There’s nothing but laughter that hits my ears as I approach, and surprisingly, it doesn’t grate.

  Boone sees me first—the dude who took my place on the first line during my suspensions. He pulls to a stop with a short spray of ice and a huge smile breaks out on his face. “Coen’s here,” he announces, and the game stops.

  It’s like a blinding spotlight shining on me as I take in the men.

  Gage, Stone, Boone, Camden, Hendrix, and Kirill.

  Camden and Hendrix were on the team with me before the crash. Both weren’t on the plane due to injuries. We’ve been dubbed the Lucky Three. We survived the crash by not being on the doomed plane.

  And they have survived. I’m sure they’ve grappled with the same survivor’s guilt I have, but they’ve worked through it. They’ve embraced the new team and forged bonds with their new linemates. They’ve reveled in being back on the ice and easily slipped back into the spirit of competition.

  They did what I couldn’t do, and there was a period I resented them for it.

  Of course, they didn’t betray a friend the way I did by fucking around with his girlfriend.

  For a moment, I panic. This was a bad idea, and my gear bag suddenly weighs a thousand pounds. My hands sweat and the grip on my stick is too tight.

  It’s Gage who doesn’t give me the chance to flee. He skates up to the boards, pulling a glove off and shoving it under his arm to hold. Reaching his hand out, he leans my way for a shake. “Dude… it is great to see you.”

  I have no choice but to move forward and accept the greeting. Which is then followed by all the other guys who skate to me for fist bumps or back slaps.

  Everyone seems genuinely happy I’m here, but not in a way that makes me believe they have unrealistic expectations.

  Throwing a thumb over my shoulder, I say to Stone, “I got your brother’s stuff in my truck.”

  Lame. Of course, he knows that.

  “Cool,” he replies. “I’ll get it later. Why don’t you suit up and join us? We’re just fucking around.”

  “Nah,” I say with a wave of my hand. “You have three-on-three going already.”

  “We’ll go four-on-three,” Camden announces. “And the team of four has to play with their nondominant hand only.”

  “That will work,” says Hendrix, who is known to be ambidextrous.

  Not sure anyone else knows that, maybe Camden, so I call him on the carpet. “You’re on the team of three.”

  They laugh, and I feel light of spirit as I make my way to the dressing room. I quickly change, which is easy without all the pads. We’re not playing contact, so within five minutes, I’m stepping onto the ice for the first time in three and a half months.

  I don’t know what to expect. I haven’t gone this long without skating since the first time I put blades on my feet. Sure, I might take a few weeks off at the beginning of the off-season, but the training never stops. I’m usually hitting the ice at least twice a week if I can manage to do drills.

  I take a few spins around the half rink. Another small game is underway on the other side, and some of the players stare at me.

  “How do the legs feel?” Kirill asks. His name is Russian, as that’s where he was born, but his mother emigrated when he was really young to Australia. She met and married his stepfather, a native Aussie, and when Kirill was ten, they moved to Canada where he got his first taste of hockey. His natural talent is so immense, it didn’t matter that he started playing a good four years after other players got their start on the ice.

  “They’re strong,” I reply as I skate by him, tapping my stick on the ice in a request for a puck. “But I’ve been working out pretty hard.”

  Stone slides the puck my way, and I dribble it as I make my way around a few more times to get my bearings. I cut inward toward the unoccupied goal. I flip the puck in the air, no more than the height of my knee, and then execute a fast backhand to knock it into the net.

  “He’s still got it.” Stone laughs, and then I’m shocked when I hear applause.

  Looking around, I see people have lined up along the boards to watch, which isn’t all that unusual. All of us would’ve been recognized, and word would’ve spread some of the Titans were on the ice.

  But I’m stunned that I’m getting applause. I figured I’m mostly hated.

  “Looking good, Coen,” a man calls out.

  “You’re going to kill it next year.”

