“I have more money than I could possibly spend.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m still not taking it. Besides, it’s not the money. It’s Mom. It hasn’t even been a year since Dad died. What kind of daughter would I be if I ran off to Minneapolis and left her here to juggle all this?”
“Is it the house?” My stomach twisted at everything it represented. “The one you’re building?”
She blinked and set her empty plate on the coffee table. “No. It’s not the house. It’s just not the right time.” Her gaze slowly met mine. “Timing always seems to be an issue, doesn’t it?”
“Ryleigh.” I swallowed my last bite and put my plate next to hers.
“When were you going to tell me that you decked Chuck today?” she asked, turning to face me on the couch and arching an eyebrow.
Mayday. Mayday.
“Never. I was preferably never going to tell you.” I drummed my fingers on the back of her couch.
“Does that have something to do with you running a marathon this afternoon?” Damn, she saw straight through me.
“It wasn’t a marathon,” I grumbled. “And maybe.”
“You don’t have to defend me, you know. I’m not getting pushed into lockers anymore.”
I scoffed. “You were in sixth grade when that happened, and it’s my privilege to defend you, Ry. Not my responsibility.” My chest constricted. Maybe I wanted it to be my responsibility. Maybe I wanted a label on this despite the ticking time bomb of the hockey season that lingered over our heads. “Besides, the asshole had it coming.”
She snorted and shook her head. “He’s not that bad. A little egocentric and…” Her nose crinkled as she thought.
“Idiotic? Chauvinistic? Selfish?” I suggested. “I honestly can’t understand how you ever loved him, Ry. He’s a jerk.”
She grinned and scooted over, tucking herself underneath my arm where she fit perfectly. “Someone sounds jealous.”
Now I was the one snorting.
“Just because someone is flawed doesn’t mean you can’t love them, Caz.” She settled in, her head on my shoulder as she threw one of her thighs over mine.
My arms circled her and I pressed a kiss to her forehead. She smelled like the floral shampoo in her shower and the soft, clean bite of soap. She smelled like home, like twenty-one summers spent in the cornfields and sneaking off to the lake to swim.
She reached for the remote, and then settled back against me like we had all the time in the world. Like this was just another night in a long series of nights, of years.
“Ryleigh?” I asked softly, leaning my head against hers.
“Hmmm?” Her breathing evened out.
“What are we doing?” There. I’d asked. We could have the long-dreaded talk about where this was going. Whether we saw ourselves finding a path to make this work, or if we were driving a hundred miles an hour into a brick wall.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Right now, we’re watching a movie.” She hit a button and one of the Jurassic Park movies started to play. “Maybe you can take a couple of lessons from the T-Rex on how to control your temper.”
I laughed and slid down the couch, taking her with me so she was laying half on top of me, her cheek resting against my chest.
Fine, we could put off the talk. We could pretend that I didn’t have about a thousand emails from the Reaper team in my inbox discussing the start of the season. We could even pretend that I didn’t live a thousand miles away, or that she was ignoring her dreams because she couldn’t let go of her own expectations.
I flexed my hand, wincing at the ache as I splayed my fingers across her back, trying to hold on to as much of her as possible.
In another life, maybe this would have been our normal evening. In another life maybe I would have gotten injured or never tried hockey to begin with. In another life maybe Ryleigh would have come home from college and I would have pulled my head out of my ass to see that the girl next door had grown up to become the perfect woman for me. It would have been simple and normal and…wonderful.
But I had discovered hockey. I’d skated off to college without another thought for the girl next door. I’d signed contracts and gone pro. I’d made millions and fucked around, dedicating my life to the sport and leaving my heart out of the equation—a heart that was screaming at me to be heard, now.
And Ryleigh had gone off to college and fallen for a guy from our hometown, who had seen her as a convenience until she wasn’t. She’d lost her dad and dedicated herself to living out some kind of fifties-sitcom where she abandoned her talent and tried to convince her brain to tell her heart that she was happy.