Center Ice (Boston Rebels Book 1)

Audrey tries to run past me and through the doorway, but when I reach out and grab her wrist, she spins back toward me. I can’t read the look on her face—she looks mad, but that doesn’t make sense. I just defended her to my sister, and finally admitted the depth of my feelings for her. What could she possibly be mad about?

“Not now, Drew,” she says, then pulls out of my grip and shuts the door behind her on her way out. I can barely hear her talking to my mom and Graham over the pounding sound of fury in my ears.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I say to Caitlyn. She deflates a bit at the deadly low, focused tone, “barging in here and insulting Audrey like that.”

Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “I was today years old when I learned that you’re: A, a dad, and B, in love. I didn’t even know Audrey existed.”

“And how dare you call her a puck bunny. You really think I’m going to bring some random girl to our childhood home? You think I’m introducing someone to Mom who I don’t actually care about? When have you ever known me to do something like that?”

Caitlyn looks at me like she doesn’t even know me. And it hits me then, like it should have so many times in the past… “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? Because you’ve never taken the time to get to know me. Instead, you resented that you had to take care of me so much when I was a little kid who’d just lost a parent⁠—”

“I’d just lost a parent, too, Drew. And I didn’t even get a chance to grieve because, suddenly, I had all these additional responsibilities, like taking care of you and Missy every time Mom picked up a shift at the diner down the street after teaching all day. I didn’t just lose my dad, I lost my childhood.”

Oh, so we’re finally talking about this, I guess.

“I get that now,” I tell her. I’d always thought she resented having to take care of me; I never really thought about what she lost in the process. “But I was a little kid. I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand all of that. All I had was one less parent and a sister who suddenly hated me. And God forbid I actually be good at hockey—the thing I loved more than anything—and you did nothing but mock me for it and tell me it was a waste of time and money. It was like you hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you.” Her eyes are sad, her lips are turned down at the corners, and I’ve never felt our seven-year age difference more than I do right now. “I hated that Mom had to keep spending money she didn’t have so that you could play, while Missy and I had to go without things we wanted because you and hockey always took priority. I hated that I couldn’t pursue the things I was interested in during high school, because I had to be available to take you to hockey practice. Did you ever wonder why I stopped playing basketball, the thing that I loved?”

“I thought you got cut?”

“No. I couldn’t play because the varsity games were at night, and I needed to be around in case Mom needed me to help with you or Missy.”

“Did Mom ask you to quit basketball?”

“No, but it needed to happen. I couldn’t be in two places at once.”

“But by your junior year, Missy was a freshman, and I would have been in, like, fourth grade. Missy could have watched me if Mom picked up a night shift.”

“Missy wasn’t old enough to drive you to your practices. Plus, she had cheerleading practice almost every night.”

“I’m sorry you gave all that up,” I tell her. I’m still not sure if she really needed to make that sacrifice, or if it’s part of her martyr complex, but it’s what she thought she needed to do for me and Missy.

“Someone had to get you to hockey.” She rolls her eyes.

“Why didn’t you talk to Mom about this when it was happening?”

“I did! She said hockey would pay off in the long run.”

Of course she did. Mom has always been my biggest champion, willing to support me and stand up for me, no matter what. “Well, it did, didn’t it?”

“For you.”

I bite my tongue so hard I taste blood. I will not let her bait me into this argument. I’m not doing all of this for my mom because I want credit, and that’s how it will seem if I explain exactly how my success benefits our whole family.

When I don’t reply, Caitlyn says, “Plus, thanks to hockey, you’re never around.”

“I literally moved back to Boston to help out, so you could go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I spent all summer with Mom, but just like you and Missy, I need to show up for work now that the season has started, and my job requires that I travel. But when I’m not traveling, I’m around plenty.”

“Yeah, well, for all the times you’re not here, someone has to be around to help her.” Caitlyn smothers Mom, then makes her feel guilty for all the time she spends here.

“Mom needs help, not hovering. And she doesn’t need someone here 24/7. She will eventually, but not yet. How would you feel if Mom or Missy or I were always in your house, trying to be helpful, but making you feel bad about how much we were giving up to help?”

