3. Paxton
The computer beeped, startling us from the tense grip of our shared past. Hana shrugged out from under the skinny-shit boyfriend’s arm and turned with a faint stumble toward the machine, but not before I noted her twisted mouth and the jut of her pixie chin.
She was upset, but with me or her mother?
“It doesn’t matter now. That was years ago,” she said over her shoulder. “And my mother’s no longer able to defend herself.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
Hana snorted. “Your condolences are years too late.”
I fisted my hands, my anger with my parents blooming hot. “I didn’t know,” I said again.
She glanced back at me, frowning. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I…I thought you sent me a message, telling me you never wanted to see me again.”
“I see…” Hana blinked up at me, but the distance between us had grown, and not just with the physical floor space. The skinny shit moved closer to Hana, his hand on the back of her neck, his glare toward me hotter than the sun.
I wanted to rip his hands from her. He shouldn’t be touching Hana. She is mine.
But she wasn’t, and it was my fault. We all knew it, which is why the skinny shit smirked.
“I think you said what you needed to, so why don’t you leave, like she asked?”
Much as I didn’t want to leave her, especially with him, I needed to regroup—to find out what else I’d missed in Hana’s life over the past three years. I looked over his shoulder, wanting to connect with her just for another second, but the skinny shit stepped closer.
“She’s mine now,” he said, his voice smug. “Whatever was between you is long dead and buried. Leave it there.”
His words got to me more than I wanted to admit. Because Hana did seem to belong in that lab. And now that I’d seen him, I had to agree that the skinny shit was just the type of man she should have gone for—smart, suave, well-dressed, and solicitous.
I enjoyed astrophysics nearly as much as Hana did, but I wasn’t built for the kind of work she loved. I resented having to sit still for too long. Sure, I could code and even create prototypes—I’d chosen to study in a field similar to Hana’s before I left college—but honestly, I preferred the physicality of hockey.
Even now, thanks to the emotions flowing through me, I fidgeted. The need to run, hit, skate was strong. So strong.
I willed Hana to meet my eyes again, to see everything in my expression that I didn’t want to say, to give me the second chance I hadn’t been able to carve out with her because I’d arrived at her house too late that next morning three years ago. I gritted my teeth. Twenty-year-old me was a fucking moron, and twenty-four-year-old me was suffering the consequences.
The skinny shit leaned toward Hana and whispered something in her ear. She stiffened but didn’t look up again. “Go away, Paxton,” she murmured. “Please.”
The skinny shit smirked as I turned on my heel and left the lab. As I walked down the hall, I heard him coaxing her, followed by Hana’s clipped response. That actually brought pep to my step. She might be with the guy, but Hana wasn’t content.
I used to make her happy. Deliriously so. Just as she had made me.
I could do that again, given the chance. Being a professional athlete, I was known for my stubbornness, and I wasn’t ready to give up. Not after one meeting. Nope. I’d just have to up my game. Try harder. Do better. Like I did on the ice.
Except… Except Hana was more important than my hockey career, which could end maybe next game or, if I was lucky, in fifteen-years’ time. Either way, I wouldn’t be able to play in the NHL after some point, but I could still have Hana.
Maybe. Possibly. If I didn’t fuck this up worse—or again.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Cruz, who was waiting in the car at the edge of the small green space that I supposed was a lawn. “So?” he asked, picking up on the first ring.
Cruz, for all his size and sheer brutality as a defenseman on the ice, was the biggest marshmallow of us all. Dude watched those Hallmark movies and told the rest of us about them. He loved happy endings and was a sad sap whenever there was a puppy or a baby in a commercial. No one laughed or ribbed him for any of this.
We couldn’t. He was too invested, too sincere. Too good of a guy. If anyone deserved a happy ending, it was him. So it shocked me that Cruz was single.
“So, Hana was with her skinny-shit boyfriend…” I touched my cheek. “She threw a stapler at me.”
“Aggressive,” Cruz rumbled with approval. Not that he condoned violence off the ice. He didn’t, but he also had three sisters and a widowed mother. Cruz appreciated women who could take care of themselves.
“Not typically.” I sighed. “Clearly she wasn’t expecting to see me.”
“And you brought out heightened emotions?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to win her back.”
I could see Cruz now. He had his car window down, the late-afternoon air bathing his thickly muscled arm as it rested on the door frame. He shrugged, and I clicked off my phone and shoved it in my pocket. He saw me and did the same, then started the engine.
