Page 131 of Meant for Mayhem

“She left her phone in the car,” Jace said, handing me Shannon’s phone. “You want your luggage upstairs in Beckett’s room?

“Thanks. And sure.”

I glanced down at the phone in my hand, smiling at the picture of Leena, kicking her feet in her stroller and waving at the ducks floating by in the pond in Central Park. I’d seen the picture a hundred times but seeing it on Shannon’s phone felt different. It was a quiet declaration that we’d weaseled our way into her heart, same as she had ours.

Before I clicked the phone off, a text message came through, the preview showing on the lockscreen.

Dickwad: After everything we’ve done for you, you’re so ungrateful. Merry Christmas to you too, sis.

“Everything okay?” Emmy asked.

I nodded, not trusting myself to answer when my pulse hammered in my ears. Snooping through her text messages was a huge invasion of privacy, and I wasn’t about to do it. But I couldn’t help but wonder what else her asshole family had said to her.

Was that why she was so off today?

Or were the holidays an exceptional reminder of everything her childhood had never been?

Had every present we’d purchased and wrapped together been like a stab to the heart? A vivid reminder of the fact that Shannon’s childhood was stolen by people who never fucking deserved her?

I glanced back at Lori’s doorway, but Shannon hadn’t come back out yet.

Beckett slapped me on the shoulder, carrying in the portable crib I’d brought with us. “Man, I’m glad you’re here. We’ll have the whole gang together.”

Beckett, Emmy, and Jace filled me in on the plans for the Mayhem Christmas party tomorrow. I tried my best to listen, my attention split between Leena playing with the basket of toys in the corner someone had put out for her and staring a hole through Lori’s bedroom door.

But no amount of wishful thinking made Shannon emerge. I wanted a chance to remind her that her past could stay there. That what we had was a future, one she could rewrite as many times as we needed until she healed the wounds left by a family that wasn’t good enough.

Beckett nudged me toward the living room, where Mason sprawled across the couch, Jace sitting at his feet. Mason pointed the remote at the TV and turned it up. “Did you hear the news about the expansion team?”

NHL Tonight was on, Jace’s biological dad, Ryan Meyers, delivering the news. “With the Austin expansion team officially approved, I’m looking at teams like Denver. Mikko Laaksonen takes up a significant portion of their cap space and had a rough start to the season with his personal leave. A player like him could be a win-win for both teams.”

The analysts went back and forth discussing me like I was a pawn on the board while the visions of my life disintegrated like a sandcastle in high tide.

Austin.

Not Denver. Not a short drive from Linwood where the only family that had ever mattered to Shannon still lived.

Our original arrangement was clear and only worked because she was also working in Denver: she helped me through the season and finished her clinical hours debt-free. Moving with me if I got traded was never part of the deal. And after the way she’d shut down at the house this morning, I had no idea if she’d even want to come.

I liked plans. Needed them. Schedules, routines, knowing what came next—that was how I kept the noise in my head from getting too loud. But an expansion draft was the opposite of a plan. It was a black hole where someone else decided my future without my input, and right now it felt like the ground was shifting under everything I’d built with Shannon and Leena.

If I was sent to Texas, would she even consider it? Or would this temporary marriage finally hit its expiration date the way we’d always said it would?

My pulse kicked harder. Not full panic yet, but the spiral had started, and I could feel it pulling.

“Man, your dad really is a prick.” Mason kicked Jace in the shoulder. “I can’t believe Meyers is out here naming names like that on Christmas Eve.”

Jace shook his head. “I don’t claim him. Don’t put that on me.”

Beckett looked over at me while Leena climbed into my lap. “You okay, buddy?”

I didn’t answer, because no. I wasn’t okay.

And the only person I wanted to talk to was my wife.

27

Lori’s room was dark when I cracked the door open, only a nightlight shining by the window. But I couldn’t wait, not when it felt like every single emotion I tamped down was about to climb out of my throat.