TWENTY
Lincoln
Present
The cabin was fucking cool.
There were levels of space for us to all sprawl out around, a large kitchen, a huge living room with a fireplace already roaring even though it was unnecessary in this weather, and a game room for everyone to chill in.
It was a weekend my sister planned for all of her friends and Tanner’s, mainly the bridal party with a few extras thrown in there.
I was ecstatic for this weekend. A whole weekend with Cassie where I could finally show her that we could still be together and everything would work out.
I wasn’t kidding when I told her that she was the only woman I wanted. I hadn’t been with anyone else in over a year, a long time before Cassie and I even became friends.
I’d driven separately from everyone else, needing to get some stuff done before I could escape for the weekend, so everyone was already here when I got settled into my room.
I hear laughter down the hall, and my feet follow it, expecting to see a couple people in the room next to mine. I frown when I peer in, and no one is to be seen.
Taking a step inside, I finally see someone lounging on the bed, feet kicked up and a book in hand. My heart kicks at the sight of her.
“Good book?” I ask, my shoulder leaning against the wall, watching her with a smile on my face.
She starts, twisting to look at me, and I grin at the picture she’s painted for me.
Cassie sits up and shrugs. “It’s good. Different than I’m used to.”
“What? No blood and guts and murder to keep you entertained?” I ask, knowing that’s the kind of stuff that happens in her fantasy novels.
“Oh no, there is. But it’s funny too.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, closes the book, and scoots to the edge of the bed. “I should go back downstairs so Mickey doesn’t yell at me about not participating.”
I smirk and nod. “She probably would too.”
I follow her out the door, my eyes taking in every inch of her, and my hands squeeze into fists when I have the urge to reach out and grab her. I refrain from doing so, just barely.
We head into the kitchen just as everyone is gathered around; it’s still early in the day so they’re all making plans to head into town and go to a brewery. It’s not my favorite activity, but I’m sure I can manage enough to get through it.
We all head outside to see the sun shining brightly over the mountains, the smells and sounds here waking up my senses. The summer here was absolutely beautiful. Where we’re at is only a couple of hours from home, but in the winter, this place is a certified ski resort that has me itching to come back.
Too bad when I’m playing hockey, I can’t exactly ski.
I fall behind the group, looking everyone over. I don’t think this is everyone, but it’s a little surreal for me whenever Tanner Mitchum and Devon Halloway are in the same space as me. I’ve been watching them play hockey for years.
According to my sister, there were two other players from Tanner’s old team that were supposed to be here, and if I wasn’t so distracted with my love life, I’d probably be freaking out.
Somehow, Cassie ends up falling to the back of the group. Her hands are tucked into her hoodie, and she’s casually strolling next to me. My eyes are on her for a few seconds before I look ahead again, just as we round the corner and come onto the main strip of the little town we’re in.
It’s not just us here, and the sidewalks are littered with tourists, pushing Cassie and me together and apart as we weave through sidewalk traffic to reach our destination.
“How was your birthday?”
Cassie’s unexpected question throws me for a second before I find a reply.
“My birthday? It was okay.” I move around another person, trying to keep up with her and our group. “Why?”
She shakes her head. “No reason, really. It was your twenty-first. I’d hoped it was good.”
I let her words wash through me and sigh internally. How was my birthday? Well, I didn’t do anything. Crew and I got one drink, and that was my limit, so I went to my mom’s afterward for family dinner and then home to bed.
Getting drunk did not appeal to me at all. Not anymore.
“It was low key. Got a beer with Crew and went to my mom’s.”
She looks at me now, something like confusion passing over her features. “Really? You didn’t go out to celebrate?”
Who would I have gone with? I want to ask, but bite my tongue for now. I’m not starting off this weekend with a fight. “No, I definitely didn’t want that.”
“Why—”
“We’re here!” Mickey’s voice rings out, and we all file into the brewery. I hold the door for Cassie to go ahead of me, and she does, brushing her shoulder against my chest to get through the door.
Fuck. I clench my jaw. I’ll get us back to the point where I can freely touch her again. The thought of never holding her hand, of never lounging on her couch in front of the TV while she reads again, of never exploring her body and making her pant my name, of not fucking giving her a hug whenever I want, it kills me.
I follow behind her, giving nasty looks to anyone who even looks her way. She may not realize how gorgeous she was, but that didn’t mean that anyone else didn’t see her the way I did.
