8. Mason
MASON
My phone vibrated across the leather writing desk Alena had commissioned when she’d redesigned the whole house a year ago.
I stared at the drawn curtains across my balcony doors.
I hadn’t allowed myself to go onto the balcony in two weeks.
I checked my phone again. No response to my voice messages, not that I’d been expecting one.
The little Read notification was enough for now.
Was Lilah out there in the garden? She’d taken to sitting outside on a bench I couldn’t see from my room as she recovered from her concussion. Had I walked out there at the same time for a glimpse of her like a stalker? Yeah, I had.
A ball of rage turned to molten liquid, splashing against my ribs, at the thought of her getting hurt. It never should’ve happened.
Calder: When are you back at practice?
Erik: How was your trip to court today?
Galen: How’s your hand?
Me: My case was dismissed and expunged. Cleared to skate today, but no practice or drills for another two weeks
My father’s lawyer had taken care of it.
The arrest and charges were expunged from my record and everything sealed.
According to the state, the incident never happened.
The day had been topped off with an apology from the prosecutor and the arresting officer requesting I get an autograph from my father, who hadn’t spoken to me in the two weeks since I’d splintered and broke eight bones in my hand.
“Mason!” Zoe announced her entrance with wall-crashing excitement. Every day, she spoke-shouted at full volume and her footsteps echoed through the hallways, no matter how much Alena tried to tire the energy out of her. At least when my father wasn’t home.
How much closer would I be to his personality if I hadn’t had those initial chaotic years with my mother? If I’d grown up like Bair, knowing my rightful space and having our father’s last name. Not scrambling to catch up and determined never to let him down, not only for me, but for Zoe and Mom.
Zoe raced over to me, seeming out of breath like always but also full of energy, eyes darting everywhere before landing on my hand.
“Does it still hurt?” She inched her small fingers closer to mine, which had been in a fingertip-to-wrist brace for two weeks until a couple days ago.
That was the last time I’d seen my father.
The day in the surgeon’s office, when they showed us both exactly where the thin wires would be drilled into the tips of three of my fingers.
Yesterday, I’d gotten the last of the wires removed from the stabilized and nicely healed (according to the surgeon flown in for the job) break on my middle finger.
The rest were non-displaced fractures, healing well with the brace.
The Velcro and polyester had chafed my skin. The webbing at my thumb, the only finger that hadn’t had a single break, was still sore, rubbed raw from the brace. “Almost completely healed now.” I flexed it, stifling the wince at the soreness that radiated from the center of my palm to my wrist.
She stared at me with a worried expression. “Will you play this season?”
“Of course, it’s the last Hawthorne season.” Two weeks before I could practice. Twitchy irritation tore through me at not being on the ice with the guys, but even worse was my father’s absolute silence.
I was a ghost to him.
“You guys have to win this time. I wish I could be a Hawk.”
I ruffled her hair. “What do you mean? You’re already a Hawk.
” Zoe played on a travel team and had made the Hawthorne Prep junior school team.
If she were a boy, she’d probably make varsity hockey as a freshman after having the best coaches and equipment and never worrying about paying for the next season’s gear, but there was no Hawthorne Prep high school girls’ team.
“Dyadya said I should focus on school and ballet instead of hockey. He doesn’t want me to get hurt. He thinks I can’t do it.” Her small hand squeezed mine.
I leaned closer, resting my forearms on my legs to take both her hands and meet her darting gaze.
“Zoe, never doubt yourself. He does think you can do it. He can see what everyone else sees. You’ve got the talent.
You’ve got the skills. You’ve got the focus.
” I tapped on the center of her chest. “You’ve got the heart for the game. There’s nothing that can stop you.”
She exhaled loud and heavy, shoulders dropping. “Really?”
“Really. Would I bullshit you?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You cursed.”
I laughed. “I did. That’s how much I believe it. And if you’re worried, we can do some stickhandling drills down in the gym.”
She eyed my hand, still in the brace. “Are you allowed?”
“As long as I take it easy. And for you, it’ll be worth it.”
She beamed at me. “Okay, I’ll grab my stick.” She darted out of the room.
In the basement gym, we went over some quick, easy drills. Zoe chattered away half the time, talking over herself before I could even answer a question.
