Page 17 of Westward

“Language,” the kid said with a laugh, but there wasn’t a single ounce of humor in it.

“Come on, you two, you just made me run through the forest, and I’m wearing flip-flops.”

I looked down at her feet and swore. “What the hell were you thinking, Lizzie?”

“Oh no. I don’t get yelled at. You’re the one who jumped off the porch like you aren’t a thirty-one-year-old aging hockey player and ran into the woods not knowing who it was.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself but caught Will’s very interested gaze.

“You know what, fuck it. Let’s go figure out how to fix the window. Or maybe we should just call Finnian right away because I’m not the one who knows how to do it.”

Even as the words left my mouth, I heard the jealousy in my tone. Elizabeth just raised a brow and didn’t say a damn thing. I wasn’t jealous of Finnian Ashford. He was too young for that matter, but then again, he was a single dad of two, good with his hands, and probably could help around the house. I hired people to do things for me because I wasn’t good at it. I mean, I could do a few handyman things, but I didn’t know how to fix a window.

It wasn’t as if I was here often enough to know what Lizzie needed.

Damn it.

I let Lizzie and Will talk quietly to each other as we practically dragged him home, and I followed, wondering what the hell I was doing.

And I couldn’t help but wonder why the fuck Lizzie wasn’t dealing with the cops. Because while I understood not wanting to get Will in trouble, but this Jace character? I didn’t like the sound of that.

“You can look in the shed. I’m going to make sure I didn’t burn dinner in the crockpot. Which I’ve done before.”

Will’s lips quirked, but he didn’t say anything, and I tilted my chin towards the shed. “I really hope that there’s an instruction manual in there, because I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

Will’s eyes widened. “You’re Atlas Carter. You’re the best goalie in the league. I don’t think you need to know what to fucking do when it comes to a window.”

“So you like hockey?” I asked, wondering who this kid was and why he mattered so much to Lizzie.

“It’s the best. Fuck football. Not that Callum Ashford isn’t great, but I’m not old enough to drink, so I can’t hang out in his brewery, and hockey’s where it’s at. We have that lake on the north side that, when it gets super cold, we can skate on. And then, well.” He blushed as we found a piece of plywood and moved it towards Lizzie’s house.

“And what?”

“Well, you built that rink out there. You know, for the school and community? They have open skates where you don’t have to pay to get in, and I love it. I played for the community league since the school doesn’t have a hockey team, just like you did. And well, I like it.”

“I had to play on the road, and club teams, and a community team, because there wasn’t a high school team. I got lucky that my mom was able to travel as much as she did, to be honest. What do you play?”

“Goalie.”

I grinned. “Oh, yeah?”

“Not great. I’ll never be in the NHL or something like that, but it was nice to be on the ice.”

“Yeah. It always is. Although I do enjoy a break every once in a while.”

“Hence, why you’re in the off-season. Your knee okay? I hope you didn’t hurt it running after me.”

I scowled, only slightly annoyed that the world cared so much about my joints. “I’ll be fine. I have good doctors, and jumping two steps isn’t going to kill me. But I shouldn’t have had to do that,” I bit out. Thankfully, Will brought up a YouTube video so we could see how to put up the plywood, and we both swore that we would never tell a single person that we had to look that up. Finnian would never know.

“Who’s Jace?” I asked before we walked into the house, where Lizzie would be feeding everybody, because she couldn’t help it.

“He graduated a couple of years ago and dropped out of trade school. Now he works odd jobs for some of the townspeople around here. There’s a trailer park up there where I can sometimes find a couch to surf on.” He shrugged, sliding his hands into his pockets. “But if you don’t do what Jace says, you don’t get to stay there. And I don’t have a lot of options.”

“What do you mean you don’t have a lot of options?” Lizzie asked as she moved forward, her arms crossed over her chest. It took everything in me not to look at her chest in that moment. This was the worst time to be thinking anything like that.

Will’s cheeks pinked, and he cleared his throat. “Dobson kicked me out. I’m eighteen, so he doesn’t get any money from the state anymore. There was no need for me to stay.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? You know this town. We take care of our own.”