The Last Buzzer (SCU Hockey #5)

Prologue

Six Months Ago

Desmond

I take one look out the window and decide to go surfing.

It’s the sort of incredible day where both the weather and the sets are perfect.

Deciding to chuck a sickie, I exchange my work clothes for boardies and hit the water.

Four hours later, I come back in for a break to find seven missed calls and a string of unanswered texts waiting for me.

One is from my mum, which means either the world is ending or she is completing her yearly duty of checking to see whether I am still confused about myself.

Setting my board down, I lick the salt from my lips and run a towel over my face.

She answers on the first ring when I call her back.

“Still gay, Mum,” I tell her immediately, trying to bite back the familiar mix of shame and longing that clouds me whenever I talk to my parents. I dislike them, but I also still love them, and I can never decide which half is stronger .

“Desmond, we’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Do you not carry your phone at work?”

Her tone is the same one that she always employs when she speaks to me—annoyance tinged with a little bit of disgust, like she can’t believe a son like me came from her. Most days, I can’t believe it either.

“Did you need something, Mum? I’m busy.” I’m really not. But I’d sit and count the bloody stars in the sky if it meant I was too busy to take this call.

“There’s been an accident. Your sister.”

I pause. An accident? “She’s right, yeah?”

“No, she’s not right ,” she snaps, annoyed that I’m using Australian slang.

Growing up, I’d laid it on pretty thick to annoy her, and now the words roll off my tongue so easily, I probably couldn’t change even if I cared to.

“Desmond, there was an accident involving a drunk driver and both your sister and Paul were killed on impact.”

“What?” I ask. Oddly, my first instinct is to laugh. She’s taking the piss. I can’t imagine anything less likely to happen today than my sister dying. She’s thirty-two years old. Thirty-two-year-olds don’t just die. “Mum, I think you’ve got the wrong end?—”

“I have booked you a flight to the States,” she says briskly. “Two days from now. You need to come home.”

“Two days ?” I press a hand over my eyes, trying to block out the sun and focus. My fingers tingle and the familiar urge to throw up tightens my throat. “Listen, can you… I need to talk to Vic.”

“You can’t talk to Victoria. Victoria died last night.”

Swallowing down the burn of phantom vomit, I breathe through the desire until my stomach stops clenching in anticipation. It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to do that .

“Vic is dead,” I repeat softly, lowering myself to the sand. This really can’t be right. My thoughts whirl around like they’re caught in a blender. I can’t focus.

“Two days,” Mum repeats firmly. “You should already be on a flight, but since you insist on living halfway across the world?—”

“Paul too?” I ask, suddenly feeling sick for a whole other reason. “Oh my god. Was Parker in the car?”

Anxiety buzzes in my chest like a swarm of bees as I wait for an answer.

Parker. Nine years old now, and the last picture I saw of him showed a spitting image of my sister.

I put my head between my legs, wishing for a paper bag.

Victoria is dead, and I’m about to break my perfect track record of not throwing up.

“No. Parker is fine,” she replies, voice cracking slightly. It’s the first sign of emotion she’s shown. “He was at a friend’s house. However, there is?—”

I pull the phone away from my ear when it chimes with a notification of another incoming call, missing the rest of her sentence. South Carolina area code, but an unknown number. Victoria lives in South Carolina. Lived, I mentally correct, and sway with a sudden rush of vertigo.

“Mum, hold on a second.” Without waiting for a reply, I put her on hold and answer the call. “Hello?”

“Mr. Desmond Gates?” A crisp, firm voice answers.

“Speaking.”

“You’re a hard man to get hold of,” he says sternly.

“My name is William Jost, calling from Jost Family Law. First, I would like to offer my condolences in regard to Victoria and Paul Lewis. I wish we did not need to have this conversation, but I do need to speak with you urgently concerning their last will and testament. Are you available today? ”

“I can talk,” I reply weakly. My head feels like a helium balloon and my hands have started shaking. I wonder vaguely if I’m dying, and then choke on a sob. Victoria is dead.

“What time works best for you? I will clear my calendar.”

“Oh, you mean…in person? I’m in Australia.

I live in Australia,” I repeat. On the other end of the line, William Jost is silent.

It’s the loaded variety of silence my parents are fond of employing.

