Page 22 of Home Ice

Iwalk out of the rink and into the hot midmorning sun. It’s that rare pocket of time when Vermont gets heat, and I hate it. When I was a teenager, I used to love the height of summer when we’d swim at the lake and I’d get to see the girls I liked half-naked in their swimsuits.

It was also where, during the second-last summer of high school, I’d realized I liked the way guys looked shirtless too.

And not just guys—my best friend.

Standing opposite him, feeling all that betrayal fresh as though it hasn’t been ten years, the anger I’ve been holding on to for so long just … fizzled away.

I want to hate him for ruining what we had. I want to hate him for making my rookie year so bad I had to have some tough conversations with my coach. I want to hate him for not trusting me to always have his back.

But I saw years of regret in his eyes, and I felt it too.

It wasn’t all on him.

I got angry, and instead of coming home and confronting him about it, I took it as a sign to cut him out of my life. Maybe I didn’t have his back the way I always thought I did.

Maybe our strong friendship was all in my head.

Maybes don’t change what happened.

The motherfucker is right.

All these maybes and what-ifs I’ve been clinging to don’t change the fact that I’m in this position. I have a kid, and I have an ex-best friend.

And now it’s my turn to make the choices.

Am I going to keep sulking, or am I going to accept that everything shitty that happened has happened, and now it’s time for me to make the choices I want to make? The ones I should have been able to make the first time around.

I want to know Kasen.

And I want to fucking fix things with Barrett.

Part of me wonders if he deserves it after he dropped me, but I can’t pretend to understand what he went through. Ben’s stroke would have been scary as shit, and I think Barrett giving up his professional hockey career is more than enough sacrifice. My doubt is trying to tell me that he ditched our friendship because I wasn’t important enough to him, but I know that’s a lie. I believe every word he said, and now that I know what really happened …

I wish I’d done more.

I wish I’d come home more.

I wish I’d looked up from hockey and checked in with the people in my life.

Now’s the chance to change all of that.

I jump in my rental and head straight to Gigi’s place. Thankfully, it’s the weekend she’s not working, and when I lean on the horn, she immediately stomps outside.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Kidnapping you.” I grin so she knows I’m joking.

She glares so I know she is. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“I have to go to Burlington, and I need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask why, just get in.”

She glances down at what she’s wearing, and for the first time, I notice the stained, baby pink Care Bear shirt and matching shorts. “Can I at least get out of my pajamas first?”

“The fact that you’re still in them is a worry.”