently broken by Nate.
All of which I’d told Cas, had given him my biggest hurts, my deepest pains.
And I knew next to nothing about him.
I’d heard him talk about siblings, and he’d mentioned two sisters to Ethan. I knew he was close to his parents and his teammates. I knew what kind of beer he drank and that he ordered a burger as often as he got a salad. I knew his laugh and how his arms felt around me. I knew that he listened to what I said and that he actually saw me, and he treated me with care and sprinkled my apple slices with cinnamon and cleaned up after making pancakes in my kitchen?—
But I didn’t really know him.
Except, didn’t I?
I knew some big important things. I knew a lot of small ones and?—
“Mom!” Another tug. One that jarred me out of my mind and sent me jerking into motion.
“Sorry, buddy,” I told Ethan. “I’m just impressed.”
“It’s so cool!” he said, doing a little dance.
While he was completing his jig, I took the moment to remind myself that I didn’t need to know Cas.
I wasn’t dating hockey players.
