I shrugged. “You gotta play the game to fully understand, I think. If the other team knows they can hurt our players without any ramifications, they’ll just do it more.”
“Isn’t that what the refs are for? To stop that sort of thing?” she asked, a hint of worry settling in those beautiful turquoise eyes.
“In some cases, yes. In others, no.”
“Then they need to do a better job,” Sutton snapped.
I grinned at her; I couldn’t help it. “Need you at my next game to lecture the refs into doing better.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. They aren’t up to the job. So, you have to do it?”
“Exactly.” A feeling of dread settled into my stomach as I remembered the game. The second to last one we’d played that season. “Player on the other team pulled a dirty move with my left wing. I went after him, but when I did, it left another teammate, a friend, open to attack.”
Sutton instantly read my shift in mood. “Who?” she whispered.
“My friend, Teddy. My right wing. He’s a little smaller than most players but makes up for it with how fucking fast he is. But two guys on the other team got to him, one tripped him while the other took him out with a dirty hit. He went down hard. Skate caught him on the arm. Bad. Severed some important vessels. There was extensive bleeding.”
Memories flashed in my mind of all that blood spilling over the ice, the medics rushing out. The smell of it. It mixed with memories of long ago. The metallic tang in the air. The pained sounds from the front seat.
“Cope.”
A hand landed lightly on my forearm, gently tugging me from the knot of torturous memories. The ones that haunted my dreams and made it impossible for me to even share a room with anyone, let alone a bed. I blinked a few times, the world around me coming back into focus. “Sorry,” I croaked.
“Don’t be,” Sutton said, her voice pitched low. “I know what it’s like to get lost in memories.”
Her hand dropped away as she stepped back, and I felt the loss instantly. Her heat was gone, but the place she’d touched still tingled. Pins and needles, like a hand waking up after losing all feeling. It was almost painful, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
“Your friend, Teddy, is he okay?”
I nodded. “Had minor surgery to repair things. Should be back to full contact by next season.”
I’d reminded myself of that over and over every time the guilt set in. Every time it nearly swallowed me whole.
Sutton was quiet for a moment. “And how are you and the other player? Is everything okay?”
I shook my head and made a tsking noise. “You already got more than your share. It’s your turn. Tell me what gave you those sad eyes.”
Sutton didn’t look away, but shadows swirled in those turquoisedepths now. I watched the battle, hoping like hell she wouldn’t give me a brush-off and give me something real. Her gaze shifted away from me and toward the mountains before she finally spoke.
“A ghost.”
Before I could ask anything else, she was moving—away from me and toward the house. In a matter of seconds,she’dturned into the same thing, and I was left wondering if the exchange had ever happened.
9
SUTTON
Sundays were golden days.A mix of hecticness and happiness. Even though the bakery would be a crush in the morning, the afternoons always slipped into a lazy haze with only the occasional customer coming in, even during the summer.
Luca stood on his specialty step stool that allowed him to cook or bake with Walter or me. Today, Walter was giving him a lesson on how to make his famous chicken and white bean chili.
“We want to get those onions cooked down nice and thorough so they’re almost caramelized,” Walter instructed.
Luca nodded, then cast a quick glance over at his teacher. “What’s caramelized? Like the candy?”
Walter chuckled and turned to me. “Smart cookie you’re raising over here.”
“Too smart for me to keep up with,” I called back as I spooned cake batter into muffin tins. It was true, too. Whatever sort of math they’d started teaching kids was over my head, and Luca was only through first grade, about to start second.
