Page 68 of Cross-Checked

“I just meant,” Nicholas continues, “that you’ve used work as your excuse to get out of things you didn’t want to do plenty of times before.”

“Do you feel like I’ve used it to get out of doing things with you?” I ask, concerned about that edge I hear in his voice.

“No. You’ve always made time for me when I needed you.”

I hear what he’s saying, and previously that would have been enough for me.

“What about when you didn’t need me?”

Nicholas’s voice is softer, quieter, when he asks, “What’s going on with you? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I don’t know...” I look up at the sky as we take the offramp from the freeway to head into the city. “I guess I’m just re-evaluating my priorities?”

What I’m really wondering is whether working this hard to get where I am—literally devoting every waking moment of almost every single day to hockey—was necessary to end uphere? Or was it an excuse to get out of having an actual life? Was I singularly focused on taking professional risks so I didn’t have to take personal ones and risk getting hurt again?

“This feels like...a shift,” Nicholas says, and when I glance over at McCabe while we wait at a stoplight, he’s looking at me with the same curious gaze I imagine my brother is probably wearing right now.

“Nah, just the musings of a middle-aged woman,” I joke, swallowing roughly. “Anyway, I’ve got a few extra seats at my table. I’d offer them to you and Nicole, but you’ll be watching Abby.” Not like he’d want to come. Since he was still a kid when we lived in St. Louis, he’s never had to attend these kinds of events that make up a significant portion of my family’s social life.

“You bought a whole fucking table? For your own family’s charity event?” Nicholas’s full-bodied laugh makes me pull the phone away from my ear.

“Seemed like the safest way to avoid sitting with Mom and Dad.”

“Must be nice to have money to throw away like that.”

“Hey, you can’t put a price on sanity,” I say, chuckling. “And I’m bringing Frank Hartmann with me, so he can serve as a buffer.”

“Ah, Second Dad will be there? I love that guy!”

“He really is the best,” I say as we pull through the intersection. In front of us, there must be someone double-parked or something, because suddenly there are horns honking and people yelling out their windows.

“Where the hell are you?” Nicholas asks.

“In a car coming back from shopping. There’s something going on up ahead,” I say as a driver lays on his horn and doesn’t let up. “I better go.”

“Alright, see you tomorrow night when you get home.”

“See you then.”

I set my phone down in the cupholder, not missing how McCabe’s hand still rests on my thigh, his thumb still stroking the skin there. Closing my eyes, I lean back against my seat.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” I ask, not bothering to open my eyes.

“Whatever this gala is with your family, and why you need to bring Frank with you as a buffer?”

“It’s nothing, just an annual charity event . . .”

McCabe huffs a laugh and asks, “You go to a lot of those?”

“Not as many as I used to.” I think back to the years when I still lived in St. Louis and my social calendar was peppered with these types of events.

I had a charmed life growing up, from the outside anyway. But the mansion and the cars and the fancy vacations didn’t offset the emotional toll of being raised by parents who wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.

The constant pressure to be successful, combined with never living up to the socialite my mom wanted me to be and the son my dad wished I was, gave me a serious type-A personality and a work ethic that’s turned me into a perfectionist driven to succeed at any cost. And no amount of therapy to help me understand the root causes of my issues has allowed me to change these ingrained parts of my personality.

“You don’t want to go, though?” His concern is evident in the tone of his voice.

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