Page 94 of Play Your Part

“No, I really do. Aren’t you disappointed I lied? Multiple times, to your face.”

He shook his head slowly, chuckling lightly. “Oh, kid, I don’t think you ever lied to my face.” He stood abruptly and rested a hand on my shoulder for a moment before heading to the other side of the desk. “And you know exactly what you need to do.”

My stomach roiled, but it wasn’t enough to make me go backward. It wasn’t enough to ask to move back home, to run from my problems like I had in the past.

When I made it back to Gemma’s, I changed out of my clothes into a sleepshirt and leggings and crawled into bed. I pulled up the DVR and turned on the Wolves game from several nights ago. Relief hit me acutely, but in the way scratching scabbed-over skin did. It eased pain temporarily, but healing would take longer and maybe leave a scar.

But as I watched him glide across the ice, checking players into the boards with an aggressiveness I couldn’t help but find sexy, I found I didn’t care. Someday, it would get easier, but for now, I would go at my own pace.

As I always had. Two steps forward, one step back.

38

ALEXEI

Twoweekspassedina blink following Matt and Gemma’s wedding. I fell back on my old tried-and-true habits to forget what happened—physically pushing myself beyond the point I should.

At least, I wasn’t in it alone this time. Briggsy took pity on me, abandoning his routine of video gaming and naps to go in early to run and lift before practice, to stay after hitting pucks well past when everyone else left. Erik took notice, but not in a good way. He banned me from the arena outside of practices, which was hypocritical given the way he lived at the gym.

But he couldn’t stop my home workout regimen.

“It’s Christmas, dude,” Briggsy called from the doorway as he watched me pedaling uphill on the stationary bike. “You can take a day off.”

He knew, better than anyone, that this had little to do with my dedication to hockey.

“I have five more minutes,” I said.

“We’re supposed to be at Gemma and Matt’s in a half hour.” Briggsy couldn’t go home since we had a game the day after Christmas.

“I’ve got a call with my parents. I’ll come by after.”

“Don’t bail. She won’t be there until later tonight. She’s with her dad.” He had gotten scarily good at reading me.

“I said I will be there.” I gritted my teeth, turning my attention away from him to focus on my climb. In my periphery, I saw Zach give me the middle finger and leave his post.

An hour later, I sat at my kitchen counter, waiting for my parents to call. They would celebrate together today, but it wouldn’t last. It never did. My father screwed up again and again, and I did the same.

In many ways, I wanted to be like my father. He’d chased his dreams with dogged dedication until he got them. I watched and learned from him, surpassing him as I achieved the dream he never did, playing in the NHL. But I had one thing he never did—parents who would sacrifice anything to make my dream happen. So despite my frustration over how their relationship played out like a damn soap opera, my gratitude always outweighed it.

My mom’s glowing, wide-smiling face filled the screen when I accepted her call. “Merry Christmas, Alyosha. I like your decorations,” she said in Russian.

I’d had nothing to do with my decorations. Zach took it upon himself to deck out the entire house in wreaths and Santas and a ginormous tree Matt helped him set up. “Merry Christmas, Mama.”

“No Kennedy today?” The reminder of her absence chafed like sandpaper on my skin. I expected her to come up in this conversation, but I didn’t realize I’d be hit with the question in the first minute.

“I don’t think you’ll be seeing her again.”

She looked genuinely apologetic before I watched the emotion slough off her face. “What did you do?”

“Why do you assumeIdid anything?”

“Because I saw the way you looked at her.”

Not the way she looked at me. Another reminder of how I was the fucking idiot who caught actual feelings in our pretend relationship.

“He doesn’t need the distraction,” my father chimed in, his face appearing over her shoulder. “This season is too important. You’re off to a good start, but there are a lot of games left. You can’t lose sight of the goal.”

A distraction.The exact word I used with Kennedy after Ward showed up in her front yard. As if I needed more proof I was my father’s son.

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