Page 17 of The Fall
And then I can’t look anymore, because, oh God.
If only he knew, and I could collapse in his arms and tell him the truth, but I can’t. If I did, it would break his heart, rip apart all of his love and this tender silence and the warm, cocooning darkness, and all these torn-up, shredded parts of me that yearn for me to hold on andremember.
I’m caught between two versions of myself: the Torey who belongs here with Blair and the Torey who’s lost in the cracked mirror of his own mind, grasping at fragments of a life he no longer recognizes. I can’t tell which one is really me.
Blair’s eyes seek out mine. His lips part, and then there’s a whisper, a brush of his lips against mine. He pulls away, shifts back, but our hands are still linked, our eyes locked. We’re so close, nearly body-to-body. His chest rises and falls against me.
My body burns, a blaze I know could absolutely consume me.
And I would let it.
Four
Shadows chaseacross the dashboard as Hayes drives me out of the garage. Blair had to stay for a meeting and they must have planned for Hayes to drive me home, and home is, apparently, Blair’s house. Whether he and I live together officially and openly is a mystery, but Hayes at least knows exactly where to take me.
What happened to my truck from Vancouver? That’s apparently another loose end in the tangled mess of my memory.
Slashes of tropical light flicker between the trees. It is so much brighter here than in Vancouver. Even with sunglasses, my eyes ache. Hayes is a comfort and a challenge. The easy banter, the trash talk, the listening as he rambles—yeah, I can do all that. But when he gets specific and asks me my thoughts on practice or our plays or our penalty kill, I’m over my head.
Which he proves when he asks, “You sure you’re all right, Kicks?”
My heart is revving past the redline. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Hayes nods, his gaze steady on the road. “Last night was rough, huh?”
“It wasn’t awesome.”
He shakes his head. “Fucking Zolotarev.”
Ihmmlike I agree, like I have any clue what he’s talking about.
We turn, and twist, and navigate into a neighborhood of stately homes. It’s a nice neighborhood, more than a mile above my old Vancouver apartment complex. Blair lives—or we live?—in a canal-front home in the quietest corner of Punta Gorda.
“Home, sweet home,” Hayes says, pulling into Blair’s driveway.
It’s a sprawling house, low-slung beneath the Florida sun, sitting on an entire corner lot. Here, people value their personal space. The yards are immense, and neighbors are more of a concept than a reality. A canal borders the yard on two sides. It’s a magazine cutout. It screams success, serenity. It also screams way, way out of my league.
“Thanks, man.” I slide out of Hayes’s Escalade like I belong here.
“No problem. I’m always happy to be the friendly neighborhood Uber.” He smiles, big and bright, and I see myself in the reflection of his shades. No wonder everyone keeps asking me if I’m all right; I am doing a shit job of hiding how fucking terrified I am.
I hold out my fist for a bump and grab my bag. “Catch you later.”
He bumps back, explodes his hand, goes into a rocker face, and shifts immediately back to his full-wattage grin. “See you bros later!”
His tires squeal as he backs out in a J-turn and swings his Escalade around the cul-de-sac. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood for drifting, but Hayes isn’t the kind of guy that cares about that. He beeps his horn once and waves out the driver’s-side window. I wait on the driveway until he makes the turn off the street and disappears around the corner.
This is going to be hard enough without an audience.
It takes me four tries to find the right key for the front door.
When I get it right, I push open the front door and step into a palatial space, a living room, kitchen, and lanai, all seamlessly blended together. One wall is made up entirely of glass sliders. And, yep, there it is, the backdrop for all those photos of me that I found on my phone. The pool, the chaise lounges, the perfect blue sky. Our backyard.
Kitchen to the left. Stainless steel, white marble. An island big enough for an entire hockey team. Our bench at the rink is smaller than that. A hallway to the right. Doors and bedrooms. Our bedroom.
I don’t recognize any of this.
I didn’t get a good look this morning. The yard and the house had been shrouded in darkness, and with Blair awake, I couldn’t go poking around and investigating my own life. I’d eaten a banana because it was on the counter, and I didn’t need to hunt for a mug, a bowl, or a spoon.
