Page 40 of Crossroads

“And he’s right. I should talk with Thatcher. He knows about this whole twin thing. And he has a girl. He’s good at this.”

“At least you have Promise to work with, Thatcher and Kellan each had to do that just on their own. Yes, they had their parents, but they didn’t have someone else to help them out.” I took another sip of my beer, my mouth oddly not going dry or filling with bile while talking about kids. From the surprised looks on my siblings’ and friends’ faces, they were noticing too. Usually, everybody steered clear of conversations about kids around me. But with my family, my siblings procreating, and all my friends’ kids starting to grow up, conversations tended to be about those kids alone.

You couldn’t hide from it. And if I wanted to be part of this town again—albeit still on the outskirts—I needed to find a way to be okay with it.

Though maybe being with Kiera, if only for the moment, was helping things. That wasn’t scary at all.

“Did you guys want to eat?” Rune asked.

“I figured we could order some food,” Atlas said. “But your team is so afraid to come over here because you keep micromanaging them, that we’re never going to get fed.”

“I’ve got you, Atlas. Don’t worry,” Penny said as she sauntered over. She was one of the new hires and practically salivated when she looked at the hockey star. I met Finnian’s gaze, and my brother smirked.

There were two other single people at this table, yet Penny only had eyes for Atlas. I paused at that, thinking. Callum was taken, Finnian and Rune were single, and yet I hadn’t counted myself in that. Before, it had always been because I never wanted to date again or be with anyone, but now, I promised Kiera it would only be her. And I’d meant it.

Well, hell.

“Do you know what you are focusing on with your next batch?” Rune asked.

Callum leaned forward, a frown on his face. “I have a list of ideas, but we expanded so much in the past year, always at capacity, I don’t want to build another factory or get to the point that we’re so big that some conglomerate wants to buy us. I like being niche. It’s hard to find that balance.”

“Well, if you need something built, I’ve got you,” Finnian said with a wink, his attention back on his phone. This time, though, I knew he was dealing with countless customers who needed him to work on something. He was building his own business step by step, and that meant long hours—even when he had the girls. I was proud of him. He had stepped up as a teenager and hadn’t backed down once. Even when I had been broken, not able to even hold one of his kids, he had been right by my side, doing what he could for me.

I needed to be better at being there for them too.

We ordered our food, and a few more people came up to Atlas to talk about the game. The place started to get a little more crowded, and while we discussed an upcoming event for the town where they needed me to work on building one of the larger pieces for the play, my gaze caught a flash.

Rune immediately stood up, as a few other flashes filled the room, and then everybody started speaking at once.

“Is Kiera West here? We heard that this is the place where the rock star turned drug addict is hanging out these days. I see that we have an injured Atlas Carter. Do you have any comments?”

Drug addict? They thought she was a fucking drug addict?

I moved forward without thinking, and I hadn’t even realized I was standing until someone put a camera in my face.

“You’re Bodhi Ashford. The man who killed his family in that fire, aren’t you?”

There had to be at least thirty of them, people shouting things, and not making any sense. Where the hell had these people come from, and why were they here?

“That’s him. He killed his wife and kids and burned them to a crisp.” Nathan leaned against the jukebox, folding his arms over his chest. “Bastard got away with it too.”

I had my hands on his shirt and threw him against the wall in the next instant, but then Atlas pulled me back, and the sounds of a hundred photos being taken filled my mind as I tried not to kill the man. I would not go to jail over Nathan but maiming him would be helpful.

“Let’s go, buddy. Rune has it handled.”

Chest heaving, I let Atlas drag me out of the back door, as my siblings and Rune handled the mess.

“What the hell?” I asked, spinning on the ground.

“Breathe, Bodhi. Something wasn’t right in there, and you have to be smart about this. It’s not just you. It’s Kiera too.” He paused. “I have a feeling somebody sent those people.”

I frowned, looking up at the worried expression on Atlas’s face. “What do you mean?”

“There were way too many people to just stop by. And how would they know Kiera was here? I would make sure that she knows that something happened, and her management knows. But I don’t know. It smells fishy. They just happened to know about Kiera? Just happened to know about you? I was a lucky accident. And the media already knows that I got hit in the knee and need to ice it. They’re going to talk, but I’m fine with that kind of talk. Whatever that bastard Nathan said is a lie. But we all know how rumors spread. Make sure Kiera knows that something’s going on.”

Thoughts whirling, I tried to catch up. Atlas knew what he was talking about since he’d spent the past decade in the business, but I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. When my brother had been in the NFL, he’d stayed away from Ashford Creek because our father would have ruined everything he had at the time. Callum had sent money and kept his distance. Kiera was different. “How do you handle it? People being in your business all the time?”

“I handle it because it’s part of my job. I love playing hockey. It’s in my blood, and it’s something that I would do for the rest of my life if I could. I gave up a lot to do it. So I deal with cameras in my face, and no privacy. Everybody has a goddamn cell phone now that can snap a photo and put it on social media out of context. If I had slept with the number of women that they thought I did, I wouldn’t have time to play hockey.”