Page 9

I knew his family still hated me. I just hadn’t thought through what I was asking of Baylor. Walk into my apartment every morning, use my things, trust me with work she can’t afford to lose. After last night, I’m not exactly giving her a great reason to do that.

"I’m sorry about your brother."

"Are you?" she asks.

"Yes. He’s playing again now. It was six years ago, and I never meant for him to take that hit."

"He just got here, Wolf–to the NHL. Two years on the farm team after the four years it took to get him back on the ice. That doesn’t make the six years disappear." She grips the edge of the counter. "You hit him as hard as you could. You two have been rivals for years. Do you think I’m supposed to forget that?"

I never meant for it to happen that way. That was what I’d been trying to tell her. What came out sounded like I thought she should be finished being angry.

Ronny clears his throat. "We’ll leave you two to discuss the kitchen while we look at the upstairs bathroom. We’ll see you there, Wolf." He gathers his clipboard, and Dan follows him out.

"I’ll call Ellie," she says when I don’t say anything back. "I’ll find something."

"Who’s Ellie?" I ask.

"My best friend who owns Serendipity’s."

"The new owner," I say. Crystal and her husband sold it a couple of years ago to open a goat farm bed-and-breakfast up north. How that works... I have no idea. Most of the Hawkeyes team still frequent Serendipity's Coffee Shop, especially the wives and girlfriends of the players.

"How do you know that?"

"I get breakfast there sometimes."

"Well, anyway… I’ll figure it out myself. I don’t need your help."

She goes to the sink and reaches for the tap before stopping herself.

"The water’s off," I say.

"I know," she mutters back angrily, her shoulder tensing as if she’s mad she forgot, and I’m the one reminding her. Then she sets the mug down harder than she needs to in the basin. "I know the water’s off." She wouldn’t have to remember that if my friends hadn’t flooded her kitchen. I should have kept my mouth shut.

"I’m sorry this happened."

She turns back from the sink to look at me. "Does this happen to everything you touch?"

Ouch, but maybe I deserve that from her.

I look down at the dented mixer. She has two reasons to ask me that now, and I’ve managed to make my apology sound like an argument. It’s hard to hear the question without thinking about Beau.

Six years ago, Beau Fairbanks left a hockey game on a stretcher because of a late hit that was meant for someone else. The fact that I wasn’t aiming for him doesn’t do much for the knee he had to have put back together afterward.

A forward had taken a cheap shot at our goalie earlier in the game. I caught up with him after the puck was gone. I was late, and I knew I was late, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to pay for going after our goalie. I made that choice. Beau cut across in front of me at the last second, not seeing me coming, and inadvertently took the hit meant for his teammate.

A hit against him that I had no business making. An accident.

He went down wrong. I remember that part better than anything I did in the game before it.

We’d played against each other enough over the years that I expected him to get back up. It wasn’t the first time I hit Beau during a game. He’d landed his own hits over the years too. I stood there waiting for it until the trainer got to him.

I was ejected. By the time I got out of the locker room, Beau was at the hospital, and his sister was waiting outside to tell me exactly what she thought of me.

She was crying in the rain, clutching a set of car keys, Ellie trying to pull her by the arm towards the car, and I stood there while she yelled. I couldn’t think of one thing to say that wouldn’t make it worse. Telling her the hit was meant for someone else wouldn’t have helped. Her brother was still the one in the hospital.

I drove to the hospital after Rooks drove Baylor and Ellie there. Her dad was alone in the lobby of the ER, on the phone, frantically pacing when I walked in. He stopped me before I could ask the intake nurse if I could see Beau.

"You’ve done enough damage, Ziegler. Leave."