The heaviness of the conversation weighs down the air around us, and the memories rush in. Memories of the lowest moments of my life, the ones where I called my brother, the person I trust most in the world. But I don’t want to think about that. I have a chance for a comeback into pairs skating, where I thrive, and I can’t let negativity drown out that hope.
“Enough of that,” I say with a flip of my hand, forcing the lock on my compartment of unhappy thoughts firmly into place. “I’m going to need you to feed me before I wither away.” I arch an eyebrow. “Unless that was your plan all along.”
Brooks slowly shakes his head. “My therapist would be impressed by your ability to skirt emotional conversations of any kind.”
“Your therapist, huh?”
“Yes, Isla. Adults have therapists, especially when they’ve grown up in the septic tank that is the Covington household. It helps to talk about it.”
I pretend to think, running my hand along my chin. Brooks isn’t wrong that I could benefit from therapy, but I’m afraid of what will happen if I open that locked box, especially when I need to be perfect. “I’ll stick to skating.”
He heaves a sigh. “You sound like me from a decade ago.”
“I’m fine.”
I grip his bicep and attempt to move him toward the kitchen. He doesn’t budge, not that I thought he would. Besides an allergy to dissecting our fucked-up family dynamics—one that Brooks has apparently overcome in recent years—we also possess the same legendary stubborn streak.
I toss a hand to my forehead, the back of my palm to the skin. “My legs are getting weak, my vision going black. I don’t know how much longer—”
“Okay, you drama queen, let’s order dinner.”
“No home-cooked meal?” I jut out my bottom lip.
“Not unless you want a PB and J,” he replies, strolling past me down the hallway and into the kitchen. By the time I reach him, he’s got a stack of menus in his hands.
I pluck the top one off the pile, a pizza place. “Be honest. When’s the last time you’ve eaten dinner from somewhere other than this pile?”
Brooks says nothing as his stare drifts to his tabby cat, Lily, who sleeps peacefully on the couch without a care in the world. The instinct to joke with him, to sail past anything real in favor of barbs, taps at my shoulder, but I resist it. He deserves better from me.
“It means a lot to me that you’re letting me stay here, Brooksy.”
His head lifts. “You always have a place with me, I.”
“Let’s hope Spencer Davidson grows to feel the same as you do.”
Spencer’s glowing reputation adds to my stress. He’s reliable, likable, and talented, without a blemish on his decade-long skating career. Until now, when I enter his pristine picture. I have no idea what made him decide to take a chance on me, but I’m so grateful.
And all I can do is work my ass off to prove to Spencer that he didn’t make a mistake. Otherwise, I can kiss my skating career goodbye.
Chapter 2
Wes
Theincessantchorusofbirds outside my window rips me from sleep.
I groan, covering my face with a pillow to hide from the sun. Pretending to be asleep once again fails to convince my cats, Peanut and Muffin, that I’m not awake, and they join the birds, their cries becoming more desperate the longer I ignore them.
When I crack open my eye, Peanut sits before me with an impressive look of disdain. My acknowledgment of her existence emboldens her, and her front paw lands on my arm.Please, sir. Yes, I imagine my fifteen-pound, all-black cat as having the voice of a British aristocrat.
“Fine,” I grumble, shoving the blanket off and sliding out of bed. My back screams at the sudden movement, reminding me that my thirty-two-year-old body can’t recover like it used to from a beer league hockey game.
The cats sprint from the bedroom, cutting diagonally down the steps in front of me. I expect it, pausing my walk, so I don’t stumble and find myself at the bottom of the steps.
“Oh, hello, Wesley,” my brother, Spencer, croons, sporting that boyish smile that has gotten him out of trouble our entire lives. He sits at my kitchen table, drinking coffee out of my favorite mug—a picture of Alec Baldwin fromGlen Garry Glen Rosswith the line,Coffee is for closers—as if he lives here. “About time you got your butt out of bed.”
“What are you doing here, Spence?”
“Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” he replies in that self-satisfied tone that grates on me, especially this early in the morning. He knows it does, too. “Your coffee’s in the microwave, by the way. You’re welcome.”
