Chapter 6
Jason
“Dude, just breathe,” Ben Boerboom coaxes through the line as I stalk across the clearing. “Zamboni’s a sensitive. He’s picking up your bad vibes from here.”
I screwed this up so badly, my bad vibes are probably causing ripples around the globe.
Okay, Boomer probably isn’t the first guy most people would call in a crisis.
He’s a little over the top and doesn’t exactly present as a good listener.
But for as reactive as the guy is, he’s even more loyal.
And when you get past the splashy surface…
he’s deep and thoughtful and one of the best friends I’ve got.
So yeah, when Rowan realized that she was well and truly locked out of Dad’s room, I called him and word-vomited all my sins from the last few hours and maybe months without taking a breath.
“I’m chill.”
“Lies, dude. Thought we were better than that.”
My head drops. “How about this… I can almost imagine a time when I might get there again?”
“That works. So you locked her out of her room. And she left.” He makes one of those Boomer thinking noises, then, “I get why you feel like a dick about your part in this, and not to actually be a dick… but isn’t her leaving, like, the best-case scenario?”
At this point, I’m not actually sure it would be. “She didn’t leave, leave. Not the island.”
I showed her the broken key.
She stared. Then she asked how many bedrooms were in the cabin.
I told her three.
And when she asked how many were accessible without this key… I told her.
One. At least, without breaking a window.
She turned beet red, threw her palm up, all, STOP before I could say anything else, and then rage-walked out the door.
He coughs. “She’s still there? Static, on a scale of one to a thousand, like, how mad is she?”
I stop at the top of the stairs, watching from above as Rowan furiously paces the length of the dock, occasionally stopping to glare and— yep, there it is —flip me off for a five count before continuing on her hostile way.
“Mmm, about what you’d expect.”
He sucks the loudest breath in history and then starts shouting, “Get off the island! What, do you have a death wish?”
Okay, so maybe this is why Boomer isn’t the first guy people think to call in a crisis. “Funny, funny.”
“I’m not laughing, man. From the way Wexler and those guys tell it, that sister of yours handed you an ass-kicking something fierce…”
I rub my neck, but tension has already moved in and unpacked. “She’s not my sister.”
“… And that was just for sneaking up on her. What do you think she’s going to do after that ‘key-dangling’ bullshit you pulled? And now, she’s stuck sharing a room with you!”
“Boomer.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not your sister. Got it.”
Just the girl I had it bad for in high school, who happened to be the daughter of the manipulative troll my dad decided to marry.
“Good thing too. If she was your sister, that whole bed-sharing thing… squick.”
“Boomer.”
“No judgment, man.”
“About what? What are you not judging me on? Because right now, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“There you go,” he coos through the miles. “Just let it out.” There’s another air-whooshing noise that I’m pretty sure is my teammate deep breathing with me. “See?”
I look around, like someone is going to be hanging out by the trees, ready to tell me that it’s not me. It’s Boomer. But there’s just Rowan, scowling at me from the dock like she thinks it’s totally me.
“Yep. I do see.” I need to chop some wood or something. “That really helped. Thank you.”
“Look man, this situation sucks. I know it does. The cabin is a tie to the family you don’t have around anymore.
And you want to protect it like you protect everything and everyone you love.
” There’s some shifting from the other end of the line, and I imagine Ben getting off his giant-ass couch and scooping up Zamboni in one arm.
“I can’t believe I lost it like that. But that call with Marsha. I thought—”
“I know. But now you know your not-sister isn’t actually a mini-Marsha. She’s there for your dad, even if she doesn’t actually have the claim she thinks she does. And tomorrow you’ll hear from the lawyers, they’ll confirm Marsha is what we all know her to be, and this whole thing will be over.”
And Rowan will be gone.
Down at the end of the dock, it looks like she’s done with her hate-pacing. For now, anyway.
Ahh, but there’s that middle finger again.
“Jason, you want me to come out there? Say it and I’m there.”
