Friendzone Hockey (Heartbreak Hockey #4)

Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

THEN

End of August

Stacey

I t’s like we’ve been catapulted to the end of the summer, and saying goodbye comes way to fucking fast for my liking. Before I met Dash, I’d been looking forward to my first season with the Kelowna Wildcats, but now I’m dragging my feet. He is too. But can you blame us? Ever since I met him eight weeks ago, we’ve been inseparable. I trained him on bar and started to teach him the ins and outs of serving. When he wasn’t working, he hung out at my bar top like a lonely patron, and I was too happy to give all my attention to him. Maybe it’s only been eight weeks, but I can’t picture my days without him.

We’re at my house, the one in Kitsilano I rent with my brother and our current roommates Bill and Ted. I’m packing while Dash sits on my bed, deep brown eyes filled with accusation. I can’t look at him, so I pretend my socks need extra attention, unfolding and refolding them. He’s pissed that I’m leaving, even though he won’t say it.

But he needs to say it. It won’t change that I have to go, but he needs to know that I'm always with him no matter how far away I am.

In my periphery, I catch him lolling around on my bed, huffing, staring at the ceiling. He followed me home like a lost kitten, claiming someone should help me pack for the upcoming hockey season. I don’t need help. I’m the one that helps others pack. I’ll probably help Casey pack after I’m done with my things. And I don’t know how much him ruffling my bedsheets while squeezing my pillow’s helping get my things packed, but I’m glad he’s here.

“It’s just, will you have time to call me? We were just getting started with this whole faux counseling thing you were doing for me.”

There we go. It’s half an admission, but that’s huge for him. Dash has a hard time asking for what he needs, even saying what he’s hopeful for.

I turn, raising a brow. “Should I tell them I won’t be at training camp? Because I will.”

He lets go of my pillow, the little shit’s thinking about it for a second. My insides do a funny backflip sorta deal, sloshing the bowl of soup I ate for lunch.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, you’re going. This is the chance of a lifetime.”

“Glad we sorted that out,” I say, digging into my underwear drawer, removing a stack, placing them in my suitcase.

I’d say more, I want to say more, but I’m walking a tightrope, and I want to see what he’ll come up with on his own. We’ve been talking a lot. Not always about his situation directly, but that’s not a necessity in him building his confidence and getting better. There’s absolutely no reason to relive a nightmare to get rid of it.

Dash believes that if he gets too needy, I’m gonna stop being there for him. He wants to tell me what he needs, I can taste it in the air, but will he?

In the meanwhile, he’s fucking adorable, the way he’s snuggling that pillow like it’s me. I studiously continue packing, checking in on my “helper” once in a while, banking on him falling asleep, surprised as hell when he doesn’t.

Finally, he breaks.

“Okay, can I tell you something?”

“Always.”

“You have to promise not to get mad at me, though. They’re just feelings. I know better than to trust my feelings.”

I turn what I hope is a serious face on him. “Who’s telling you not to trust your feelings?”

“Me because they’re not always right.”

I can’t argue with that. It’s true. Feelings can be wrong. So wrong. “That may be so, but they always mean something. They’re clues.”

He nods. “Yeah, I agree. They seem to tell me about myself, I think. But that’s the scary part. My feelings don’t have to be your feelings, and I want our feelings to be the same so bad. Fuck, I hate this.”

My “protect Dash” instincts would have me running to his side, but he’s on the verge of something. I could help him, do it for him, but it won’t be the same as him doing it for himself.

“I’ll be right back. Just runnin’ to the washroom to grab my toiletries,” I tell him. I’m not gone long, but that’s all the time he needs to dump my suitcase on the bed, throw my socks and once neatly folded boxers through the room. I don’t even wanna see the state of my drawers because, from the looks of it, he’s haphazardly shoved the rest of my shit in them.

It’s far from the neat and tidy way I prefer things. My jaw fucking ticks.

Slowly, I cross my arms, my bag of toiletries still in hand, and stare down at the angry little cat with big brown eyes, daring me to say something about it.

Daring me to tell him to leave forever.

“You’re picking all of this up, and you’re reorganizing my drawers.”