“Dyadya said Bair’s going to come to one of my games this season. He said he’d come here for winter break.”
My father’s silence rang in my ears during the one-sided phone call I had made a little over two weeks ago while my broken hand burned and screamed for painkillers. His lawyer bailed me out and brought me back home.
I’d never disappointed him like this before. I’d expected to see my bags and Zoe’s dumped on the front lawn, or for my key to no longer work. This was foreign to me.
I’d always done everything he’d asked of me. Sometimes I’d fall short, but I hadn’t ever fucked up like this before. I didn’t know what to expect or how to fix a problem I’d never had before. I opened and closed my hand.
He’d flown to Rhode Island to watch over Bair’s prep for his season. And Bair was probably gloating about never fucking up and breaking eight bones in his hands during the preseason.
Even knowing all that, I didn’t regret it.
I’d do it again. I’d do it tomorrow if I needed to.
The rightness of what I’d done and the plunging quicksand of disappointing my father tumbled together into a minefield in my head.
Zoe handled the fake-pass pull-back drill better than half the JV guys on the team. “Is Lilah better yet?”
I froze and broke the lock on my muscles to shrug. “She’s better, I think. I haven’t spoken to her.” The brutal emotional whiplash was never-ending, especially when it came to Lilah.
Knowing she’d been hurt, all I wanted to do was go to her every day, but for the first week she’d been back, Ryker had shown up before I even got home and stayed with her until late.
An ugly, jealous part of me wanted to kick his ass and keep him from going anywhere near her, but a less asshole-ish version of me that I’d learned was annoyingly more in control from time to time knew that it wasn’t like I could help Lilah.
Not only because my hand had been a surgically pinned-together shit show until recently, but because she’d never let me.
Hell, I shouldn’t want to. But I did.
So I’d waited and kept my distance. A fight with Ryker when my hand was already broken would’ve been the dumbest possible decision. A bitter knot tightened in my gut. Lilah had her boyfriend taking care of her.
“You didn’t talk to her when you gave her all her schoolwork?” Zoe gave me a confused, curious look.
“Just didn’t want to bother her.” The only thing that had kept me sane was knowing she was in her house and, Ryker aside, she was safe in her house. If she hadn’t lived here, I’d probably have been arrested again for stalking while sitting outside of her house to keep an eye on her.
Every day after sunset, she walked for twenty minutes and sat on that hidden bench, so at least I got a daily dose of Lilah as I watched through a gap in the curtain like a damn creeper.
Zoe and I trained on the fake ice flooring for an hour before Alena called her away. She squeezed me in a big hug before racing off.
My hand ached. I massaged it like the PT had shown me after an hour of holding the stick.
My phone buzzed and my father’s name flashed on the screen. It looked like my ice-out had thawed. My stomach pitted in a twisted snarl.
Dad: Come to the rink. Full suit.
Dad stood at the center line with a bucket of pucks at his feet and two sticks in his hands. The lights were off everywhere except for the tunnel from the locker rooms and the rink. A cloak of darkness enveloped the rest of the space.
I stepped out onto the empty ice for the first time in two weeks.
Hand back in my brace, I skated toward the center ice.
There were no sounds other than the slice of my blades.
Wearing the pads again after two weeks felt heavier than before—or maybe it was the weighted expectation of my father’s stare.
“Sir.”
“Mason.” He held out a stick to me.
I took it with my left hand since my right wouldn’t be able to grip it in the brace. Holding it this way felt like brushing my teeth with the wrong hand. Off, foreign, unstable.
The light work I’d done with Zoe in the basement had been easy, but even now, I could feel the fatigue in my fingers. With more workouts, I’d be back to full strength by the time the season started. I just couldn’t push too hard too fast—at least that’s what the doctor said.
“I’m not cleared for hockey yet.”
“And you do not want to push yourself for faster results?” Of course he wouldn’t give a shit about what the doctor said my recovery timeline should be.
The scalding disappointment in his eyes was enough for me to bite back a response.
He tugged at the collar of his shirt, showing off the web of scarring on his shoulder. “The doctors told me I would miss the entire season when this happened. I was back on the ice within four weeks.”
But not after the destruction of his knee that ended his career.
I shook off the nauseated roiling in my stomach.