Chapter 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

RYAN

I sit back in the kitchen chair and try not to show my frustration. The last thing I want to be is disrespectful, but my mind is not on this discussion.

“If you guys don’t get on the ball, you won’t make the playoffs,” my old man says. He isn’t wrong. The team has been in a slump since Thanksgiving, but we’re turning it around. We won our last game.

“We’ve got it handled.”

I take in Dad’s frail frame: his hunched back, the thinning hair, the worry lines framing his face. His fall and this lawsuit have aged him. I wish there was something I could do to lessen the burden he’s carried these past few years.

But he’s doing better since the night he passed out drunk on the living room floor. At least he hasn’t drank since then.

“Ryan, you need to focus. This is your future we’re talking about. You need to get through school, then…”

Yeah, then off to physical therapy school. Thanks to Maddy, I passed Physics with an eighty-nine percent. My grade point average may not be the best, but it would’ve been crushed had it not been for a certain auburn-haired beauty. My mind flicks back to the library, her face scrunched in concentration as she explained the wave-particle duality of light, a metaphor that I had turned into a flirtatious joke.

“Are you even listening to me?” Dad’s sharp tone snapped me back to reality.

“Yeah, I got it. Work hard, make you proud, uphold the family name. Same old, same old.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue.

Before he could launch into round two, my phone buzzed against the table. Blake’s name flashed on the screen. Thank fuck. I could use the outlet.

I snatch it up, already rising from my chair. “Sorry, Dad, gotta take this. Blake probably needs me for … hockey stuff. We’ll finish this later, yeah?”

Not waiting for a response, I stroll out of the kitchen and feel like I can breathe for the first time all day. Blake’s call couldn’t have come at a better time.

I step into my room and shut the door. “Hey man, what’s up? You have no idea how glad I am you called...”

“You wouldn’t know where to find Amanda, would you?” The desperation in Blake’s voice makes me pause. Find her? What the hell does he mean? She’s in Boston. Does he not know this?

I must have taken too long to answer because Blake’s voice screamed, “Hello?”

“I’m here.” I shake my head. “I’m just trying to figure out how you don’t know she’s back in Boston.”

There’s a pause before his frantic voice rings through. “Amanda left already? But we still have a few more days.”

Again, how does he not know this?

“Bruh, she moved her flight up.”

Defeat. That sense of disappointment and failure felt right when the buzzer sounded, and the team lost the game? Yeah, that’s the sound Blake makes when he says, “I can’t get a hold of her. I’m pretty sure she blocked me.”

I exhale slowly, not really knowing what to say. When Amanda and I exchanged goodbyes, she told me to take care of him. She still loved him, but she needed to do what she could to protect herself. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. How are you holding up?”

“Not great. But I need to talk to her.”

“Look, we’ve been friends a long time. You’re like a brother to me, but you need to let her go. Let her heal on her own. Talking to her now will only open those wounds.”

“But my circumstances have changed.”

I listen as he explains, and I crush his optimism by the time he’s done.

“We still have another year and a half before graduation. You really think a long-distance relationship will work? People who’ve been together for years can’t make it.”

“I have to try.” His voice cracks, and I know exactly how he’s feeling because I feel the same way.

“You really do love her, don’t you?”

“So fucking much.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this.” I huff. “But you need to figure out a way for her to return, or you go there. The internship means a lot to her. Albeit it’s not in oncology as she hoped, but she won’t give it up unless there’s a damn good reason.”

“You’re right.” He pauses. “I have to let you go. I may just have a plan.”

“Good luck, buddy.”

“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

I hang up and replay the words I said. She won’t give it up unless there’s a damn good reason. Is Madison giving up on us because she thinks it’s for the best? Like, is she trying to protect me? She wanted me to give her space, but how many days does she need? I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

“I gotta go,” I announce when I enter the kitchen and snatch my keys from the hook.

Dad’s eyebrows shoot up. “We’re not finished here, Ryan. Your future?—”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to fight for,” I cut him off, surprising myself with my boldness. “My future. With Maddy.”

“Madison Grimes?”

“The very one.”

For a moment, he looks like I’ve just body-checked him into the boards. Then, something shifts in his eyes. Is that admiration ?

“Be careful, son,” he says, his voice gruff but not unkind.

I pause, staring at my old man. “She’s not like Mom, Dad.”

He sucks in a breath.

“I hope not. For your sake, I hope not.”

“Me, too.” I nod, then I’m out the door.

Thirty minutes later, I find myself standing at the Grimes’ front door, and my sense of brevity has diminished.

I pictured Maddy’s face, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her art, and the soft curve of her smile when she looked at me. Her sweet ass bent over as I power drive into her. Fucking sweet.

She was worth fighting for. Worth risking everything for.

I knew what I had to do. It was time to take control of my destiny and fight for the future I wanted. And that future started with Maddy.

With a deep breath, I ring the doorbell, my throat drier than the Sahara Desert. This was it. The moment of truth.

And as the door swings open, revealing Maddy’s surprised face, I know with absolute certainty that I am exactly where I was meant to be.