He sits up taller. Bet he was hoping I’d say something like that. Challenge burns in his eyes. “Make me.”

That little?—

When I don’t move fast enough, he shoves my empty suitcase off the bed.

Okay, Dashie. Message received loud and clear.

I pounce. He’s fast but not faster than me. I catch him by the hem of his T-shirt, dragging him onto my bed. I’m quick to pin him down, straddling him with my knees and trapping his wrists over his head. I let the devil make an appearance in my eyes. He thrashes and squirms, but he’s not goin’ anywhere.

“Stupid, strong-ass, hockey players,” he says as if he’s not one himself. Dash is a decent size, but I’m bigger. A fact I try not to think about too often. “What are you gonna do?”

I smirk. “This.” I know something about Dash. He’s ticklish as hell. I ghost fingers over his armpits and down his torso.

His laughter is deafening. It peals from his lips, coming from somewhere deep, somewhere old, somewhere before all the bad shit happened to him. It’s pure laughter, unbridled, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.

“Stace! Stacey! Fuck. Okay. Okay. I’ll pick it all up. Ah! That ti-tickles, you asshole!”

I don’t stop, exacting my revenge by tickling him almost to death. Tears stream down his face as he laughs until his throat rasps. He breathes a short sigh of relief when I stop, but I don’t give him much of a break, digging into his ribs with touches that send him on another run of laughter, stretching the length of time he’s without oxygen from laughing so fucking hard.

Yeah, I’m enjoying this way too fucking much.

I force myself to stop.

“If I let you up, are you gonna get straight to work, no arguing?”

“I swear. Fuck, I swear it.” His voice is way too fucking breathy for my liking. I think he mighta enjoyed that as much as I did.

I climb off of him, keeping my lips stern, maneuvering him off the bed. “Start with the drawers,” I tell him. “Go’on.”

The urge to smack his ass is strong, especially with how big and juicy it looks in those damn gray sweats of his, but I refrain.

He slinks off the bed as if he expects something else to happen, but know what’s gone? The heaviness that was in the air. The foreboding sense of impending loss.

I relax against a wall, arms still crossed over my chest, shoulder leaning against the white paint.

“Who folds their boxer shorts?” he complains.

“Everyone.”

“Nuh-uh. I shove ‘em in, and I know for a fact Dirk does too.”

“That’s because you and Dirk are monsters.”

He laughs some more, and it’s a happy laugh, but I already miss the kind of laughing he was doing while I tickled him.

I could get addicted to tickling him.

Dash works with determination, his tongue sticking out as if folding shit is hard. It might be for him. His folds don’t have the military precision mine do.

Then he speaks. He speaks so much; I’d call it chatty. I’m seeing a new piece of Dash for the first time. He talks about hockey. His favorite players. He tells me he loves hockey so much because it’s somewhere he feels powerful. He shares other things too, like how he always wished he had a sibling, but that Dirk’s close enough and how lucky he is to have Dirk as his faux brother.

He pauses, breath hitching ever so slightly. Is he gonna say it? Will he finally say it?

“Yeah, it’s silly of me to think you’d stop talking to me just because you’ll be away, but I have every reason to believe that,” he says. His jaw hardens, and I detect a bit of a tremble, something fiery laces his words. God, how I’m desperate to pull him into my arms and soothe him, especially when he’s already soothing himself, rubbing his fingers over the knuckles of his other hand. But he’s almost there, where he needs to be. I can taste it.

“You have every reason,” I agree.

“But there’s another feeling—a good one—overriding the bad one. Stace?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s been hard to even see the good feelings, let alone feel them. Like, they’re right there, floating by me all the time, but I miss them because other darker feelings cloud them, hide them away. I have to squint and even then, I’m not sure if what I’m seeing is what I’m really seeing. So, I let it float away just in case I’m wrong.”

My eyes burn. Don’t fucking cry, Alderchuck. Not now. I get as steely as I can. Visions of pounding on all his problems helps.

“Today I don’t just see the good feeling, I can feel it, in my hands. But it’s fucking slippery as hell.”

“That’s because you can’t hold onto feelings, Dashie. They’re meant to be slippery. They’re meant to come and go. You’ve got to keep reaching for new ones.”

