But he doesn’t drive away.
And I know it’s because he’s waiting for me to go first.
Same as I know he’ll follow me all the way back to my apartment and watch until I let myself inside.
I know all that…
But it doesn’t occur to me until I’m winding through the darkened roads?—
That he didn’t promise about the tires.
Six
Colt
“And then I sniped him, bro. Seriously sniped him.”
Blake laughs and I can tell by the way it sounds that he’s having a rough day.
Health-wise.
Not mentally.
Blake, for all that my little brother has endured in his life—hospital stays, double-digit surgeries, so fucking many doctors’ appointments and procedures and medications—isn’t often unwell mentally.
He’s the strongest person I know.
And I don’t mean that he’s just hiding his thoughts and feelings and struggles behind a veneer of fake, toxic positivity.
I mean he was born with a shit hand, can’t go out and act like us normal, healthy folk, but he still manages to live a life that’s far more complete than the nonsense I’ve been pretending to live.
On the road half the year.
Living and breathing hockey the rest of it.
Alone when I’m not with the team.
Things have gotten a little better since I was traded to the Sierra—mostly because Knox and Lake and the others make it impossible to keep my distance.
But I’m not exactly living what anyone would call a full life.
Blake, on the other hand, can’t leave the house all that often (and even more rarely for something that isn’t a doctor’s appointment) has a packed social calendar with friends all over the world.
Call of Duty with his friends in Berlin.
Wavelength with his friends in Australia.
The newest Roblox game with his friends in Brazil.
Video games and chatting online keep him sane, but it’s not all Blake does. He’s on the board of the children’s charity I founded when I got my first big contract in the league, he fosters kittens, and he does social media for a variety of brands.
See? A full life.
Certainly more so than me with my sticks and pucks and skates.
“Why were you sniping again?”
He sighs the put-out sigh that only younger siblings can do. “Because he was being a dickhead with Sara.”