“Doesn’t mean you can’t either,” he said, continuing our conversation in person as he pulled up.
I settled into the seat, slammed the door, and deflated as I touched my cheek. The pep talk I’d given myself moments before was lost under the weight of seeing the skinny shit’s arm around Hana. “Maybe I should have left her alone.”
“And spiral down into a useless sack of misery? Nah, man. But you do need to get to the bottom of the situation.”
I slumped, not wanting him to say the next words, but this was Cruz, and he was relentless. “You need to call your parents and find out what your mom knows about the situation, what your parents did. Then you need to find out what your parents told Hana and what she believes happened. I’m positive there’s more to this story than either of you understands.” He shot me a look. “More than your folks have told you even now. But you probably loosened their lips by threatening to disown them.”
“I didn’t threaten to disown them,” I said, affronted. “I simply told my father we no longer had a relationship.”
Cruz’s lips curled in the beginnings of a grin…I thought. His beard was so bushy it was hard to tell. Dude needed a barber to whack that thing back.
I turned in my seat to face him. “Why do you care? I mean, I get that me being content means my head’s in the game, but you seem to care a lot about the whole team’s happiness.”
“Course I care,” Cruz snapped, shooting me a surly look. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I scratched my head. “Dunno. I mean, it just seems like you’re spending time helping us be happy when you could be working on your own life.”
Cruz’s hands tightened on the steering wheel to the point that it creaked under the pressure. I worried it would snap and we’d careen into a building. Instead, Cruz took a long breath in through his nose and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I guess I never told y’all that story. Because it sucks.” He shot me a beady eye. “My girl’s gone. Basically dead and buried. There’s no happiness in the cards for me, man. Not now, not ever. So the best I can do is see your shining happy faces and know I had a part in making it so.”
Dead? I gaped. Then I swallowed, but my throat was dry, and I coughed. Once I finished wheezing, I said, “Cruz, that’s… Fuck, man. I’m sorry.”
He stared out the windshield, his shoulders rounded forward. “Me, too. Me, too.”
* * *
“The first taskis to show up when the skinny shit isn’t there,” Cruz said as we holed up in our hotel room for the night. I’d splurged, getting us a nice two-bedroom suite just a couple of miles from Hana’s lab. I figured Cruz deserved to sleep in comfort and work out in a state-of-the-art gym after he’d managed to find out where Hana was.
“I’ll go over to her place in the morning,” I said.
“What happens if the boyfriend’s there?” Cruz asked. He dipped his spoon into a weird mashup of cottage cheese and berries, drizzled over the top with honey. Looked like ass to me, but he seemed to enjoy it. Plus, it met the team’s nutrition standards.
“I’ll beat him up and kidnap her,” I joked, though it wasn’t really a joke.
Cruz chewed. “Might come to that,” he said. “But first, send her a text and let her know you’ll be around tomorrow morning and would like to take her to breakfast.”
“I don’t have her number.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at Cruz as if to dare him to make fun of me.
Instead, he shot me a sly smile and pulled a piece of paper from his front pocket. He dropped it in my lap and settled backward, much like a king surveying his lands.
I gaped. “How…”
He waved his hand. “Elementary sleuthing, dear Watson.”
I rolled my eyes at his terrible British accent, but I unfolded the paper and tapped the digits into my phone, happy to have Hana’s number again. Once finished, I set my phone down and raised my eyebrows at him. “I didn’t think you condoned violence off the ice.”
“I don’t, normally, but I don’t like the skinny shit, as you call him.”
“You haven’t even met him.”
He shook his head. “Don’t need to. Know the type. Assholes who think their big brains somehow should push ours around—because we must have littler minds simply because we play sports.”
“Well, my guess is that he has more formal education than we do, and from a top-tier university,” I countered.
“So? You’re smart, Naese. Real smart. That’s why NASA asked you to come out—you can synthesize all their science-y words and make it so us dumb-jock meatheads can understand.”
I laughed and half-heartedly punched his shoulder. “You’re just as smart as me. You’re the one reading about string theory.”
“That blows my mind.” He made an explosion sound as he pulled his fingers from the side of his head and heaped another bite of his nasty cottage cheese into his mouth, chewing with obvious relish.
I stared down at my phone, waiting for a response from Hana. None came.
Not then, and not in the hours I sat up, waiting, hoping… Not until I was pulled from a fitful sleep at seven the next morning to the ding of a message.
Hana: Okay.
