The Home Grown (Elite Hockey #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

ELLIE

He still hasn’t texted me.

I check my phone for the sixth time in twenty minutes, convinced I felt it vibrate, but surprise, surprise—it didn’t. There’s nothing. Not even a notification for the weather to fall back on.

I stare at the screen, briefly wondering if I can manifest him into texting. I mean, he said he would so he will, right? It’s only been … what, twelve hours?

I unlock the screen, just to double check I haven’t missed anything, when Kathryn clears her throat.

“You’ll go insane if you keep checking it,” she says.

She watches me for a moment before dipping her head, continuing to rummage through the open cardboard box on the bed—the contents of our parents’ loft, the remnants of our childhoods reduced to old bits of paper.

I lock the screen of my phone and throw it, face down, onto the bed with an air of contempt. No pocket. No phantom vibrations. Problem solved .

“No news is good news, yeah?” she says. “They still had three slots left last time I checked. Just because you haven’t heard anything yet doesn’t mean you won’t.”

I shoot her a puzzled look.

“Wait—what? Who?”

Kathryn sighs. “The magazine.”

Ah, so we’re not talking about the same thing.

That clears things up. Kathryn thinks I’m checking my emails about the bridal stylist magazine feature I applied for three weeks ago, but honestly, I’ve pushed it to the back of my mind since I’ve already resigned myself to failure.

And since I’m embarrassed about the real reason for checking my phone, I don’t correct her.

I nod instead, keeping my eyes on the box I’m working through.

Only a second passes before I feel her watching me again.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I say.

But she doesn’t buy it. I can feel her gaze burning into me like she’s trying to read my mind.

“Right. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong? Because you’ve been in a grump all day—more so than usual,” she says.

I keep my focus on the box, paying an unnecessary amount of attention to a bundle of old receipts.

“Ellie?” Kathryn prompts, her voice sharp.

And that’s all it takes. The authority in her voice, causing me to snap like a split end.

I pause, clutching at the receipts for moral support as I raise my head to meet her eyes.

“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I’m not waiting to hear from the magazine.”

She raises an eyebrow, folding her arms over her chest as she waits for me to continue.

“I met a guy last night. I don’t want to go into it, but he said he’d text, and he hasn’t,” I say.

And there it is.

A smile .

A smile that creeps across her face in such a way, my stomach tightens.

Here we go.

“Which guy?” she asks.

“It doesn’t matter. I probably won’t hear from him,” I say, layering in the self-doubt before I can stop myself.

I can’t help it. I don’t remember the last time someone asked for my number. And someone who looked as good as he did? Probably never. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me.

“Come on,” Kathryn says. “You can tell me.” She pauses, then widens her eyes. “I guess it was one of Greg’s friends, I suppose … and I reckon it’s someone he doesn’t see all that often, because you’ve met most of his friends before.”

Kathryn did all the invites for her and Greg’s engagement party; she’ll know every single guy who was there last night.

She tilts her head as if a visual parade of Greg’s friends rolls through her mind. She’s probably trying to deduce who, if any, would ask me out. But, aside from him, there’s no one else I would have given my number to.

Crap.

“Forget it,” I say.

“Why are you so reluctant to tell me?” she asks.

“I just—” I cut my words off, not wanting to admit that I’m scared of her judgement. Her ridicule. Because I’ve heard it before…

But Kathryn narrows her eyes in a lightbulb moment. “Is it someone you’ve met before and were interested in but haven’t told me?”

I exhale.

“We’re not doing this,” I say. “Quit it.”

I reach for a pillow from the head of the bed and fling it toward her, but she bats it away.

“El—”

“Shush,” I say. “No more questions.”

Kathryn purses her lips.

“Fine. But I’ll ask Greg later,” Kathryn says. “See if anyone’s said anything to him.”

I turn away from the bedroom, grabbing one of the boxes stacked on the landing labelled ‘Eleanor’, before returning to the spare room and setting it down on the bed.

I’m half-expecting Kathryn to launch back into the fifty questions, but she’s busy again, her nose buried in the book she’s validating and I’ve never been so relieved.

“Will I need my year nine maths homework?” she asks, flicking through a workbook before tossing it back into the box.

“Why did you keep any of that stuff?”

She shrugs and tosses the book toward the recycling pile. “I honestly have no idea. I probably thought I’d need to reflect on linear equations while I fix someone’s broken nail.”

