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“Stay.”

“Harry, I don’t want you to⁠—”

“Stay in here with me. You’re not doing this alone.”

The ringing stopped, but just as quickly it started again. Truthfully, I didn’t want to face whatever this call was without him. We hadn’t ended things well when I’d left Seattle, and there was no good reason for her to call me at this time of night after years of silence.

“Hello?” Harry’s hand squeezed my arm, offering me reassurance and his solid strength.

“What did you say to your brother?” Her tone was sharp and clipped, filled with the same coldness she’d had when I’d been home.

But now at least I understood why she was calling. Because Eric had followed me to Montana.

“I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t even know he was coming here until he showed up tonight. He made this decision on his own.”

“Eric was happy at home going to UW. He had friends, a team, a life. And then suddenly he ups and decides to transfer to CFU. I know you were behind this.”

Would I always be the villain now when something didn’t go my mom’s way? Was that the role my life had been relegated to?

I didn’t think Harry could hear her exact words from where he sat, but my face must’ve given me away because he shifted closer, his knee pressing against my thigh. I let myself lean into the contact without thinking about it.

“He’s an adult, Mom. I swear I had nothing to do with this.”

As if not even hearing me, she responded, “You have cost me two sons now, Samantha.” Her voice shook, and I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or grief or if she even knew the difference anymore. “Are you going to take Jordan from me too? Is that your plan? To destroy this family completely?”

I closed my eyes. There it was. The same script, just a different verse. Everything that went wrong in the Lowe family led back to me. Every loss was my fault. Every fracture started with my name.

A year ago, those words would’ve gutted me. Now, they just stung.

“I don’t have to, Mom. You’re driving your family away all by yourself.”

Harry’s hand moved from my wrist to the back of my neck. His thumb traced a slow line along the edge of my hair, and the touch was so steady, so sure, that it eased the sting of her words.

“How dare⁠—”

“Goodbye, Mom.” I pulled the phone from my ear and hung up.

My hands were shaking as I set the phone face down on the nightstand and stared at the dark wall in front of me, waiting for the tidal wave. For the guilt. For the voice in my head that had always been louder than anyone else’s telling me I shouldn’t have said that, that she was my mother, that I owed her my patience because she’d lost a child and she was grieving.

But grief didn’t excuse being cruel.

Harry kept his hand on the back of my neck, his thumb still moving in that same slow line. “You know you don’t have to put up with that. From anyone.” A pause. “Not even her.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to take those words and tuck them somewhere safe and build a wall around them so the doubt couldn’t get in. But I could already feel it creeping back—the familiar whisper that said maybe I did owe her something for still being alive when Bryce wasn’t. That maybe I was the cause of all the problems in our family.

“Yeah,” I said, wishing I believed it.

His hand tightened slightly on my neck, and he pressed his lips to my temple and held them there. “Come here.”

He pulled me back onto the bed with him, and I went without resisting, my head resting back on his chest as he wrapped his arm around me. My arm slid around his waist, holding him a little tighter than I had before the call.

I really did want to believe him. I just wasn’t there yet.

THIRTY-TWO

I watched Eric from across the locker room while I adjusted my chest protector. He’d been at CFU for two weeks now and had practiced with us every day since that first game where he’d shown up without warning. Foster had apologized for not giving me a heads-up. He’d known a new player was coming but not his name until he showed up in the locker room.

The kid worked hard, I’d give him that. He was first on the ice at practice and last off, and he never complained when Coach ran bag skates. But right now, forty minutes before puck drop, he was winding tape around his blade with so much tension I was surprised the shaft didn’t snap.