The Blocks We Make (Rixton U #3)

Prologue

Cooper ~ Three Years Ago

Practice always runs long, and my dad never waits.

“Coop! Barn. Now.”

I’m not even to the front door when his voice cuts through the sharp air.

I groan but don’t bother arguing. Dropping my bag by the porch, I head straight for the barn.

I’m still sweaty, still wired from the intense drills I’ve been running through.

If I shower now, I’d just have to do it again anyway, so I might as well get it done.

The barn smells like hay and dust and… home. I knock out the last of the chores on autopilot. Feeding the animals, checking the latches on their stalls, and making sure everything is set for the night.

My muscles burn, and my body aches. By the time I finish, the sky is so dark you can see the stars twinkling overhead.

The kitchen lights are still on, but the house is mostly quiet. Inside, I head straight for my en suite bathroom. After shedding my clothes, I climb into the shower and let the water pound the day out of my shoulders.

Once I’m finished, I quickly towel off and pull on a pair of sweatpants before I drop into my chair and fire up my Xbox.

This is how I unwind.

Hockey is my life, but gaming is my off switch.

The headset connects, and voices flood in almost immediately.

“About time you joined us, farm boy.”

“I was worried you got lost in a cornfield.”

I smirk. “If you missed me, all you have to do is say it.”

“Fuck off,” one of the guys chirps.

A few of the guys are from other teams I’ve played on. Some from different leagues, even from different states. Others I’ve met online. I recognize their voices, but I’ve never seen their faces.

We joke around and trash-talk. It’s usually harmless, bragging about a kill shot, and some of us will gang up on them the next round.

Tonight, however, a new voice I’ve never heard is in the chatroom. It’s higher, softer, and I notice a silence falls over the line.

“Wait, shit. Are you a girl?” one of the idiots blurts out.

Another one whistles into his mic. “Girls don’t play this game.”

“Relax,” someone else adds. “Don’t start simping already.”

There’s another offhand comment that makes my jaw tighten.

I scroll through the short list of players, my eyes landing on the user CerealKilla.

“Damn, I didn’t know girls could play like that.” I recognize that voice as Owen, one of my teammates.

“Did you steal your boyfriend’s controller?”

“She got lucky. I bet she’s fuckin’ trash,” another guy adds, and I straighten in my chair.

“You shut your fuckin’ mouth,” I blurt out.

There’s a beat of silence.

“Oh come on, Rowdy—”

“Did you not hear me the first time? Knock it off.” My voice is sharper now. “She’s playing better than half of you, so none of you have earned the right to say shit.”

There are a few laughs. Someone scoffs, and I hear another guy mutter under his breath.

“Let me find out one of you ever spoke to my sister that way, and it wouldn’t end well. So either clean it up or find another group to play in.”

It’s silent again, although this time it’s longer before the girl pipes up. Her voice is calm and steady.

“We good, or do you need me to carry this round too?”

I grin despite myself.

“Yeah.” I chuckle. “I think we’re good now.”

I don’t let people cross certain lines on the ice or anywhere else. Mistreating a woman is one of them.

The game continues. None of the other guys utters another ridiculous comment. I lean back into my chair, hands easy on the controller.

As I should’ve expected, she wipes the floor with them. She’s not dramatic about it, and she doesn’t gloat. Suddenly, the same guys who were running their mouths are struggling to catch up.

When it’s over, she says, “Next time, try keeping up,” before she drops from the lobby.

I can’t help the grin that nearly splits my face in half.

The chat explodes.

“What the hell—”

“That was pure fuckin’ luck.”

“She rage quit.”

I don’t stick around to listen to them bitch. I exit and pull up her profile, not hesitating as I type out a message.

Me: You wanna run a few games without the idiots?

Three dots appear almost immediately.

CerealKilla: Sure. As long as I don’t have to listen to you run your mouth too.

I smile, and we queue it up. We don’t say much the first night, but it doesn’t stay that way. Soon, it’s more nights like this, when I see she’s online and we play just the two of us.

She’s quiet but confident and calculated, where I tend to push too hard. She jokes when I mess up, and I call her out when she’s carrying us.

It’s playful and never mean. Sometimes it feels dangerously close to flirting, but we tend to ease up before it crosses the line.

One night, I notice she’s online. It’s after midnight on a Saturday when I log on. We play a few matches back to back, falling into an easy rhythm that feels way too natural for two people who don’t actually know each other.

“Nice save,” I mutter into the mic.

“Took you long enough to notice,” she shoots back.

I grin, leaning forward to press my elbows to my knees. “I notice plenty.”

The pause on her end feels different, more charged. Neither of us acknowledges it.

After the next round, I check the time and swear under my breath. “Gotta log off soon. Early morning.”

“Work?” she asks.

“Farm,” I say. “Gotta get my chores done.”

I don’t mention that it’s an earlier morning than normal since we’re heading out of town for a game.

“Ah,” she replies, like that answers everything. “Those don’t really do ‘late starts.’”

“Unfortunately,” I say. “What about you? You disappear sometimes.”

There’s another quiet pause. It’s longer this time.

“I move around a lot,” she says eventually. “So I’m not always online.”

“Like… travel?” I ask carefully.

“More like life,” she says, trying to keep it light. “My mom doesn’t like staying in one place for too long. It’s kind of a habit now.”

I feel a pang in my chest I didn’t see coming. “Sounds exhausting.”

She laughs softly. “You get used to it after a while.”

I want to ask more about it, like where she’s living now and if she likes it there.

Instead, I say, “I won’t be online again until probably Tuesday night. If you’re around and wanna play…”

“Careful,” she teases. “You’re gonna make me think you need me.”

“I definitely need you,” I say easily. “You carry me.”

“That’s true,” she agrees. “You’d be lost without me.”

This time, when she laughs, I almost forget about my early wake-up and stay on just to hear more of it.

When I tell her I’m logging off, she doesn’t disconnect right away.

“Night, Farm Boy,” she says.

“Night, Killa,” I say into the mic.

I pull off my headset and lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling longer than I realize. I find myself trying to picture her face, her smile, the color of her hair, and the shade of her eyes.

There’s more to her; more she’s not saying. Or maybe it’s a reason she keeps herself at a distance.

Every time a conversation skates too close to real life, she pulls away. She redirects to the game or a joke, or retreats into silence.

And I let her.

Whatever this is, it works because it doesn’t ask for more than she’s willing to give.

And even though part of me wonders where she goes when she disappears, I tell myself I’m fine not knowing.

For now.