Page 29 of Home Ice

Why the fuck didn’t she tell me?

I cut off before I can get started down that spiral because it doesn’t help anyone now. If I start blaming Carly, that isn’t going to get Kasen on my side. Especially because he’s giving me a chance. A small chance, sure, but I’ll take every single minute of the lift home.

“You okay?” Barrett asks, and I almost answer him, but Kasen gets in first.

“If he murders me, Coach—” He opens the door and throws his gear bag onto the back seat. “—you know who to send the police after.”

My lips curl back. “Out of the two of us, I think you’re the one with the homicidal tendencies.”

Kasen looks me up and down, no change in his expression, and from the corner of my eyes, I glimpse Barrett run a hand over his face.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have called my son a murderer, but in my defense, he did it first.

I mentally groan as those words catch up to me. I’m as mature as a fourteen-year-old. Great.

He still gets in the car, which is a relief, and as I round the hood to climb into the driver’s side, Barrett calls out to me.

“If you’re dropping him off in his own car, how will you get home?”

“I dunno. Walk?”

“From the next town over?”

I didn’t think of that. “Walk … for a while?”

His lips twitch, and this weird little sprig of hope zaps through my gut. “I’m done for today. I’ll meet you there.”

Part of me—the instinctual side—almost tells him to fuck off, but then I remember I’m not mad at him anymore. It’s become a habit, and it’s hard to let go of, but if that zap tells me anything, it’s that I want to let go of it.

I miss him.

“See you then,” is my only reply, even though I want to say so much more.

Except then I climb inside the car, and all thoughts of Barrett are shoved from my head as I’m hit with a wall of smell.

Now, if you’d asked me a few seconds ago, I would have said I’m used to the stench that fills a locker room after a game. All those overheated, sweaty bodies, drenched pads, damp uniforms, and worn-in skates create the type of smell that you can never really get rid of, but it’s been my whole life for so long that I never notice it anymore.

Now, drowning out the scent of new leather is a smell that has my eyes watering.

Teenage boy.

I turn on the car and, as subtly as I can, put the window down and lean my head out of it.

“You’ll have to give me directions,” I choke out.

“Sure.”

I put the car in drive, and Kasen tells me to turn left out of the lot. All I want is to strike up a conversation, to show him I’m not some asshole who abandoned him, but it’s hard to talk when every time I go to take a breath, it feels like I’m inhaling poison.

He’s slumped down in his seat, sitting so low his eyes are barely over the door and inspecting his bitten-back nails. “You’re a chatty guy,” he says dryly. “Or are you going to act like you’re in shock again?”

I snort, the fresh air whipping past only enters the car long enough to hit the smell before fleeing again. “Shock is accurate.”

He scowls, and fuck it.

“Did I smell this bad when I was your age? Fuck me, I remember Mom complaining, but I didn’t realize I was a biohazard.”

He chokes on amusement that catches him by surprise, and the way it lights up my chest catches me by surprise.