“I don’t make Mom feel bad about helping her out!”

“Like you didn’t make me feel bad when I was growing up?” I fold my arms across my chest and lean back against the door, and that’s when I notice the photo album sitting open on the couch.

I can picture my mom sitting in here with Audrey, showing her pictures of me when I was younger. And there’s no way Mom could miss how much Graham looks like I did at that age. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me how obvious it would be to her? There’s zero chance she didn’t figure it out, and I wonder how she’s feeling about this, and if Audrey knows that Mom knows?

“Are you telling me that Mom’s been complaining that I’m around too much?” Caitlyn asks the question begrudgingly, clearly upset at the idea that her help isn’t appreciated.

“Nope, she’s never said that. But I am telling you that if you ever really paid attention to her and how she’s feeling, you’d know that she doesn’t always need or want someone helping her. Let her do the things she can still do by herself, while she can still do them.”

Caitlyn looks away, her face full of sadness. “There’s nothing I can do to make her better. The only thing I can do is make her comfortable.”

“Maybe try waiting until she asks for help, then, instead of always assuming she wants it.”

“How do you even know this is how she’s feeling?”

“Because I pay attention.” I’m so tempted to suggest that she might want to try it if she’s going to be a nurse practitioner, since listening to the patient seems like an important part of that job. But it would be a shitty thing to say to her when she just expressed the slightest amount of vulnerability, so I hold my tongue. “I need to go find Audrey and Graham.”

“I still can’t believe you’re a dad.” She shakes her head, sounding a bit in awe. It’s a nice change from her normal caustic tone, so I keep my reply light as well.

“Yep, took me by surprise too.”

I leave the family room, feeling like Caitlyn and I just made a little progress in our relationship. We didn’t solve anything, but something about airing our grievances seems to have left us both a bit lighter.

I head down the hall to the small front living room, where my mom sits alone on the couch. “Where’s Audrey?”

“She left in quite a rush. Did you really tell Caitlyn that Audrey was the mother of your child and your future wife, or did I mishear you while I was eavesdropping?”

I can’t tell how my mom is feeling about any of this, and I hate that—the way she sometimes seems just like herself and other times her expression is distant or vacant. Right now, though, I think she might be amused?

“Yeah, that’s really what I said.”

“Doesn’t seem like she took it that well.” A small smile plays on her lips, so I know she’s teasing me.

“I know. I should never have blurted any of that out without at least talking to her about it first. Did Graham hear?”

“No, he was ‘reading’”—she uses air quotes around the word—“to me, so he wasn’t paying attention.”

“You just found out you have another grandson, and you don’t seem surprised by this information?” I don’t ask if she’s happy about this, because I want to let her express her own emotions.

“He’s the spitting image of you when you were that age. So either you expected me to figure it out, or you didn’t really think it through before bringing him over.”

I take a seat on the chair that sits catty corner to the couch. “It didn’t occur to me until I saw the photo album sitting out in the family room.”

“I’m glad you brought him over. Would have liked it better if you’d told me ahead of time, but figuring it out on my own was its own kind of victory, I guess.”

“We haven’t told him yet.”

“Yeah, Audrey mentioned that. So, how did this happen?”

“There’s only one way it can happen, Mom.” I give her a playful wink.

“I know there’s no way you knew this whole time and kept it from me, so I guess my question really is: why didn’t you know?”

I tell her the briefest version of the story possible, and she shakes her head, a small smile playing on her lips. “Your agent’s little sister? You could find trouble inside a paper bag.” It’s something she said to me all the time growing up, and in some ways, I guess that’s followed me into adulthood.

“I guess so.”

“So before you opened your big mouth to Caitlyn, did Audrey have any idea you plan on marrying her…after only a few weeks back in her life?”

“Probably not. I initially told her that I had too much on my plate, and couldn’t do a relationship. But every minute I spend with her, I’m more and more sure we’re meant to be together.” I glance out at the driveway and am disappointed that she’s not sitting there in her SUV waiting for me.

“Drew, do you love her?”

The word catches me off guard. “I mean…” I don’t know how to answer that question. It feels too early in our relationship to even ask it.

