4. Branton
“Laura!”
I’m on the lake.
“Laura!”
It’s always the lake.
I know I shouldn’t be out here but I’m chasing Laura. She’s just up ahead and I know it’s not safe.
“Laura!”
Neither of us should be here. It’s thin ice I’m skating on and it won’t hold my weight for long but every time I reach out, my fingertips barely brush Laura’s clothes before she pulls away again.
“Laura!”
It’s always the same. No matter how fast I skate, how hard I push, it’s never enough.
“Laura!” My shout comes out more of a whisper. The sound raw and raspy. My voice hoarse from calling her name over and over.
It’s always like this too, she never stops, is always just out of reach.
I need to push harder, get closer but my thighs ache, my muscles screaming from exertion.
My right leg gives under me, my foot breaking through…
Crashing through the ice into the cold water shocks the shit out of me and yanks me from the nightmare, except the water dripping off my head and running down my back is all too real and not a figment of my subconscious mind.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I swipe a hand over my face and blink at the woman standing in front of me. “Who the hell are you?”
“Your savior or your worst nightmare.”
“Huh?” Am I still asleep? Still dreaming? Drops of water fly around as I shake my head in an effort to clear my confusion—or wake my damn ass up! “What?” The word comes out a croak, pain lashing my ravaged throat.
“Your savior or your worst nightmare. You choose.”
I don’t have time to make sense of her words before Walker Alcott, the captain of my hockey team—no, no longer mine—stands beside her.
“Bran.”
“Cap? What the hell?” I have to be asleep. There’s no way he’s here. In Gannon’s house…
“When did you eat last?” Walker asks, his hand stretched out toward me.
“Eh… Dunno.” My mind still in a fog from the nightmare, I reach out, grip his hand for a quick shake. He feels real enough, but then all my nightmares are life-like. “What time is it?” I ask, my voice still a rough grumble.
“Almost midday.”
My gaze swings back to the woman who’s still a mystery. “What day?”
She sucks in a breath, and I can tell she’s not happy about the way this conversation is going. Or maybe it’s the subject. My obvious confusion.
Good for her. I don’t want to be having this conversation either. Or have either of them here in my living nightmare, my personal banishment.
With a clenched jaw she grinds out, “Thursday.”
“Huh.” I glance around the room, my eyes landing on the coffee table, the upright bottle in the middle of it. “Not even a bottle,” I mutter.
So much for wiping my mind clean and missing today all together.
“How are you doing, Bran?” Walker asks, concern lacing his words, and I look up to find him staring at the bottle of scotch with its inch of amber liquid in the bottom.
I have to laugh. They think I’m a drunk. Fair, considering. Still…
“You think I’m drunk all the time?” I shake my head as I pull my shirt off and slap my abs. “Do these look like I live on alcohol?”
Walker smiles at me and for some reason I want to punch it right off his face even though he appears pleased by my declaration.
“Wanna put those to good use?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow and shove down the anger boiling to the surface. “Doing?”
“Playing.”
“Ha! Like any team is going to want me after what I did.” I hate what I did. Would take it back—all of it—if I could.
“The Rogues want you.” The woman’s words are like a whip, snapping at me and yanking my attention back to her. “We need someone with your skills and experience to guide us to the finals.”
“Who the hell are the Rogues?” This conversation is getting more confusing by the second.
Fuck. I must still be asleep. Maybe the scotch I drank in the hope of wiping my memory—of avoiding today—is giving me weird dreams. Hallucinations. Nightmares.
No, the nightmares are of my own making.
“The new national league franchise.” Walker claps me on the shoulder. “I want you on my team.”
“You’re playing for them? When did you leave New York?” I don’t keep up with the world outside of my self-imposed exile and I don’t know what shocks me more, Walker leaving the Knights—where he’s been his entire NHL career—for another team or him standing in my living room.
“When Blanchett slammed me into the boards and left me unable to play at a professional level.”
“Wait. You’re not playing? Then how the hell would I be on your team?”
“I’m coaching. Head coach.”
Head coach? Holy shit! Walker Alcott is coaching an NHL team? From what he says, a brand spanking new team who wants me…
I look at the woman beside my old captain. “And who the hell are you? The general manager?”
“No. That’s Natalie Redding. I’m the team owner and this”—she waves a hand behind me—“is our assistant coach, Blake Watts.”
I spin so fast I stumble, air rushing from my lungs as my heart jerks in my chest, slams against my ribcage. “Blake.” Her name is an agonized groan as it leaves my throat.
My gaze locks with hers and I lose myself in her quicksilver eyes, every emotion, every thought, every memory comes rushing, an avalanche of sensation I struggle to hold in.
“I…” My body moves a step without thought. “Blake.” Her name is a plea on my tongue, the weight of all that I’m feeling coating each letter. Weighing them down with regret—with longing.
“Bran.”
Her voice…
My name…
The sight of her…
It’s too much.
All of it.
Everything from the last few years bursts through my muscles and sends me across the room. I have her in my arms. My face pressed against the cool skin of her neck. And for the first time in years, my anguish and sorrow flow out of me.
I have no control, no hope of stopping the flood of emotion pouring out as I pull her harder against me. Hold her tighter than I should.
She’s murmuring in my ear, I can’t make out a single word, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the comfort of her arms and the sound of her voice, the heat of her body and the scent of her skin.
I have no idea how long I stand there sobbing into her neck, no idea why the sight of her broke through the barriers I’ve held in place for so long. Too long.
After months and months and months of feeling alone, of feeling raw and wild, the chaos that my life has been settles.
It settles in a way I don’t understand. In a way I know can only be a brief reprieve. But I’ll take it.
I’ll take this moment and breathe it in, take the comfort and care I’ve been holding at arm’s length since the day my life changed, since the moment my whole world fell apart.
I don’t know how she does it, but I find myself in my bedroom, being lowered to my bed. The sheets are still rumpled from where I crawled out of them late last night—the early hours of this morning—in search of the oblivion sleep can’t bring me.
“I’ll be right back.”
Her words have me reaching out, my hands grasping, grabbing her shirt and gripping tight. “Don’t go.” I can hear the desperation in my voice, but it guts me to think of her leaving.
She can’t leave me too.
“I’m not leaving, Bran. I just need to tell Oakley and Walker I’m staying with you so they can go.”
I nod my head as her hand sweeps over my hair, urges me down on the pillow. “Okay.”
“Lie back down. Close your eyes, go to sleep. Just rest if you can’t. I’ll be here when you get up, Bran.”
I don’t know if it’s her touch or her words—the conviction in them—that has me closing my eyes and slipping into that drowsy space between consciousness and sleep.
I listen to her breathe, feel the heat of her next to me.
She’s here. Finally here after all this time and everyone else I love is gone.
The last thing I register is the scent of her in my nose and the warmth of her hand against my skin.