1
Several months later
Aura
The Sin Bin had two rules on hockey nights that mattered to me: keep the drinks moving, and never let a man in a KFU jacket think he was funnier than he was.
Technically, there were more rules taped behind the bar in Bliss’s bubbly handwriting, laminated because she had faith in humanity and no respect for spilled tequila, but those two were the ones I trusted.
The Sin Bin sat three blocks from The Furnace and carried itself like Kimball Falls University had personally ordained it the official church of wings, beer, bad decisions, and men who thought knowing hockey stats counted as foreplay.
On game weeks, the place filled until the walls sweated and every table smelled like fried food, cologne, and somebody’s unresolved need to be the loudest man in the room.
I could work with loud because loud was easy. Loud tipped better when you had fun with it.
“Table twelve needs another pitcher,” Bliss said as she slid behind me with a tray balanced on one hand, a straw wrapper stuck to the sleeve of her referee shirt, and the expression of a woman who had already served three men named either Kyle or Brad and survived by the grace of sarcasm.
“Before you make that face, I already warned them you’re mean and emotionally unavailable. ”
“I wasn’t making a face,” I said, filling two drafts and checking the ticket printer before it could start screaming again.
“You were absolutely making a face.”
“That’s my customer service expression.”
“That’s your I hope your beer is flat expression.”
“Some people deserve carbonation-based consequences.”
Bliss laughed, bright and warm beneath the bar noise, and bumped her hip against mine as she reached for the grenadine.
She looked ridiculous and adorable in the striped shirt and short black skirt The Sin Bin called a uniform, her blonde hair twisted up with a pink claw clip and her cheeks flushed from running the bar like a glittery little dictator.
I wore the same cropped referee shirt with black shorts, black sneakers, and a whistle around my neck I refused to use after the third drunk business major asked if I gave penalties for bad behavior.
I told him I gave them for weak pickup lines.
He tipped twenty percent and avoided eye contact for the rest of the night.
“Do we have extra ranch in the lowboy?” Bliss asked, already reaching beneath the counter.
“If we don’t, table fourteen is about to start a community uprising.”
“Table fourteen is freshman football.”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
She grabbed two plastic cups of ranch and set them on my tray. “Speaking of emotionally delicate men in sports, you know the Fury are coming in tonight, right?”
My hand paused for half a second over the tray, which was annoying because my body had no loyalty. “A lot of people come into the bar, B.”
“The Fury hockey team, I meant.”
“My condolences to the floor.”
“Ay.”
I hated when she used the soft version of my nickname because she only used it when she wanted me gentle. Charm used it when she wanted me honest. Both of them used it when they were about to make my life harder in the name of love.
I picked up the pitcher beneath the beer tap and watched amber foam rise too fast. “Yes, Bliss, I know the hockey team is coming in tonight. I work at the most popular sports bar in Kimball Falls. This shocking turn of events may never leave my nervous system.”
“They’re celebrating.”
“Men celebrate finding matching socks.”
“They announced captain today.”
The foam spilled cold over my fingers.
Bliss saw it. She always saw too much, which was a charming trait until it aimed itself directly at my chest with a flashlight and a clipboard. She passed me a towel without comment, but the pity in her brown eyes was loud enough to qualify as workplace harassment.
I wiped my hand. “Good for him.”
“That was painfully casual.”
“It’s good for him.”
“It is. He earned it.”
“I know he did.” The words came out sharper than I meant, and I hated that too because Bliss did not deserve my teeth just because Easton had left me with nowhere safe to put them.
I forced my grip to loosen around the towel and looked down at the drinks instead of at her face.
“I’m not a monster. I can be happy for someone who currently hates me. ”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
I laughed under my breath and slid the pitcher onto the tray. “That is adorable. Incorrect, but adorable.”
“He’s hurt.”
“He is hurt and hateful. Men can multitask when spite is involved.”
Bliss crossed her arms, which would have been more intimidating if she didn’t have pink lip gloss in the pocket of her referee shirt and grenadine near her wrist. “Cade says he’s been better since camp started.”
“Cade is in love with you and legally required to make hockey boys sound emotionally stable.”
