“Of course,” Riley says casually. “She always texts me back. We talk every day.”

  The thought that she’s still texting Riley, talking to her like everything is normal, has warmth spreading through my chest. She might need some space from me—from us—but she would never take herself away from my daughter, and that just makes me love her more than I already do, which I suspect is more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the entire course of human history. I’m just about to say something when the doorbell rings and Ethan pops up, yelling, “I’ll get it.”

  I hear the door opening, and there’s silence for about ten seconds until… “Holy fucking shit!”

  Ethan’s excited voice comes from the entry way and I groan. I really need to put a stop to the swearing. “Ethan, language. Jesus.”

  “But Dad, it’s Oliver Wright.” Ethan reappears in the living room, eyes wide as he glances over his shoulder, as if to be sure he actually saw what he thought he saw. “In our living room.” His awe-filled whisper makes me laugh, and I glance over to see Maddy’s brother strolling into the living room, followed by Tyler and Drew.

  “Hello? I’m right here. I’m a famous athlete too, you know.” Drew ruffles Ethan’s hair and tosses an arm around his shoulders.

  Ethan just rolls his eyes. “I mean, kind of, I guess. But you’re not Oliver Wright famous.”

  Tyler cackles, slapping Drew on the back. “He seriously burned you, dude.”

  “He’s just stating straight facts, which is that hockey is the superior sport, and it takes very little skill and stamina to toss a ball around for an hour a week.” Oliver winks at Ethan and turns to me. “Hey, Cam, good to see you again.”

  I nod at him, confused about why he’s here since I only met him that one time at dinner on Halloween. But he’s so close to Tyler they might as well be brothers, and he’s Maddy’s actual brother so if he knows something about where her head is, he’s my new favorite person. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but thanks for making Ethan’s day.”

  “We thought you might need some company,” Drew says quietly, laying a hand on my shoulder and squeezing. For some reason, that small gesture has my throat tightening, the ever-present ache settling deeper into my chest.

  “He does,” Riley says with a nod, eyeing the three men as if to assess their ability to cheer me up. “He’s been sulking and needs a friend. Or, like, a bunch of friends, so it’s good you’re all here. I’m taking Ethan to Lola’s so you can talk. I texted her and she said to come over for dinner. Our grandma,” Riley says to Oliver. “She lives down the street.”

  I give Riley a grateful smile. She can be stubborn and dramatic and drives me insane half the time because parenting a teenager is not for the weak, but she’s also sensitive and intuitive with a caretaking streak a mile wide.

  “I don’t want to go to Lola’s,” Ethan says, crossing his arms stubbornly. “Oliver Wright is in my house. I’m staying.”

  “You’re not.” Riley narrows her eyes at her brother. “Dad needs time alone with his friends. Besides, there’s way too many men in this house, and I need to get out of here. You’re coming with me.”

  “I am a man,” Ethan says, setting his mouth in a firm line.

  Riley rolls her eyes. “Maybe in like seven or eight years you will be.”

  “We’re just talking about boring adult stuff anyway,” Oliver says with an exaggerated grimace before Ethan can protest. “You’ll probably have more fun with your grandma. And hey, if you want to hang out sometime and it’s cool with your dad, I’d love to take you to the arena one day soon, maybe to watch a practice and then skate with the guys afterwards? Maddy told me you’re a kick-ass hockey player.”

  “She did?” Ethan’s grin is dazzling. “She’s a kick-ass hockey player too.”

  Oliver nods. “She sure is. And don’t tell her I said this, but she’s a faster skater than I am. Has a better backhand too. Always has. So, what do you say? Go hang with your grandma, and your dad and I will figure out a good day for you to come to practice.”

  Ethan stands with a groan. “Fine, but it better be soon.”

  “Count on it,” Oliver says with a grin.

  “Thanks for that,” I say to Oliver when my kids leave the house, the front door slamming behind them. I collapse back onto the couch, exhaustion hanging over me like a weighted blanket. The last four days have felt like ten years.

  He shrugs. “Anytime. He’ll be my nephew at some point, so I want to get to know him. Riley too. She’s as badass as Mads told me she is.”

  I close my eyes at the wave of emotion that hits me as Oliver’s words paint a picture of everything I’ve ever wanted. A big family. My kids surrounded by aunts, uncles, and cousins. So many people to love them. To love me too. It’s a dream I’ve shoved down in the years since Lainey died, but being with Maddy for the past few months has made me realize it’s okay to hope for things again. And I want all the things, but only if I get to have them with her. God, I hope I get to have it all with her.

  “You will,” Oliver says, taking the chair across from the couch.

  Shit, did I say that out loud?

  Drew laughs, probably at my look of confusion. “You were having your inside thoughts on the outside. But even if you weren’t, the look on your face would have given it away.”

  I sigh, slumping back against the couch and scrubbing my hands over my face. “I fucking miss her. I told her I would give her the time she needs, and I will, but goddammit, I miss her. And I don’t understand what happened. I know the article was bad. I mean, it’s exactly the thing she was worried about. The reason we were keeping this a secret. Well, mostly a secret.”

