CHAPTER TWENTY #2
Her brows shoot up. “Take—what?”
“You’re not wearing another man’s name on your back,” I say in a low voice. “Do you have a shirt underneath that?”
Her cheeks flush, and she bites her bottom lip. “Yeah.”
“Good. Wear this.” I hand her the jersey and she unfolds it slowly. When she sees the name on the back and the 19—my professional number—her mouth parts.
“I thought I’d give it to you after the game, but not after you showed up in that.”
Casey sends me a sexy smile that makes my knees weak. As she’s yanking the white jersey off, Roxie, Sara, and Julie show up.
“What are you love birds talking about over here?” Julie demands over the clamor of the rink.
“Just being forced to undress in front of a thousand people,” Casey teases as she drops the offending jersey. I watch the goosebumps flare on her arms as the cool air hits her skin. She’s tugging the new jersey on a second later. It settles into place perfectly.
“Much better,” I say.
“That looks so good on you,” Sara gushes.
And then I lean in so only she can hear: “It’ll look even better when it’s on my bedroom floor later.”
Casey blushes, and the girls pick up on it. They start squealing and teasing us, so I wink at Casey and skate away. She blows me a kiss, and this time when she turns, my name is across her back.
Mine.
The game starts soon after. The first responders are trying, I’ll give them that. The two firefighters come out with lots of bravado, despite one of them falling three times in the first half. The police officers are better on skates than expected, but none of them are a match for the four of us.
Still, we give the crowd what they were promised: a loud, friendly game that benefits the pediatric unit at Bayshore General.
We let the first responders have a few moments to keep things interesting, which the crowd loves.
Torres, one of the firefighters, goes down hard on his own skate mid-second period and lies there long enough that the crowd gasps, then slowly raises one fist in the air. The crowd loses its mind.
Of course, we win. We would have won with our eyes closed. But we let the first responders make a goal.
I find Casey in the crowd a handful of times without meaning to—another thing I’d never have the time or attention to do during a regular game.
Each time I spot her, she’s on her feet, hands cupped around her mouth, cheering us on.
I see my mom, my brothers, Piper and Kru.
Branson and Grant are near the girls. So many people I know are here.
After the final buzzer, Renee takes the mic. When she announces us the winners, the crowd goes crazy. But it’s nowhere near the noise that fills the rink when she announces that they blew past their goal of $40,000 and managed to hit $70,000 in one afternoon.
Howie, Colt, Donny, and I are skating around, high fiving each other and the first responders. Everyone’s skating off the ice, but I pause and look for Casey one last time. She’s down by the railing along the hall to the locker rooms, waiting for me.
“Hey, Mr. Seventy Thousand. You ready to go celebrate your accomplishments?” she asks as I come over. Her cheeks are ruddy, glitter sparkling under the lights.
“I just skated,” I tell her. “Bayshore did the rest.”
“But you drew them all here,” she says sweetly, leaning over the railing until she’s on her tiptoes. Our lips are closer now. I tear my helmet off, my gaze stuck on her pink lips.
“I like to do my part,” I say.
“Tell us where we should meet you after you get all hosed down,” she says. “Piper says your family is going to join us too.”
“Wow. This is a real party now.”
“Also Piper saw me put your jersey on earlier and now she knows for sure,” Casey blurts. “But she said she’s mad at you because of how long you dragged it out.”
I chuckle, scanning the crowd for a sign of Piper. “Well…I’ll deal with her later.”
“I didn’t know what to tell her, so I said that we’re just good friends.”
“Extremely good friends,” I clarify. And then another thought occurs to me.
She’s not just my friend—she’s my love.
It’s not a new thought; it’s the kind of thing that’s been true for a long time without ever thinking about it.
I love Casey Hart. She walked into Bayshore in a linen sundress, and she’s about to leave Bayshore with my name across her back.
One more week.
The realization lands like a body check on the ice, hard enough to split me in two. Along with something even more uncomfortable.
“You okay?” she asks. From the bleachers, I hear my name being called. I spot Jett in the crowd, waving, with Lia in his arms doing the same. Dane is nearby, arms crossed over his chest, deep in conversation with somebody.
I have it all right now. And that’s exactly the problem.
“Yeah,” I say, even though I’m not.
I’ve got hockey back. My season is secured. Everything I’ve been working toward is locked in. But still, I feel the old familiar churn inside me. The one that says you know how this goes.
Life always takes something away.
I can love something with my entire soul and then find out I’m not allowed to keep it.
My dad was the backbone of the family, and then one day he was gone. Loss is the one thing I can’t control. I can only control how exposed to it I am.
And I’ve been frighteningly good at controlling that.
Until Casey.
“Let’s go to Dockside,” I finally say, barely able to meet her gaze. “We can be in the sun, look at the water, have a few drinks…”
“Okay. I’ll tell your family,” she says. “I’ll tell Claire too. Maybe she and Paul will want to come.”
I rub my hand along her jawline. Looking at her in my jersey, I realize my major failing of the summer.
I managed every variable I could: the knee, the exercise, the workout plan, the food, the routine. But I couldn’t control how hard I fell for Casey. Even when I tried to pull back, tell myself it was contained, that this always had an end date…
We still ended up here. Her in my jersey, about to hang with our friends and family, and everyone knowing that there’s something between us.
“I’ll meet you there,” I promise her, and I pull myself away.
This next week is going to be hell.
And I don’t have any idea how to get through it.