I take a deep breath and try to calm down. There are still hurdles in our path. Big ones. I can’t get too excited. Yet. I decide to call one of our smaller hurdles.
“Finally,” is how Seb answers the phone.
“You sound chipper for such an early call after a night of drinking,” I can’t help but observe.
“Shay made me go to her yoga class at the crack of ass this morning,” he explains. “And how do you know I was drinking last night?”
Oops. “I, um…”
There’s a slight pause. “Did you talk to Avery already?”
Sometimes I wish my brother was a stereotypical dumb jock. “Yeah. He told me you wanted me to call you.”
“I didn’t expect him to call you first thing in the morning,” Seb laments. “I thought he would just tell you when he ran into you again.”
Yeah…about that. He’s started running into me naked. Are you okay with that?I think it, but I don’t dare say it. I honestly don’t know how Sebastian will feel about this thing with Avery. He likes Avery. He’s defended him even when I wouldn’t have. I know he wants me to find someone. He’s made that clear more than once. But all of that doesn’t mean he’ll be cool with his former captain, teammate and friend dating his sister.
“Yeah, well, he called, so I called,” I reply lightly, and lean back in my chair. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Everything is better than okay.” I can hear his smile through the phone. “Our team is doing well. Things with Shay are fantastic. Mom came to visit last week, and she’s doing great. She asked about you.”
Seb will never let this go. I know it, so I try not to get annoyed by his constant attempts to make me and our mother closer than we are. It’s not that we don’t get along; it’s just that we aren’t friends. I don’t know why. It’s probably a little of her not forgiving me for my past and me not forgiving me for my past.
I made life very hard on her when it was already hard. She was dealing with her divorce and scrounging up money for Sebastian’s hockey, and I was off stealing prescriptions and getting high instead of being a good daughter. Of course, when she realized what I was doing, her idea of helping me was to call my absent father in the middle of the night and tell him I was his problem and he was to come and get me. She had to focus on Sebastian. He had a real shot at the NHL and she wasn’t going to let me derail it. She was abandoning me. So I abandoned her and ran away.
I don’t actually hate her anymore for that because she was right—Sebastian had potential and I didn’t…or at least I didn’t see it at the time, and I wasn’t giving her or anyone else any reason to see it either. She was suffering emotionally and financially from the end of her marriage, and I was more than she could handle. But forgiving her, and myself, for the past doesn’t mean I can forget it.
“Tell her I say hi,” I reply swiftly, and immediately change the subject. “So you got Avery to go out with you. That’s a first.”
“We didn’t give him much choice,” Sebastian admits. “But he actually seemed to enjoy it. The first couple of drinks were forced on him, but the last four or five were all his decision. You know that guy is a lot of fun when he lets himself be.”
“Yeah. I know,” I can’t help but say, and my mind fills with images from the stairs and the shower.
“You hang out with him a lot, huh?”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“I hope you’re meeting new people too,” Sebastian replies.
“Sure,” I say with a smartass twinge to my words. “I met a guy named Ty and a guy named Nikolai and…”
“Steph, you should meet people who aren’t hockey players.” He laughs. “People who I might not punch for work.”
“Ha-ha,” I say, and actually laugh afterward. “I’ve met some people at work. But between the Winterhawks alumni here and Maddie dating Ty, hockey players are an inevitable part of my social life. It’s not a bad thing. It’s comfortable.”
“Speaking of comfortable…” Here it comes. I both dread it and am soothed by it. “You doing okay? Nothing too overwhelming?”
He knows my triggers are feelings of helplessness, like when my parents’ marriage fell apart, and also feelings of inadequacy, like when he excelled at hockey and I didn’t have a passion or talent in high school.
“Actually, I feel pretty much like I’m on the right path,” I reply, and I mean it. “School is going well. I’m really loving my classes.”
“Cool. You’ll be able to help me on my next big project,” he says, and I can tell he’s excited. “I’m looking at property all over the place.”
Sebastian renovated his home in Seattle and fell instantly in love with the process. He’s looking to do it again. I helped him with the design part of it and it became an instant passion, which is why I’m taking some online interior design classes. He’s talking more and more about starting a house-flipping company so he can work on projects in his off-season and also when he’s done with hockey.
“Cool.” I see my boss walking toward me. “I gotta go, Seb. Time to work.”
“Okay. But, Steph, don’t ignore my calls, okay?” he says sternly. “I need to know you’re okay. And if you ever aren’t…”