  A teenage boy stands near the boards. “Coen… Coen… can I get a picture?”

  No way I’m going to be a dick to a kid, so I skate over and let him take a selfie with me.

  And… it’s not so bad.

  “Come on, hot stuff,” Gage calls out. “Let’s see what you got.”

  I offer the kid a smile and push off from the boards, surprisingly eager to see if I’m going to love or hate playing again.

  ♦

  Brushing my fingers through my damp hair, I walk out of the dressing room. The shower was much needed. The pickup game was mostly just us horsing around, but I was drenched in sweat by the end. My left arm is fucking sore from using it solely since I was on the team of four, but it’s a good ache.

  I keep my head down as I walk out of the facility, hoping to discourage people from approaching. While this little foray back onto the ice and hanging with my teammates ended up being a pleasant experience with minimal guilt, I’m not ready for more notoriety. I’m still not sure what any of this even means.

  In the parking lot, the guys are waiting for me. We say our goodbyes and Hendrix tries to convince me to come back for another pickup game some time, but I’m noncommittal.

  When it’s just Gage and Stone left, they follow me to my truck to collect Brooks’s stuff.

  I pull out the box I packed and sealed with tape and hand it to Stone.

  “Thanks for bringing this,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion. Say what you will about my issues, but this guy lost his little brother in the crash and then essentially took his place on the team. Talk about a mind fuck.

  But he got his shit together and made it work, a nagging voice says.

  “How long are you in town?” Gage asks.

  “Heading back in the morning. I’ve only got a few hours of packing to do.”

  “Then that leaves you plenty of time to come out to dinner with us tonight,” he says with a sly smile.

  Walked right into that one. “I don’t know,” I say, glancing away at nothing really. Just having a hard time saying no to his face.

  “Don’t stop pushing forward,” Gage says, and my head whips back his way. Not just because of his words, but because of his tone, of the wisdom that hangs thick within the syllables.

  As if he knows something so important, my life might depend on it.

  I glance at Stone, who says nothing, but he wears the same expression as Gage.

  Both of them look as if I’m about to fall off the edge of a bridge, and they’re not sure when to grab for me.

  Gage lays it out, and he doesn’t pull any punches. “You don’t have to tell us what a big deal this was for you to come here and play. For you to even put yourself out there to hang with us. It’s a big fucking deal, and you know it too. Whatever got your butt motivated to try to sort out your shit, you need to ride that wave. Don’t stop pushing forward, Coen. You can do this.”

  Those words are both a balm and a burn. “It’s a whoever, not a whatever,” I say, thinking that Tillie would be smiling in satisfaction right now if she were standing here.

  “Even better it’s a whoever,” Stone says. “That means connection.”

  “Christ, don’t try to shrink me,” I grumble. “I know what my fucking issues are.”

  “Yes, you do,” Stone says, clapping me on the shoulder. “And I’m guessing you’re trying to figure a way past them. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing in this parking lot talking to us.”

  He’s got a point. I just hate saying it out loud because then I’m setting up expectations that I won’t allow myself to fail.

  I heave an exaggerated sigh. “Who all is coming to dinner?”

  “Just us,” Gage says, waving his hand between himself and Stone. “And Baden probably. Guys’ night out.”

  I rub at my neck—one dinner doesn’t take much consideration. These are the core men who tried to have my back through all my fuckups this year. Hell, Gage even went after my main tormentor, Coach Keller, and got him fired, although for other reasons.

  I could give these guys a night.

  See if there’s any room for real redemption.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tillie

  Ann Marie tops off my wineglass before refilling hers. Settling back onto my couch, she kicks her feet up on the coffee table next to mine.

  “This is the life.” She sighs and pats her stomach. “Good food, good wine, and good friends.”

  “Best friend,” I correct her.

  “Best friend,” she agrees and holds her glass to the side. I tap mine against hers, and we sip. “This wine is really good.”

