“It’s hard to take you seriously with little pink unicorns on your feet,” I say dryly.
He ignores that. “Last week it was my practice jersey. The time before that it was my notebook.” He points a finger at Long John Silver. “The little monster has it out for me.”
As if sensing he’s badmouthing her, her tail flicks around agitatedly and she gives him a scratchy, “Meoooow.”
I look from her to him. “She said, It wasn’t me.”
Eric laughs from his perch in the living room. “Nah, she said, Fuck off, Reece, you’re the pussy here.”
He waves his hands at us. “Fine, fine, laugh all you want, but you just wait until she’s coughing up a loogie in your shoe.”
“At least it wasn’t a dump,” comes from Eric.
Reece glowers, and I give in and stand. “Come on, I’ll fix this. Give me the shoe, you big baby. I’ll throw it in the wash and it will be good as new.”
He sniffs. “I’m not an idiot. I can wash my own shoe, but if you could keep her out of my bedroom…”
I laugh. “Dude, just shut your door. Cats can’t reach the doorknobs. No thumbs.”
“Smartass,” he says. “I’m tired. Just done, I guess.” He rubs his shoulder. “And this shoulder isn’t doing me any favors. Couldn’t sleep a wink last night and all the doc gave me was Aleve.”
I nod. We’re all paranoid about injuries that keep us out of the game and prevent us from racking up stats.
He heads to our small laundry room where I hear him slamming the lid on the washer and starting it. A few minutes later he emerges from the hallway and heads to the fridge to grab a Gatorade.
“Let’s hit the gym tomorrow, and I’ll help you with some stretches.” I slide over the box of Cap’n Crunch I’m working on, and he sticks his hand in, pulls out a handful, and munches.
He plops down in the seat across from me. “Forget me—how are you doing? Didn’t you have another doctor’s appointment this morning?”
I nod. “Sports psychologist. We’re increasing our sessions from twice a week to three. I’ll have to skip my poetry class to make the appointments, but Coach says he can work it out with the professor.”
“No cure yet, huh?”
A cure?
My hands clench under the table. His obliviousness drives me nuts. Reece may look like me and share a similar temperament, but there’s a barrier between us, one that’s been there since he came to Hawthorne. I give him slack because it’s hard living in my shadow. Growing up, I was always the one in the spotlight, and I have to wonder what that does to a brother who craves being the best just as much as I do.
He gives me a raised eyebrow and stuffs cereal in his mouth.
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say.
He stops chewing. “You don’t think you’ll freak out again, right? Isn’t there a pill for it?”
My jaw tightens. He knows nothing, and part of me is annoyed that this is the first conversation he’s had with me about it when Eric has asked a million questions. He and I have different friends, and we don’t spend a lot of our free time together. “I can’t take pills and keep training and playing like I do. Some of those meds have huge side effects that I can’t chance right now. My guy is using different things with me.” Deep breathing, running, visualization.
His voice lowers. “Do you think it’s this time of the year? When Willow died?”
I stare at him, unsmiling. I don’t like talking about her with him.
Because he knows how I fucked up. He was at that party.
And I know he wanted her for himself.
Exhaustion washes over me just thinking about it. “It’s never specifically happened in January before, so it’s probably a combination of things.”
He nods, toying with a piece of cereal in his fingers, deep in thought. “You and Willow…you still wanted to be with her when she died, right? You would have married her someday?”
I frown, wondering what he’s getting at, but I change the topic. “Look, the anxiety thing is real. It comes with being at the top. I was the number one pick last year, and the Predators are waiting on me.”
He exhales, nose flaring as his face grows hard.
I tap a pen on the table, reading him. Part of my success in hockey is my skill in analyzing micro-expressions and body