Page 72 of Crazy Pucking Love
I lifted his hand higher and kissed the injury. “I didn’t know if you’d want to talk about the game.”
“It definitely wasn’t one of my favorites. If I’d just been playing better…” He shook his head, his whiskers tickling my cheek. “I made mistake after mistake, and I’ve got to play better than that, or I might as well go home.”
I spun to face him. “What are you talking about? I don’t think anyone had that great of a game, and maybe it wasn’t your best, but you didn’t make any huge errors or anything.”
“There are a lot of stellar players out there, and I never know when there are scouts in the audience. If they saw that game, I’d be out for sure.”
“Everyone has bad games.”
“I just can’t afford to. Not when…” He shook his head again.
I almost asked him to explain, but then I remembered what we’d talked about at the diner the other night. “Not when your family is relying on you.”
“If I’m going to fail at hockey, I might as well go take care of my sisters instead of pretending I can go pro. At this point, the degree path I switched to is looking pretty unlikely, too.”
I placed my hands on his chest and looked him in the eye. “I admire how much you care about your family, but you can’t live your whole life for other people.”
“What about Lissa? If she ends up some kind of addict because I wasn’t there, it’ll be too late to undo the damage. I’ve already seen it happen to one of my friends. If I’d been there, I could’ve kept her out of it, and I worry I’m making the same mistake.”
“Or maybe you would’ve ended up in it and thrown away the opportunity to follow your dreams. At some point, we all have to choose who we’re going to be and take life by the horns and tell it that it’s our bitch, not the other way around.”
He rested his forehead against mine. “You’re saying I just need to tell life it’s my bitch.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do by being here in Boston. If I hadn’t taken control, I’d be in my last semester of high school, surrounded by people who were always talking shit about me, and feeling alone. I came here to start on my dreams.”
“Wait. I knew you were a freshman, but…you skipped part of high school?”
“Just the last year, and then it took me a six months to get here. I might barely be eighteen, but I have an old soul,” I joked, hoping he wouldn’t make a big deal about it.
“And now I’m corrupting you.”
“A girl needs a bit of corruption now and then.” I tipped onto my toes and kissed him. “Remember how you once told me that I wanted someone who’d take care of me.”
His eyes darkened, making me think that yes, yes he did, and my heart pumped harder at the memory, even though that wasn’t why I’d brought it up. I ran my hand down the side of his face. “Once in a while, you’ve got to take care of yourself in order to have anything to give.”
He nodded, but I wasn’t sure it truly sunk in, because I could still feel the tension and stress radiating off him.
“And if you need someone to help take care of you, call me.”
He wrapped his arms tighter around me, his fingers pressing into the grooves between my ribs. “I feel crazy when I’m with you, and even crazier when I’m not. Only the first crazy is much better, even if it also makes me a little too reckless.”
Before I could figure out what to say to that, he kissed me, the perfect amount of lips and tongue.
A loud throat clearing brought me back from happy kissing land.
“I’ve got to close up,” the worker who’d granted us an extra half hour said.
“Thanks for letting us stay.” I peered out at the city once more, all the buildings and lights, and thought again about the handful of people I couldn’t live without. I knew it was dangerous to think of Dane that way when there was still so much undefined about our relationship, but I couldn’t help but think that he was one of them.
And I hoped that he didn’t end up breaking my heart.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dane
I held on to Megan’s hand as we walked across campus, hoping I wasn’t crushing it, but not wanting to let it go.
I hadn’t meant to dredge up all my fears and worries about my family, but her response had made me feel better—better than I’d felt since Cassidy first called me about Lissa.
