“I need to go,” Maisie whispered.
Ellie looked at her, then Colt, then back to Maisie. “Nick took Asher for a walk in the snow.”
Maisie swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Can you please say goodbye to both of them for me?”
Ellie wiped her hands on a cloth and walked to her, pulling her into a hard hug. “I hate that you’re leaving like this,” she whispered in her ear. “But I can see you need to. I’ve been there. For different reasons but I get it.” She pulled back, stared at Maisie. “It’s not my business but I want to tell you, Nick doesn’t let many people get close and I’ve never seen him smile the way he does when he’s with you. I’ll tell him you said goodbye but I hope that’s not it for you guys.”
Her words were like a serrated knife to the heart. Was that what she was really running from? Her own fears that thiswasit for them? That, like Maisie in her mother’s eyes, there would never be more?
Maisie’s brain was clouded, her eyes stinging with tears. Quickly, she grabbed a pen from a little cup on the counter to scrawl her address and phone number on a scrap of paper.
She handed it to Ellie. She didn’t even know if it was for her or for Nick but she couldn’t think about it right now. He’d know where to find her and if he didn’t want to, she’d survive. And she’d have an amazing night to think back on and hang on to when the loneliness crept in.
Getting in her Jeep, she didn’t let it warm all the way before backing out of the driveway. She didn’t expect the loneliness to suffocate her by the time she reached the end of Ellie’s road.
But it did.
Chapter Twenty
NICK PARKED HIS TRUCKon the street in a seen-better-days-but-not-the-worst neighborhood of Seattle. Getting out, he looked up at Maisie’s faded brick building. He could still feel the phantom pain in his chest—a hollow ache—from his sister telling him she’d left. Without a goodbye.
Nick had grabbed the scrap of paper with Maisie’s address from the counter and ran into Colt on his way up to pack his things. Colt had calmed him down, helped him through the panic that crowded his chest and seized his lungs, and when he could breathe right, made Nick scrawl a note of his own. By then, Nick was thinking straight and decided to give Maisie a day of space. It was all he could handle. Which was humbling as hell to admit.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know his career would come to an end one day; he just didn’t spend much time thinking about it. In the back of his mind, he’d always known he’d settle where Ellie was. Or, he thought, looking around, within a couple hours of her and Asher.
He’d ask Maisie how she felt about other areas of Seattle after he told her exactly what he thought of her leaving without saying goodbye.
Yeah. He was a hypocrite but this felt different. He was on the sidewalk, heading toward the couple of stairs to her apartment entrance when someone walked past him, did a double take. The guy, with an almost completely shaved head and a full beard, vape in one hand, stopped, stuck his other hand out in front of Nick.
“Nick King. Cool, man. Watched you in the Stanley Cup last year. One of the best games I’ve ever seen,” the guy said.
Nick shook his hand. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”
No feelings of dread or tightening of his chest.Nice.
The guy tipped his chin up, looked around like maybe Nick traveled with an entourage. “You live here or something?”
Cause he’d tell him if he did?
“Nah. Just visiting a friend.”
“Cool. You back for the next game? That hit didn’t look that bad on TV but you been out awhile.”
Everyone had an opinion. God. He loved his job but standing there, when all he wanted was to get to Maisie—how the fuck could he miss her after one day—was killing him.
“That’s the plan. Nice to meet you. I gotta go.”
“Sure. Yeah. Of course. Cool to meet you, man.”
He waited until the guy walked ahead and turned the corner before stepping up to Maisie’s apartment door and buzzing her number.
“Come on up,” she said.
Worry and a low-key hum of urgency just toseeher had him yanking open the door, hurrying to the elevator. He didn’t love the fact that she didn’t even ask who it was.She’s taken care of herself for a long time.Still, he couldn’t help the protectiveness simmering in his blood. He cared about her. More than cared, if he was honest.
The ride, quick as it was, gave him long enough to wonder ifshe’d want to see him. Ellie wasn’t sure if Maisie left the address for her or for Nick. What if she was just done with him and leaving was her way of getting back at him?That’s not Maisie.He knew it in his bones; that wasn’t her style.
The second the doors slid open on the third floor, he turned left out of the elevator, heard a door open, and watched her step into the hall. His heart lurched like it’d been flung from a slingshot.