“If you’ve got no immediate or future need for it—bin,” I say.

Kathryn grimaces. “Savage.”

“All I’m saying is there’s a good reason all this stuff has been untouched in the loft for years. Don’t you think we’d have noticed by now if there was something we needed … or something we’d misplaced?”

“True,” she says, pulling out odd bits of paper from the bottom of her box. She flicks through the pages before scrunching her nose. “Ugh. Year Ten science.”

She tosses it toward the recycling too, before dipping out to grab another box from her stack.

I can’t help myself. Once I’m sure she’s gone, I reach for my phone, checking the screen on the off-chance he’s texted.

Still nothing.

And it’s frustrating as hell. This is why I hate the dating scene. It’s full of hope and wonder and desperation and?—

I throw my phone like it’s burnt me when Kathryn slips back into the room, but, lucky for me, I don’t think she notices. She’s busy wrestling with an overfilled ‘Bag for Life’, repurposed as document storage .

“Mam said this is a bag of random bits,” she says, dumping it on the bed. “Looks like old phone bills and stuff.”

She roots through the bag as I gather another pile of papers from my box and discard them.

“Yep. Old bills and … oh, this is yours.”

She hands me a red plastic document wallet and I peek at the top sheet of paper—a travel insurance plan from a trip I took to Germany when I was eighteen.

What started off as a girls’ holiday somewhere hot and sandy ended up with us booking a trip to northern Germany, all because my friend Jessica was sort-of seeing a guy who was spending his summer at a youth hockey camp or something.

It feels like a lifetime ago. A version of myself I can barely remember.

“Anything exciting?” Kathryn asks.

“Uh, no—just junk.”

Kathryn resumes her rummaging, and I flick through the contents of the wallet.

Aside from the travel insurance documents, the wallet is full of odd bits of paper—tourism leaflets, hotel bar receipts. Nothing worth keeping. I’m close to chucking it all in the bin when something half-folded catches my eye, crammed between two other sheets.

I pull it free and peel open the paper, skimming over the text—trying to figure out what it is.

It looks familiar but also doesn’t … all at the same time.

Despite its age, the paper is crisp and clean; the ink legible, albeit slightly faded. I take a second to process what I’m looking at—and another second to realise why it looks so familiar.

Then it hits me. My breath catches in my throat, involuntary and loud enough for Kathryn to hear.

“What?” she says.

I blink several times, my eyes scanning the document.

“El?”

My stomach tightens .

“I—nothing,” I say, stuffing the paper away.

Kathryn glances up. “Is everything okay?”

My heart thuds, panic moving through my veins.

“It’s, uh—” I swallow. “It’s an old parking ticket I didn’t pay,” I lie. “I’m going to Google it, see if there’s anything I need to worry about.”

“Greg can help with any legal stuff,” she says.

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, my voice a shaky mess, because I’m sure this is not something I want to run past Kathryn’s fiancé.

I grab my phone along with the document wallet and disappear into the bathroom, clicking the door shut behind me before sliding the lock into place. Then I check the door, pulling the handle to make sure I’m safely locked in. Alone. Uninterruptible.

I root through the pages again, scrambling for the paper almost clumsily.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

My fingers brush the document, and a pang of nausea washes over me. I count to three, gearing myself up, trying to push away the knot of dread sitting heavy in my stomach.

Then I unfold it. Returning my attention to the text again—properly reading it this time.

Except I can’t.

Because it’s in Danish.

Danish.

It’s written in Danish.

The whole thing is in Danish … well, everything bar?—

I piece it together, my eyes roaming over the words as they dance across the paper—unreadable and cryptic. Maybe if I?—

But there’s a knock on the bathroom door, jump-starting me and I scramble to shove it away. To hide the evidence.

“El?” Kathryn says through the door. “Greg’s back with the takeaway. ”

I glance back down at the paper, nestled between two tourist leaflets, then back to the door.

“Uh, I’m not hungry,” I say.

There’s a pause before Kathryn speaks again.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Yes,” I squeak. “My stomach—I feel a bit … queasy. It’s probably the wine from last night.”

“You didn’t drink that much,” she says.

I force a laugh. “Yeah, but … you know me. I can’t handle my wine.”

There’s a silence before Kathryn replies. “Okay, if you say so.”

Her steps retreat on the landing, and I sink down onto the edge of the bath, clutching the document wallet with a shaky hand.