“Luca. You keep saying this is our season, right?” Cal cuts me off knocking the fridge shut with his elbow. “So, stop focusing on her. You need to have your head in the game.”
I open my mouth to say something, but he turns and walks toward the front door instead of heading back out. Confused, I start to follow and ask, “Where are you going?”
“Oh,” he says, realizing why I’m confused. “I’ll use the grill out front. Meat smells have been making Sloane sick lately.”
“Oh.” We push through the front, and I hold the screen open for him. “That’s right—I keep forgetting.”
“Yeah,” Cal laughs, but as he starts to lay the meat down on the grill, something cautious moves into his expression. “About that.”
“About that?” I glance back at the house, despite the fact that I can’t see my sister through the walls. “Is everything okay?”
“She’s fine, everything’s fine,” Cal hurries to say. Then, clearing his throat, “But I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Something like a mix between trepidation and dread rises up inside me. That phrase can never really be good, I think. And if there was a time I really wanted to hear it, it was years ago, when Cal first got involved with my sister behind my back.
The two of them drank so much they didn’t remember their quick wedding the night of my bachelor party, their drunkenlegalunion. And when they found out months later, and it was too late to get an annulment, they kept it from me. Sloane promised me they were just friends.
Everything—my intuition—told me that wasn’t true. I could tell there was something going on, but Itrustedher. Trusted both of them, even though the marriage and hook-ups weren’t the only things they lied about.
We’ve since made up. But after that, it’s been harder for me to trust people, especially when what they say goes against my intuition.
“Luca?” Cal asks, and I blink at him, realizing I spaced off, not answering him. He has something he wants to talk about. Nodding, I cross my arms and sink back against the wall, looking at him like,go ahead, then.“Well,” he goes on, nervous. That can’t be good. “I’ve been thinking about taking a year off.”
I blink at him. What does he mean? A year off? It’s a joke, so I laugh. “Okay. Good one.”
“Seriously, Luca.” He closes the lid to the grill and turns to meet my eyes. “Even just with Sloane being pregnant, I already feel like I’m missing so much. And once the baby is born? I want to be home. I want to be there for it, not traveling every week and watching the video of his first steps.”
I gape at him—taking a year off?“That’s just…not something people do, Cal.”
He turns back to the grill, red creeping up his neck as he shrugs. “I love hockey. You know that. But I love Sloane—and I care about my family—more. I just want to take the one year off, then come back.”
“No way admin is going to allow that.” I’m trying to keep the anger from my voice, but it’s not easy.
“They already did.”
My mouth is fully open now, and I’m not quite able to shut it. “I…can’t believe that. Letting you take a year and promising you can come back?”
“Yup.”
And they didn’t consult with me first.
“So what’s holding you back?” I ask, crossing my arms. “Other than how that’s going to fuck with the team, and your career?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you’re ‘thinking’ about taking a year off—why are you not just doing it?”
He swallows, looks at me. A beat passes, then I get it.
“Me?” I ask, fighting not to laugh at the idea of that. He should know better than to think I’d agree to something like this.
I’m the main scorer on the team, but Cal is the closest second, and part of what allows me to perform so well. Without his passes, composure, and our general collaboration on the ice, the Frost is going to suffer.
“What, you want my blessing or something?”
“Something like that.”
“You know you’re not going to get it, Cal,” I grind out, “right?”
