had.
And where was that family now?
He cleared his throat, hand flexing around the strands of hair now wound tight around his fingers. Jacqui winced. Damn. “I’m sorry.” He quickly loosened his hold until her hair slid free.
Her smile eased his worry. “I like it when you play with my hair.”
“Yeah?”
“It feels nice.”
A lot of women had scolded him for messing up their hair by playing with it. “Good.”
She’d been tapping soft patterns on the back of his other hand and bent knee for a while now. A song. What, he didn’t know, and he wondered if she realized she was doing it. He didn’t mention it though because he didn’t want her to stop.
“When did you quit playing?” she asked, nodding toward the piano to indicate her intent.
He almost glanced back at it then forced himself not to look. The view was better in front of him. A truth in so many ways.
“When Emma died.” His heart clenched, the old ache so familiar it was just another part of him. “I was so angry. Angry and hurt with a heavy dose of guilt that I couldn’t make myself play without thinking of her and everything that would never be.” A flash of that old pain roared up to lash at him, but Jacqui’s consistent tapping notes chased it back, gave him strength when he wanted to avoid it.
“I understand the hurt and anger,” she said. “But why the guilt? Were you there?”
“No.” If only he had been. If only he’d pushed more when he’d suspected the drug use. Had taken more time to be there for her. “It was at school.” His dry chuckle was filled with cynical mirth. He rubbed his eyes, pressing until the stinging burn receded. “The cover-up performed by the school was classic and unfortunately expected. No way did they want to be associated with the prescription fishbowl roulette game the students had been playing for years.”
Jacqui frowned, her fingers pausing. “People really do that?”
The innocence of the question struck him as sweetly ironic. She had no idea about a side of life he’d been immersed in since childhood. Drugs and sex had been the entertainment of choice for the bored, and every private school he’d attended had been filled with an abundance of bored kids.
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened until she blinked, sitting back. “Wow. I thought that was only done in movies.”
“They had to get the idea from somewhere.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, swearing, his sarcastic snort getting lost behind his palm. “Or maybe we stole the idea from the movies. Who knows?”
“Did you play that game?”
“No.” He spoke the truth with a firm conviction. “I had hockey and I wasn’t risking that family for a short high. In more ways than one, the sport saved me.” And what was it doing now?
She squeezed his hand. “I’m happy you had something else.”
He was too. Even if it was a rough boys-club sometimes based on forced comradery more than true friendship. Mutual respect was better than anything else he’d had.
“I’d seen signs of use on Emma,” he went on, “when I saw her on breaks. But she blew off my concerns and I let it go—repeatedly.” He should’ve pushed more, but his parents should’ve pushed too. Seen what their daughter was doing. Only they hadn’t—or had ignored it.
“You were what? Nineteen?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “She died in May. I entered the hockey draft in June.”
She squeezed his arm. “That must’ve been hard.”
“Not so much. If anything, her death made me more determined not to lose my hockey family.”
“But you finished college, right? With a bachelor’s in music history.” She cringed around a sheepish smile. “I saw that on your profile. On the internet.”
He leaned in to kiss away her apparent guilt at looking him up online. “I don’t hide it.”
“And you shouldn’t. A degree from Harvard is impressive.”
That depended on who was asked. “I guess so.”
She smacked him on the arm, the hit barely stinging. “Yes. It is,” she insisted, all indignant for him.
Most people didn’t care. “I went there for the hockey program.” He skipped the on-scholarship part. It didn’t seem important when his family had easily paid more to send him to private schools for thirteen years.
“You got a great education while you were there.” She squinted at him. “Why’d you stay when you were drafted after your second year? You could’ve left school then if your degree wasn’t important to you.”
He couldn’t hold back his grin. She was too damn smart, but