The Best Kind of Forever (Riverside Reapers Book 1)

HAYES

The third period is in full swing. I’m facing off with Cadieux for the first time, and he says something that stokes the fire inside of me.

“Where’s that little dime piece of yours, Hollings?” he taunts.

I crack my neck, rolling my shoulders back. “Excuse me?”

Cadieux’s grip on his stick tightens, his serpentine eyes sizing me up. “Oh, you know, the girl who’s been stuck to your side like a barnacle. I mean, she’s not really your type, right? Did you lose a bet? Does she have some dark dirt on you?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Cadieux,” I growl, heat nesting in the pit of my gut, urging me to stick my toe over the edge. “And if there’s a single brain cell in that empty fucking head of yours, I’d watch what you say next.”

His reedy grin makes me sick. “I saw those photos of her at the sponsorship party. If what her body looked like in that black dress is any indication of what it’s like out of it, I wouldn’t mind sticking my dick inside her tight little cunt.”

What the fuck did he just say?

I don’t even hear the whistle over the hammering of my own heart, and in the blink of an eye, Cadieux is off with the puck. My teammates are yelling at me, same with the fans, anger and disappointment hitting me from all sides. There’s a fissure of rage cracking deep inside me, and if I don’t close it soon, the Atlanta Avocets are going to lose a very critical player.

I skate over to Cadieux—who’s about a few feet from our goal—and something inside of me snaps.

Lunacy rakes through me when my right hook contacts Cadieux’s jaw, my fist breaking bone in a crack that can be heard around the world. Blood fountains onto the unblemished ice, tarnishing the surface with an oppressive shade of red, and I can feel my skin split across my knuckles underneath my glove. It burns, but it’s not strong enough to counteract the wrath inside me.

It feels like my fury has surpassed the hundred on a high striker, demolishing that bell at the very top. I can handle some trash talk, but when it comes to talking shit about the people I care about, I turn into a monster.

I hit him again—since nobody’s rushing over to stop me—and he spews some teeth.

I have to give it to Cadieux, I thought he’d be down for the count, but he’s more resilient than I gave him credit for. I have a lot of fighting experience under my belt, and I could spend the rest of the game making Cadieux eat his words, so I’m surprised when he swings at the bottom of my mouth. An ache slingshots through my bones from the force. It’s not enough to knock me on my ass, but it’s enough for sickle-shaped droplets to spurt from the gash on my lower lip.

Cadieux’s next punch barely grazes me, and I take advantage of his inexperience to whale on him some more, giving him a gnarly shiner. Our teammates finally spring to action and pull us apart.

Embers of rage sweep through me, hot enough to burn through skin and muscle. My chest is rising and falling with each hurried breath.

Out of my peripheral, I see Aeris standing up with her hand over her mouth. The full-blown inferno that was rampaging through me has now descended to a warm buzz, and it’s given me a split second to fully process what I’ve just done. Shit.

Everyone’s looking at me liked I’ve just committed a murder in broad daylight.

“Riverside Reapers, number eighteen, five minutes for fighting.”

I take out my mouthguard so I can yell at the ref. “This is fucking stupid!” I shout, hostility drenching my voice.

Bristol brushes past me. “Shake it off, man.”

The next thing I know, I’m getting up close and personal with the penalty box. I should’ve just bodychecked Cadieux. I didn’t need to ensure a full-out brawl. And now my team might suffer because of my careless mistake.

What’s Aeris going to think? Yeah, she knows I have a bit of a temper, but she’s never seen it in person. And that was probably one of the worst fights I’ve gotten into since I’ve entered the NHL.

One of the opposing players navigates past Fulton and scores a goal, leaving us a point behind with less than ten minutes left in the game. My fists curl in the safety of my gloves, and a curse shoots out of me. I’m breathing like I’ve just run a marathon, an emotion overload threatening to trample me. The five minutes go by exceedingly fast—thank God—and Bristol scores a goal as soon as I’m let back onto the ice.

It’s 3-4. We’re down to a minute. A tie isn’t great, but I’ll take it over losing.

I’m on the offense’s heels when the puck is intercepted by Casen, and I race down the length of the rink alongside him. The breath in the stadium is bated, the cold air misting around my face. I don’t know where Aeris is, but I can feel her eyes on me like a set of high beams. My heart rate rockets. Just one more goal. Everyone’s watching. Everyone’s counting on me.

Casen passes the puck to me, and I only have the distance for a single swoop to get it in the goal. There are about three players on my tail. Thirty seconds left on the clock. The second that beauty is in my eyeline, I keep it in front of me, skating backwards to dodge a lunge from one of the defensemen. I send the puck in at an angle, watching as it flies toward the corner of the net.

But before it can make it in, the goalie’s stick comes up and blocks my shot. The buzzer sounds the end of the game. The stands rattle with boos and angry insults alike, nearly taking out my eardrums. My teammates don’t crowd around me. Everything stills.

We just lost.

WHEN I FINALLY EXIT THE stadium, the cold cement underneath my well-worn shoes is doing little to extirpate the heat looping through my body. Petrichor perfumes the atmosphere as a duvet of darkness swaddles me. The night sky is gray and sunless, laden with thick storm clouds that blot out the moon and stars. It’s going to rain soon, and I don’t want to wait around for my clothes to get drenched.

We lost, and it was all my fault. I let Cadieux get in my head. I let the game get personal, and that’s the first thing you learn in hockey—to separate your personal life from your life on the ice.

But I couldn’t let him get away with all that shit he was saying about Aeris.

