Chapter 10
lucas
The hollow thunk of our feet hitting the rubber stairs mixed with our heavy breathing fills the otherwise silent gym. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this,” Sammy whines from my left as we climb the stairmaster in full hockey gear.
There are a few reasons. First and foremost, it’s good cardio.
The second is that Hannah wants to hang a bunch of ridiculous pictures on the glass for the Wilder Foundation Family night that’s happening in the next few months.
And if I told him that, he would have come in here all GQ.
I mean, the guy once came to a team building sleepover wearing silk pajamas.
Who even owns those? Regardless, that’s the opposite of what Hannah wants.
So at some point, Abby’s going to sneak in here and catch this on camera.
But instead of telling him any of that, I go with my default response, jokes.
“Because I want the next woman who grabs my ass to tell me it’s round and firm like a bowling ball. ”
He scoffs. “Like you’d let anyone but Scarlett grab your ass.” I freeze, tripping up a stair before steadying myself on the side rails. He does a double take, clocking my shocked face. “What?” He shrugs. “All I’m saying is, if anyone’s got rights to your goods, it’d be her. Tell me I’m wrong.”
My pulse becomes a bit erratic, and not from the effort it takes to climb the stairs. “How do you–” I start, stopping when I realize I don’t actually have ground to stand on. He’s not wrong in the slightest.
His lip ring sparkles in the light, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smirk of epic proportions. “Dude, relax. You two have crazy energy. We’d have to be blind not to see it.” I force a laugh that comes out more like a cough.
For the past few years, I’ve been talking about the one who got away every time one of my teammates would bring up dating.
But I never told them her name, just that it was her or no one.
He spent ten minutes with her, if that’s what you call him getting manhandled in the hottest display of power I’ve ever seen.
Followed by her trying to be a wallflower at book club, and now he’s confirming the tension isn’t all in my head.
It’s been hard enough trying to pump the brakes after she decided to come to book club. I was hopeful as I watched her sit in a room with all the people that matter most, but that died when she took off like a bat out of hell.
I’ve never been able to hide how drawn to her I am, and maybe now it’s more her memory than anything.
I’m working on putting some distance between the two of us, not setting myself up to be let down.
Healthy boundaries, Dr. Williams calls them.
I call it torture, but I digress. After everything, Abby sat me down and, for lack of better words, gave me the big sister speech about how she’d flay Lettie alive if she hurts me, blah blah blah.
Before I can spiral any further, he goes back to his original question. “But, really. Why are we wearing helmets?” He shakes his head, sending sweat flying onto the floor. “I mean, come on, man. Anyone who walks in here is going to think we need a grippy socks vacation.”
“We already think that!” Abby calls from her office. The little sneak, I didn’t even see her come in. Samuels’ arms go flying out to his sides as he glares in my direction. “Smile!” she yells as she holds up her phone.
“Knight!” he shouts, causing her head to fall forward, hair creating a curtain around her face, but it doesn’t hide the sound that escapes her. It’s one of those laughs that starts as a soft, breathless sound, then builds until it’s a full-blown cackle. Loud, bright, and impossible to contain.
“It’s for family night.” I chuckle at my teammates' outrage. “I knew if I told you we were taking pictures, you’d make yourself all Rico Suave, and that’s the opposite of what Hannah wants.”
His stunned silence is broken by the fall of his jaw, “First of all, Rico Suave?...” he says incredulously, “Second, you mean to tell me that picture?” He points toward Abby, who's leaning against the doorframe of her office, her smile firmly in place as she watches him unravel. “Is going to see the light of day?”
“Yep!” I say, putting extra emphasis on the P.
“MONROE!” he hisses. “Do you know what this will do to my street cred?” He folds his arms over the top of the stairmaster, then lets his head bang against them a few times before looking up at me again. “The ladies are going to think I’m an idiot. I’ve spent years perfecting the bad boy image.”
The guy is not a bad boy in the slightest. He may look like it, but deep down, he’s a marshmallow who just wants someone to stick around long enough to see past the facade he’s got going on. “Sammy, you eat salad as an entree, you aren’t a bad boy.”