That’s all she wrote back.
Talk about keeping her thoughts and reasons close.
But I rose, showered, shaved, and dressed before I called for a rideshare to take me to the restaurant where she’d said she’d meet me at eight.
When I arrived, I realized the café she’d chosen was just a couple of blocks from her office, and it seemed popular with young professionals. I was ten minutes early, so I sat on the bench out front and texted my mom. It was nearly eleven in New Hampshire, so I knew she was well into her day.
Me: Why didn’t you ever tell me Mrs. Sato died? What else happened to Hana’s family?
Mom: Oh! You found out.
Me: Yeah, I did. What else have you kept from me?
My mother called me, and I declined it. After a long moment, the bubbles reappeared in our text thread.
Mom: Your dad thought it best we left the Satos alone.
Me: And you just went along with that? Knowing Hana had lost her mother? After the years of her hanging out with us multiple times a week? Do you see how cruel you were to her? How selfish?
I felt myself getting angry all over again. I leaned my head back and shut my eyes, trying to find some level of calm.
Mom: Your father has his reasons, Paxton.
“Well, they’re rotten ones,” I grumbled.
I checked the time, only to re-check it again seemingly an hour later to find that less than a minute had passed. Damn, I was really anxious. Way more than I’d been for any hockey game, even my first professional one.
She’d show. That was one thing about Hana; she followed through. And she’d picked the place and time, so I knew she knew where it was. I shouldn’t have arrived so early, because now that I’d given my name to the hostess and let her know I was waiting for the other half of my party, I had nothing to do but pace out front and check my phone.
“Pax?”
I whirled at the sound of Hana’s voice. I shaded my eyes and stared into her dark ones.
“Hey,” I said with a smile that grew and grew until my cheeks ached. I’d missed her so damn much. Only now that I saw her again did the heaviness I hadn’t realized I was carrying ease.
She returned my smile tentatively and touched her fingertips to my small cut. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Not a thing,” I said.
She bit her lip and shook her head. “It was, too. Don’t let me off the hook like that. I behaved badly. Terribly, in fact. I’m sorry, Pax.”
“Not as sorry as I am. I deserve way more than a thrown stapler. You have to believe me, Hana. I had no idea about your mother.”
She studied me for a long time. Long enough that I felt people shifting closer, whispering, possibly recognizing me. They didn’t matter, though. Hana did. I kept my attention locked on her as I waited for her to finish her examination of me. “She died in a car accident. Aiki and I were also in the car.”
I sucked in a breath, my muscles tense. If her mother died, the accident must have been bad. “You’re okay?” I rasped.
The faintest smile graced her lips. “I didn’t die, and I can still get around, so yeah. The doctors said I was lucky.”
I clasped her hand between mine. “I really can’t imagine what that was like. But I’d like you to tell me. I want to understand.”
“Is that Paxton Naese?” a guy in the growing crowd asked. “What’s he doing here? Don’t they play the Sharks tonight?”
While this part of California wasn’t known for hockey, I was on a championship-winning team and one of the faces of the franchise. Clearly, even here, people recognized me.
But I didn’t want anything to ruin this moment with Hana; it was too important. I shifted so my back was to the guy who’d asked about me. “Can we go inside?” I asked.
“Yeah—”
“You’re Naese, aren’t you? The starting winger for the Wildcatters.” A small, excited blond sidled up closer, batting her lashes. “Will you give me your autograph?”
The way she said it was suggestive, and Hana’s eyebrows rose. I offered her a look that I hoped showed my discomfort and an apology. “Sure, but then I’m having breakfast with my friend.”
“You could join us instead,” she said, smiling enough to reveal dimples.
I shook my head. “Thanks for the offer, but we’d really like some privacy to catch up.” I fished out a pen and signed the receipt she handed me.
“Picture?” she asked, hopeful.
I sighed but nodded, bending my knees and offering a tight smile as she brought up her phone. As soon as it snapped, I snagged Hana’s hand and tugged her inside the café. I breathed a sigh of relief to be away from the prying eyes.
“Do you have a table that’s out of the way, please?” I asked the hostess. I handed her a fifty.
“Sure.” She was a perky college-aged woman with dark hair and eyes. She smiled at us as she grabbed menus. She led us toward a table in the back corner, closest to the kitchen. “It can get a little loud over here,” she said, “but no one can see you from the front.”
“Perfect.” I sighed with satisfaction.
“No problem, Mr. Naese. Good luck with your game tonight.”
