Page 32 of Time to Shine

He’d be sent back to Saskatoon.

He would let Antton Niskanen down. And his team. And the city of Calgary. And Casey.

It would be his last NHL game.

He needed to sleep.

Insomnia was a familiar enemy for Landon. When he was a kid, he’d shared a room with his sister, Erin. They were close in age, only separated by eighteen months, and their twin beds were close enough together that they could talk quietly at night. Even the nights where they didn’t talk at all, the comfort of being close to someone who loved and understood him had always quieted his overactive brain.

When they were teenagers, Erin got the bedroom, and the dining room of their family’s small house was converted into a room for Landon. Insomnia began plaguing him again. Some nights he would quietly knock on the bedroom door. Erin would invite him in and he’d lie on the floor by her bed. Sometimes they would talk, sometimes they’d both fall asleep right away. He’d wake up with a few aches from lying on the floor, but at least he’d gotten some solid hours of sleep in. Sleep had been more important than ever, when he was a teen, because being drafted by a junior team had started to look like a real possibility.

When he was sixteen, his hard work paid off. He was drafted by a team in Quebec, and his family had been so proud of him. Erin had just graduated from high school weeks before, and was trying to decide between starting university right away or traveling first. Everything had been exciting and new for the Stackhouse family.

Two weeks later, Erin was dead, and nothing had ever felt exciting again.

Now, on the floor of Casey’s guest room in Calgary, Landon squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t start thinking about Erin or he would truly never sleep. Thinking about Erin meant drowning in guilt, regret, and misery. It meant useless anger and horrible, consuming emptiness. He couldn’t invite any of that into his head right now.

He turned his thoughts back to hockey. Hockey was how he’d gotten through the grief and the guilt and the misery the first time. He’d thrown himself into hockey even as it created a wall between himself and his parents. Maybe because it did. He’d been handed an opportunity to escape the misery that had swallowed his family whole, and he’d taken it.

He’d been so selfish. He was so selfish.

He couldn’t think about that now.

He closed his eyes and began another round of deep, controlled breathing. He should be able to sleep here. He had all the space and privacy he could possibly want, alone in a basement with a bed large enough to comfortably spread out his long arms and legs. Casey was somewhere in the house, but Landon couldn’t hear him.

He huffed into the darkness, thinking about how rare it was to be in the same place as Casey Hicks but to not hear him. It was a relief, of course. Landon liked him, but good god, he was chatty. And if he wasn’t talking, he was humming, or laughing at something on his phone or on the television. Sometimes Landon heard him talking to himself, when Casey was a floor above him.

Landon was living in Casey’s house for free. He shouldn’t be thinking a single negative thing about him.

He shouldn’t be thinking. He should be sleeping. Fucking hell.

There was a part of him that wanted to fly back to Saskatoon, or maybe all the way to Halifax. There was a part of him that wished Casey was upstairs in the kitchen, talking to himself, just so Landon could feel less alone. Maybe he should have taken one of the upstairs bedrooms.

There was a part of Landon that wanted to knock on Casey’s door, lie on the floor beside his bed, and listen to him breathe.

Right. Like that wouldn’t be weird as fuck.

With a heavy sigh, Landon removed his mask and set it on the floor. He stood and got back into bed, even though his brain was more active than ever. He rolled onto his side, squeezed his eyes tight against the moisture pooling in them, and tried desperately to shut himself off.

He had left home when his parents had needed him most. He had chosen hockey over everything. The least he could do is not fuck this chance up.

Chapter Twelve

Landon didn’t look good.

Casey knew better than to mention something like that to his starting goalie before a game—especially before that goalie’s first-ever big league game—but, well, Landon looked terrible.

Coach Patrick was standing in the middle of the locker room, offering encouragement in that calm, steady way he had. He announced Landon as the starting goalie, as if it was a secret, and everyone whooped and tapped their sticks on the floor. Landon didn’t react, his face rigid and pale, and his eyes sunk into the sharp angles of his face.

“Let’s go, Stacks!” Casey called out, hoping to at least get his attention. Landon didn’t even flinch, just kept staring into the middle distance.

Goalies were weird. Casey knew this. They all had their own pregame rituals and ways of mentally preparing to get pummeled by pucks and bodies. Casey had his own private ritual, which was to tell himself that tonight was going to be the best game of his life. Usually it wasn’t, but until that final siren wailed, Casey played like it was a possibility. If he had a bad game, he shook it off quickly. It was okay because the next game was going to be his best game ever.

Landon did not look like he was about to have his best game ever. He looked like he was remembering every bad thing that had ever happened to him.

He’d been quiet during the drive to the arena, which wasn’t unusual. Casey had gotten the vibe right away that Landon did not want to talk about the game, so Casey had chatted about whatever popped into his head. Mostly about the nature show he’d watched in bed the night before. It’d been about owls.

Owls couldn’t move their eyes. Fucking weird.

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