  “Yeah, about that.” Tyler interrupts me before I can finish my thought, dropping onto the couch next to me and handing me a ginger ale. The guy is weirdly obsessed with ginger ale. “Fuck you very much for telling Drew about you and Maddy but not telling me. She’s like my fucking cousin, dude, and one of my best friends. Drew didn’t even know her before she came to work for the team, and I’ve known her for my entire damn life.”

  “She’s my actual fucking sister, and I didn’t know either.” Oliver props his feet up on the coffee table. “But you don’t see me having a tantrum about it.”

  “I’m not having a tantrum,” Tyler mutters. “I just like to know shit.”

  I shrug, taking a sip of the soda. “I didn’t tell Drew; he figured it out.”

  Tyler gives me a come on look. “He figured it out? Drew wouldn’t know an actual relationship if it walked up and smacked him in the face.”

  “Fuck off. I’m intuitive as shit.” Drew picks up a hockey puck Ethan must have left here and tosses it at Tyler, who plucks it out of midair and sticks his tongue out at Drew like a toddler.

  For as much as Drew’s life is a chain of giant one-night stands and he seems positively allergic to actual relationships, he actually is oddly intuitive. Not that I’d tell him that. “It was important to Maddy.” I clench my fists, because even saying her name makes my arms literally ache to be around her. “I would have shouted about us from the rooftops from the very first day, but it was important to her to wait, and whatever’s important to her is important to me.”

  “Jesus, you’re in deep.” Tyler looks at me with something resembling awe.

  “You love her.” Oliver says it not as a question, but as a fact. “You have for a long time.”

  “The whole time,” I mutter, glancing between the three men. “I swear to god, I think I’ve loved her since the very first night we met which is an entire mindfuck, but here we are. And not seeing her this week? Not knowing if she’s sad or hurting or what she wants or needs?” I blow out a breath, shaking my head. “I want to respect her need to work through some of this on her own, but it’s fucking killing me.”

  Drew lays a hand on my arm as we all lapse into silence, my confession hanging in the air.

  “Are you worried about your career?” Oliver asks. “There could be fallout for you too.”

  I scoff, waving that away. “Fuck my career. I love football, but I’ve played for thirteen years. If the choice was between my career or hers, I would retire tomorrow with no hesitation and without a single regret.”

  Tyler shakes his head. “I doubt it would come to that. Brian would never let that happen.”

  I shrug. “If it does, it does. She’s what’s important. What she wants. What she needs. I just don’t know what that is.” My voice drips with misery.

  Oliver sits back in his chair and gives me a considering look. “How much do you know about Maddy’s background? Her childhood, I mean.”

  I lean forward, elbows on my knees. I don’t even have to think back because everything she’s ever told me is burned straight into my brain, like I have a photographic memory, but only for things that have to do with her. “I know she was in the system, and she came to live with your mom when she was around seven and was eventually adopted by both of your parents.”

  Oliver nods. “Her biological mom died when she was really little, and her biological dad was an addict who was in and out of prison.” Oliver inhales harshly, like even thinking about the hell his sister went through is painful for him. I understand that in my soul. Thinking of the seven-year-old version of the woman I love, all alone, living with strangers, without a family or a home of her own makes it hard to breathe.

  “Seven is young,” he continues, “but when you spend the first years of your life the way Maddy did, it’s not that young. We have the best family in the world.” He pauses, looking at Tyler, who nods and lays a fist over his heart, saying everything without saying a word. The unspoken language of brothers. “But I sometimes think that even the greatest family and all the love in the world isn’t enough to erase those scars.” He looks up at me, eyes full of anguish. “I’m telling you this because you love her too, and I want you to understand. She’s fine most of the time. Amazing, even. But I think every now and then, something happens that takes her body and her brain back to that place where no one was safe and where family didn’t stay.”

  “Shit,” I mutter, the missing piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “There was a moment when we were talking that morning, after we found out about the article, where something happened. Before that moment, it felt like we could figure this out together. She was furious, but it was the good kind of mad. And then it was like a switch flipped, and she was jumping out of bed, vibrating with anxiety and primed to run.” I think back to our conversation for the millionth time this week, but now I’m seeing it in a different light. “Family,” I say, shoving a hand into my hair. “I mentioned family. I told her that everyone who knows her and believes in her is going to have her back. My family. Your family.”

  Tyler nods, expression fierce. “Of course we will. No group of people on earth circles the wagons like our family. Our Boston relatives too. Literally every single one of us is primed to attack. Soph is talking about hacking that reporter’s everything just to cause her pain. If my mom hadn’t stopped him, my dad would have thrown a massive press conference for the sole purpose of telling everyone to leave you guys alone and mind their own fucking business.”

  “She hasn’t talked to me,” Oliver says, and I can see in his eyes how much that hurts him. “She’s not ready yet. But if I had to guess, I would say that the idea that her family would have to answer for what she thinks she did is what made her run. I think she thought about Brian having to defend her, me answering questions about your relationship when I do post-game media, and my mom’s clients asking about it since they named her firm in the article. I bet she was thinking about your mom too, and the fallout on your kids. And I think all of a sudden, in her mind, she was a kid again. One who maybe worried about being too much for the people in her life. That if she wasn’t perfect, people might not want to keep her.”

