Howie
Jason's face tells me everything before his mouth opens.
This is what it looks like when two people are together.
"What the fuck is this?" he says.
Ella pulls back from my chest, but I keep one arm around her shoulder. Instinct. Protective. Which is the wrong move because now I'm standing between her and her brother like a wall, and Jason's eyes track the gesture, and his jaw goes tight enough to crack a mouthguard.
"Jason," Ella starts. "Let me—"
"I'm asking him." Jason points at me. His hand shakes. "I'm asking you, Howie. What the fuck is this?"
My brain runs through a dozen responses. Lies, deflections, jokes. The Howie playbook is full of exit strategies for uncomfortable situations. I could tell him it's nothing. I could tell him she was upset about her boards, and I was just comforting her.
Instead, I say, “This is exactly what you think it is.”
His face goes dark. "Excuse me?" He steps forward. "You're fucking my sister?”
"I'm with your sister. There's a difference." Ella gasps, a tiny sound I can’t analyze right now.
“The hell you are,” Jason shouts, stepping closer, leaning back. I know the look of Rookie gearing up for a fight, and I’m not about to let that happen within arm’s reach of the woman I love.
A low sound rumbles from Rookie’s throat. “Since when?"
I don't answer fast enough. Ella says, "Since — it's been—"
"Since when, Howie?"
"Weeks," I say, because he deserves the truth even if it kills us.
The sound Jason makes isn't a word. It's something from the back of his throat, raw and animal, and I see his fists clench at his sides, and I know what's coming because I've seen Jason Rujkowski throw a punch a hundred times.
On the ice, in the locker room, once in a bar in Minnesota, when a guy grabbed a waitress.
He's fast, he's mean, and he doesn't miss.
"I told you to stay away from her." His voice is low now, which is worse than the yelling. Jason quiet is Jason dangerous. "I told you, man. One rule that mattered. One fucking rule."
"You actually have three rules, Rookie, and they're all immature." I try to move Ella further away, out of Rookie’s wingspan, but she’s rooted in place under my arm.
Her brother’s face goes dark. "Excuse me?"
I mock his voice, not caring what this does to his temper. “Don't wear your gear. Don't eat your food. Don't touch your sister. Those are the rules of a twelve-year-old, Jason. We're not kids anymore."
“You mother fucker.” He steps forward and shoves me with both hands, hard enough to knock me back against the bumper. Ella grabs Jason's arm, and he shakes her off.
"Don't touch me right now, Ellie.”
"Jason, stop—"
“Did you plan this?” He’s in my face now, close enough for me to see the vein in his temple, the redness in his eyes. “Is that why you told me about this stupid test? You wanted me to come up here and see you?”
“I told you to text her, asshole. Like maybe ask her how things are going.” I have both my feet under me again, my shoulders tense, ready to trade blows.
Behind me, I hear Ella grumbling. "Jason," she says, and her voice is steady now, the trauma nurse voice, the de-escalation voice. "Bernard has been good to me. This isn't—"
"Good to you? He's been lying to me for weeks. You've BOTH been lying to me."
"Because you would have reacted exactly like this!"
"BECAUSE HE’S MY BEST FRIEND!” Jason has both hands in his hair now, which at least means he’s not about to hit me with them. “What the fuck do I do when he fucks you over, Ella? Stop speaking to my best friend?”
To my surprise, Ella steps up in his face and snarls at him. “I never asked you to defend me. And I never had a chance to show you I’m perfectly capable of fighting my own relationship battles because YOU SCARED ALL MEN AWAY FROM ME WITH YOUR STUPID RULES.”
The parking lot rings with Rujkowski anger.
A woman coming out of the sub shop freezes, sandwich in hand, and hurries to her car.
Jason is breathing hard. Ella is breathing hard.
I'm standing between them with my back against the G-Wagon and my knee throbbing and the full weight of Mayhem's warning sitting on my chest.
The bomb went off.
Jason turns back to me. Something shifts in his face. Past the hurt, past the betrayal, into something colder. "You know what? I should have seen it coming when she came to stay with us. You're just like your old man."
The words are a blade to an artery, but Rookie’s not done yet.
"He couldn't keep his hands to himself either," Jason says. "Had to take what he wanted, consequences be damned. Didn't matter who got hurt."
I feel the blood leave my face. My hands drop to my sides. Of all the things Jason could say — and he could say a lot; he knows me better than almost anyone alive — he picked the one thing that goes straight through the bone.
"That's not…" My voice sounds wrong. Thin. "That's not what this is."
"No? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like my best friend took advantage of my little sister while she was living under my roof with nowhere else to go."
"He didn't take advantage of me." Ella steps between us, her cheeks are red, her eyes bright and furious.
