Marek (Cold Fury Hockey #11)(67)

Cause and effect.

Never ending.

She gets mad. I get mad. I throw it in her face that she’s deceitful for keeping Lilly a secret. She throws it right back in my face that she had no choice because of the way I dumped her. These are weapons in our arsenals and we have no hesitation in using them against each other. It’s fucked up and unnecessary.

What I don’t understand is why I can’t let it go. Why she can’t let it go. We’re together again. We’re a family.

The only thing I can conclude is that perhaps we don’t belong together. If we were really forgiving of each other, then we’d be able to truly let these things go. The fact that we can’t perhaps is an indication that we’re all wrong for each other.

That thought makes my stomach flip, and it’s Gracen I’m thinking about, not Lilly, in this moment. I know Lilly will always be mine. I know no such thing about Gracen.

A hand slams down onto my shoulder with enough force that I feel it through my padding. I look up and see Reed grinning down at me. “For someone that just won an important game tonight, you look awful pissy.”

I glare at Reed and mutter, “That win didn’t happen because of me.”

I missed passes, checks, and screen attempts. My legs seemed to be filled with lead, and I felt about two seconds behind on everything. It was probably one of the shittiest games I’ve ever played in my life.

“Dude,” Reed says with concern in his voice as he sits down beside me on the bench. “What’s wrong?”

I glance at him with a sharp look. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“Didn’t who tell me what?”

“Lilly fell when I took her ice-staking this morning. I had to bring her into the emergency room and Josie treated her.”

His look of concern intensifies. “She wouldn’t have told me anything because of doctor-patient privilege. Is Lilly okay?”

I blow out a frustrated breath and my head hangs low. “She cut her lip and had to have a few stitches.”

“That’s why you played like shit tonight. You were worried about Lilly.”

I sit up straight and turn to look at my friend. The one man who was always on Gracen’s side from the get-go and worked hard to make sure I got my head out of my ass. I’m actually grateful for it in hindsight, so I don’t have any problems with being truthful to him. “Gracen and I got into a huge fight this afternoon about me taking Lilly ice-skating. She blamed me for her injury, we said a lot of nasty shit to each other, and just before I left for the arena, she told me she wants to go back home to New York with Lilly.”

Reed shakes his head as if in denial. “No way. She wouldn’t do that.”

I give a snort of skepticism. “You weren’t there, man. She was beyond pissed, and we said some really shitty things to each other. We can’t seem to fucking help ourselves. Can’t seem to let the past go.”

“Did you mean the shitty things you said to her?” he asks me curiously.

I give him an exasperated look. “Of course not. We all say stupid stuff when we’re mad.”

“Then I would suggest she probably didn’t mean that about leaving either. I think you two need to talk this out.”

“We’re not the best communicators,” I grumble.

Reed gives me a slight punch to my upper arm. “Then I would also suggest you learn to be a communicator. You stand to lose your daughter, so I can’t think of a better reason to get your shit together.”

I stand to lose Gracen as well, and that scares the shit out of me as much as losing Lilly does. My head drops and I stare down at my unlaced skates.

“Do you love her?” Reed asks, and that question makes me jerk. My head snaps to the right to look at him.

He repeats. “Do you love Gracen? The way you used to?”

I think I love her more. The knowledge slams into me like a wrecking ball punching through concrete.

This isn’t the same young woman that I loved all those years ago. This is a woman who almost died to have my child. Who was an amazing mom to my child when I wasn’t there. She suffered so much all on her own to give Lilly life and security.

Yeah…I love her differently.

More.

Infinitely more.

Reed watches me as I work this out in my head, and while I don’t admit any of this to him, he can see on my face that I’ve reached a conclusion about my feelings. He slaps me on the back and grins. “I’m confident you’ll figure this out.”

Maybe. I need to figure out how to make this right. How do I ensure this doesn’t happen again?

And I know where I need to go to get my answer.



* * *



—

I knock on my parents’ front door, and within moments, my dad opens up. He doesn’t seem surprised to find me here. He was at the game and saw how horribly I played. He was at the hospital and saw my worry over Lilly. He felt the terrible tension between Gracen and me, and he also knew we had a serious talk at the house.

“Rough game,” he says as I step over the threshold.

“Yeah,” I admit as I shut the door behind me.

“Want a beer?”

“Yeah.”

I head into the living room while my dad goes into the kitchen. My mom is reading a book on the couch and she looks at me with sympathy as I cross over to her.