I ask about the other players, and as we finish our first beers and start on the second, he tells me about Coach Keller. He was fired before the season ended for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because he’s an asshole.

  “Heard he’s taking a job coaching a minor league team in Michigan,” Gage says. No mistaking the loathing he has for the man within his tone. “Bill did a solid job stepping into the head coach position.”

  He’s talking about Bill Perry, the assistant coach. “I watched all the games. You guys held it together well in the playoffs.”

  “Not good enough to make it past the first round,” he muses.

  “No one ever expected the team to make it to the playoffs. That was a win.”

  “True,” he says with a laugh.

  Movement catches my eye, and I see Chip bounding toward the deck. Any time I’m out here now, he approaches and easily takes food from my hand. Yesterday, he actually perched on my shoulder as he tore into a peanut. I’m surprised he’s coming, though, with Gage here, but I’m guessing he’s more interested in filling his belly.

  I reach over to the sealed container of nuts I keep by my chair and pull out a few. I have them in my palm by the time he’s scampering up the steps.

  “Holy fuck,” Gage exclaims as Chip scurries up my jean-clad leg and onto my thigh where he pulls a peanut from my hand. “You’ve got a chipmunk on you.”

  Laughing, I glance over at him. “This is Chip. We’re buddies.”

  Gage doesn’t respond but grabs his phone and takes a picture of us. “I’m texting this to the team right now.”

  Snickering, I use my thumb to stroke Chip’s shoulder gently. It’s the first time I’ve attempted to pet him, but he doesn’t move a muscle, merely concentrates on shredding the peanut shell.

  “Seriously,” Gage says, tucking his phone back in his pocket. “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Not so strange. I’ve got peanuts. He’s hungry.”

  “Yeah, but don’t animals have, like, super senses to danger? The Coen Highsmith I knew was more apt to shoot the chipmunk than feed him.”

  I bark out a laugh, because it’s funny.

  Also true.

  “Maybe I’m finding the softer, gentler side of myself.”

  He chuckles. “I’ll drink to that.”

  When Chip is done and back under his bush, I fire up the grill. Gage heads inside with me while I wrap potatoes in foil, and we crack a third round. I steer the conversation to safe topics—meaning, not about hockey—and things that interest me.

  I actually start to relax, due in part to the beers, but mainly because Gage isn’t pushing me to discuss my career.

  Or lack thereof.

  As the sun sets, we grill and we drink, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve done something like this. Sure, before the crash, I went out with my teammates a lot. But that was to party, hook up with women, and generally bask in the limelight of being a professional hockey player who was a pretty big deal in the city of Pittsburgh.

  But just hanging out to talk?

  Maybe I’ve never done it.

  We’re back in the Adirondack chairs, bellies full and beer number six going down. I lit some citronella torches attached to the decking to keep mosquitoes away, and the softest breeze cools the air.

  Gage leans his head back and looks up at the starlit sky. “This is the life.”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re so mellow, man. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d gotten laid or something.”

  “I suppose that’s part of it.” The admission is out of my mouth before I can stop it.

  Gage’s head whips my way. “Really?”

  I nod toward the trees, which are nothing more than dark shadows now. “Neighbor just over that way.”

  He sits up in his chair and angles toward me. “Okay… start at the beginning.”

  It’s a testament to how much I’ve changed. And maybe to the beers. I tell him most everything, from the moment I met Tilden on the trails until our last meeting in the grocery store three days ago.

  I leave out a few things. Like the intimate details of our times together. I’ve never been a kiss-and-tell kind of guy.

  I also don’t tell him that I’ve gone over to her house every night around ten o’clock to see if her porch light is on.

  It hasn’t been, and that bugs the shit out of me.

  “Wow,” he says, settling into his chair. “A neighbor who pisses you off but you’re attracted to.”

  “And we’re embroiled in a legal battle,” I remind him.

  “You sure like to complicate your life.” He chuckles and then sips his beer.

  He doesn’t ask any more questions. Shows no more curiosity. He’s being respectful of my boundaries, and it makes me squirm because I feel like there’s more to discuss regarding Tilden, and he’s going to make me ask him for advice.

  Scraping at the label on my bottle, I say, “She’s a complicated woman.”

  “I bet,” he replies.

  I wait, but he’s content to enjoy the silence if I’m not filling it.

  “It’s confusing to her.”

  Gage rolls his head my way to indicate he’s all ears.

  “She says we can’t be fuck buddies because you should generally like the other person. I’ve been an asshole to her, and I don’t like her trying to cut down my trees.”

  “Oh, imagine that,” he says caustically. “A woman who wants to feel like she’s more than just a piece of meat.”

  “That’s not how I view her,” I growl, sitting up in my chair. “There’s actually plenty I like about her. Stuff that attracts me in ways other than just getting my rocks off.”

  “Then why don’t you tell her those things?”

  Such a fucking simple question with what should be an easy answer. I slump back in my chair. “Because at the core, I’m still not a nice person, I guess.”

