Chapter 11
ELIJAH
The stairs creak under my weight as I trudge down at 5:47 in the morning, my duffel bag slapping against my hip with each step.
I roll my shoulders, trying to shake off the heaviness that's settled there since last night. Since Sam.
Since I lost my shit and said things I shouldn't have.
Our house is massive – a sprawling two-story residence that somehow manages to contain twenty-plus hockey players without collapsing under the weight of all that testosterone. The hallway gleams under recessed lighting, illuminating the polished hardwood floors our university donors made sure we had installed last year.
I make my way toward our industrial-sized kitchen, my stomach already growling.
I pause at the kitchen doorway. Zach's already there, his broad back to me as he fiddles with something on the counter.
Shit.
I was hoping to grab my stuff and bolt before seeing anyone, especially him. I consider turning around, but that would just delay the inevitable. Plus, I need my protein shake.
Zach must hear my breathing or sense my presence because he turns, nodding when he catches my eye. His face is neutral – no hint that he knows what happened between his sister and me. My own face scrunches involuntarily, the guilt hitting me like a crosscheck to the boards.
"Morning," he says, voice still rough with sleep.
He grabs a blender bottle from the kitchen island – my morning shake, already made. The gesture is so normal, so routine, that it makes me feel worse. He extends it toward me, a peace offering I don't deserve.
"Thanks," I mumble, accepting it with a quick nod.
The kitchen falls into silence except for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional gulp as we both drink. I lean against the counter, trying to look casual while my mind races.
Does he know?
Did Sam tell him? She must have.
They tell each other everything – always have. But his face gives nothing away as he scrolls through his phone, occasionally taking a swig from his own shake.
I take a long drink to buy myself time. The protein shake tastes like chalk and regret this morning. My eyes keep darting to him, then away, then back again, searching for any sign of the anger that should be there.
If someone had talked to my sister the way I talked to Sam, I'd have their teeth on the ice before they could blink.
"Dude," Zach finally says, setting his phone down. "What's up with you? You're acting weird as fuck."
I nearly choke on my shake. "What? No, I'm not." My voice comes out higher than intended, and I clear my throat. "Just tired."
"Bullshit." Zach narrows his eyes. "You've been staring at me like I've got two heads. Either you're having a stroke, or you've got something to tell me."
I take another sip, playing for time. The kitchen clock ticks loudly in the silence. We need to leave for our team workout session in twelve minutes. Maybe I can stall until then?
"Seriously, what's going on?" Zach presses, leaning forward on his forearms. "You're looking at me like you accidentally ran over my dog."
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. "You've probably heard what happened last night."
"Heard what?"
"Come on, man. I know you and your sister have talked about it already since you basically tell each other everything," I say, unable to keep the edge from my voice. My fingers drum against the countertop, a nervous rhythm I can't control.
"Hey, you make it sound so girly," he says, his voice pitched higher than normal. "Like we're braiding each other's hair and sharing our deepest secrets all night long."
Before I can respond, he flips an imaginary lock of hair over his shoulder and tucks a non-existent strand behind his ear with a delicate flutter of his fingers. His eyelashes bat dramatically, and he puts on a pouty expression that looks ridiculous on his unshaven face.
"Oh my god, Sam, can you believe what Elijah said to me today?" he continues in a falsetto, clutching at his chest. "He was like, soooo mean. We should totally write about him in our burn book."
The impression is so unexpected, so absurd coming from a six-foot-two hockey player with morning stubble and bed head, that I just stare at him for a beat. This isn't the reaction I was prepared for. Not by a long shot.
Relief floods through me, closely followed by confusion.
Is he not mad? Or is this just Zach's way of processing before he really lets me have it?
"Shut up," I say, but there's no heat in it.
Zach's laugh joins mine, deeper and more relaxed. His shoulders shake slightly as he rubs the spot where I hit him, exaggerating the impact. "Careful with the merchandise, man. Coach will bench you if you injure his star player before the game."
We both laugh, and for a second, the tightness in my chest loosens.
"No, but seriously," he says, scratching at his stubbled jaw. "Did you mean when we saw you at the restaurant? With your parents?"
Surprise flickers through me. "You were there?"
"Yeah," Zach says easily. "I took Sam out for dinner. You know how she gets when she's in her zone—she forgets food exists." He shrugs. "We happened to see you at the restaurant we went to."
Heat blooms on my cheeks.
Zach has seen my parents at their worst before—heard the shouting through thin walls, watched the silence afterward stretch for days—but that was always behind closed doors. This was different. This was public. This was humiliating.
The thought of him and Sam witnessing that disaster of a dinner makes my stomach twist. I suddenly want to crawl under the kitchen table and disappear.
"Fuck," I breathe, running a hand over my face.