  Oliver runs a hand over his mouth and leans forward, forearms on his thighs and his hands dangling between his knees. I can see how much this conversation is costing him. “I’ve done some reading over the years on the long-term effects of being in foster care. I wanted to know my sister better,” he says at my questioning expression. “To understand what she’d been through and how it might affect her all these years later. One of the things that kept coming up was how kids who spend time in the system, moving between foster homes at such a young age, are conditioned to believe that love is a reward for good behavior. I’ve been wondering over the last few days if maybe, somewhere deep inside her brain, so deep maybe she doesn’t even understand it’s there, she feels like she has to be perfect. To never fuck up, because if she does…”

  If she does, then maybe her family won’t want her anymore and she’ll be all alone again.

  I hear the words as if Oliver spoke them out loud, and my stomach twists, the thought more painful than if he had just punched me right in the gut. It kills me that Maddy was having those kinds of thoughts while she was sitting next to me. That she was spiraling and I didn’t know. Didn’t understand why. Couldn’t fix it. If she gives me the chance, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making it up to her. Proving to her that family—real, true family—never, ever leaves. That love means always and forever and no matter what.

  “It’s trauma,” Drew says quietly, hand on my shoulder and voice as serious as I’ve ever heard it. “The kind of trauma that doesn’t just go away because you have people who love you. It’s pervasive and insidious and entirely unpredictable. It lives in your bones and becomes a part of you, and sometimes you don’t even know it’s there until something triggers it. She was triggered, Cam. That’s why she ran, and that’s why she stayed away. She might not have even understood what it was, and she’s isolating herself until she figures it out.”

  My heart aches at the familiarity in Drew’s tone. Like this is something he knows well. I wonder for the millionth time how well I actually know my best friend.

  “So what do I do?” I ask, my voice full of the anguish I feel that Maddy has been in pain and I didn’t know enough to see it.

  “You give her time,” Oliver says. “But not too much.”

  Drew nods. “He’s right. She loves you. Anyone with eyes can see it.”

  “I didn’t,” Tyler mutters.

  Drew rolls his eyes. “Maybe if you were looking anywhere other than at Sophie Sullivan you would have.”

  Oliver coughs out a laugh as Tyler’s expression turns mutinous. “Please explain to me how spending time with my best fucking friend is an issue because I’m not seeing it.”

  “Oh, I know you aren’t,” Drew says. “But that’s a problem for another day.”

  “Okay, this is cool, but back to me.”

  Tyler rolls his eyes. “Jesus, Cam. So needy.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “One of these days, you’re going to fall ass over tits in love, and then you’ll know what it feels like to have another person be the center of your entire goddamn universe. When you do, you’ll understand.”

  “No way, dude. Women are too much fucking work.”

  “The AFC Championship,” Drew says, pointing at me. “That’s your deadline.”

  “Definitely yes.” Oliver nods. “That’s long enough for her to be on her own. After the game, you go get your girl.”

  Tyler’s face brightens. “Are we grand gesturing? I fucking love a grand gesture. I’ve been watching rom-coms for my entire life. This is my moment to shine.”

  “For Maddy, I would literally pull the stars out of the sky and hand them to her if she asked me to. You better fucking believe we are grand gesturing hard.”

  “Fuck yes,” Drew says, slapping his hands on his knees. “Someone order some food and put your thinking caps on. Let’s help our guy prove his love in the most epic way imaginable.”

  Oliver orders pizza, and Tyler passes around drinks, and they all start talking about the grandest of grand gestures. And as for me, I just sit in the company of my friends, counting down the minutes until I get to hold my girl again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  MADDY

  The chilly rink air feels like knives on my burning cheeks as I circle the ice for the millionth time. “That’s the Way it Is” blasts through my earbuds, and my breath comes in pants as I lean into the turn at the far end of the ice, swinging around the back of the net and gaining speed up the other side, the cadence of my blades slicing across the ice as familiar to me as breathing.

  The building is silent, the sky outside the high windows bright with the early afternoon sun. I should be at the stadium right now, getting ready for the game. Talking to players who need me. Doing the thing I love. The thing I do best. Instead, I’m all alone in my happiest place, doing my favorite thing, but the pit that’s been sitting in my stomach since I left Cam in Denver only grows, visions of the pain in his eyes when I told him I had to leave, the determination on his face when he told me he loves me, playing in my head on repeat.

  Six days.

  It’s been six days since I’ve seen him. Felt his arms around me. Told him about my day and listened to him tell me about his, the low timbre of his voice soothing me as I settle into him, knowing that there is nowhere else I’d rather be. Six days without him missing a single breakfast, the cereal, milk, and iced coffee showing up at my door every morning like clockwork, with notes he handwrote himself.

  I miss you.

  I will love you forever.

  I am the luckiest guy in the world to get to call you mine.

  Six days of texting him thank yous, him texting me good morning and good night, giving me the space I asked for to figure my shit out.