"I started this. I'm a grown woman, and I made a choice." I can’t help but notice what she’s not saying in my defense. She’s not yelling that she loves me, that she wants to be with me for real.
But I can’t focus on the absent words because Jason’s not done yet. “Some choice,” he snarls.
"Stop it."
"You've been here two months, Ella. And you're already…"
"Already what?" Her voice is sharp and mean as his. "Already making a mess? Already screwing things up? Is that what you were going to say?"
Jason hesitates.
"Because that's what you think, right? That's what everyone thinks. Ella can't pass a test, Ella can't hold a job, and Ella can't make smart decisions. Little Baby Rookie, always messing things up."
"I didn't say that."
"You were going to." She steps closer to her brother.
I see something in her face I haven't seen before, not the calm nurse, not the dry wit, but real, undiluted fury.
"I have been a spectator in YOUR life since I was in diapers. Every car ride, every tournament, every family dinner that was actually a scouting report. And the one time — the ONE time — I start making my own choices, building my own life, you can't handle it because you don’t know how to communicate boundaries with your friend.”
Jason stares at her. I stare at her.
"I really hoped," she says, and her voice drops, the anger giving way to something rawer, "that once I started doing things for myself, you'd actually show up for me. That you'd be a better brother than the one I grew up with."
"I DID show up!" He gestures at his car, at the parking lot, at the whole scene. "I'm literally here, Ella! I drove across the city to pick you up from your test because Howie told me it was important!"
“Right. You’re here because BERNARD told you I had something important. When else have you shown up? Not the airport. Not in the dark when it’s snowing, and I need to get home from work. You’re too much of a selfish dick.”
Ella’s nose is red, and I think briefly about how adorable she looks before I remember that she’s in the middle of a fight with her brother…
my best friend. She takes a fortifying breath and lets loose.
“You know who shows up for me every day? Your best friend. So yeah. I’m sleeping with him.
A lot. Huge fuckfest right under your nose. ”
The sentence hangs in the cold air. Jason's fists unclench and clench again. Then he steps forward, fast, and his right hand connects with my face.
The punch is clean and hard, sending my head snapping to the side. I taste copper. My knee buckles, and I grab the bumper to keep from going down. The pain is bright and immediate, but nothing's broken. I've taken worse on the ice from guys who meant it more.
This was the punch of a man who wants to hurt his best friend just enough to feel like he did something about the hurt in his own chest.
"Bernard!" Ella is between us instantly, hands on my face, tilting my jaw toward the light. Nurse mode. Assessing. Her fingers probe the bones around my eye, checking alignment, watching my pupils. "Look at me. Follow my finger."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"I'm fine, Ella."
She spins on Jason. "Are you done?"
He's standing three feet away, cradling his right hand — he punched wrong, probably strained something in his fingers, and the irony of a professional athlete hurting himself throwing a punch in a strip mall parking lot would be funny if everything weren't falling apart.
"Yeah," Jason says. His voice is hollow. “We’re done."
He turns, walks to his SUV, and gets in. The door slams. The engine roars. The bass kicks back in, absurdly loud for the weight of the moment, and Jason Rujkowski peels out of the parking lot, tires screeching.
Ella and I stand in the cold silence afterward. Her hands are still on my face. My cheek throbs. A thin line of blood runs down my face, and she wipes it with her thumb, so gently.
"Let me see," she murmurs, turning my head. "It's superficial. You'll bruise."
"Ella."
"You should ice it when you get home. Twenty minutes on, twenty off." She steps back. Drops her hands. Wraps her arms around herself. "I need to figure some things out."
"Come home with me. We can talk—"
"I need space, Bernard." She looks at the sub shop. "I'm going to go sit in there for a while. Maybe get something to eat. Think."
"Ella, your brother—"
"Please." Her voice is quiet. "Go home."
I don't want to leave her in a strip mall parking lot. Every cell in my body revolts at the idea of getting in my car and driving away from Ella Rujkowski, standing in the cold with my blood on her thumb.
But she asked. And I've spent weeks learning that Ella asks for very little and means it completely when she does.
"Okay," I say. "I'll go."
She nods. Turns toward the sub shop. Pauses. "Ice your jaw. And your knee. Don't skip the knee just because your face hurts more acutely.”
"Yes, ma'am."
She almost smiles. Then she walks inside, and the glass door swings shut behind her, and I'm alone in the parking lot with a busted friendship and the wreckage of every secret I kept too long.
Because I am incapable of being a real adult, I have nowhere to sleep tonight that won’t get me murdered. I pull out my phone and text Mayhem.
Can I crash at your place tonight?
He responds in four seconds.
Door's open.
And so I don’t drive back to the condo to face Rookie, or stare at the evidence of Ella in my room. I pull out of the lot and head toward Observatory Hill to crash on yet another teammate’s couch.