Zach nudges my shoulder with his knuckles. "Hey, you alright?"
I sigh, bowing my head. "It was just embarrassing, is all." I admit. "I should've known better. I should've met them separately."
"You have nothing to be embarrassed about, dude." Zach's hand finds my shoulder, squeezes gently. That wasn't on you. Not even a little."
I glance up at him, unconvinced.
"They're grown-ass adults," he continues, "They walked into that restaurant knowing damn well how they get around each other. They knew what buttons they were gonna push. And they still did it anyway."
He shakes his head once. "That's a choice. Their choice. You didn't make them argue. You didn't say anything that caused it. You just happened to be sitting there."
My jaw tightens.
"And I get why it feels embarrassing," Zach adds. "Trust me, I do. But that feeling you've got? That's you taking responsibility for something that was never yours to carry." He taps my shoulder lightly, like he's emphasizing the point. "You were the kid in the middle back then, and somehow they still treat you like the buffer now."
He exhales through his nose.
"You don't owe anyone an apology for wanting one normal dinner," he says. "And you don't owe them silence, or patience, or understanding when they keep pulling the same shit decade after decade. That night wasn't embarrassing because of you. It was embarrassing because they couldn't get their act together for one evening."
He gives my shoulder one last squeeze. "So yeah. Feel pissed. Feel exhausted. Feel whatever you need to feel. But don't put that on yourself. You've already done enough of that."
"I know you're right, and that's probably why I snapped at your sister last night."
There. It's out.
My confession hangs between us. My stomach twists as I wait for his reaction—waiting for his eyes to shift from confusion to understanding to anger. But Zach' s face remains unreadable; those silver eyes—just like Sam's—study me.
"Did she really not tell you what happened at the rink last night?"
Zach snorts lightly. "Look, I get that Sam and I are close. But we're not, like, joined at the brain. She doesn't tell me every single thing that happens to her."
His tone is mildly exasperated, amusement flickering at the corners of his mouth.
This is classic Zach. Defusing tension with humor, sidestepping conflict whenever possible. It's what makes him such a good teammate—the guy who can calm down a locker room after a bad call, who can make even Coach crack a smile during a brutal practice. I've seen him do it a thousand times, turning potential fights into jokes, transforming heavy moments into light ones with nothing more than a well-timed quip.
But this feels different. This is his sister—his pride and joy, the person he's closest to—and I treated her like garbage last night because I couldn't handle my own shit.
I take a deep breath, let it catch in my throat for a second before I force the words out.
"Last night, after I let off steam doing suicide drills, I went to the locker room to clean up. I heard someone's voice, I went to check, and... saw it was Sam." I scrub a hand down my face, already regretting this. "I may have gone overboard. Christ, I don't even know what got into me. I just snapped when I saw her there and accused her of sneaking around—of trying to watch me shower or take photos of me—"
Zach's eyebrows shoot up. "Whoa. Whoa—what?" His hand drops from my shoulder as he takes a step back. "Sam would never—"
"I know! I know." I cut in quickly, my face burning. "I was just—after dinner, I was already in a shitty mood, and then I saw her by the locker rooms, and I just—" I drag a hand through my damp hair again. "I fucking lost it, man."
Sam is a lot of things. Persistent. Infuriating. Way too comfortable in my space most days. She tests my patience like it's a sport.
But she's never crossed a line.
Not once. Not in the way I accused her of last night.
That's the part that makes my stomach twist now, the part that sits heavy in my chest. Because even at her most annoying, even when she pushes and pokes and refuses to back off when I tell her to—she's always respected the line. Always stopped short of anything that would actually put me on edge.
She knows where it is. She's always known.
I can admit that.
I only realized how far I'd gone after the adrenaline burned off, after the fog in my head cleared just enough for the memory to come back in flashes. The look on her face. The shock. The way her voice cracked when she snapped back at me.
Christ.
The mortification hits me all over again when I remember how close it got—how I nearly exposed my dick in front of her. My skin crawls just thinking about it.
And I can still feel the ghost of the sting on my right cheek from the slap she gave me.
I deserved that.
I don't tell Zach that part. I can't. He deserves the full truth, but some things stick in my throat no matter how hard I try to force them out.
Zach keeps talking, unaware of the spiral happening in my head.
"Sam was worried about you after you walked out of the restaurant," he says. "She wanted to make sure you were okay, so she came back here with me. When I realized you were probably at the rink blowing off steam, she went there to check."
He pauses, then adds, "She texted me later and said all she did was sit there and watch you skate—laps, drills, the whole thing. She just wanted to make sure you didn't hurt yourself pushing too hard." His jaw tightens slightly. "And when she was leaving, she saw two girls sneaking toward the locker rooms and were planning to take photos of you in the shower but she stopped it."