“You’re gonna call me,” he says with confidence. “Know why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not a dumbass. Only a dumbass wouldn’t call me. I’m a fucking peach.”

“I see,” I say, pulling off the wall, meandering over to him. “A peach who comes to my house under the guise of helping me pack, only to unpack all my shit the first chance he gets?”

I can’t see all of his face from this angle, but enough to tell his lips are hitched at the corners. Besides, his happiness is so loud, you couldn’t miss it if you tried. He’s not sorry at all.

“You were doing it wrong.”

“Oh?”

“I’m the only thing you need in your suitcase, and, uh, I’d demonstrate that, but Casey told me a terrifying story about a man who got trapped in a suitcase and suffocated to death.”

“He’s been on those damn crime subreddits again. I know I told him to stay off of those.”

He shrugs, folding another pair of my boxer shorts and adding them to the pile. I want to touch, but Stacey law says “no touching Dash unless absolutely necessary”, and it’s not strictly necessary. My fingers ache, though. Ache to run through his hair. I keep my hands to myself.

“How come you don’t seem to care?” He still refuses to look at me.

Whoa, what? “Don’t care? Dash .”

I know I’ve fucked up the second the words are out of my mouth. His hands clench. He’s gonna throw more clothes, isn’t he? It’d be a blessing if he did.

Okay, touching has become strictly necessary. I yank him up from behind and turn the sullen man to face me. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to pout and glare murder at the same time. Dash is teaching me all kinds of things today. His gaze cuts through me, accusing, hurt .

“That’s not fair. I’m pretty torn up about leaving you here, too,” I admit with that familiar sliver of terror that anything I say might lead him on. But friends can tell friends how much they mean to each other, can’t they?

Whether they can or not, doesn’t matter, I need to tell him.

“Look, I know it’s irrational for me to be angry that you’re leaving—” There it is. “—but I am. I hate it. Fucking loathe it. I finally have … I have …” he trails off.

Dash breaks apart. Sobs choke in his throat. That’s all it takes.

Screw my rules.

I’m the first to wrap my arms around him, but he’s not far behind, clinging to me like one of those adorable sloths always coming across my social media feeds. His sobs trigger the bone-deep kind of stitch in my side.

“It’s okay for you to be angry about it, Dash.”

He nods into my chest. I let him cry.

Eventually, the shaking subsides, and silence takes over. He tilts his head back. “I needed that,” he says. “I’m-I’m sorry I made a mess of your suitcase.” His breathing’s still uneven.

Using my palm, I wipe the tears from his cheeks, smiling from my own watery gaze.

“You’re still cleaning it up and repacking the whole thing.”

“I know.” He crushes me with this ultra grip.

His head’s right there. It’s so tempting for me to just lean over and kiss it …

There’s a buzz from the front of Dash’s jean pocket. We jump apart, and he pulls the phone out.

He sighs. “It’s Dad. He wants to know when I’m coming home.”

“Tell him you have a job to do for me, and I’ll feed you.” I’m not ready to let him go home just yet. Trav’ll let him stay because he’s with me. It’s a good reminder, too. Travis trusts me to be alone with his son. In my room. Fucking god. What we did on the bed was okay, wasn’t it? It was just some innocent fun.

I try not to make it too obvious that I’m stepping away from him, but I am stepping away.

“I’m gonna get you a cloth for your face. I better see progress by the time I get back.”

He rolls his eyes, saluting me.

I take a few extra minutes in the washroom, wiping my face. My cheeks are fucking red and wet, so are my eyes. Apparently, I was crying too. Didn’t even notice. I take a few breaths. Everything’s intense around Dash. Everything. I always leave him feeling like I’ve run a marathon in the stifling heat with a one-meter sprint finish.

Guess I was gone longer than I thought. When I’m back, he’s got half my suitcase packed. Nothing is where I’d put it. Pants are on top of T-shirts, a few balls of socks are tossed in with the main body of the suitcase rather than in the mesh compartment meant for socks and underwear. Jesus. It’s a whole “nails on a chalkboard” situation that initiates a body-wide cringe.