  “You see,” Gage says, rising to face me. He holds out his arms, one hand clutching his beer bottle before moving to the cooler to grab two more. “That’s what I don’t get. Why are you an asshole? You weren’t like that before the crash. You were known for your easygoing ways and your charm with everyone. Was it just the crash? Because if so, I’m telling you that you need to get the fuck over the whole survivor’s guilt thing and get your life on track.”

  He’s hit the nail on the head, but only if it were as easy as it just being about the crash. Gage returns with two beers, and I down the rest of the one in my hand before accepting his offering.

  When he settles back into his seat, I contemplate doing something I would’ve never considered doing before I met Tilden.

  Before she started twisting up my insides with fucking feelings.

  “It’s not just about the crash, although that’s the major part.”

  Gage sits forward, angling toward me. In the glow of the torchlights, I stare at my beer bottle rather than look him in the eye. “I did something horrible to a teammate—Kyle Ralston—but he didn’t know about it. I was going to tell him the morning the team left for Columbus, but I had the flu and couldn’t make the trip. I didn’t get a chance to make it right before the plane went down. I didn’t get a chance to earn forgiveness, and somehow, I survived… yet I’m the one who shouldn’t have. It’s all so fucked up and twisted in my head. The guilt of what I did to Kyle and the guilt of surviving. It’s too much, and the only thing I know is that I don’t deserve anything good.”

  “You said those words to me before—that you aren’t deserving—and I wondered what you meant,” he murmurs, and my eyes rise to meet his. “But Coen… sometimes it’s not about forgiveness from the person you wronged but forgiving yourself.”

  “I can’t.” My words come out in a hoarse croak.

  “You can,” he says firmly.

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

  “I don’t know. Have you?”

  I glance toward the darkened tree line. “Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to do with Tilden. She’s the first woman…”

  My words trail off. That won’t make any sense to him because he doesn’t know what my sins are. I’m so fucking ashamed of what I’ve done, the thought of revealing it makes me sick to my stomach.

  Instead, I say, “I can’t bond with anyone on the team because I wronged a teammate. I don’t deserve to be on that team because I can’t be trusted. There isn’t a penance that will obviate it, because the only thing that would have worked was for me to make it right with Kyle.”

  Gage rubs his hand over his jaw. “Man, I don’t care what you did. We all make mistakes, and it’s obvious you’re truly remorseful. To me, that’s the most important thing. You took responsibility, and you were going to try to make it right. The only thing that stopped you was when fucking fate intervened.”

  “Fuck fate,” I mutter.

  “Fuck fate is right,” he agrees emphatically. “But Kyle died without the burden of knowing you did something wrong. I have no clue what it would have done to him. He died without it on his shoulders, and you cannot fucking feel guilty about that. Maybe fate did him a favor in the end.”

  I blink in surprise before letting my gaze go back to my meditative space—the trees. That had never even crossed my mind, just as it had never crossed my mind to withhold the truth. I’d even agreed with Darcy that it would be best to tell him after the game so I wouldn’t fuck up his play.

  “I do know something, though.” My attention swings back to Gage. “Kyle would have forgiven you.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can. I knew Kyle. When you’re in the league as long as I’ve been, you get to know a lot of people. He was a straight shooter. He was principled. He would have respected that you were man enough to admit you’d done wrong. I also know you, as much as anyone can, and you don’t have a malicious bone in your body. Whatever you did, it wasn’t done with the intention of hurting him. I’d stake my life on that.”

  I shake my head. “No. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “Look… I get it. You’ve got the guilt of surviving and the guilt of wronging someone. Those things may never go away completely, but when you hole yourself up, remove yourself from everyone, and build a wall so high nothing can breach it, that guilt has nowhere to go. It’s trapped inside with you, and you’ve got to let that shit out before it destroys everything.”

  I stay quiet, but I do process his words. He’s given me a lot to think about.

  “One more piece of wisdom, and then we need to talk about why I’m really here. I’m going to suggest that you’ve already started knocking down some of those walls because you let Tilden into your circle. She’s the first person you’ve allowed in since the crash. That means you want out of your prison.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but he talks right over me. “You don’t want to be this way, Coen. No one would want to be this way. My advice to you is to take the opening that’s been created with Tilden and run with it. You don’t have to be anything more than fuck buddies, if that’s all you want, but you can start with the buddy part. You can try to be her friend.”

  Could I? It means I’d have to commit to trying, and I haven’t wanted to try anything in so long, I don’t know if I have the drive.

  I push it out of my head because with the beer making it swim, I’m not in a frame of mind to change the course of my life right now. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “I’m not coming back next season,” Gage says, and I almost choke on my sip of ale.

  “What?”

  “When I came to the Titans, I wanted to help the team. I wanted to lend my wisdom and skills. I liked Brienne Norcross a lot and respected what she was trying to do. But I’ve got nothing left to prove, and the team is going to be just fine without me on the ice.”

  Those last words… without me on the ice. “That implies you’re not leaving.”

  Gage smiles. “Yeah… they offered me an assistant coaching position. Bill Perry wanted the head coach position, but they offered it to Cannon West, and Bill wasn’t happy about it, so he’s leaving.”