The tinny sound of my phone grabs my attention, and Coach’s name sprawls across my screen. I pick up without preparing myself for the verbal beatdown I’m about to receive, but when I place the phone to my ear, there’s no anger threaded in his tone.

“I’m disappointed in you, son,” he says, and his words stab the space between my shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry, Coa—”

“I couldn’t find you after the game, so I’m telling you this over the phone,” he prefaces, sighing. “Your major misconduct has resulted in a five-game suspension and a fine of twenty thousand dollars.”

No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

Anger pours into my veins like molten lava. “Coach, are you serious? I didn’t even hit him that hard!”

“I’m sorry, Hayes. But this is the consequence you have to face for being so reckless out there tonight.”

“Please. There has to be something I can do. I need hockey. I need it to distract myself. I can’t just sit and watch my team go on without me.”

Coach’s prior softness has evaporated. “Might I suggest working on yourself before you pull the rest of the team down with you,” he snaps crossly, and then his end of the line cuts out.

FUCK!

I’m so screwed. I don’t care about the money, okay? It’s the suspension that’s going to ruin me. I’ve gotten minor misconducts in the past, but never anything major. I need to cool off before I do something I can’t come back from.

I fish around for my keys, but the silhouette by my car makes me table my departure.

Once I step into the light, my attention homes in on a man I never thought I’d see at any of my hockey games again, much less standing right in front of me now.

“Dad?”

Richard leans against the side of my car, worry lines etched around his mouth, the brim of his hat barely shielding the ruptured blood vessels in his eyes. “Hayes.”

I drop my hockey bag to the ground. “What are you doing here?”

He lifts himself from the exterior of my Porsche, and even though I dwarf him with my height, he has the gall to step closer toward me. He holds an arm out in front of him—like how one would cautiously approach a cornered dog.

“I’m not here to fight with you. I…you weren’t returning any of my texts.”

As soon as the shock wears off, anger stunts my vision in a cosmos of crimson. “Ever think there was a reason for that?” I snap.

My father’s shoulders angle in guilt. “I know you don’t want to talk to me.”

I flash him a glare that the whole hockey world fears, and something sinister stews in my stomach. “Wow, Dad. That’s the first intelligent thing that’s come out of your mouth.”

I don’t have time for whatever half-assed apology my father is going to feed me. I press my key fob in hopes that driving out of here will save me from a headache, but Richard stops me from getting in.

“I know that my apology is long overdue, but I’m here now, son. I’m going to make things right, whether or not you hear me out. I failed you and your sister. I should’ve stepped up after your mother died, but I was so engrossed in my own grief that I couldn’t bring myself to be around reminders of her. And you—you have her eyes. Whenever I looked at you, I saw her.”

His words encase my heart like barbed wire. I never knew that was the reason why my father distanced himself. I’d created this narrative that he did it because he was a selfish bastard who didn’t want the responsibility of looking after two kids. I needed to blame someone for my failure as a son, and I transferred that blame onto him.

“I miss you and Faye so much. I miss when we were a family. I’ve been watching the game every week, you know? I’ve been following you through the tabloids. I just wish I’d found the courage to fix things earlier.”

“I…” For someone who’s collected an arsenal of insults for this very moment, words elude me.

My father’s eyes turn shiny, and there’s something more blinding than his grief that shines through pools of gray—something that looks a lot like love. “This is a lot to take in. I don’t expect us to immediately go back to the way things were when your mom was alive. I want to take those first steps with you. I want to be in my incredible son’s life.”

He wants to be in my life. He wants to be my dad again. Sixteen years I’ve gone without his support, and sixteen years I’ve had to look after my little sister while fighting my own battles. But I don’t have to fight alone anymore. I don’t have to be complacent with the bare minimum.

I taste the salt on my lips before I register that I’m crying. “I was so lost without you. We needed you, and you abandoned us. How will I know you won’t leave again when things get hard?”

His face is crestfallen. “I made that mistake once already. I’m not going to do wrong by your mother’s memory anymore. She would’ve wanted us to be a family again. She would be heartbroken to know her death pushed us apart,” he explains, inching closer to me step by step.

I feel like I’ve just crash-landed with no parachute to cushion my fall.

I clear the nerves from my throat, but my voice is still small. “I miss her so much, Dad. I made a promise to her to keep this family together, and I failed. I let my pride get in the way of things. Faye grew up without a father figure because of the decision I made,” I say.

My father embraces me for the first time since I was a child. My heart rate rises to an uncountable measure, and it’s so loud that I’m sure he can hear it resonating in his own chest.

“No, Hayes. You didn’t fail. You were the child. It wasn’t your responsibility to keep the family together. It was mine.”

As comforting as his hug is, for some reason, I pull away. That self-preservation part of me is trying to recalibrate my brain, and my body wants to switch to survival mode. I’m afraid of letting him back in. Not only will I be affected by it, but Faye will be too.

I curb the turmoil trying to pinch more tears from my eyes. “Why didn’t you just explain your reason for leaving? Why did you make us feel like we were the ones in the wrong?”

“I was ashamed. I was supposed to be strong for the both of you. I couldn’t…I couldn’t admit how broken I was. But the minute I walked away from you two, I knew it would be the worst mistake of my life,” he laments.

I rub the heel of my palm into my chest, like it’ll physically appease the pain. “I want to forgive you, but…”

“It’ll take a while,” Richard finishes, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll wait forever for your forgiveness, Hayes. And if you don’t want me in your life, know I’ll be standing by the phone, just in case you need me.”

Every emotion inside me is going haywire. I feel like I’m seconds away from falling apart, but instead of having to peel my powerless body off the ground, I have my father to lean on now.