Is he fucking with me? He could be fucking with me. Just in case he’s not, I hand him the cloth without commenting on his suitcase-packing skills. Besides, it’s adorable, is what it is. I mean, I’m definitely repacking it myself once he’s gone, but it’s sweet. Fills my chest will all the warm and fuzzies.

“Here you go, sweetheart.”

Aw, hell.

Shit.

If I thought I was cringing before.

What do I do? What the fuck do I do? I don’t call him that. I’m not supposed to call him that—that’s for fucking sure. What are the chances he didn’t notice? Or maybe he’ll pass it off as a friendly term of endearment.

He freezes, a pause so minute you might miss it if your anxiety levels weren’t as high as mine are right now. Oh, yeah, he caught that. Is he gonna say something? What’s he thinking? Have I fucked everything up?

“Thanks.” He proceeds to wipe his face.

Thanks?

“Yeah, no problem-o,” I say.

No problem-o? What’s wrong with me?

It’s awkward after that. At least that’s what the pounding in my ears and the way I don’t know where to put my hands says. Dash is too quiet. My mind sifts through a card deck of ideas I could use to make this right.

What if I call everyone sweetheart from now on? I like nicknames. Maybe it’s a new one. Yeah. Totally fits my brand. I’m convinced of my delusions while I’m deep into dinner-prepping mode. Jack walks in the door with Casey. Perfect. Jack’s the best of anyone for testing out my fresh new nickname. They’ve got Dirk with them too, which is new. His older brother Hunter likes him home for dinner.

It takes me a while to work it into conversation so that it’s natural. We’re set up around the TV, lounging on the couches, using our laps as tables. Dash is on my left, Jack’s to my right and closer to the ketchup.

“You mind passing me the ketchup, sweetheart?” I ask Jack.

Jack—good ol’ Jack—doesn’t think a thing about it. “Sure, bud,” he says.

If Dirk notices, he doesn’t say. He’s in the middle of a deep text conversation by the looks of it. He’s frowning, which means he’s probably talking to his brother. But, whatever. Perfect. I seem to have gotten away with it.

That’s what I think until my gaze falls on my brother. He’s not looking at me, he’s looking past me. At Dash. I whip my head in his direction. Dash is all beaming smiles and bright eyes.

Huh. What’s Casey’s problem?

Later, once everyone’s gone home, Casey accosts me in the kitchen. “I know what you were doing, Chandler Bing.”

“Chandler … what?”

“The season where Monica and Chandler were secretly dating. The one where Chandler almost gives them away. Ring any bells?”

He and Jack are obsessed with Friends. I guess I’ve watched it a lot with them. I might know what he’s referring to. In an episode, Chandler accidentally kisses Monica in front of Pheobe and Rachel. To cover it up Chandler … oh god. To cover it up, Chandler kisses Pheobe and Rachel as if he always kisses his friends on the lips as a goodbye.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say. “I didn’t plan it.”

“Uh-huh.” He’s smirking. “You’ve got a thing for Dash.”

“Shhhh, not so fucking loud.”

“Don’t think Dash can hear me from his house. You’re good.”

Then why does it feel like the whole world just heard him? “Don’t say a word. Please. Not even to Jack,” I add because Jack’s my brother’s exception to every rule.

“But why can’t you?—”

“Not up for discussion, Case.”

“Whoa, touchy. Fine, ” he adds after I’ve glared stone at him long enough. “I won’t say anything—for now—but you should?—”

“You won’t say anything ever.” Fuck. This is so bad. My brother can’t help himself. It’s always with the best of intentions. It could still ruin my life.

“Okay.” He laughs. “Sweetheart, bro? Oh, you’re so cooked. You should know something, though.”

“What?”

“It broke his heart when you called Jack sweetheart.”

“I—” Did it? “He looked happy to me.”

“He recovered pretty quickly, but I caught it. That’s what got my wheels spinning. When you’re ready to get your head out of your ass, come talk to me. Night, bro.”

He pats me on the shoulder. I scowl.

And he’s got to be exaggerating. Casey exaggerates all the time. I’ll just use sweetheart more often with Dash, yeah. I’ll keep mixing it in, but Dash’ll get the most ice time with that name. After a few weeks, it’ll be the norm.

