Page 1 of Find Me Again

CHAPTER ONE

Neil Hopkins parked in front of his parents' house and sat there, taking in the same old street, the same pick-up in the Millers' driveway, and the same weird statue in the middle of Bensons' lawn.

To his surprise, he found himself appreciating the familiarity. Those were the immovable forces he had no interest in meeting with anything other than a fond smile, these days.

These days. What did that even mean, now? This year? This Christmas season? Or maybe the end of—

No.

He was not going there. The game didn't end before the last whistle—he'd had it hammered into his head over and over, from his high school practice to the Stanley Cup final earlier this year.

Besides, he had the entire break to figure things out.

But first, he needed to get out of the car.

Neil winced as he stepped out, his knee protesting a weird angle for a second. A few weeks of rest, Doc Sanchez had told him, and he should be fine if he didn't overdo it. She hadn't added "again", but it was heavily implied nonetheless. She did not suffer fools, and the whole team had learned to be a little afraid of her, so Neil had nodded and taken his pills, and two days later, after the confrontation with Josh, he'd turned it into the perfect excuse for getting the hell out of Savannah.

"If I go down, I'm dragging you with me."

As his heartbeat jumped at the memory, his hand slipped, and he shut the car door too hard.

Shit. That was going to get noticed, so he only had a few short seconds to pull himself together.

He was here to visit his family for the holidays, torecuperate and relax.

Maybe if he repeated that enough times, it would actually stick.

Then the door to the house flew open, and his mother rushed towards him as if she was welcoming him from the war—which, to be fair, was her usual way of greeting him.

Another immovable force, right there.

"Hi, Mom." He dropped his bag to put his arms around her and inhaled the familiar, too sweet scent of coconut as he pressed a kiss on the top of her head.

"Hi, baby." Her voice was muffled by the way she was pressing her face to his chest, but he could still hear her smile in it.

Predictably, because they'd gone through this routine too many times to count at this point, he groaned.

"Not a baby."

"Called dibs on calling you a baby when—"

"Not another birth story, I beg of you."

She pulled back a bit to look up at him.

"Fifteen-hour-long labor means I get to call you whatever I want. Forever."

"There should be a time limit for playing that card, you know," he told her as he stepped away and picked up his bag.

"That ace is staying with me until my dying breath." She turned towards the house. "Come on, I need to start on dinner. I know how you get after traveling."

Neil wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but he didn't correct her, since that would bring on questions he didn't want to answer. After all, he normally had a big appetite and, for whatever reason, no matter how much he'd eaten before, he was always starving when he got here.

Usually, it worked out fine, because there was no better cook than his mom and she loved feeding people. This time,he'd have to overplay his enthusiasm a bit so she wouldn't get worried.

About this, at least, he thought as he followed her through the entry door.When I tell them the truth, she'll have other reasons to be worried.

Unless they weren't going to worry but instead get angry or—

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