“Naw. Be with your family.” He deserves the downtime in New York. “I’m good.”
We shoot the shit a few more minutes, catching up on schedules and league news. I’ve got a skills camp coming up in a couple weeks led by one of his old coaches. He’s got a new gym with a daycare accommodation for Zamboni.
The dog walker asked about me.
After some back and forth on whether I should give her another shot— I won’t —Ben offers again to come out. Like I said, he’s a good guy. And I’m reminded of why he is the guy I call in a crisis.
“Call if you change your mind.”
“Will do.” I’m about to end the call when I stop. “Yo, Boomer?”
“Yeah?”
“She didn’t kick my ass.”
His laughter is as over-the-top as he is. “Dude, check the group thread. They posted pictures… and a video.”
Rowan
“Move,” I say flatly, stalking past Jason, whose shoulders are so wide, he’s nearly blocking the path to his… our bedroom, thanks to his little stunt.
What was he thinking?
That lock was obviously in its golden years, well past retirement.
Yes, the man was pissed. And while I can understand how hard this must be for him, I appreciate that he came to his senses.
But that was some seriously dickish behavior that could have been avoided if he’d just given me the chance to explain.
And because he didn’t, I’m stuck sharing a bed with the big jerk.
To his credit, he offered to sleep on the floor. But the linen closet with the extra bedding is on the other side of a locked door. And if I made him do it without so much as a blanket… then I’d be the jerk. No freaking way am I giving this guy the moral high ground.
So I’m— Well, I’m a lot of things right now, but furious tops the list. And I’m done hiding how I feel or pretending that someone else’s shitty behavior is acceptable. I’m finished smothering my resentment and hurt out of fear of what the consequences might cost me.
Rounding the bed, I flash Jason a look of pure murderous contempt.
“Fair warning, you so much as inch a toe onto my side of the bed?” I flip the covers down with a snap, then draw an imaginary line down the center of the bed.
“That beatdown after you snuck up on me is going to feel like a warm, snuggly hug. Got it?”
At least he has the decency to look contrite, with his hands in the pockets of his pajama bottoms and those enormous shoulders shrugged forward beneath the stretch of his white T-shirt. “Got it.”
Casting one last warning scowl, I climb in.
He swallows loud enough for me to hear, and I scrunch my eyes shut, willing myself to ignore him.
The bed dips and shifts, and when he leans back, one of those mammoth shoulders dares to brush mine.
“No way, buddy.” I yank the pillow out from beneath his head to make a barrier between us.
And then we’re lying there, side by side, in the too-quiet room, staring at the ceiling.
Ugh! “I can hear you breathing.”
Silence, and then… I don’t know what it is, exactly. But I’ve got this unsettling sense that he might— No.
No way.
Except, I’m pretty sure, yes way. “Jason, if you’re smiling right now? So help me God!”
There’s a sort of quake in miles of mattress beneath us. I jackknife up and gasp. “You’re laughing!”
More quaking.
“I’m sorry!” he coughs out with a force that suggests he was in an epic battle to stifle it. “You’re just so…”
This man wants to die. “So what, Jason?”
“Mad. And Rowan, I get it.” He sits, pulling his knees up into that masculine vee and leaning over them as he shakes his head. “This bedroom situation is the cherry on top of the shit-sundae kind of day that has sucked from up to down.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“It’s my fault we’re stuck in this bed. And you’ve got every right to be pissed about that.”
And now he’s being reasonable. Ugh.
Which means that I need to be reasonable.
Dig deep, girl. “Just like you’ve got every right to be pissed about… everything.”
There’s a shrug of acknowledgment and then he bites his bottom lip, squinting into the space in front of him.
“It’s just that I’ve never actually seen you pissed off before. And yeah, it’s been a minute. But we lived in the same house for a year. And this”— he gestures toward me, moonlit eyes meeting mine —“is a Rowan I didn’t know existed. How’d you manage to keep her under wraps like that?”
There’s an obvious answer. But all I’m willing to give him is a simple, “Night, Jason.”