I get that feeling again. The intense one. But this time it’s like I’ve played a full hockey game with six overtime periods.

Maybe being away from Dash is for the best. Training camp can’t get here soon enough.

Stacey’s First Season With the Wildcats

W ith the phone to my ear, I bend down to snag the package of watermelon Jolly Ranchers, hiding at the bottom of the pile. These will make Casey’s day.

“Stace, Stace? Are you listening to me?”

“Always, sweetheart. You said that you love your dad, but he’s driving you up the wall.”

“Huh, guess you are paying attention.”

I always pay attention when it’s Dash. Always, fucking always.

“I convinced him to let me stay with Dirk and Hunter for a few days. You’re comin’ home soon, right? Will you talk to him?”

We’re nearing the end of a whole hockey season. My, Casey, and Jack’s first with the Kelowna Wildcats, the farm team for the Vancouver Orcas. That’s nine long months away with only a quick trip home for Christmas break. We’ve reached April. Dash knows I’m not coming home for another month at least.

Wait, did he say Hunter? My hackles rise. Fucking, ruggedly handsome, always around, Dash’s first crush, Hunter. Ask me how sick I am of hearing Hunter this and Hunter that, and I’ve heard a lot about Hunter while I’ve been away. I wish he wouldn’t stay with Dirk and Hunter, but I can’t ask him to suffer at his dad’s since Hunter and Dirk’s is the only place Travis feels comfortable allowing him to stay. Things were cramped a long time ago, but Travis couldn’t afford the price of a two-bedroom condo in Vancouver plus the payments on the restaurant, and he’s firmly against Dash moving out on his own yet.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Thanks. Fuck. I gotta go, but there’s something I wanted to talk to you about later. It’s … about Robin. Will you be free?”

A guy from the team wanted to take me out on a date, which is weird to begin with. I don’t want to date anyone from the team. But I said yes anyway. Why? Because if I don’t get my mind off Dash somehow, I’ll get the idea that I can date Dash, and I can’t.

That would be wrong on so many levels of wrong.

I’m his emotional support human. A mentor. Unofficial counselor. His dad—my boss—trusts me to treat him with respect, not get into his pants. I’m in a position of power, and he looks up to me, which means he’s off-limits.

Forever.

I’d never manipulate him, but it’s an automatic manipulation by virtue of our current relationship.

I have to get over my inconvenient crush, so I said yes to the guy from the team. But if Dash needs me, fuck that guy.

“Yep, no problem. I’m free,” I tell Dash. I’m sure that guy will take a raincheck. And if not? Don’t really give a fuck. I just wish I hadn’t told Casey about my date—he’s so gonna give me flak for this.

Off-Season One - End of June

M y hand’s pressed against the wall, feeling for her heartbeat. Honey and cherry blossoms fill my inhales and exhales. I open my eyes, half-expecting her to be there.

She’s not.

“What are you doing, Stace?” Casey asks. His gaze rakes over me from where I’m standing in the doorway to Mom’s room. He gives a mild glance at the room before crossing his arms. Is he doing that twin thing again, the one where he reads my mind? Or am I just that easy to read?

“Thinking. Bill and Ted will be gone by the end of the month, we need new roommates.”

“Roommates? Plural?”

“Isn’t that what we had?”

“They were a couple. A stoner couple who only required one room. Whose most precious belongings were their PlayStation and collection of glass smoke pipes.”

“It’s Vancouver. Those kinds of couples come a dime a dozen.”

“Maybe, but it’s not what you’re thinking.”

He’s right.

“What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking that you’ll be the answer to a certain pretty brown-eyed man’s problems by inviting him to live here because you know his dad trusts you. You also know that where Dash goes, Dirk goes, and Dirk will need a room and you’re thinking of giving him this room because there’s no way Dash isn’t sleeping in the room next to yours.”

I really wish he didn’t know about my inconvenient crush on Dash, but it’s hard to hide shit from your twin. I’ve opened up to him about Dash little by little over the season. I didn’t share Dash’s personal stuff, of course, just from my end. How I feel. Why I’m in a gridlock with those feelings.

“I should have moved Mom’s stuff out a long time ago anyway,” I argue, unwilling to tell him that he’s hit the nail on the head.

