Page 38 of Puck Around and Find Out

“Oh, my hero,” Elissa said with a laugh. I stared between the two.

“Did you get stung?” I asked Wy.

He shook his head and knocked the dead yellow jacket off the table.

My heart thudded so hard my body vibrated with it, and I had trouble dragging a deep breath into my lungs.

“No. If you do it fast enough you don’t get stung,” he said.

Elissa glanced at my face, then giggled. “He used to do it all the time when he was little. It drove me crazy. The second he found out I was allergic, he started killing them, and at least three times a summer he would get stung. I used to be terrified because it’s hereditary, the allergy you know, but thankfully he never developed it.” She shook her head at Wy and smiled, and I frowned at him.

“Dad always says I’m being a.... Never mind,” I mumbled as she raised her eyebrows in my direction. She pursed her lips.

“Your father is a hard man to get to know.” She puffed out her breath and her bangs flew up. It was cute and I wanted to laugh at her, but I held it in. “Maybe he didn’t learn the best parenting skills when you were younger.”

I shrugged. That was putting it mildly. “He likes you. You’re good for him.”

Her eyes lit up along with another happy smile, and I wanted to sigh.

As we were heading back to the car, Wy stopped me with a hand on my wrist.

“What are you doing?” I asked, still feeling weird after losing my shit last night and the odd day today.

He slapped both of his hands together on my shoulder, and I almost choked on my slushy as a dead yellow jacket landed at my feet. I glanced at him.

“Got it,” he said with a grin, then walked away as if he hadn’t done anything at all.

My heart was in my throat again because the last thing I needed was to take time off from hockey due to a sting. It would be weeks of steroids and hell. But it hadn’t happened. I rubbed my chest as I started walking again.

When we got in the car, I leaned forward because he’d taken the seat beside Elissa and I was in the back.

“You know, you could’ve let that go.” I didn’t say a million other things. If he would’ve just let me get knocked out of commission, he wouldn’t have me making his life hell.

Wy glanced over his shoulder at me and shrugged. “I know.”

Sitting back, I had no idea what to think, so I didn’t say anything else, only buckled my seat belt and stared out the window on the drive to the city. We debated stopping to get food, but in the end, Wy wanted all things apple more than he wanted to eat at a restaurant. We opted to make sandwiches at the house so Elissa could start on pies.

“They’re the best,” he gushed with a grin.

There was nothing I could put my finger on when we opened the door to the house, except a feeling crawled up my spine. Goose bumps prickled over my body. It was too quiet. Normally, Dad played music or the news would be blaring from a TV that he’d walked away from. Very rarely was the house dead silent when he was home. I carried the basket of apples to the kitchen, glancing around to try to catch sight of him.

“Oh, thank you, Atlas. You’re so strong,” Elissa said with a laugh as she came hustling into the kitchen behind me, and I rolled my eyes as I dropped the basket next to the sink.

“I’ve heard all the jokes.”

She shrugged and smiled. “I’m sure you have.”

The sense that something wasn’t right dug under my skin, but I stayed in the sunny kitchen and helped Elissa and Wy peel apples, even though I wasn’t very good at it. The scent of fall was in my nose, and I was starting to unclench by the time Dad showed up in the kitchen doorway with a broody frown stuck on his face. What I wouldn’t pay to see him smiling like Elissa did. It happened at games but not here.

“What’s this?” He stared at Elissa.

“Apples!” she said brightly. “You said you had to work, so we went and got some.” Her smile faltered.

He nodded. “That sounds nice. Atlas, my office.”

Wy glanced at me and his expression tightened. “Do you think—”

“I don’t know,” I said.

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