Keeping Casey (Keeping Him #1) - Amy Aislin Page 0,79

the hit harder than usual.”

“But you’re okay? April said you went down and didn’t get up.”

“I did get up.” Not quickly, and with the help of a couple of his teammates, but he’d gotten up. “Walked into the exam room on my own two feet.”

“Good.” Relief filled Dad’s voice. “What did your doctor say?”

“That the flare-up was caused by stress and exhaustion.” He stared out at the back of the yard where bushes nudged up against the fence. “School has been . . . a lot harder and a lot more work than I expected,” he admitted.

Dad sighed and there was a creak like he was settling into a chair. “I guess a biochemistry degree and hockey don’t mix too well.”

Ethan’s snorted laugh held no amusement. He thought again of switching majors, studying business administration like ninety percent of the team. Problem was, business administration didn’t sound fun at all. And besides, wasn’t it the type of degree people went into when they didn’t know what they wanted to study? Not that he knew what he’d eventually do with a biochemistry degree.

“No,” he replied. “They don’t.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I . . . What?”

“You said the RA flare-up was a result of stress and exhaustion,” Dad said. “So how are you going to fix that?”

“Uh.” Ethan stared at the bushes. An answer did not miraculously present itself. “Make it to the end of this semester, sleep through Christmas break, and start all over again in January?”

Silence from Dad. It lasted so long that Ethan pulled the phone away from his ear to check the connection.

“Is Casey there?” Dad eventually demanded. “Surely he’s knocked some sense into you?”

“What? No, he’s . . . I don’t need sense.” What was Dad even talking about?

“Ethan.” The exasperation in his voice was so parental that it made Ethan smile. He could just picture Dad, sitting in his favorite chair in their living room, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can’t just ignore the problems you’re having now and hope they go away. If your first semester was hard, what do you think the next three and a half years are going to be like?”

That . . . was a good point.

“So. What’s your plan?”

Holy crap. Was Dad actually parenting him for once?

“What would your mom say?”

Startled that Dad had brought Mom up at all, Ethan straightened, hand clenching on the phone. “What?”

“What would be her advice?”

“I . . .” Mom had always known what to do about everything, the fixer in the family. Had she been around when he was diagnosed, she would’ve been right there next to Casey, arms full of research on rheumatoid arthritis. She was the one he and April and Laura went to when they fell, or failed a test, or fought with a friend. “I don’t know.” Not only did he not know what she’d say about his current situation, but as he struggled to recall her voice, it escaped him. He swallowed his panic, forcing his shoulders to loosen.

“She’d tell you to get a tutor.”

“Oh, that’s . . .” Kind of an obvious answer when said aloud. Since he hadn’t had the foresight to take a refresher course, a tutor was the next best thing. Study group helped a lot; a tutor would be even better, right? “Yeah, I’ll look into it. Thanks, Dad.”

“What’s going on for tonight? Are you playing?”

“No. Coach has me sitting out. Probably for next weekend’s games too.” Against Norwich University and UMass Amherst, respectively, which meant he’d be missing the last two games of the semester. After that, they paused until January.

Damn it. All he’d wanted to do was play hockey and he’d fucked that up. The best he could look forward to was playing again in January, which he would, because flare-ups didn’t last forever. What did he have to do to prevent them from occurring next semester?

Probably the whole tutor thing was a good start. And getting enough sleep.

“Good, good,” Dad said. “Should Laura and I still expect you home on the twenty-fifth for Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah.”

“Casey and his mom still joining us?”

“Yeah,” Ethan repeated before remembering that Casey had left. What if he hadn’t run because he was scared? What if he’d run because he’d realized he didn’t want to be saddled with someone with Ethan’s condition?

Blowing out a breath, he ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t think like that, otherwise he’d curl into a ball and hide under the covers until the end of