Mya says, “The money is for me, anyway. My dad is gone most of the time and my nanny is nice, but she doesn’t speak English. My brother is family. So are you,” she says to her uncle, then turns to me.
My heart breaks and soars at the same time.
“I took a bus and then had to transfer and?—”
“She’s not going anywhere. You can’t send her back,” Kai says fiercely.
These two kids who found each other against impossible odds, who’ve been trying to protect each other the only way they know how, are practically begging us to solve a problem the other adults in their lives caused.
Shadows from my childhood could send me spiraling, but instead, I’m determined to find a solution. To show these children the kind of love and value Bibi had for me.
“Well,” I say, looking at Lane and seeing my own determination reflected in his eyes, “I guess we’d better figure out how to make this work. Because that’s what families do. We rise to the occasion. We figure it out.”
Together. We rise.
CHAPTER 14
Distracted,I miss a pass I could ordinarily make blindfolded. My timing is off, my focus is shot, and Coach Badaszek finally pulls me aside after I accidentally check my own teammate during practice.
“Sheridan, got a glitch in that hockey machine of yours? You’re playing like your head is in a bowl of marshmallows.”
I think of the hot chocolate contest with Nina’s homemade marshmallow addition and then the hot chocolate o’clock family chat. I clear my throat. “Just processing some family stuff.” Very much an understatement.
Twins.
Mya and Kai are twins, separated as babies by my sister, who apparently thought dividing siblings was an acceptable solution for whatever mess she’d gotten herself into. Now Mya—a ten-year-old girl who’s been hiding in Nina’s bakery, surviving on whatever food Kai could sneak to her—is living in our house.
Nina’s house.
I show up to town, to Nina’s life like a wrecking ball.
In short order, I learned that Mya’s father is MIA, travels a lot for work, and her nanny—who she communicates with in Thai—has been worried sick. Brock, her father, hasn’t been home in thirteen months. He just keeps the payments coming and the lights in their Silicon Valley mansion on. What kind of life is that for a kid? My sister really knows how to pick ‘em.
“Family stuff, huh?” Pierre appears beside us, having overheard.
Our captain, Liam, asks, “Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
The team gathers around me whether I want them to or not. These guys have unexpectedly become my brothers over the past few months, and part of me wants to spill everything. But another part of me—the part that’s been trained since childhood to handle problems privately—keeps my mouth shut.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I say.
“Right, that’s why you just tried to body check Pierre into next week,” Jack says skeptically.
“That? It was more like a brotherly love tap,” Pierre says with a teasing grin as if he hardly felt it.
Despite everything, I almost smile. These guys have a way of making this situation feel manageable. Of making hockey fun. Of feeling like a brotherhood in a way not even all those years with the Warriors did.
In a serious tone, Hayden says, “Whatever is going on, you’ve got people in your corner. Don’t try to shoulder everything alone.”
The comment reminds me of Kai doing just that.
Grady clips me with his stick. “And before everyone forgets we’re a bunch of dudes and gets mushy, we need you playing at your best, Sheridan. So whatever is going on up here,” he taps his temple, “can’t join you out here.” This time, he pounds the ice with his stick.
They spend the rest of practice crushing me in drills—their version of a pep talk, apparently—but it actually helps. The physical exhaustion clears my head enough to start thinking logically about our situation.
Mya found Kai through social media after seeing him on the Jumbotron at one of my games. She ran away from her nanny, which suggests her father has plenty of money but hasn’t necessarily doled out attention or affection—she made her way to Cobbiton to find her brother. The twins have been secretly reuniting for weeks, which explains all the strange pranks and oddities at the bakery. Needless to say, there are some gaps to fill in.