  “I feel like we’re sissies or something drinking moscato.”

  “Why?” she asks with a snort. “Because it’s sweet and fizzy?”

  “Yeah. We’re chicks who drink Iron City beer, which has been known to put hair on even the prettiest girls’ chests.”

  Ann Marie angles sideways to face me. “Why do we drink that crap? It’s like bubbly horse piss.”

  “It is not,” I exclaim, defending our regional beer. “It’s a way of life.”

  We break out in peals of laughter that may or may not have something to do with the fact we’ve polished off one bottle already and are halfway through the second.

  Ann Marie and I do sleepover dates once in a blue moon. Sometimes we get so busy with our lives, we need an entire night together just to catch up. It’s been a week since we’ve seen each other as she went to Baltimore with Xander. That’s his hometown, and there was the formal meeting of parents, which indicates this is getting serious.

  For a quick second, I allow myself a blip of jealousy. I’ll never be able to introduce a man to my parents. I won’t have my mom’s advice to fall back on or my dad promising a slow, painful death if a man were to break my heart.

  I can’t help but imagine what they’d think of Coen. My mom would love him, no questions asked. She’d want to mother him, and he needs it. My dad would probably have a harder time connecting. As an artist, his head was often in the clouds, and he knew nothing of sports, so they wouldn’t have had anything in common. But I think my dad would see that there’s more to Coen than the rough, aloof nature he shows the world.

  A nature I’ve only recently learned is rooted in not only a traumatic experience—the plane crash—but by a mistake he made, responsible for his suffocating and debilitating guilt.

  “Are we going to order pizza for dinner?” Ann Marie asks. It’s the only thing that will deliver this far out of the town limits.

  “I have some frozen butter chicken I can thaw.” It’s one of our favorites, and I always make a double batch and freeze it in individual servings so I can have it whenever I want.

  “Yummy,” she says as she settles against the back of the couch. “After we finish this glass.”

  “Tell me about Baltimore,” I prod. I’m concerned it didn’t go well, as I was sort of expecting her to be bursting at the seams to share.

  She sighs dreamily. “He’s the real deal, Tillie. I like everything about him, and he really likes me. His parents are super nice too.”

  “But…” Because I’m sensing a really big “but.”

  “But,” she drawls, her mouth turning downward. “He wants to move back home. He’s looking for a teaching job for the upcoming year.”

  I nearly spill my wine as I bolt upright. “What? Are you considering it?” The thought of Ann Marie moving away is, well… terrifying. We’ve been friends our entire lives and have only been apart while we were away at college.

  She stares up at me, and I see the guilt there, but she tries to downplay the situation. “No, of course not. I mean, he’s not asked me to. Not officially, anyway. We’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not officially’?”

  “We might have discussed me moving there hypothetically,” she admits.

  “I don’t know what that means.” I gulp my wine.

  Ann Marie sits up and angles toward me again. “It’s just… it’s kind of moving fast. We really like each other. Like a lot, a lot. My parents love him, and his parents love me, and I can see a future with him.”

  “But it’s only been a few weeks,” I say.

  I expect her to argue a dozen different reasons why she knows he’s the one, but instead she cocks an eyebrow at me. “You’re seriously going to lecture me on the concept of falling fast for a person when that’s exactly what you’re doing with Coen?”

  I sputter. “I most certainly am not. That’s ridiculous.”

  Her brow arches higher as she purses her lips.

  “Okay, fine… yes, I really like Coen. And it happened fast, too, but the difference is he doesn’t feel the same about me, and we have an expiration date. I’m not going to be leaving my bestie to follow him somewhere.”

  “Of course not.” She smirks. “You guys live right next door to each other.”

  “Totally beside the point,” I mutter irritably, sinking back into the couch in a pout.

  She studies me thoughtfully. “You’d really be upset if I left?”

  I roll my eyes. “Of course, I’d be upset. I love you and I’d miss you. But I’d also be upset—more than upset—if you didn’t follow your heart, and if he’s the one, you have to go.”