Casey laughs. “You have it bad, Stace. So, fucking bad.”

“Even if I did have any feelings?—”

“Not feelings, dude, fucking soul-shattering love?—”

I love my brother, but I’m not above strangling him. The fact that he’s stopped talking means he sees it in my eyes.

“Well, c’mon. Mom’s room? And not even for him, but the bestie that’s more like his own personal bodyguard because you’ll know Dash will ask because Dash knows Dirk will ask.”

Storming past him, I lay on Mom’s bed. I haven’t dared touch this bed since I originally washed and replaced the sheets. I’m sure it’s ripe with dust mites by now, but I don’t care. It has her smell, and I’m losing my mind because, yeah, I’m going to get rid of Mom for him.

Casey joins me, laying his head on my stomach, looking up at the ceiling, letting his thick body hang off the bed. “I miss her,” he says.

“Me too.”

“Mom wouldn’t want this, her memory stuck in this tomb. She’d want you to move in your super-secret forbidden crush.”

“I’m gonna punch you so damn hard.”

He laughs.

But as much as I will punch him if he goes on about it, I know what he’s doing. It’s the same thing Mom would have done. They were very into humor as a coping mechanism for all things. They were always working in sync to get me to loosen up. How could I, though? They were free spirits, someone needed to be responsible.

Plus, he’s right. Mom would have wanted me to move my super-secret forbidden crush in. She would have called it that too.

“For the record, I’m one hundred percent in support of the idea. For you and for Dash. Trav and Dash’s relationship will drastically improve when he moves out. But you’ll always be my number one priority, and I have to ask, will you survive it?”

Will I survive it? Having Dash in my living space?

“I don’t know.”

“Hey, remember that time you had a date, but you cancelled it because Dash needed you?”

“Yeah, I remember, jerkface.”

“Tell me Dash is gonna be okay with you dating.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Ooooh, boy. Do I really have to spell it out for you? You don’t think it’s at all suspicious that he needed you right before you were about to go on a date?”

“No, I don’t. He didn’t even know about that date … unless you told him.”

He smirks. I punch him in the arm. Hard. “Ow! I’m telling Mom.”

It’s stuff like him saying that, preventing me from giving him a real pummeling. It makes me smile inside. It makes it like Mom’s still here.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Because of something Dirk said. Dash was missing you.”

“That’s not new. We were missing each other. You know what we were like before we left for training camp.”

“Which is just another point you shouldn’t get me started on, but anyway, Dirk told me that he’s lived in that old T-shirt you loaned him. He said he had to pin him down and rip it off him so he could wash it. Dash wouldn’t talk to him for a week after that because it didn’t smell like you anymore.”

More like stole with permission. Casey spilled queso on him. I got him one of my shirts. He ended up leaving it on, and I never saw that shirt again. I also didn’t ask after it with the hope that he was maybe wearing it as pajamas or something. I liked the thought of Dash wearing my clothes.

“I can give him new shirts.”

“Are you being purposefully obtuse? Anyway, I wanted to test a theory.”

I see where he’s going, and I want to be happy about it, but my inappropriate crush is bad enough. There can’t be two of us.

“What will you do when he’s ready to start dating again?” he needles, knowing which buttons to press just like he did with Dash.

My veins light with molten fire. I’m not a jealous guy, never even been a super possessive sort of guy, but everything’s different with Dash.

“Dash isn’t ready to date anyone,” I say, but what I almost said was, Dash isn’t dating anyone.

“Not now, but he will someday.”

“I’ll figure it out,” I say through grit teeth.

Casey shrugs. “Okay, then. I trust you, bro.”

Exactly, I can be trusted. I’ll never betray the trust Dash and Travis have put in me.

T ravis approaches me before I get to him. The restaurant’s empty, and I’m cleaning up the bar, clearing away the final glasses of the night, and running them through the under-counter dishwasher. The man’s decked in red and black flannel, curling a lock of his chin-length hair behind his ear. Well, well, well, those blond highlights through his brown hair suggest he has gotten outside this summer. It’s hard to picture Travis outside this place. He scratches the thin patch of hair growing around his jaw.

