Chapter 13
Chapter
Lennon
When I’d joined Cormac on the ice this morning, he’d asked me to stop by his place later this afternoon. When he told me the rest of the guys had already been invited, I made sure to get to the Memorial Park area, where Cormac and a lot of my other teammates had purchased homes, as quickly as possible once practice was done.
The neighborhood was really nice—quiet, large lots, big homes that weren’t disgustingly ostentatious, and near the arena to make the commute reasonable. It was not an easy feat to find a place that ticked all those boxes, especially in the rapidly growing Houston city limits.
I’d thought about looking for a place here too, but there wasn’t any point without Vivian. Hana, my previous connection to her, was married to Naese and living here now, and while it did feel good to have helped them find their way back to each other, I hadn’t been able to ask Hana if Vivi was dating anyone. I wasn’t sure if she’d know. And the not knowing was eating at me—possibly more than it would hurt to swallow my pride.
I should have known something was up when I walked into Cormac’s place and smelled enchiladas. My nose quivered, and my mouth watered.
“Come in, Cruiser. We have some things to discuss,” Cormac said, waving me over. He glanced at Maxim, who gave a faint nod, then to Stol and Naese, who repeated the gesture.
“Adam wanted to be here, too, but Felix has the shits,” Maxim informed me.
More information than I wanted or needed, so I just gave a faint grunt.
“So, yeah…” Cormac began. “We wanted to talk to you about Vivian.”
I stiffened. “What about her?”
“She’s coming to Houston,” Cormac said.
The floor seemed to drop out from under me, and my ass landed somewhere between Cormac’s sofa and Stol’s knee. He groaned and shoved. I shifted enough for him to move his leg. No way was I going to get up.
“She agreed,” Naese said. He beamed, clearly proud of this development.
“Wait—just wait. You invited Vivi here?” My mouth dried out, and my hands began to shake. My chest tightened. Was I…? This felt…
“Christ. He’s having a panic attack,” Stolly exclaimed.
“Catch him before he hits the ground,” Cormac bellowed.
Hands wrapped around my biceps and another laid on my back. “Breathe the air,” Maxim commanded. “In and out.”
Someone pounded my back, hard, causing me to cough.
“Easy, Naese. Don’t whack out his lung,” Cormac said.
“I’m helping,” Naese muttered.
“You good there, Cruiser?” Cormac bent down to peer in my face.
“No,” I growled. I rose and whirled. “How could you do this? She’s safe in San Francisco.” My fists clenched, unclenched, re-clenched again as rage and fear tussled in my veins.
“She’ll be safe here, too,” Maxim said. “More so with you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I bellowed. “She’ll never be safe with me as long as those pieces of shit are out there.”
“What are you talking about?” Stolly asked, but based on his shifty eye movement toward Cormac, they’d talked about this.
The assholes. I was going to beat them all to a pulp. I whirled on Naese. “Those fuckers threatened to hurt her. How could you let them put her in danger? She’s not safe with me,” I bellowed. It was like my mind had been taken over by some other entity. Calm wasn’t something I understood.
“Erm…” That was Cormac. “What do you mean she’s not safe with you?”
“The attacker. The spokesman.” I paced the space, a caged tiger, muscles bunching and quivering with the need to unleash the pent-up aggression and fear tugging at my skin and hair and very essence.
“You think that guy—a scrawny meth head—can take you on and win?” Maxim snorted and shook his head, chuckling.
“Don’t you dare laugh. You weren’t there. You didn’t get your neck sliced, your head punched. Have to listen to that slime talk about what he’d do to Vivi if he saw her again.” That was the most I’d mentioned about that night to anyone. I didn’t like to talk about it, didn’t like remembering how I’d failed Vivi.
Maxim sobered, his mouth slack as his eyes widened. “I…”
“And you!” I whirled on Cormac. “I expected leadership from you. Not going along with some harebrained bullsh?—”
“This was my idea,” my mother said as she swept into Cormac’s living room. “They knew about the assault and Vivian, though clearly not as much as I expected based on this .” She frowned at me, waving her hand to encompass my yelling and my friends’ chagrined expressions. “I want her here with you, where she belongs.”
The enchiladas I’d smelled… Dammit .
I choked, gasped, and bent over to settle my hands on my knees. Naese pounded my back again, the stupid turd.
“Back off, Paxton. He is struggling to breathe.” My mother paused. A moment later, she bent down and looked into my face. “With me, hijo?”
“No.”
“You are very frightened,” she said. “Just as I told Silas and your team doctor.”
Heat burned up the back of my neck. “They said?—”
“Lennon, son,” my mother began, her voice soft. She rubbed my back in a soothing way—not trying to crack ribs like Naese. “Are you sure that criminal said those words?”
“Yes! He said them to me, so of course I’m sure.”
“But the police—I called the detective, Ahmed, and spoke to him.” She waited for those words to sink in. I blinked at her. “No one was near you when they arrived. That’s why they couldn’t apprehend the criminals. They’d done a jackrabbit and skedaddled.”
I rose, frowning, confusion replacing my fear. Lightheaded, I stumbled. Naese gripped my arm while my mother continued to run a soothing hand up and down my back. “Wh-what?”
“Those bad men were not near you. They ran away before the police turned the corner. They knew the police were coming because of the sirens and lights.”
I licked my lips. “You’re saying… You’re saying that…”
“Could it have been a hallucination?” Cormac asked. I’d never seen him look so worried.
“I don’t… It was real .”
“What was he wearing?” Maxim asked.
I shrugged. I couldn’t remember.
“Color of his hair? Eyes?” Stolly asked.