I nearly laugh, but manage to swallow it down.

Bloody hell, what is the matter with me?

“Maybe this could wait for a bit, mate. I don’t…

I don’t need money or anything, and I just found out about the accident.

Time difference, and all. I don’t care about the will. ”

“Mr. Gates,” he says sharply. “I apologize. I was given the impression that you were already stateside. Unfortunately, this cannot wait. When children are involved, we do make it a priority to place them in the custody of?—”

“Parker?” I try going through my breathing exercises again, desperately reaching for control. I’m too panicked and none of this conversation is making sense. I want to scream at him to shut up, and just give me a damn minute.

“Mr. Gates,” he repeats, voice suddenly soft and careful as though he’s speaking to a frightened animal. “You are aware of the contents of your sister and brother-in-law’s last will and testament, correct?”

“No. Of course not.” Why the hell would I know what was in their will? Ambient noise travels down the line, as though he’s moving things around or, more likely, trying to find a hard object to bash his head against. “Sorry,” I apologize, feeling as though I’ve somehow let him down.

He sighs. “Mr. Gates, I am sorry to be having this conversation over the phone. I was unaware that you had not been notified of the contents of the will. You were named as the sole guardian of Parker Lewis, as well as the recipient of their estate, under the stipulation that it be used to care for the child.”

“Guardian,” I repeat, barely able to get the word out, tongue suddenly feeling thick and useless. Guardian? I can hardly remember the meaning of the word.

“Victoria and Paul Lewis designated sole custody of their son to you.”

Darkness nips at the corner of my vision, and I sway.

Good thing I’m sitting down , I think distantly, recognizing that I am unlikely to make it through this conversation without fainting.

The lawyer is still talking—his voice nothing more than a steady thrum joining the heartbeat pounding through my eardrums. Does it even matter what he’s saying?

The only thing that matters has already been said.

Parker is mine.

William Jost’s practice looks like a cigar and whiskey lounge. The leather chair I’m sitting in squeaks every time I move, and I feel disproportionately embarrassed about it. The harder I try to sit still, the stronger the urge to move. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

“Desmond, stop fidgeting,” Mum snaps, frown lines carving deep rivets in her face.

It’s strange, seeing her so old. Ten years have passed since the last time I saw my parents in person, and my imagination failed at filling in the blanks.

The woman sitting next to me is not one I recognize.

Dad, hovering awkwardly in the corner, looks older as well.

Twice as old as Mum, if I’m being honest. Victoria would say that living with her is killing him twice as fast. I nearly laugh, but swallow it down with a strangled noise that earns me another pointed look from Mum.

Children are meant to be seen and not heard, even the adult ones.

“Ma’am,” William Jost says carefully, the same way he’s started every sentence directed toward her in the last five minutes.

She’s starting to wear on his patience. “This is a legal document, not an errant thought penned on a scrap of paper. Your daughter and her husband named a sole guardian, and that guardian is your son. Not you. Not Mr. Lewis’ sister. Desmond Gates.”

Mum makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like something a cougar might produce.

I close my eyes. I have never been so exhausted as I am right now, sitting in this fucking office in South Carolina, jet-lagged and numb.

Perhaps I’m the one who’s dead, and this is a special purgatory just for me.

“This is ridiculous,” Mum hisses. “He is unfit to take care of a child! I don’t know what Victoria was thinking.”

Opening my eyes, I meet the gaze of Mr. Jost. I see pity before he slides his eyes back over to my mother.

“As I’ve explained, a court will review and determine the best interest of the child.”

“And until then? My grandson is meant to live with?—”

“Desmond Gates, as granted by your daughter,” he cuts her off firmly.

“I cannot believe this. I really cannot,” Mum says, rising to standing and pressing her fingers into her eyes. I shift, and the chair squeaks. “He doesn’t live here. Do you people not understand? This is…this is ridiculous .”

“I’ll move.” Both sets of eyes snap to me. It’s the first I’ve spoken in fifteen minutes. I clear my throat. “I’ll move here. ”

“And where do you think you’ll live, Desmond? Can you afford the mortgage on their house?” Mum says, rounding on me. “And what about work? What sort of job do you expect to find at such short notice? McDonald’s?”