Chapter 1 #2
Except… no, this wasn’t just an irritated spot. She dropped the bra to the floor and used both hands to palpitate the flesh. There was a decided lump deep in the tissue of her breast.
Terror struck like a viper, stealing the strength from her legs.
She had a lump in her breast.
Just like her mother.
She pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back the scream welling up in her chest.
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
They’d found Gillian’s lump when she was forty.
Aspen was only twenty-eight.
The exterior door opened, and female laughter floated inside as other guests came in to check their makeup or use the facilities. The sound jolted her back to herself.
This was her father’s wedding. He was out there, waiting to dance with her.
To celebrate his new beginning. She wasn’t about to say or do anything that would ruin his day.
Not now. Not until she saw a doctor and had a diagnosis confirmed.
There was absolutely nothing she could do about this before Monday morning.
Aspen took another few minutes to get herself under control. Then she trashed the bra and strode back out to the party to dance with her father, in case it was the last time she ever had a chance to do it.
From somewhere beneath the depths of the covers, Brooks Hennessy registered the pounding on his door.
He was done dealing with all the things.
The funeral had been endured. Condolences had been accepted.
Casseroles had been frozen. All the aftermath crap had been dealt with.
It was the off-season. He had no further professional obligations.
The death certificate had arrived yesterday.
He had every right to hole up in his house for another two months, until time for pre-season training.
The pounding came again, louder this time.
Brooks tugged the comforter up over his head. If he didn’t respond, they would go away.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he heard the sound of the door opening.
Dammit, he should never have given them spare keys to his place.
The murmur of low voices sounded as they moved through the house. He knew what they’d see. A riot of empty takeout containers and beer bottles, endless stacks of dirty dishes, and mountains of unopened mail. He hadn’t been planning on company. If they had a problem with it, they could kiss his ass.
“Shit, dude.” The shock in Colter Coughlin’s tone had Brooks hunching his shoulders.
“Go away.”
Grady Prichard, the third member of their trio, slapped a hand on Brooks’s leg on top of the blanket. “Can’t do that, man. We’re here to make sure that you’re doing the bare minimum to take care of yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
Brooks wasn’t even in the same country as fine, but he wasn’t about to admit that.
“Somehow, we don’t believe you.”
Brooks sensed them on either side of the foot of the bed seconds before the duvet was yanked off him. He sat up, glaring. “You’re lucky I wasn’t naked under here.”
Grady rolled his eyes. “Nothing we haven’t seen before in the locker room.”
“Speaking of which, you need to go shower.”
Brooks transferred his scowl to Colter. “Go away.”
His buddy didn’t blink. “Not gonna happen. At least, not until you’ve showered, and we’ve seen you eat something.”
Knowing them well enough to ascertain the truth of this statement, Brooks swung his legs out of the bed and sat up.
His whole body hurt. He hadn’t been keeping up with the workouts that maintained his physique as a pro athlete.
Not even the low-level ones that were his habit during the off season.
What was the point? He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to go back.
So he felt about a hundred years old as he stood and moved toward his friends.
Grady made a Vanna White gesture toward the open bathroom door.
“Please enjoy. We’ll help take care of the rest.”
“Leave it,” Brooks growled.
Colter slapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Just go shower, man. It’ll make you feel a little more human.”
Not having the energy to argue, Brooks stumbled into the bathroom to do as they ordered.
As he stripped out of his T-shirt and basketball shorts, he had to admit he did smell like something that had been left to molder in the back of his locker over the course of a full season.
Kind of like the lucky socks he’d worn during his AHL career before moving up to the pros.
He stepped under the spray and let it beat down on his head and shoulders, loosening up muscles gone stiff with inactivity.
He stayed in the bathroom longer than necessary, with a vague hope that his friends would have disappeared by the time he came out.
No such luck. When he stepped into his living room, dressed in clean sweatpants and a T-shirt, they’d done their best impression of Merry Maids. All the takeout containers and empty beer bottles had been cleared away. The low rumble of the dishwasher told him they’d dealt with the dishes as well.
Colter eyed him from head to toe. “Well now, you look a little bit more like someone who’s part of the land of the living.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Colter winced. “Sorry. But do you feel better?”
“Set the bar lower, man.” Brooks’s gaze slid to the counter, where he spied a large pizza box. “Is that pizza from Tremoni’s?” He didn’t want to be interested, but the scent of tomatoes and garlic and grease had his stomach growling.
When was the last time he’d eaten?
“An extra-large pie, just for you.” Grady nudged over a plate. “Eat.”
Brooks recognized an order when he heard one, but he didn’t have enough energy to ignore it in the name of being contrary.
He opened the box and lifted out a slice covered in pepperoni, peppers, onions, and mushrooms. This would be the closest he’d come to a vegetable in at least a week.
He bit in, closing his eyes as the spicy sauce and melted cheese hit his tongue.
“He is responding to normal stimuli. This is improvement,” Colter declared.
Brooks just fixed a flat gaze on his friend. He finished the first slice of pizza, washing it down with filtered water from the fridge. The food did help a little. “Thanks.”
As he reached for another slice, his friends exchanged a look. “Do I look that bad?”
This time it was Grady who grabbed his shoulder. “You really don’t want us to answer that. But you do look better since the shower. Even if your beard is making you look like a homeless Viking.”
Fresh irritation prickled. “You’ve done your wellness check, seen that I’ve showered and eaten. You’re free to go anytime.”