He slams his hand against the stop button before turning to look at me.
“That was one time.” His hand flies through the air as he holds up his pointer finger.
“One freaking time, two years ago, and you assholes still won’t let it go.
” He’s right, but we don’t let it go because it pulls this very reaction out of him every single time.
My eyes drift to Abby, who is doing nothing to hide her amusement.
She’s my completely platonic twin flame, the peanut butter to my jelly, the other half of my prankster brain.
Her head shakes as her fingers fly across her phone.
“Too late, Sammy.” She holds up her phone and shakes it. “It’s in Mrs. Wilder’s hands, now.”
He jumps off the back of the stairmaster, huffing as he stomps to the locker room like an oversized baby. “You two suck,” he calls over his shoulder before pushing through the double doors. I take my helmet off, stopping the torture device and stepping off myself before heading to Abby’s office.
I grab a towel from the neatly rolled and perfectly pieced together pyramid stack on the counter, right next to all the meticulously laid out, color-coded resistance bands that I spend way too much time rearranging just to get under her skin.
With the towel draped over the back of my neck, I turn and hop up onto the table with the grace of an elephant in a mud bath.
How these tables haven’t broken under our weight and lack of coordination off the ice, I will never know. A mystery of the greatest kind.
“How are you doing?” Abby asks as she sits on the edge of her desk, hands framing her hips as she crosses one ankle over the other.
I lean back against the wall, letting my head tilt back so I’m looking at the ceiling and not her. The ceiling tiles in here have all been painted by the Wilder Foundation kids. My eyes trace the designs, pulling a smile from me despite how exhausted I am.
“I’m tired.” I finally say, “I went to see mom yesterday, same as usual. I know she doesn't care, so why do I?”
My voice sounds small here, like I’m a kid again. But Abby’s one of the few people who sees this side of me and chooses to love me anyway. My shoulders sink deeper into the wall behind me as I let the tension seep from me, knowing I’m safe to be a little more real here.
She lets out a contemplative hum. “You think she’d notice if you didn’t come for a bit?
” I don’t know what to think. In reality, I know she gets up and moves around when I’m not there.
She’s not a vegetable. Her hair is always either braided and thrown over her shoulder or in a bun on the top of her head.
My dad loved that bun. He always spun her around like one of those ballerinas in a jewelry box when she wore it like that.
He taught the master class in being a husband, and damn it, I want my chance to be what he should have been.
“I don’t know, Abs. The second I leave, it’s like I’m right back to being a kid sitting outside her room listening to her breathing just so I knew she was alive. ” Even when I didn’t want to be.
“And you’re still holding out for the one time she might say something?” she asks before she moves to stand in front of me, letting her hands rest on my shoulders.
I shake my head, tears gathering in my eyes as I look down at her. “No. Yes? I don’t know…”
She leans into my chest, giving me a hug that I so desperately need right now.
I’ve never been able to keep my feelings about my mom from her, probably because she’s one of the few people who doesn’t give me shit for crying as a man.
I’ve got big feelings and a sensitive heart, one that carries a lot in silence because it doesn’t have anyone to share the burden with.
“You can’t make her acknowledge you. You know that, you’ve tried everything. But maybe don’t go as often if it’s hurting you to be there.”
I nod against her shoulder.
“You have a life to live, and her unwillingness to live hers shouldn’t disrupt yours any more than it already has. You’re too good to be anything but who you were made to be. You’re the heart of not only this team, but our friend group. We need you to be okay, Monroe. Physically and mentally.”
I hear what she’s saying, but that’s my mom. The only living family member I have, how can I just abandon her? Because she abandoned me a long time ago.
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I’ll wait until next week, go decorate her house for Halloween or something,” I say as I straighten myself up, swiping under my eyes before I look back at her. I already know that look. She’s got something up her sleeve.
“Speaking of… I had an idea for the foundation kids,” she says, rubbing her hands together in front of her, a big, genuine smile stretching across her face. She details what she has in mind, and the wheels in my head start turning. Ahh, yes, this I can get behind.