I opened my mouth but shut it and shook my head.
“Can you think of anything specific about the man who spoke to you?”
“N-no…” I blinked at my teammates. With effort, thanks to my trembling limbs, I moved back to the couch. I took a minute to breathe with my forehead pressed to my fists. Then I lifted my head from the bent-over position, more in control of my emotions. “You think I hallucinated the man?” I tried to meet everyone’s gaze. They all looked worried.
Cormac glanced at the others. “We remember what happened during your first concussion, how you hallucinated then. You were so sure we were there to hurt you…”
“Made me sick,” Maxim said.
Stolly looked away, his jaw tight.
I narrowed my eyes. “So, because I have a history of hallucinations?—”
“Specifically of deep, personal harm during them,” Cormac supplied. “I asked Amber if it was possible for that to happen again. She and Dr. Hutchins conferred, but they didn’t tell me anything about your case specifically .” He paused. “When I pushed, asking if it was possible hypothetically, they said yes. In fact, they think it’s likely—and that’s your mind’s pattern when it’s injured.”
“A pattern. There’s a pattern for concussion.” I knew that. We all knew our symptoms usually amplified with more head trauma. But I’d never considered the hallucination possibility. It had all seemed so real. My chest squeezed. My heart ached. “You think I’ve spent months pushing away the love of my life for nothing ?”
The guys all looked at each other. Cormac grimaced as he answered for them. “Yeah. That’s what we think. And worse, we know Vivian’s been talking to some doctor, who sounds like a total shitbag, according to what we got from Hana.”
I covered what could have been a horrifying shriek with a cough and clearing my throat.
Cormac paused respectfully. “And for the record,” he continued after a moment. “The ladies were going to contact Vivian and bring her out here if we didn’t. So, we did it first.”
My mother muttered something about men and egos and needing to win. She wasn’t wrong. “You’re a better man than this doctor,” she said, sitting beside me and patting my hand. “And Vivi loves you. So the boys hatched a plan to get her here. Because they love you. And also, they want to have a matchmake win.” She glowered at me, causing guilt to flare. “I don’t approve of this part of the process, but I like that they included me. And I wanted to see how you reacted to the news that your Vivi has a new man.” She smiled brightly. “You hate it.”
“I do,” I said. “I really hate it.”
“Good. So you fix the problem between you two, and I get grandchildren.” My mother started babbling on in Spanish about how cute my babies would be while I met each of my teammates’ eyes.
They were more than teammates, though. We were family—a patchwork of backgrounds and hobbies and personalities that fit because of our love of hockey, competitiveness, and decency. These men were some of the best people I’d ever known.
“Thanks. All of you. I appreciate you wanting the best for me.”
“Took you long enough to realize that,” Stolly grumped.
“You’re not going to hit me, are you?” Maxim asked. “I don’t want a big bruise on my face. Ida Jane fusses.”
“But she makes you apple butter to soothe the booboo,” Naese taunted.
“It is delicious. More addictive than drugs.” Maxim sighed. “I love that stuff, and I hate that I love it so much, but I love it too much to?—”
“Got it,” Cormac said. “Back to Cruz. Look, man, we weren’t trying to piss you off or freak you out. We just want you to be happy.”
“And Vivian makes you happy,” Naese said. “Or at least I know she makes you all wistful and shit when you’re not together.”
“You boys may all be grown men, but your mouths offend my ears,” Mom informed them. “Speak like humans, not middle school children.”
“Yes, Lola,” Cormac said. “Sorry.”
“Good. Now, let me talk to my son un momentito.” My mom turned toward me. “Son,” she said in Spanish. “I understand your fear. First your father, then Ruben. But Vivian won’t be hurt because you love her. Well, not more hurt. You’ve put her through a bad time.”
“How do you know.”
“I got the Facebook, don’t I?”
“You’re stalking Vivi on social media?”
“I needed to know if this woman was good enough for you.” Mom sniffed. “She’s lovely. I think she likes animals more than you,” she added with a smile.
I chuckled. Noticing my friends frowning, I switched to English. “She does love them. In Michigan, she asked to pet every dog we met.”
“This is how I know she is for you, my son. She has a big heart.” My mother also switched to English.
I chewed my lip as I tried to work through my thoughts. “What if…what if she can’t forgive me for pushing her away?”
“Oh! I go this one!” Stolly said. He plunked his butt down on Cormac’s coffee table and put his hands on my shoulders. “You keep working at it. Like a drill. You give her your full focus, you make sure she knows she’s the priority. It’ll take time. You might have to sleep on a too-short couch?—”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Naese asked.
“I’m just saying, it might be hard or uncomfortable,” Stolly snapped. “But you don’t give up. You’re an NHL player, man. You know all about perseverance. So…persevere.” He punctuated his point with a nod.
“That’s very good advice,” Mom said.
Stolly ducked his head, but we all saw the smirk he tried to bury in his shoulder.
“I had to make Ida Jane love me,” Maxim rumbled. “She took time to trust that I was serious.”
“If that guy can do it, so can you,” Cormac said.
“Hey!” Maxim exclaimed.
“What? You’re a dick…erm, difficult personality,” Stolly said with a side-eye at my mother.
She turned her head away to show she was ignoring his potty mouth.
Maxim shrugged. “True.”
“So, as your friends were saying, you prove you’re trustworthy. If Vivian is smart, she won’t believe you,” Mom said. “So you’ll have to work for her, for your relationship.”
Cormac rubbed his hands together. “We have some suggestions.”
“You can discuss them over the enchiladas,” my mother said.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Naese said, bolting to the kitchen.