Page 61 of Center Ice
“You’re seeing someone with a kid, Drew?” Caitlyn’s voice is accusatory at best, downright disgusted at worst.
I open my mouth to say that we’re not dating, but Drew beats me to it, instead telling her, “It’s none of your business, Caitlyn.”
“Hey, Graham,” Mrs. Jenkins says. “How about we go find another book to read while the adults have a conversation.”
“Okay,” Graham says and runs from the room, oblivious to the hostility lacing the atmosphere in here.
“Be nice, please,” Mrs. Jenkins tells Caitlyn before she leaves.
Completely ignoring her mother’s request, she focuses her dark eyes back on Drew. “You can’t even take care of yourself or Mom. How the hell are you going to be there for someone with a kid?”
“Let me repeat myself so we’re absolutely clear here,” he says, his voice taking on an icy tone I’ve never heard before. He doesn’t sound anything like himself. “It’s. None. Of. Your. Business.”
“Fine,” she huffs, crossing her arms like a petulant child. “Just don’t let this get in the way of your other obligations. Like, let’s make sure you don’t forget about tomorrow morning’s appointment, like you forgot about the last one.” Her snide tone and the reference to the appointment he almost missed turn my stomach to acid.
Drew’s eyes slide over to me, and he gives a little shake of his head like he’s trying to tell me it’s not my fault he wasn’t there for his mom.
But it is. I didn’t ask him to come over and help me, but if he hadn’t, then he’d have been there for his mom.And you’d probably have gotten scarlet fever,I remind myself.
Caitlyn’s eyes narrow in on me. “Oh. My. God. You were withher?”
Drew’s gaze snaps from me to Caitlyn.
“You didn’t show up for Mom because you were too busy…what? Shacking up with some random chick?” She turns toward her brother, and she looks furious. “Of all the irresponsible, selfish things you could do, putting this puck bunny before your mom is probably the lowest.”
I dig my nails into my palms, knowing it’s not my place to get involved in their argument, and I watch as Drew’s hands curl into fists too. He’s clenching his teeth together so tightly I’m surprised he’s able to speak, but his voice comes out clear and deathly serious. “If you ever speak about the mother of my child and my future wife that way again, you and I are done. For good. Understand?”
I’m pretty sure the air has been sucked from my lungs, or maybe from the whole room, because it’s now deathly silent in here, like there’s no air for sound waves to carry through. I might pass out, or throw up, I’m not sure which.
What the fuck is he saying? And why?
I can’t breathe. I need some fresh air. I need to get out of here. I need to leave.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DREW
Audrey tries to run past me and through the doorway, but when I reach out and grab her wrist, she spins back toward me. I can’t read the look on her face—she looks mad, but that doesn’t make sense. I just defended her to my sister, and finally admitted the depth of my feelings for her. What could she possibly be mad about?
“Not now, Drew,” she says, then pulls out of my grip and shuts the door behind her on her way out. I can barely hear her talking to my mom and Graham over the pounding sound of fury in my ears.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I say to Caitlyn. She deflates a bit at the deadly low, focused tone, “barging in here and insulting Audrey like that.”
Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “I was today years old when I learned that you’re: A, a dad, and B, in love. I didn’t even know Audrey existed.”
“And how dare you call her a puck bunny. You really think I’m going to bring some random girl to our childhood home? You think I’m introducing someone to Mom who I don’t actually care about? When have you ever known me to do something like that?”
Caitlyn looks at me like she doesn’t even know me. And it hits me then, like it should have so many times in the past… “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? Because you’ve never taken the time to get to know me. Instead, you resented that you had to take care of me so much when I was a little kid who’d just lost a parent?—”
“I’d just lost a parent, too, Drew. And I didn’t even get a chance to grieve because, suddenly, I had all these additional responsibilities, like taking care of you and Missy every time Mom picked up a shift at the diner down the street after teaching all day. I didn’t just lose my dad, I lost my childhood.”
Oh, so we’re finally talking about this, I guess.
“I get thatnow,” I tell her. I’d always thought she resented having to take care of me; I never really thought about what she lost in the process. “But I was a little kid. I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand all of that. All I had was one less parent and a sister who suddenly hated me. And God forbid I actually be good at hockey—the thing I loved more than anything—and you did nothing but mock me for it and tell me it was a waste of time and money. It was like you hated me.”
“I didn’t hateyou.” Her eyes are sad, her lips are turned down at the corners, and I’ve never felt our seven-year age difference more than I do right now. “I hated that Mom had to keep spending money she didn’t have so that you could play, while Missy and I had to go without things we wanted because you and hockey always took priority. I hated that I couldn’t pursue the things I was interested in during high school, because I had to be available to take you to hockey practice. Did you ever wonder why I stopped playing basketball, the thing thatIloved?”
“I thought you got cut?”