  “Whoa. Cannon’s a good choice.”

  “I agree. The team will be in good hands with him.”

  “You’ll make a great coach. The men respect you.”

  Gage smirks and cocks an eyebrow. “You didn’t respect me.”

  “I did, but I was too big of an asshole to tell you.”

  Gage bursts into a laugh. Holding his beer out, we clink bottles again. “I’ll drink to that.”

  We both sip, and I feel good. This has been a good conversation, and he’s given me a lot to consider.

  “You need to come back,” Gage says, and my body locks up tight with dread at those five little words.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You need to. You owe it to that team to come back and help them. They need someone to lead.”

  “I’m no leader,” I insist.

  “You are. You could be if you got your head out of your ass. If you came back, after everything you’ve been through, it would go beyond inspiration. It could be the fuel this team needs to get back to the top of their game.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Stop,” Gage says gruffly. “Don’t say the words. Just think about it, okay?”

  All I can do is nod my assent. If I open my mouth, words of denial will spring forth, but I think I’ve become programmed to do that. The refusal to even consider a hockey career.

  Yet Gage has thrown something at me I’d be well served to mull over, the most important being Tilden. She’s definitely the catalyst for the changes Gage has observed.

  I’m thinking she’s the key to so much more than just banging out some great orgasms.

  CHAPTER 15

  Tillie

  I rush around, making sure I have everything.

  Blanket, sunscreen, bug spray, and the chocolate chip cookies I baked, all tucked into a large tote. I head for the door just as the ringing of my phone in the kitchen halts me.

  Clearly, I forgot that. I run back and nab it, and seeing it’s Ann Marie, I answer with an apology. “I’m running late. I’m sorry.”

  “No worries. I’ve got us a place all picked out.”

  “Perfect. See you soon.”

  “Don’t forget a hat,” she reminds me.

  “Good call,” I laugh and hang up. I tuck my phone in the rear pocket of my shorts, drop the tote, and rush to my bedroom. In my closet, I rummage through crap stuffed onto shelves until I find my straw cowboy hat.

  Rearranging my ponytail to sit lower, I shove the hat down on my head and hurry into the living room. With the tote over my shoulder, I snag my keys and purse from the table by the door.

  When I step out, I’m brought up short by a hulking figure standing there. I squeak in fear and stumble backward before I realize it’s just Coen.

  And then my heart beats double time, because that’s the effect this man has on me.

  I’m so stunned to see him, I blurt out, “What are you doing here?”

  And mentally wince because it sounds all breathy and happy.

  I shouldn’t be, but I am. Every night when the sun has set, I’ve turned off my porch light, giving myself a pep talk that it’s for the best. Coen might dole out the best sex I’ve ever had, and I’m sure nothing will ever compare, but he’s an entanglement that will only cause pain.

  As he said, he’s not a nice man, and that spells broken heart down the road.

  “Is this a bad time?” he asks.

  “I was just on my way to the music festival over at Cherry Springs. Is there something you want?”

  Coen’s eyes flash and his lips curve slightly. An unspoken answer, but I know what that expression means, so before he can voice it, I shake my head. “You’re not getting that.”

  He smiles and holds out his hand, in it is a bottle of red wine. I glance at it suspiciously. “If you think I’m going to drink that with you, get tipsy, and let you into my panties, the answer is no thank you.”

  Coen actually rolls his eyes. “First off, I don’t need you to be tipsy to get in your panties. I can do that well enough on my own because you want me as much as I want you.”

  Now I’m the one who rolls my eyes. “I kept my porch light off this week, or did you even come by to check?”

  “Oh, I came by,” he assures me. “But I’m a patient man.”

  My eyes go back to the wine.

  “It’s a peace offering,” he says, pushing it at me so I’m forced to accept it.

  I glance at the label, but it’s lost on me. I like wine but know nothing about it. “So you went to buy a bottle of wine as a peace offering?”

  “Actually, a teammate came to visit yesterday and brought it as a housewarming gift. I don’t drink wine, so I thought I’d pass it on to you. You just recently moved in, too, right?”

  “Yes, and thank you.” I’m not sure what he’s doing, but I’m discombobulated. I lean inside my house and set the bottle on the table.

  I wait for him to speak, but the conversation falls dead. And I can see it’s painfully awkward for him to be standing here with nothing to say.

  I take the initiative as I step out onto the porch, pull the door shut behind me, and turn to lock it. “Again, thank you for the wine, but I’m running late as it is, so I’ve got to get going.”

  “I want to be able to call you Tillie,” he says.

  My body locks in stunned surprise as I look at him over my shoulder. It might be the most genuine thing I’ve ever heard a person say. He could call me Tillie any time he wants, not because we’re friends, but because there’s no law against doing so. He could call me Carol for all the say I’d have in it.

  But he’s refrained for the most part since he knows that name is reserved for my friends, and he knows we’re not friends.

  And damn it all to hell, it produces some annoying warm fuzzies within me that he’s deliberately choosing to use it. It’s a clear message that he wants to be my friend.

  “Why?” I murmur as I face him, not needing the answer but I’m curious.