She’s oblivious to the looks I’m throwing at people.
Probably for the best.
We get to a table, and I realize that Mick and Tanner must have called ahead to reserve it since we’re a pretty big party.
Devon and his wife sit down on one end. Victoria and my cousin Josephine seem to be hitting it off and are chatting with Devon’s wife, Robin, I think. Mick sits next to Cassie, and I get the lucky spot of sitting across from Cassie, right next to my coach.
Joy.
He nudges me. “How goes your summer project?”
At least he didn’t yell the question, but I still hope no one latches onto him asking me about the work I have to retake.
Again.
“It’s coming along.” I glance at Cassie, who’s smiling at something Mick says. Mick hasn’t stopped talking about plans for the wedding, even though it’s still a good amount of time away.
“Good. I want to see you leading that team on the ice when the time comes, Ellis,” Tanner says, looking me over. “You up for it?”
I nod my head. “Yes, sir.” Part of me wants to say something sarcastic or something untrue to get him off my back, like that I was going to drop out and just go straight for the pros.
But I don’t, and thankfully, a waitress comes over to take our order interrupting any chance for me to stick my foot in my mouth.
When I order a Coke, no one questions me, but I can feel Cassie staring at me anyway, and I glance her way as the waitress makes her way down the table.
“No beer for you?” she asks, curiosity written all over her face.
I shrug and smile at her, trying to shake off my discomfort. “Nah. It’s a bit early for me to indulge.” Not like I was going to indulge at all this weekend anyway.
“Oh.” She nods, and her eyes are still trained on me, so I raise a brow, silently questioning what she wants to say. “It’s just not what I expected.”
“Oh? What did you expect?”
I know what she expected. We’d never gotten around to discussing our past when we had our brief time together before I blew it all to shit. But I was ready when she was. If she was opening this can right now, I would tell her the truth.
“When we met, you were pretty inclined to drinking,” she blurts and I’m half-thankful that my sister and her fiancé aren’t paying us any attention.
“That’s true.” I don’t hide it, and Cassie looks on in surprise that I don’t skirt around the subject.
“What happened that changed that?” she asks, looking genuinely intrigued.
“I fucked up something that I wish I hadn’t.”
Her small grin drops, and she pushes some hair behind her ear, glancing around at the table to see if anyone is looking. If anything, it looks like everyone is purposefully not looking at us. Do they know something?
I’m frowning at them when she speaks again.
“That changed things for you? Drinking wise?” The waitress comes back and sets our drinks down. Cassie eyes her beer like she doesn’t want to touch it.
“Go ahead.” I nod at it. “It’s fine, really.” I’m not the type who can’t drink at all or who won’t have one occasionally, and others drinking doesn’t bother me at all. But when people find out I refrain, they get weird.
She takes a sip of her beer, trusting my words, and I answer her question. “But yes. That next day, I woke up feeling like the worst failure on the planet. I told myself I would be and do better.” I shake my head, glancing down at the table again. “Not just for me, but for the people around me.”
Cassie licks her lips, her blue fingernails tapping on the side of her beer glass. “I had no idea you didn’t drink anymore.”
I shrug. “It’s not something I advertise.”
Again, she nods, and I brace myself for more questions. If Cassie needed to know more, I would tell her anything she wanted. This was the time to be completely transparent when it came to us.
She opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, Victoria yells her name from down the table, dragging her attention away.
The nighttime here was even better than the day because you could see every star in the sky. Back home, there were too many lights obstructing our view, but up here, you could see everything.
I sit on the balcony off my room and watch, relishing in the day we had. Since our beer date yesterday, Cassie has been busy with everyone else, and it’s been hard to get time alone with her. That was okay, because we were here to celebrate with my sister, not rekindle our relationship, but I couldn’t help but hope we’d get some time together.
I hear a knock on my door and sit up, turning to see her head pop around the door, peering in to look. She sees me through the open slider and smiles slightly before coming into the room and shutting the door behind her.
I hold myself to the chair, waiting to see what she’s going to do, and I smile when I see the book in her hand.
There’s another seat on this little balcony, and she comes and sits in it, keeping a smile on her face as she does so.
“How are you?” she asks, and I blink at the most basic question.
I chuckle before answering. “I’m all right. How are you?”
“Honestly?” She brings her brows together before looking at my bedroom door. “I’m overwhelmed.”
