“She did?” Ethan’s grin is dazzling. “She’s a kick-ass hockey player too.”
Oliver nods. “She sure is. And don’t tell her I said this, but she’s a faster skater than I am. Has a better backhand too. Always has. So, what do you say? Go hang with your grandma, and your dad and I will figure out a good day for you to come to practice.”
Ethan stands with a groan. “Fine, but it better be soon.”
“Count on it,” Oliver says with a grin.
“Thanks for that,” I say to Oliver when my kids leave the house, the front door slamming behind them. I collapse back onto the couch, exhaustion hanging over me like a weighted blanket. The last four days have felt like ten years.
He shrugs. “Anytime. He’ll be my nephew at some point, so I want to get to know him. Riley too. She’s as badass as Mads told me she is.”
I close my eyes at the wave of emotion that hits me as Oliver’s words paint a picture of everything I’ve ever wanted. A big family. My kids surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins. So many people to love them. To love me too. It’s a dream I’ve shoved down in the years since Lainey died, but being with Maddy for the past few months has made me realize it’s okay to hope for things again. And I want all the things, but only if I get to have them with her. God, I hope I get to have it all with her.
“You will,” Oliver says, taking the chair across from the couch.
Shit, did I say that out loud?
Drew laughs, probably at my look of confusion. “You were having your inside thoughts on the outside. But even if you weren’t, the look on your face would have given it away.”
I sigh, slumping back against the couch and scrubbing my hands over my face. “I fucking miss her. I told her I would give her the time she needs, and I will, but goddammit, I miss her. And I don’t understand what happened. I know the article was bad. I mean, it’s exactly the thing she was worried about. The reason we were keeping this a secret. Well, mostly a secret.”
“Yeah, about that.” Tyler interrupts me before I can finish my thought, dropping onto the couch next to me and handing me a ginger ale. The guy is weirdly obsessed with ginger ale. “Fuck you very much for telling Drew about you and Maddy but not telling me. She’s like my fucking cousin, dude, and one of my best friends. Drew didn’t even know her before she came to work for the team, and I’ve known her for my entire damn life.”
“She’s my actual fucking sister, and I didn’t know either.” Oliver props his feet up on the coffee table. “But you don’t see me having a tantrum about it.”
“I’m not having a tantrum,” Tyler mutters. “I just like to know shit.”
I shrug, taking a sip of the soda. “I didn’t tell Drew; he figured it out.”
Tyler gives me acome onlook. “He figured it out? Drew wouldn’t know an actual relationship if it walked up and smacked him in the face.”
“Fuck off. I’m intuitive as shit.” Drew picks up a hockey puck Ethan must have left here and tosses it at Tyler, who plucks it out of midair and sticks his tongue out at Drew like a toddler.
For as much as Drew’s life is a chain of giant one-night stands and he seems positively allergic to actual relationships, he actually is oddly intuitive. Not that I’d tell him that. “It was important to Maddy.” I clench my fists, because even saying her name makes my arms literally ache to be around her. “I would have shouted about us from the rooftops from the very first day, but it was important to her to wait, and whatever’s important to her is important to me.”
“Jesus, you’re in deep.” Tyler looks at me with something resembling awe.
“You love her.” Oliver says it not as a question, but as a fact. “You have for a long time.”
“The whole time,” I mutter, glancing between the three men. “I swear to god, I think I’ve loved her since the very first night we met which is an entire mindfuck, but here we are. And not seeing her this week? Not knowing if she’s sad or hurting or what she wants or needs?” I blow out a breath, shaking my head. “I want to respect her need to work through some of this on her own, but it’s fucking killing me.”
Drew lays a hand on my arm as we all lapse into silence, my confession hanging in the air.
“Are you worried about your career?” Oliver asks. “There could be fallout for you too.”
I scoff, waving that away. “Fuck my career. I love football, but I’ve played for thirteen years. If the choice was between my career or hers, I would retire tomorrow with no hesitation and without a single regret.”
Tyler shakes his head. “I doubt it would come to that. Brian would never let that happen.”
I shrug. “If it does, it does. She’s what’s important. What she wants. What she needs. I just don’t know what that is.” My voice drips with misery.
Oliver sits back in his chair and gives me a considering look. “How much do you know about Maddy’s background? Her childhood, I mean.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. I don’t even have to think back because everything she’s ever told me is burned straight into my brain, like I have a photographic memory, but only for things that have to do with her. “I know she was in the system, and she came to live with your mom when she was around seven and was eventually adopted by both of your parents.”
Oliver nods. “Her biological mom died when she was really little, and her biological dad was an addict who was in and out of prison.” Oliver inhales harshly, like even thinking about the hell his sister went through is painful for him. I understand that in my soul. Thinking of the seven-year-old version of the woman I love, all alone, living with strangers, without a family or a home of her own makes it hard to breathe.
“Seven is young,” he continues, “but when you spend the first years of your life the way Maddy did, it’s not that young. We have the best family in the world.” He pauses, looking at Tyler, who nods and lays a fist over his heart, saying everything without saying a word. The unspoken language of brothers. “But I sometimes think that even the greatest family and all the love in the world isn’t enough to erase those scars.” He looks up at me, eyesfull of anguish. “I’m telling you this because you love her too, and I want you to understand. She’s fine most of the time. Amazing, even. But I think every now and then, something happens that takes her body and her brain back to that place where no one was safe and where family didn’t stay.”
