They tease each other in the way that best friends do and debate the pros and cons of hitting up the bar on the way home.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I palm it, wondering what trouble Mickey’s gotten himself into.
“You in, Norris?” Van asks. “Rosco’s gonna babysit the team for a bit, so we’re gonna check out the band at Wolfie’s.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say abruptly, then gesture to my phone. “I’ve got, uh…”
“’Nuff said, man.” Van claps my shoulder. “That’s gotta be your blonde from last week. Have fun, but, um, maybe not quite as much fun as Ollie, or practice is gonna suck tomorrow.”
I nod absently as they finish packing their gear. I don’t bother to correct Van as I walk off in the direction of the Hockey House. It should be empty now, but I wander down a side street to listen to the voicemail on my phone. Maggie didn’t call. I don’t know her number, but the one on my screen is one I recognize, though I haven’t used it in years.
I’m tempted to delete the message without even listening to it. A message from anyone in my hometown is guaranteed not to be a good thing, especially since this one’s from one of the assholes I used to hang with in high school, one whose name is synonymous with trouble.
Not that my name was ever squeaky clean. Still, hockey kept me closer to the straight and narrow than most of my friends and family. I was busy enough—and lucky enough—to avoid serious trouble most of the time. But the one time I got close to getting into deep shit, it was because of my cousin Curtis and his best friend, Dalton Griggs.
Curt’s serving time, and I haven’t been back in Grand Plains since all that shit went down. So why the hell is Griggs calling me?
My thumb hovers over the little trash can icon and I can almost hear Coach encouraging me to leave the past in the past. He’s the only person at Bainbridge who knows every detail of what went down the night of my high school graduation. Mickey knows the basics, but it’s not something I like to talk about.
Despite my hesitation, I press Play, and a second later, a voice from my past comes over the line.
“Jax, my boy, it’s been too damn long man. Thought you might pay us a visit on your summer break. Guess you’re too busy being a fuckin hotshot to remember where you came from. Funny thing, though. You’re about to get a memory boost whether you want it or not. Not sure if you heard the good news, but Curt has a shot of getting out early. All goes the way we think it will, he could be out in the next couple months. Figured you’d wanna know, seeing how you’re family and all. And family means everything, right Jax?”
The message ends abruptly, just as that fucker intended it to.
My mind is a jumble as I jog back to the hockey house. My key turns the lock and I ascend the stairs, skipping the ones that are on the verge of breaking. I don’t even bother shutting my door as I strip down and toss my shorts in the direction of the hamper.
Buck-ass naked, I wander down the hall to the shower, turning on the spray and stepping inside. The cold tempdoesn’t even register. I’m on autopilot, going through the motions because if I stop to think about anything, the weight of Griggs’s message will come crashing down on me.
Once I’m clean, I wrench the handle to the right, step onto the pile of towels we use as a shower mat and pat myself dry.
My hair’s still wet when it hits the pillow, and I have a momentary thought that Birdie would scold me for not applying a leave-in conditioner. Hair care is the least of my fucking worries right now.
Curt’s coming home.
It doesn’t matter that Grand Plains isn’t my home anymore, or that it never will be again.
So much shit went down the night I graduated from high school, shit I paid dearly for.
But not dearly enough.
For a lot of reasons, my punishment was lighter than the other guys’.
Griggs did a quick stint in county for his involvement, and Curt’s at State for his transgressions.
But it sounds like that’s soon over, and so is the veil of safety I’ve been hiding behind for over a year now.
I shut my eyes to block out the intrusive thoughts. I’ve got to be at the gym in seven hours because this is my life now: an endless cycle of studying, training, playing, and sleeping, rinse and repeat.
My hectic schedule doesn’t give a shit that my past has come to call, and that Griggs and Curt won’t let up until they get what they want.
I take a deep breath and release it, willing my brain to shut off and let me sleep. This fucking shitstorm will still be here in the morning, and staying up all night stressing about it won’t make it any less threatening.
As I close my eyes again, my brain conjures up a vision ofMaggie just to torture me. My cock twitches, but I ignore it. Earlier tonight, I was fucking bummed she wasn’t one of the pajama-clad cuties at Kappa. Now I’m fucking grateful.
The fact that Maggie wasn’t there tonight was clearly a sign from the universe. We might have fit together like puzzle pieces for one night, but we’re not meant to be, and that’s for the best.
If my toxic past is about to make a reappearance, the very last thing a girl like Maggie needs or deserves is baggage like mine.