“Then why in the world would you announce that you’re going to marry her?” Mom’s voice is so exasperated I feel like I’m a little kid again.

“Because she’s all I can think of, day in and day out. If I’m not playing hockey, I’m pretty much thinking about her—texting her, calling her, trying to find reasons to go see her. I want to be with her all the time.”

“That’s the infatuation stage of any new relationship, Drew. It’s not the basis of marriage. You can’t commit to a lifetime with someone based on that infatuation because, eventually, it will fade. There are a lot of tough times in life and in a marriage, and if anything less than love is at the foundation of the relationship, things will eventually start collapsing.”

“I don’t know what to do, then.”

“Sure, you do,” Mom says as she pulls a blanket off the back of the couch and spreads it across her lap. “You show her you’re the type of person worth building that foundation with.”

“C’mon, Audrey, answer the damn phone,” I curse and bang my hand on the steering wheel. After Ubering back to my house, I hopped in my Jeep and headed to her. I’ve called her about ten times as I’ve driven from the Back Bay to the South End. Now I’m pulling onto her street, and she’s still not answering.

I take the turn into the driveway that leads to the alley behind her house, and when I get to their back door, I see that her little SUV isn’t there, just a big truck with Our House written across the side in white lettering. It must be Jules’s truck, but it’s not at all the vehicle I would have pictured her in.

I take Audrey’s spot and barely pause to turn my car off before I’m out the door and up their back steps. Jules swings open the door before I even have a chance to knock, crosses her arms over her chest, leans against the doorframe, and says, “She isn’t here, Drew.”

“How do you know who I am?” I realize how ridiculous the question is as soon as it’s out of my mouth. We’ve never officially met, but I’ve seen her at Jameson’s and at the pre-season game last week, so of course she’s seen me too.

Jules just rolls her eyes. “Like I wouldn’t know my own sister’s baby daddy.”

I hate that label and hate it even more when it’s being applied to me. “Thanks for making me sound like nothing but a sperm donor.”

“If it walks like a duck…”

“Hey, you do know that I didn’t know about Graham, right?”

Her ordinarily angelic face goes hard, and her short fingernails dig into the fleece fabric of her sweatshirt where she squeezes her biceps. “I know that she called you twenty times to tell you, and if you’d valued her even the smallest amount as a person, as a friend, and as someone you’d slept with, you could have called her back.”

I shove my fists into the front pockets of my jeans. “You’re not wrong. And I’m trying to make it right.”

“By freaking her the fuck out? If you knew anything about her, you’d know that she’s the kind of person who needs time to adjust to big changes. Having you back in Boston, letting you meet Graham, having…whatever relationship you guys have…it’s a huge amount of change within a few short weeks. You don’t go and say you’re going to marry her when you barely even know her!”

“Even if it’s true?”

“Drew.” It almost makes me laugh how much she sounds like Audrey when she says my name like that, all exasperated and sounding like she’s about to reprimand me. “You can’t know that after being back in her life for, what, three weeks?”

I shrug, because I have no idea how long it’s been. It feels like just yesterday and forever ago that I saw her across the backyard. “All I know is that I want her in my life, and I want to be part of hers.”

“Right, that’s called dating, or even friendship.” Jules looks at me like I’m missing a very important and obvious fact.

“Dating doesn’t seem serious enough for our situation.”

“Why?” Jules asks, right as the cold wind blows through the alley, kicking up leaves and banging together trash bins. Her whole body convulses with a shiver. She’s the kind of tall and thin that means she probably gets cold easily. “Because you have a kid together?”

“Yeah. And because ‘dating’ is way too loose a term for what I want with her.”

“Well, you may need to slow your roll a bit, because like I said, Audrey needs time to adjust to big changes. You want some advice?”

From the little Audrey’s told me about her sister, I know there’s no one in the world she’s closer to. So if anyone can help me make this right, it’s Jules. “Sure.”

“Go home. Let her come to terms with this on her own.”

That was not the advice I was hoping for.

“She can have until she gets home to come to terms with it, and then I want to talk to her. I’ll wait for her in my car.”

“That’s a mistake,” Jules says as she steps back into the kitchen and grabs the edge of the door. “But it’s yours to make.”