“That’s not what friends do, Hennessy. We want to be here for you.”
Colter nodded. “Yeah, you’ve done the hermit routine long enough. It’s time you start getting out in the world again.”
“If either of you think that I have any intention of going down to Denver in search of a puck bunny at one of our usual haunts, you are sorely mistaken.” The last thing Brooks wanted to do was go out in public and risk being recognized.
He was the reason his team had been kicked out of the playoffs.
It was possible that the commentators had moved on to something else by now, but he had no interest in putting that theory to the test.
Colter looked to Grady. The Canadian had no poker-face to speak of, and Brooks could easily see the concern underlying his attempt at discretion.
“What is it?”
“We’re just here to check on you,” Colter insisted.
But Brooks wasn’t reassured. A little frisson of unease trickled down his spine. “What?”
Grady sighed. “We overheard Maxwell talking.”
Damien Maxwell was the general manager for their team. If they’d overheard something he was saying, the only thing that would be of any interest would be about Brooks’s fate on the team. “What did he say?”
“He’s looking to trade you. “
Brooks waited for the emotional sucker punch to hit. This was his pro-hockey career at stake. The thing he’d devoted his entire adult life to. The reason his mother hadn’t felt as if she could tell him that she was sick.
But the blow never landed. He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “And?”
“We just thought you’d want to know.” Colter didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with his lack of reaction. Another worried glance passed between his friends.
To prove he wasn’t bothered, Brooks picked up another slice of pizza.
“It’s to be expected after I blew the playoffs.
” In truth, he should never have gotten back on the ice after his mother’s death.
His heart hadn’t been in it. But his team had been counting on him.
And he’d screwed the pooch in a big way.
Maxwell was well within his rights and his duty to the team in discussing trades with other teams.
“Do you know who he’s negotiating with?”
“No. Yanovich ran us off before we could hear more.”
Brooks shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. If he’s looking to trade me, I’ll get traded. I’ll either go, or I’ll retire.”
Colter straightened. “Shit, dude. Would you really retire?”
Grady frowned so hard a line formed between his dark brows. “Yeah. I know you’re in a bad way right now, but this is your career.”
The career Brooks was no longer certain he wanted.
He wasn’t angry with Maxwell. This was the nature of pro hockey. He’d known that when he signed contracts in the beginning nearly a decade ago. If he expected to feel something at the prospect of leaving Colorado, he was mistaken. All he felt was numb.
“What am I supposed to do about it?”
If his friends were offended that he wasn’t making an effort to prove that he wanted to stay, or that he valued their friendship, they didn’t show it.
Instead, Grady braced his elbows on the counter.
“We expect you to take care of yourself. Above the team, above us, we want to know that you’re okay. ”
The idea of it was laughable. Not the thought that his friends cared—he certainly appreciated that, no matter how much he was growling at them—but the idea that he would ever be okay again in a world without his mother. A world where he hadn’t been able to say goodbye.
“That’s a tall order, man.”
“We know. That’s why we think it would do you good to get out of town for a bit. Take a little vacation.”
“A vacation? You think I want to go visit a beach or some shit right now?”
Colter spoke up. “Not a beach. We were thinking the mountains. The middle of the woods. Something to suit your current grizzly bear personality.” He softened the teasing with a little bit of a smile.
“The middle of the woods might not be so terrible,” he conceded. He’d be far away from reporters and the not-so-well-meaning public who thought his grief was for their consumption.
“Good.” Grady straightened with a nod. “We’ve already booked you a cabin in the Berkshires.”
Brooks blinked. “You did what now?”
“We booked you a week-long stay at a grown-up summer camp on the other side of the country. You’ve been away from New York for long enough that you shouldn’t be as easily recognizable over there as you are here.
It should give you the privacy you want with the amenities of a resort.
Let someone else see to the laundry and the cleaning and the food so you don’t have to. ”
“It’s called Camp Firefly Falls,” Colter added. “Apparently it used to be a sleep-away camp for kids a long time ago, but some former campers bought it and turned it into a resort a few years ago.”
Brooks was still staring. “You’re sending me to summer camp?”
“You need a break. An all-inclusive resort somewhere tropical is not your jam, so this seemed like the next best option.” Grady put an envelope on the counter.
“All the information about it is in here. The only thing you’ve gotta do is book a flight to get to that side of the country.
Your reservation starts end of next week. ”
“You expect me to just up and drop everything to fly across the country to go to summer camp?”
Grady arched a challenging brow. “Drop what, exactly?” He gave a pointed look around the house.
“You’re entitled to your grief, man. But we’re not gonna let you wallow in it and drown.
Take the trip. Think about something other than hockey for a bit.
Maybe you’ll have a clearer head when you come back. ”
He considered their offer. He wasn’t exactly excited about going anywhere, but he recognized the kindness in the gesture. And maybe they were right. Maybe it would do him good to get out of town, away from everything that reminded him of his mom.
“Are you two coming with me?”
Colter grinned. “Only if you want us to.”
Brooks dug up a faint semblance of his usual smile. “Now, why would I want to spend a week with your ugly mug?”
“That’s what we thought.” Grady pulled him in for a back-thumping hug. “I know everything about this is shitty. But you’re gonna get through it.”
Brooks gave in to the hug. “Thank you for caring. Both of you.”
Colter pulled him in. “Anytime, brother. Have a good trip.”