“Cade doesn’t care that Easton got captain, if you were wondering.”
“I was going to ask.”
“You were thinking it, then?”
“I was thinking table twelve is about to die of thirst and somehow make that my fault.”
“Cade is proud of him,” she continued, ignoring me with the confidence of someone who had been raised around six men and had polished her tactics.
“And honestly, I don’t think he has any room left in him to be weird about it.
He almost died and fought his way back through scans, rehab, and everyone whispering about whether he’d ever be the same, and now he’s stronger than he was before.
He’s still starting center Friday night.
He’s still Cade. A letter on Easton’s jersey isn’t taking anything from him. ”
The noise of the bar thinned around the edges for one breath, but I heard her. I knew this game was a big one, not just for Easton but for Cade.
Luke Dempsey was not a name we used lightly anymore.
He was dead now, but he had left scars across Bliss’s adolescence long before the rest of us understood how deep the rot had gone.
He had been her childhood abuser and her oldest brother Ryker’s former best friend, the man who tried to take her from our world because he couldn’t stand that she had survived him and chosen someone better.
Cade killed him and nearly died doing it.
That was the short version, and the short version still made the air in my chest evaporate.
Bliss swallowed, then gave me a smile that tried to be fine and missed by a mile.
I reached over and squeezed her wrist, one quick press that told her I was there without forcing her to stand inside it longer than she wanted. “Cade is annoyingly resilient.”
“He is,” she said, her voice softening in a way that made her look younger for half a second. “And he’s happy Easton got it.”
Easton deserved captain. He deserved the C stitched over his heart and the way a room turned toward him when things got tense. He deserved the weight because he had spent his whole life carrying things heavier than hockey and making it look like posture.
He deserved a lot of things, and I just wasn’t one of them anymore.
“That’s good,” I said, hating how small my voice sounded beneath the music.
Bliss stepped closer and lowered hers while the bartender at the other end called for another bottle of tequila. “Come on Friday.”
I looked at her. “Absolutely not.”
“You didn’t let me finish.”
“You were going to say come to the first game of the season, sit with you, Charm, your family, and Ryan, clap politely while Cade makes his grand return and Easton skates around wearing the C like a damn celebration.”
Her mouth twitched. “That was almost word for word.”
“I know you, and that’s a burden.”
“Aura, please.”
I reached for the ranch cups and rearranged them on my tray because Bliss begging was my least favorite kind of warfare. She didn’t do it dramatically. She did it with those big brown eyes and that quiet faith that people could be better if someone loved them loudly enough.
“I’m not asking you to wear his jersey,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to forgive him for being cold, and I’m not asking you to let him act like an asshole just because he’s hurt.
I’m asking you to come support the team.
Support Cade. Support Briggs and Rider. Sit with us.
You can support the rest of the Fury even if you and Easton are still… ”
She stopped, which was smarter than finishing that sentence.
I lifted my brows. “Still what?”
“I don’t have words for what you and Easton are.”
“That’s new for you.”
“Ay.”
“I support Easton,” I said, and the honesty came out before I could make it prettier.
Bliss went still, and that pissed me off almost as much as it hurt.
“I do. I know he hates me now, and I earned some of that. I know I hurt him and what I said that night was cruel, and an apology doesn’t pull a knife out.
I asked to talk, and I said I was sorry.
I tried, B. I will be damned before I spend the rest of my life begging a man to hear me when he’s already decided that version of me is the only one that counts. ”
Bliss’s expression cracked. “You still love him.”
I picked up a stack of napkins and shoved them into my apron pocket with more force than paper products deserved. “That is pointless.”
“That sounds like a yes.”
“That sounds like you’re about to lose straw privileges.”
She leaned against the counter, studying me like I was one of her college assignments and she had chosen emotional damage as the thesis. “Charm would say you’re deflecting.”
“Charm would say it in a softer voice and make me feel guilty with her eyelashes.”
“Charm would also be right.”
“Charm is right too often. That’s why we love her and avoid depth when she is around.”
Bliss smiled, but it didn’t erase the concern from her face.