Page 53

Max noticed too damn much where I was concerned.

He said something to Kinkaid and started toward me just as my phone vibrated again.

Midnight tomorrow. Five times the usual amount.

Before I'd even finished reading it, another message appeared beneath the first.

Or I send it to him first.

My blood went cold.

I'd spent years imagining what would happen if the video became public, picturing reporters discussing it on television while fans tore apart every frame and the league decided whether a man responsible for his mother's death was someone they wanted representing professional hockey. I'd imagined losing my career, my teammates, and everything I'd worked for since I was a kid, but somehow, none of those nightmares had ever included Max.

Now they did.

I could see him watching the video and staring at the seven-year-old boy racing after his mother, seeing my hands strike her back before she disappeared down those stone steps. Worse than that, I could imagine the moment afterward when the screen went dark and Max looked at me knowing exactly what I'd done.

The possibility of Max seeing me that way made everything else I'd ever feared about the video seem almost insignificant.

“Ash?”

I locked my phone and looked up to find Max standing in front of me, close enough that I could see the concern he'd tried to hide from everyone else.

“You okay?”

I looked at the man who remembered how I took my coffee and who'd spent weeks trying to convince me he didn't want me because he'd been frightened of what wanting me meant. We'd finally stopped running from each other at almost exactly the same time, and for one stupidly hopeful night I'd started to believe that might actually be enough.

Now my father knew Max mattered.

“Yeah,” I said, and the ease with which the lie came frightened me almost as much as the messages.

Max's eyes narrowed. “We won, but that doesn't explain why you look like somebody died.”

The words hit hard enough to drag me straight back to being seven years old, staring at stone steps and my mother's back as my hands reached desperately for her, only to feel the sickening moment when she disappeared from beneath them.

I dragged myself back before the memory could swallow me. “I need a shower.”

Max frowned. “You've already had one.”

“Then apparently I need another.”

“Ash—”

“Please, Max. Not now.”

His hand had started to lift toward me, but he let it fall, and the brief flash of hurt on his face made me hate myself for putting it there.

“Okay.”

That almost made it worse.

He didn't argue or demand an explanation because he'd promised to stop pushing me, and he was keeping that promise even while I stood in front of him lying to his face.

I grabbed my towel and started to turn away, but his voice stopped me.

“Are you still coming over?”

There was no accusation in the question, only enough uncertainty to make my chest ache, because half an hour ago, I'd wanted nothing more than to go home with him. I'd wanted Max's apartment, his ridiculous new couch, and his arms around me, and maybe I'd even wanted to wake beside him tomorrow morning and discover I was allowed to keep whatever we'd started.