Page 12
I can put up with a few months beneath LaBlanc’s thumb if it means an NHL contract and a ticket to a true fresh start. I’ve done it before and survived.
Turning down the hallway to the offices and dressing room, I tense and duck my head, anticipating that with my usual luck I’ll run into LaBlanc before I ever make it to Harris.
I turn the corner for Harris’s office—which I realize is still empty, the door propped open. I drop my stuff into a pile just inside, setting my motorcycle helmet carefully atop my backpack.
Checking my phone again, I see several texts from Holden and another group message I’ve been added to, again. I remove myself from it before opening my texts with Harris and telling him I’m here, adding Can we talk? I hit send before I can overthink it and stash the phone in my back pocket, huffing an annoyed breath.
Stepping back out into the hallway, I almost take out the much smaller person strutting quickly around the corner.
“Oh—I’m sorry.”
The voice plays like a whispering memory, a scratch on a record I didn’t start playing, looping in my head, leaving a ghostly needlelike feeling across my skin.
At first, I’m convinced I’m hallucinating.
Something comes from my lips—a noise I didn’t intend to make, like I’ve taken a punch to the gut; it feels like I’ve taken several. My eyes scan over her slowly, a mirage in the desert.
Black-heeled boots, slender legs wrapped in tight dark nylon leading up and up to a short, plaid skirt and a close-fitted black long sleeve encasing a lithe body. Glossy auburn hair in a high ponytail. Pale skin like polished porcelain. Blue eyes bright and wide, pupils dilating as she takes me in.
And for just a second, she’s sixteen and panting beneath me, eyes wide in wonder.
“Lillian.” His voice comes crashing through the memory, a sharp call of her name that she doesn’t seem to hear, doesn’t even make her blink, as she keeps staring at me like I might disappear.
I grab her wrist and tug her backward, fumbling for the door closest to me—a darkened storage closet. Flipping the lock, I slap the light switch, and the dull yellowed bulb illuminates the dark, small room just enough so that I can see her.
Trying to calm myself is an impossible feat.
Why hadn’t I thought of the possibility that she might be here too? Maybe if I’d prepared for it, the pain wouldn’t be so acute, so intense.
Blaring relief and swirling anxiety shift and churn until I’m almost nauseous—she’s here, exactly what I’ve always wanted, what my every dream has been—and yet the last thing I would ever wish for.
“Is this real?”
I hate that she asks, because with her in the mix, the answer could be no. Gripping my own reality tight, I press my fingers to the pulsing at the bridge of my nose.
“What are you doing here, Lily?”
My voice isn’t calm, but it’s better than I was expecting. She’s barely paying attention, though, eyes glued to the spot just below the cut of my short sleeve where one of my newer tattoos peeks out.
“Lily.”
“You, um—what did you say?” she asks, but she’s still looking at my arm. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, lip caught in her teeth as her hand starts to reach for me. “There’re new ones.”
My heart clenches, desperate for her to touch me and terrified of it all the same. I need to know what she’s doing here—if he brought her here on purpose or if I managed to piss off some deity and this is my punishment. But I know Lily LaBlanc’s mind better than I’ve ever known my own, and she won’t be able to focus on anything other than my skin if I don’t show her.
It was like that when we were younger too.
“Step back.” I gently move her in time with my command. “If I show you them, you have to answer my questions.”
She nods rapidly, finally meeting my eyes, even if it’s only for a brief second. I pull my shirt off, skin pebbling with gooseflesh as she reaches for me, like I knew she would. I tense beneath her fingers as she touches Starry Night briefly before moving to the scattered three new ones on my shoulder.
Skull, one of his barn owl sketches and—
“Peonies and Blue Delphiniums,” she mutters beneath her breath. But as with all Lily’s whispers, they’re too loud to actually be beneath her breath. “He painted it on a card. He was learning—a-and his neighbors were bringing him bouquets every week. Did you know that?”
I do know it, because I remember everything she’s ever said, every moment with her—late nights sitting in the window and letting her read to me from the massive book of Van Gogh’s paintings—but I shake my head. It’s nearly too easy to let her sink back into the comfort of her one interest.
“They’re beautiful,” she says, heaving a sigh and retracting her dancing fingertips, letting them play at her lips. Her gaze is soft as she looks up at me again. She’s the only one who’s ever looked at me like that, studying me with the same intensity she uses to look at Van Gogh’s work.
