me, especially since I didn’t see him all weekend.
I feel a prick of fear.
Something awful and terrible feels right around the corner, but I just don’t know what it is.
“Sure.”
Then he’s brushing his lips against mine and he’s out the door, closing it behind him. I hear him going out the front of the house, and I plop down back on the bed. “He didn’t even say bye,” I tell Long John Silver when she jumps up beside me. She hisses, stalks off, and claws at the door until I reopen it and let her out.
I mumble under my breath as I dig around on the floor for my pants. There’s no way I can go back to sleep, and maybe I need my own space.
After going to his bathroom to fix my hair, I shove my arms in my coat and walk out of his door. I turn the corner to the kitchen and see Reece sitting at the table in a pair of leopard print underwear. His face is…weird…and I don’t think he sees me, so I clear my throat.
“Don’t mind me. On my way out,” I say politely.
He jerks his face toward me in the hallway and flinches when our eyes meet. “He woke me up.”
“He went for a run,” I say, stopping in front of him.
I see an expression on his face, perhaps pity. He shakes his head as if clearing it and narrows his gaze at me. “Do you know where he runs after a nightmare?”
I do, sort of, but I keep my mouth shut. Z likes his privacy.
His gaze is unwavering. “He goes to see where she’s buried.”
My nose flares.
“You should ask him more questions, you know.”
“Like what?” I stand there, waiting, feeling that trickle of foreboding inch up my spine.
“Have you ever seen a photo of Willow?”
“No.”
“She was beautiful.”
He plays with the HU Lions salt and pepper shaker set on the table, his eyes staring out the bay window next to the table. “I was in love with her, you know. Sometimes I thought it was reciprocated, but you could never tell with her. She’d string me along when she and Z would fight, and I always held out hope…” He stops and grimaces. “She kissed me the night she died, but it was a pissed-off, getting back at Z thing. My lips were the last ones to touch hers.” He stares down at the table, the salt shaker in his grip. “She was going to have his baby, but I would have done anything to have her as mine.”
I blink, struggling to keep up. Does Z know all this? Is this why they aren’t close?
“You’re nothing like her,” he grinds out. “I mean, sure you—”
He stops, his lids closing.
My heart drops. I keep my mouth shut and wait. Just wait.
“I hear him thrashing around in there, reliving that night. He…I…we saw her on the rocks. She was thrown from her car.”
Dread gathers within me and questions teeter on my lips, but I know this isn’t an appropriate time. “I’m sorry.” No other words are adequate. None. “Maybe you should talk to Z.”
He flinches, his eyes coming back to me. Anger colors his face as he takes me in and opens his mouth to say something but then presses his lips together.
“What?”
He glares at me. “I wish you would go away. You remind me of…everything.”
His words are like bullets and my chest clenches, trying to make sense of them. I tug my coat around me, feeling cold even in this warm house. I shake my head, not knowing how to respond. He’s grieving, obviously still working through something, and I can’t argue with that right now.
I walk past him to the front door and open it. A sharp, crashing sound breaks the silence as I shut the door. The salt shaker, presumably.
31
Zack
I’m doing some early pre-game skating with our team at Concord State University, one of the schools in our conference. They’re a smaller university with a string of recent losses, and we’re here to kick ass and take names. Every game is a priority, though, especially since we’re in the same conference, and a few local reporters and photographers are in the stands already, watching and taking notes. I felt the heat of their scrutiny as soon as I took the ice. An agent from the Predators flew in today, Stan Wilcox, and I spoke to him briefly on the way to the locker room. He congratulated me on our last wins,