Page 82 of Drop the Mitts

Shit.

André closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat. “You take your meds today?”

Luc didn’t respond.

“Luc.”

Another beat of silence.

“Yeah,” Luc answered finally. “Didn’t help. Not tonight.”

André rested his forehead against the steering wheel. He could picture it—Luc pacing his apartment, barefoot, still in whatever threadbare sweats he wore too often. Lights on too bright. Music too loud.

“I thought about cutting,” Luc whispered, like he was confessing a sin in church. “Didn’t do it. But I thought about it.”

André’s stomach dropped. He didn’t answer right away, couldn’t. His voice was a ragged thing when it finally came out. “You’ve got nothing sharp near you now?”

“No.”

He didn’t sound convincing.

André ground his palm into his eye socket, trying to block out the memory—Luc two years ago, arm wrapped in a dish towel, eyes wide and terrified, saying it was an accident. It was always an accident.

“Where are you right now?” André asked.

“In the kitchen. On the floor.”

André swallowed. Hard. “Open the drawer.” He heard the creak. The shuffle. “Put the knife back.” Another pause. Thenthe heavy, final click of a drawer sliding shut. He sagged with relief. “You called me, Luc. You remembered the number. That’s everything.”

Luc didn’t say anything for a long time, but he didn’t hang up. He never hung up when it was this bad. Eventually, his breathing leveled. He muttered something about putting on his headphones.

André stayed on the line until Luc said he was okay. Until he promised to text when he got up again. Then he ended the call and sat there in the dark, the hum of The Dusty Rose sign overhead buzzing like a wasp in his ears.

André glanced at his hockey bag in the backseat. He could almost feel the cigarette between his fingers. The flick of the lighter. The first drag.

He shoved open the truck door and stood, breath misting in the frigid air. The craving hit so hard it made him dizzy. And then he was back in that hotel room with Grace, talking in the dark.

Why did he start smoking?

André sucked in a breath. It was Luc. It was always Luc.

Luc shouldn’t have been playing as aggressively as he was with a history of concussions, and his parents knew it. After that hit, Luc’s life slowed to a standstill.

No more hockey, no more education. They were told he’d be lucky to ever live independently again, and at least they’d gotten to that point. He had a caregiver that stopped in once a day, and the doctors were mind-blown that was all he required. That he’d become so self-reliant.

Here André was living the life he’d always dreamed. He went on to play pro hockey, lived all over the world, found pretty girls and good food, and built a business from the ground up. He had everything his brother didn’t. He’d moved on, eclipsed him.

André reached into the back, pulling the pack of Marlboro’s from the pocket. He tapped the box, pulling out a cigarette. This was all they had left. The only thing they both still did after all these years.

Tears slipped onto André’s cheeks. He slipped the cigarette back into the box. He didn’t want to smoke anymore, hadn’t wanted to for years, but didn’t realize until that moment why he’d never considered giving it up.

“I don’t want to leave you behind again,” he whispered, dropping the box against his thigh. He sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, and laughing at himself. What the hell had been in that shot he’d taken with Sean?

André opened the door and walked to the edge of the building. He reached out and dropped his last pack of cigarettes in the trash bin, then stalked back to his truck.

What he wouldn’t have given for ice right then. He needed to skate until his thighs burned, until his lungs gave out.

Before he could start searching for Nora’s number at the Ice Centre to drunkenly beg for a way to open the rink, his phone buzzed in his hand.

---