I offered a weak smile. Once Hana slid into her side of the booth, I slid in on the other, pressing myself as close to the wall as possible.
“Is it always like that when you go out now?” Hana asked.
I didn’t want to answer that question honestly, but I knew I must. Hana and I were on rocky ground underlaid with quicksand. I had no choice but to put everything out there and hope—pray—she appreciated the truth.
“It’s worse, typically, because most of the places we go are hockey cities.”
“Ah, I see,” Hana said. She looked down at the menu in front of her.
“Hana, I need to tell you?—”
“That my mother bullied and manipulated you into breaking up with me? When Aiki called me this morning for our monthly chat, I confronted him. He told me he kept you from me the morning after you broke my heart.”
I blew out a breath, hating those words, hating her straightforward look—as if she no longer had a heart or I could no longer break it. I didn’t love either possibility.
A server stopped at the table. Hana ordered French toast and coffee while I ordered a three egg-white omelet with extra vegetables and a matcha latte.
Hana shook her head. “What surprised me was that Aiki said your father and my mother both wanted us to break up. I didn’t know your father disliked me—us—so much. That’s…shattering.”
“Their opinion doesn’t matter,” I said fiercely. I hesitated, then picked up her hand where it lay on the tabletop. Her fingers were cool, and I resisted the urge to squeeze them. “He and I haven’t had much of a relationship in years, and what we do have is definitely strained. I’m angry with him for pushing me to break up with you.” I swallowed the pain that had settled in my chest, burning my throat. “I had no idea about the accident. If I’d known, I would have been there, Hana. I would have given up my contract, I would have quit hockey—whatever—to be with you while you grieved your mother.”
She disentangled her fingers from mine and took a deep, slow breath. “I believe you, Pax. I do.”
“Thank God.” I slumped back in the seat. The server brought our drinks, and I offered a weak smile.
When the server departed, I asked, “Will you tell me about the accident?”
Hana stirred in cream and sugar, keeping her attention focused on her cup. I wasn’t sure she would answer me, but then she lifted her head, determination set in her features. “It was before the draft. After those pictures of you and Davis at the bar—you with that woman.” Her jaw tensed, relaxed, then tensed again. I tried to imagine how I’d have felt if she’d broken up with me and soon thereafter there were pictures of her with another man.
I would have wanted to pound someone to alleviate my devastation. Hana didn’t have the hockey outlet, so she typically turned her emotions inward, against herself.
“I was upset.” She wrapped her long, delicate fingers around her mug. “Too upset to stay at school where everyone was asking me questions about us.”
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t thought about that. It had never crossed my mind that people would hound Hana about me leaving. It should have. I should have been more sensitive. Dammit.
“I couldn’t leave my dorm without questions, so I called my mother.”
Hana had to have been desperate to call her mom. But I’d planned to marry her, and all her friends knew that. I took a deep sip of my drink, needing the liquid to ease the dryness in my mouth.
“Aiki and Mom showed up. I almost didn’t get in the car because I knew Aiki was going to gloat—tell me what an asshole you were. But at least at home, I thought I’d be able to get away from the questions if I shut myself in my room.” She looked over my head, her expression distant.
“But he didn’t say anything about you. Looking back, that was my first clue. I didn’t realize he was drunk or high or whatever it was until he ran the first red light. I asked him to pull over, to let Mom and me out. To give me the keys. He…he laughed. Said no way. He was still laughing when he ran the next light—head on into another car.”
Hana shuddered. “I have no idea how he survived. None. I was lucky because I was in the backseat. Mom died on impact.” She met my gaze. “So did the people in the other car.”
“Hana, holy—I’m sorry. I don’t… What you went through…I can’t imagine.”
She was quiet for a long, tense minute. “So, since you didn’t know about the accident, I’m guessing you didn’t know I was in the hospital for weeks myself?”
I shook my head. “Why?”
“My leg. It got caught when the car rolled.” She frowned. “I think it was seven times.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed.
She bit her lip in that utterly Hana way. It wasn’t shy or even flirty. She did it when she was deep in contemplation. “I almost lost my leg,” she said slowly. “But that wasn’t the worst part.”
Dread settled over me, and my diaphragm spasmed. Something dark hovered above us. Her eyes filled with pain and regret. I hated that look, just as I knew I was going to hate the words that came next.
Still, I wasn’t prepared. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional blow.
“I miscarried during my second surgery,” she said.