I spent all of those fifteen minutes telling myself what astupidfucking idea this was.I’d spent a year getting over Miles, weeks full of working out to exhaustion, telling myself the body punishment was needed to earn my AHL position.Then months with too much drinking, when the player I’d replaced healed up from his fractured hand and returned to the Tornados lineup, and I was sent back down to Eugene, same as always.
Now, a year later, I’d finally got my shit together.So why was I ripping open that scar?
Nothing new, I figured.Any common sense I ever had died in the presence of Miles Buckner.
I reminded myself Miles was engaged; he wasn’t mine and was never going to be mine.I owed him for the way I pulled the rug out from under him a year ago.I’d repay that debt and walk away.No hard feelings, no pining.I almost believed myself.
The Winters’ house was as close as Eugene came to an estate— a three-story stone mansion with pillars and numerous gables, surrounded by wide landscaped grounds, two outbuildings, and an ornamental but tall iron fence.I cruised past.Floodlights illuminated the grounds in the winter dusk, and one of the outbuildings was brightly lit, but the main house sat dark and quiet.
I parked a hundred yards down the block, in front of another property almost as big but not fenced, and hustled back.Miles stood inside the driveway gates, and when I arrived, he opened a human-sized door beside them and waved me inside.I hurried through, driven by the urgency of his gesture, and he swung the door shut behind me.
Miles turned, and for the first time in a year, I was looking him in the eyes.The urge to grab him and kiss him came out of nowhere, in vivid, painful reflex.I wrestled that bad idea down and nodded.“Miles.”
“Hey, Logan.Looking good.”
That was bullshit, with me coming off a long roadie with too little sleep, on top of a bad year.I just said, “Thanks.How can I help?”
“This way.”Miles strode off toward the bright outbuilding and I trotted to catch up to him.“This is Avery’s studio.She’s an artist.”
“I’ve looked up some of her work,” I admitted, although that made it obvious I’d been quasi-stalking him.
“She creates a lot of big pieces, and uses metal and wood.She has a bunch of artworks in here.”He opened the door to the barn-like structure and gestured me inside.
Banks of overhead lights revealed a row of sculptures mummified in swaths of plastic wrap, surrounded by some undefined machinery.“Uh.Cool.”I wasn’t sure what the wrapped look was supposed to symbolize, but then art had never been my thing.
“Huh?Oh.”Miles laughed.“Yeah, no, they’re packaged up for moving.We’re clearing this place out tonight.”
“You are?”I turned in a circle.“Looks like a big job.”
“Yeah.Fuck.And time is tight.”
“Where’s, um, Avery?”Saying her name shouldn’t have choked me.“Doesn’t she want to supervise?”
“Desperately, yeah, but she’s at a party with her dad, pacifying and distracting him.He…” Miles paused.“He doesn’t know we’re doing this.”
“Gonna be hard to hide.”
“I don’t care, after the fact.Avery’s needed to move out for a long time.Her dad’s kept her here, under his thumb, because he controls her studio, the big pieces, all her equipment.She never dared stand up to him, always pretended to go along.That stops tonight.”
“Miles, I hate to break it to you, dude, but you and me are not going to load all this into a van in one night.”
“No, of course not.”He grinned momentarily.“I paid a transport company a ton of money to bring a bunch of guys.They’ll be here in fifteen minutes.But Avery’s been sending me an SOS.She’s still not good at coping with her father, and he’s treating her like shit tonight, thanks to all the cheating stories.She’s worried what he might do, threatening to make her break it off, talking about confining her to the house.She needs me at the party, but someone has to be here for the movers.”
“I want to help but…” I looked around at all the stuff stored in the studio.“What goes, what doesn’t?”
“Avery has all the pieces and equipment marked.”Miles pointed to an actual happy-face sticker on the plastic shroud of one of the artworks.“Anything with a happy-face goes.Anything with a red sticker stays.”
“You’re sure I won’t get busted for burglary or something?”I had visions of the cops rolling up as I left a gated property with a truck full of equipment.
Miles passed me a folded envelope from his pocket.“Avery wrote that out for the movers.Authorization, and receipts for the equipment that’s in her name.She’s bummed to have to leave the lathe and one of the lasers, but her dad bought them for her.Since then, she’s asked for the money and bought her own supplies.So the rest is legit to take with us.”
“Okaaaay.”I stuck the envelope in my jacket.“And you’ll bail me out if the cops don’t buy that?”
“I’ll absolutely bail you out.”Miles shoved my shoulder.The thump of his hand, the playful way it rocked me, cascaded memories.Maybe for him too, because he took a big step back and folded his arms.“Anyhow, I need to go.I’ll give you the code for the gate to let the movers in, and then it’s just pointing them at things.”
“Knowing movers, something could get broken.”
“Avery’s aware.”Miles glared off into the distance.“This has to work.She needs to get out.Losing a piece or even two is worth it, to escape.”
