Page 131 of Off The Ice

“This is an ungodly amount of food.” I cracked up.

“Hey! You get hungry!” He laughed, hands up in defense. “I’d rather you have too much than not enough.”

“This was really sweet of you to come out of your way like this,” I told him.

“It’s not a big deal.” He brushed it off, even though it meant everything to me.

“It is,” I told him.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything Liam did anymore, but still, somehow, I was.

“I’ll see you at home,” he said, reaching out to squeeze my arm once before turning.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

The crowd that had congregated parted for him as he left and then proceeded to turn to me with wide, expectant eyes as if they’d just witnessed the birth of Christ.

Slowly, I picked up all my belongings, wondering if I could make it to my classroom unscathed, when Marissa came up beside me.

“Soyou’reLiam Brynn’s mystery girl.” She shook her head with a slow-spreading smile. “Okay, so I might hate you again.”

But the way she grinned at me told a different story.

Chapter Forty-Four

Liam

Something I oddly appreciated about my family was that I wasn’t anything special. I mean, not more so than anyone else.

They didn’t fixate on my career any more than they would anyone else’s. There were passing comments about a recent game or some jokes about how I could be playing better. But honestly? The hockey talk was brief, and I preferred it that way.

I could breathe. Relax. Just be a normal person.

Today more so than ever, because this time, Cassie was with me, and I didn’t know what the hell it was about her, but she put me at ease in a way nothing else in the world did.

She, on the other hand, was jittery and restless the entire drive to my mother’s house.

“Relax,” I told her, stealing a glance. “I promise no one there bites.”

“I’m just nervous.” She looked over at me with a wince.

“I know,” I told her. “But you don’t have to be.”

She clutched the pie on her lap as if it were grounding her to the earth.

I reached over to interlace our fingers, something I’d noticed always set her instantly at ease. I loved that something as simple as my fingers could have that effect on her.

We pulled up to my mom’s and for a second after I turned off the ignition, I just stared at the house I grew up in.

I don’t know why, but I’d gotten the hell out of there when I turned eighteen and never looked back. At the time, I didn’t really understand why I had the itch to leave as soon as possible. It was nothing against my mom or Maggie. I just felt… resentful, somehow.

Now, I wondered if it had more to do with my dad than I ever realized. I think, on some level, a part of me resented the way we all had to carry on with our lives as if the biggest presence wasn’t missing completely. The way we had to go on and pretend the space he’d once occupied was not noticeably empty.

My mom had worked her ass off to raise us, but the memory of him always lingered. Maggie never got over it. Mom sure as hell never got over it. And I guess I hadn’t either, much as eighteen-year-old me would’ve argued otherwise.

But now, the street was lined with cars from various family members, and the thought of going into the house my dad once haunted didn’t seem so daunting anymore.

“This is a nice house,” Cassie remarked as I came around to open her door.

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