“Heard you had an opening in your house.”

Fucking Casey. It had to have been Casey. “We do.”

He slides his forearms onto the bar top, leaning over without sitting down.

“I hate to ask for your help again, but you’re the only one I trust with my son. I mean, Dirk too, but in a different way. Whatever it is you do for him works. I don’t think I’ve seen him this happy, ever. Including before all the extra-shitty stuff.”

Dash’s life wasn’t a bed of roses, even before the stuff with Robin—a time I’m still learning about in bits and pieces during our bar chats and phone calls. We’ve labeled that time the shitty time and the time with Robin extra-shitty.

I hold back the tidbit of information that I was gonna offer anyway. I wish I could say that I didn’t know why I was doing it, but I do. Casey caught onto me in about five seconds, and while Travis doesn’t know me like Casey does, we spend enough time together that he’d figure me out if I said too much. Letting him think I’m doing him a favor isn’t the worst thing I could do, is it?

Maybe it is, but I have to do it. I don’t want Travis thinking I’m gonna betray him. I know I won’t, but if there’s even an inkling of doubt, Travis might not let this happen, and Dash needs a place to stretch his legs. I’m committed to doing right by Dash over and above anything else.

Even if it fucking kills me.

“The rent will be a good price,” I tell him. “Only a fourth if Dirk moves in, too.”

“I can manage the rent,” he assures me, though he doesn’t need to. “The restaurant has been thriving so much that I could probably, finally, afford a larger place for us, but …”

I raise a brow.

“I need you to keep this between us, yeah?” he says.

I nod.

“I’m worried about how he’ll do during the hockey season.”

Dirk and Dash were drafted into the AHL. They’re gonna play for the Kelowna Wildcats with us this season. Thank fucking god for that because if I had to go without Dash for another season, I was honestly contemplating quitting hockey.

But point is, Travis won’t be with us. He won’t be able to watch over his little lion cub.

“Is this … a trial run?”

“Something like that. He’ll be with you and Dirk during the season anyway but, fuck. I always said I would never be this parent but looks like I am. I need to see Dash living on his own. As angry as he gets at me, I give him the certainty he needs, and he knows it.”

That’s true. Dash hates that he needs his dad so much, but he does.

“He was my little shadow while you were gone just like before you came into the picture. Don’t think he knew what he was doin’ or why, but he never strayed too far from me.”

“He knows you’ll keep the bad guys away.”

Travis’s chest lifts. He’s got a lot of guilt over not having kept the “bad guys” away from Dash in the first place, so he overcorrects to make up for it.

“I wanna see that he’ll be okay. Him living with you is best case scenario.”

I’m best-case scenario to Trav? Wow. That’s a fucking honor I don’t take lightly. Now it’s my chest lifting.

“So? What do you say? Will you let him live with you, and take care of him like I would?”

“Of course.” My muscles tighten and little knots tie up my stomach. I didn’t mean for it to go here, to a place where I feel more like I’m making a sacred vow instead of doing a small favor. Fuck. But in hindsight, how could I not have seen this coming? I’m royally screwed. The only way out of this is to double down on my already strict “I will not fall for Dash” rules. If Travis thinks I’ve manipulated him so that I could lure his son into my clutches, he might actually kill me. Hell, I’d present myself for execution.

“Thank you, Stacey. I know I’m asking a lot. I won’t forget it.”

The door to the kitchen busts open loudly. Travis bolts upright, and I snap to my full height, which is six feet and almost three inches if anyone’s counting.

Dirk appears like a wraith from the kitchen, glaring at us. Who pissed in that guy’s Cornflakes? Seriously. “Trav, you comin’ or what? I’ve been waiting for you for thirty fucking minutes.”

Travis raises a “did you really just cuss me out” eyebrow. At least Dirk ducks his head. “I’ll deal with him,” Travis says. “Thanks, kid. I appreciate you doin’ this for me.”

I shake my head as they leave. Dirk’s way too … something with Travis. Comfortable, maybe? I hope Travis rips a strip off him for talking like that.

Fuck. I’m no better, though. I speak respectfully when I speak to Travis, but it doesn’t change what I’ve done. Someday, I’ll go to hell for it.