Page 150 of Slapshot Bride

It doesn't help.

All it does is leave the kitchen feeling a little warmer and my hands a little less steady.

Still, I keep drinking. I need something to dull the ache.

Something to stop my heart from feeling like it's splitting apart with every breath.

By midnight, I’m on the phone with my mom.

I need to speak to someone, and she’s the only one I could think of. She loved Riley.

Memories from my birthday and the call sweep in.

“Easton?” She’s awake, but her voice is riddled with worry. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. Not one word.

“Honey… is everything okay?”

“She’s gone, Mom.”

I hear a chair. Then her breathing, closer to the phone.

“Riley?”

“She left a note.” My voice cracks. “I never got the chance to tell her how much I loved her.” The words come out in a slur.

Silence greets me. When she speaks again, it’s in a quiet, calm voice that washes over me.

“Easton, are you drinking?”

“A little.” It’s a lie, but I can’t tell her I’ve finished a bottle.

“Then put it down and keep talking to me.”

I listen. I sit on the floor with my back against the dishwasher, and I tell my mother everything.

Maya. The payments. The fact that I never told Riley. Mason. The phone call. The lie about Coach that I told with Riley in my lap and her frowning up at me, trusting me.

The plan I made in Chicago, after she left, dressed in my jersey.

“I couldn't do it,” I say. “The second I saw her, I knew I was never going to be able to let her go. I was going to tell her everything tonight, Mom. That I loved her. That none of it had ever been fake.”

I let out a shaky breath. “I even bought her a new camera. I had the whole night planned.”

My mother is quiet for a moment.

“Easton, honey, have you spoken to Mason?”

And there it is.

I’ve been circling it for two hours without addressing it.

“He got to her,” I say.

“You don’t know that.”

“He told me to end it four days ago.” I press the heel of my hand into my eye. “He’s known me since we were teens. He knows every stupid thing I’ve ever done. If he sat her down and told her what I am—”