I nod, not surprised in the least that she feels that way. Tanner’s old teammates showed up this morning, and it’s been a full day of activities since they did. Some of us went tubing, and I was shocked when Cassie joined that activity, thinking she’d rather go hunker down and read somewhere.
Mick had told me discreetly that she was trying to get out of her comfort zone lately, pushing herself to do more things.
I was only slightly pissed when one of Tanner’s teammates, Isaac Gasper, right wing for the Bandits, got on a two-person tube and rode down with her, his intentions and attention growing more and more clear with every hour that passed.
Cassie had been polite, but from what I could see, she wasn’t interested.
It had been a relief to see.
“It’s been so busy. And Mick says there’s more activities tomorrow.” She shakes her head and relaxes into her chair, her ever-present hoodie still on her body. “I had this thought in my head that a cabin weekend getaway would be relaxing.”
I chuckle lightly. “Not with this group.”
“You’re not kidding. Are hockey players always so loud?” She scrunches her nose, and I grin.
“Yup. We sure are.”
“You’re not that way.” She frowns, her book now open in her lap, but she looks at me. “At least not around me. Are you different when you’re not around me?”
I shrug. “Not different, really. But you put a bunch of hockey players in one area, things are bound to get a little crazy.”
She fake shudders, and I laugh lightly. Then I nod at her book. “Still good?”
Cassie launches into an explanation about her book, and I find myself spellbound by the way she tells it. It’s different than when she told me about her own book, she didn’t have the same confidence that she does when she talks about others, and I wonder if that’s why she hasn’t been able to move forward with publishing it.
We sit in silence for a little while longer, and she reads while I take in the comfort of having her here. It’s just like it was, except we’re not touching.
Too bad there are two chairs out here, maybe I could have rectified the not-touching part of this scenario if I’d tossed a chair over the balcony.
“I wanted to tell you something,” she starts, closing her book and angling her body at me again. I smile and wait for her to talk. “I started sending my submission letters out.”
I quirk a brow, and relief shoots through me. “You did?”
Her grin is hard for her to hide, but she tries. “Yeah.”
“Any response yet?”
“No.” She frowns, and I hate it, so I quickly say something else.
“I’m proud of you, Sunshine.”
Her eyes meet mine again, and there is so much there—so much between us—that I have a hard time looking away.
“You’ve started the process, this is huge.”
“Thank you.” She pats her red-hot cheeks and sighs. “It’s scary, but I’m excited too.”
“Definitely. You should be proud, too. It can’t be easy to put yourself out there like that.” I knew what a big deal this was for her too, she wasn’t the type to gloat or boast about any of her accomplishments.
From the way I heard it, she wouldn’t even allow her mom to throw her a graduation party for getting her master’s degree.
“It’s not.” Cassie bites her lip, her gaze turning up until she’s looking at the stars above us.
I say nothing, not wanting to spoil the moment, wanting to keep her here as long as I possibly could.
“You know what it is?” she starts, her voice low enough that it’s nearly a whisper. “I’ve wanted it for so long—wanted to be a professional writer—that the thought of failing has made me hold back.” Cassie looks over at me, and I can see her swallow. “I don’t like the thought of failing at something that means a lot to me.”
Her words hit their mark, and I hold myself back from getting up and yanking her into my arms, from telling her that we haven’t failed—not yet.
“I get that.” I nod my head slowly, blowing out a breath and trying to compare her publishing dreams to my hockey ones. “I’m not sure what I would do if hockey failed or if I got hurt and couldn’t play. My whole life I’ve had one goal in mind, and that was to play hockey, to be the best there was on the ice.”
She furrows her brow. “But you are doing that.”
“I’m not the best.” I scoff a laugh, shaking my head. “Nowhere near it.”
“Maybe not. But you’re trying, you’re putting yourself on the path that could lead to being that.”
I shrug and run a hand through my hair, unsure what to say and not wanting to come off as boastful. Because she was just starting out with her career, and I was well on my way to mine actually coming true.
All I wanted was for us both to succeed. That’s it.
Too soon, she stands, stretching her arms overhead and letting me get a little glimpse of her stomach, the flower tattoos on her side peeking out, and I close my eyes, wishing so badly that I could take her to my bed. That I could hold her close, skin to skin, and keep having a conversation with her about what we want with our lives together.
Instead, I get up too, walking her to my door and smiling when she says good night.
I don’t kiss her.
I don’t reach for her.
I don’t hug her.
But damn if I don’t want that more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.