  “It’s only like a four-hour drive,” she points out.

  Little solace, but I hold that thought. “Here I was about to ask if I could move in with you and be your roomie.”

  She frowns and sips her wine. “Why would you want to do that?”

  I look around the living room. “I’m going to look for a different piece of property, but I have to sell this place first. Hopefully, I can get my money back out of it to put down on a new place. So I thought I might crash with you for a bit.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She sets her wineglass on the table and holds both palms out. “Just whoa the fuck down. Sell this place? But why? You just bought it.”

  “I know.” I study the pale liquid bubbling in my glass.

  “But why?” she demands again when I don’t answer.

  I lift my gaze to meet hers. “The easement. I need the trees gone, but Coen wants them to stay, so—”

  “Fuck Coen,” she snaps angrily. “You cannot let him ruin your dreams. You bought this property for a very specific purpose.”

  “He’s not ruining my dreams. This is my choice. He’s never even mentioned it to me or tried to persuade me otherwise. And… he had a dream when he bought his property too. I’m not sure my dream is as important as his.”

  Ann Marie scoffs. “What makes his dream bigger or better than yours? You’re doing this to pursue a lifelong passion and to honor your parents. There’s no way his dreams are more important.”

  Maybe not, but they’re very important to him right now. Until he decides how to push past his guilt, he needs the security he sought here away from everything. “He’s been through a lot,” I say.

  Her eyes soften. “The crash?”

  I nod. “And other stuff. He really needs his privacy and peace right now. I hope he won’t always need it, but for now, he does.”

  “Then just wait a bit and see what he does,” Ann Marie suggests. “Don’t get rid of this place so quickly.”

  “I can’t hinge the advancement of my dreams on what he wants to do. I’m ready to get going on mine. I have to be responsible for my own happiness.”

  “You’re giving up an awful lot for him,” she muses with a knowing look. “This is way more than just amazing sex, isn’t it?”

  “For me, it is. For him, I don’t know.”

  Her hand comes to rest on my knee, and she squeezes. “I’m sorry. That sucks.”

  A smile plays at my lips as I consider how things have progressed. “He’s not the same man who knocked me over on the trail while I was trying to pull up my pants two months ago.”

  Ann Marie snickers.

  “He’s changed… opened up. We’ve had deep talks, and it’s definitely more than just sex. It’s more than just friends too. Even for him, I believe. I just don’t know if we’re on the same page as far as our futures are concerned.”

  “So find out,” she exclaims.

  “I will,” I reply with a doleful laugh. “We definitely need to talk. So funny we had this expiration date to coincide with the court date that will decide the injunction. That’s when I figured I’d have my answer.”

  “Is he going to win?” she asks.

  I shrug. “It’s moot, though, since I’m not going to build. Even if I win, I’m moving on. I don’t want to take away the one place he’s found peace in. I can’t do that to him.”

  Ann Marie’s forehead creases with worry. “You’re giving up an awful lot for a man who I don’t think would do the same for you.”

  “I know,” I murmur, resisting the urge to rub at the ache in my chest. “But for me, it’s the right thing to do.”

  Ann Marie doesn’t say anything, and I know she’s trying to figure out ways to talk me out of this.

  But ultimately, she won’t. She’ll support me.

  Just as I’ll support her if she moves to Baltimore.

  That’s what besties do.

  I push up from the couch, wineglass nearly empty. “Let’s fix the butter chicken. Then we’ll get online and start looking at available properties. I’m willing to branch out a good thirty miles from Coudersport, so hopefully that will open up some options. Maybe I can go look at some tomorrow.”

  “Maybe you should look in Baltimore,” she suggests with a twinkle in her eye.

  I consider that. I really don’t want to leave Coudersport, but really… what’s holding me here? “Okay… let’s look at Baltimore, too, just for fun.”