"Fuck," I whisper. "I... shit. I didn't know anyone else was there."
I feel worse than ever for how I treated her last night.
"I'm not just saying this because she's my sister," Zach continues, eyes never leaving mine. "but she genuinely cares about you. A lot. She loves you and would never cross that boundary. She'd hurt herself before she ever violated you like that."
Zach's right, and I hate how quickly my heart agrees to that.
No—this doesn't mean I have feelings for her. It just means I'm not an asshole.
Not a total one, anyway.
I can admit there's some truth in what he said.
What throws me is how calm he is about it.
I'd almost prefer it if he snapped, called me out, made it loud and ugly. At least then I could brace for impact.
Instead, he just looks at me like he expects me to deal with it myself. Like I should already know what needs to be done.
And I do. Mostly.
"That's it?" I ask, still wary.
"What do you mean?"
"You're not pissed?" I press, not quite buying it.
"About what? That you were a dick to her?" Zach shrugs and reaches for his protein shake. "That goes without saying." He lets out a short breath. "And I'm not pissed. I'm... disappointed you went there. But given what headspace you were in? I get it."
He takes a swig, eyes still on me. "Look, I don't know exactly what you said to her. I'm sure there's more to it. But if you're this worked up about it, I'm guessing you already know you fucked up."
"Yeah," I admit. "I fucked up big time."
Zach nods, considering this. "So apologize to her. Sam's not unreasonable." A slight pause. "Most of the time."
"You're not going to... demand more details? Tell me what an asshole I was?"
"Do you really need me to tell you that?" he asks. "Because I'm pretty sure you already know."
I shake my head, feeling heat rise to my face. "No. I know."
"Good."
"So we're good?" I ask, needing the reassurance more than I want to admit.
"Yeah—we're good," he says. "But you still need to fix things with Sam."
"I know and I will."
I just don't know how yet. And that somehow feels like the hardest part.
Zach checks his phone and taps the screen. "Time to bounce." He hoists his gym bag from the floor with one hand like he' s picking up a pillow.
I finish the last gulp of protein shake and push myself away from the counter.
We step outside right as the rest of our crew thunders down the stairs, their pre-workout energy already cranked to eleven. The door swings shut behind us, cutting the noise in half.
Zach beelines for my truck, jingling my keys.
I toss my bag into the bed of the truck, then the words come out before I can second-guess them.
"Can't you just tell your sister to get over me?"
Zach lets out a laugh that says I'm being ridiculous. He freezes mid-stride and gives me a look like I've suggested we fly to the moon.
"Why are you suddenly asking that?"
I shrug, "I don't know. Maybe so she'd stop following me everywhere. Maybe so we don't end up with another situation like last night." I glance at him. "So... can you?"
"As if I haven't tried," he says, chuckling. "You think I get a kick out of watching her chase you around just to get her feelings steamrolled every time?"
His expression hardens a little. "I hate seeing my sister sad. I've asked her to stop more times than you can imagine. I've told her straight up she's setting herself up to get hurt."
I raise an eyebrow. "And?"
"And she doesn't listen," he says. "She says she's happy liking you. Says she'd rather wait than force herself to move on."
There's a beat of silence as we climb into the truck, doors slamming shut almost in sync.
"So?" he asks, glancing over. "Are you getting there?"
"What?"
"You know exactly what I mean." He tilts his head, studying my face. "After a decade of wooing—are you starting to feel something for her?"
I scoff immediately and shake my head. "No. Not even a little."
"Not even," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, squinting at me, "that much?"
"No," I repeat. "Not even."
He exhales, half a laugh, half a sigh. "Damn. My poor sister."
I can't tell if he's joking.
"For now," he adds, more serious, "just don't do anything that gets her hopes up if you really don't plan on reciprocating."
"That's exactly what I've been doing for years."
"Yeah," he says with a shrug. "And maybe one day she'll get tired of it. Maybe she'll finally stop."
"Why are you so calm about this? She's your sister. You should be worried this is going to wreck her eventually. Hell, you should probably be punching me right now."
"She is my sister," he says. "And you're my best friend who's like a real brother to me. I'm stuck right in the middle whether I like it or not. So yeah—I try to stay neutral."
"Neutral? Really?" I roll my eyes. "Then what do you call sending her my photos every day? You text her our location like some creepy GPS tracker. Every time I'm about to score, she pops up like the Kool-Aid Man cockblocking me. That doesn't feel neutral, man. That feels like playing favorites."
The corner of his mouth curves into that crooked grin. "What can I say? She's got those puppy dog eyes. You've just got... whatever that is." He waves vaguely at my face.
I shake my head, but an incredulous grin tugs at my mouth anyway.
"Ass."