66. Zane

66

ZANE

The last time I talked to Paige, she was eight months pregnant.

I've done the math in my head a million times since I found Aiden on my doorstep. Each time, hoping I'm off somewhere. That I carried a number wrong or calculated the wrong year.

But no—Paige was eight months pregnant, and I told her I wanted nothing to do with her.

To be fair, I didn't know she was pregnant.

To be even fairer, I meant it: I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

"Come on, Z," she purred over the phone. "Let's meet for a quick lunch. Or dinner. If it goes well, maybe dessert."

My skin crawled. It had been seven months since I'd seen her, and she was finally out of my system. Whatever hold she had on me was gone. All I could see now was the damage she'd left in her wake.

"I'm done with you, Paige. We aren't meeting up."

"I was kidding." She sighed dramatically. "God, you can't take a joke anymore."

Only because Paige wasn't joking. If we met up, she'd try to get back with me, even if just for the night. She couldn't help herself—she was an approval junkie as much as an actual junkie.

"Please," she begged. "There's something I need to tell you. It's big. It changes things for the two of us, and you deserve to know."

How many times had I fallen for that?

It's important, Z.

Zane, I need you.

You can't leave me like this!

It's not. She doesn't. And I can.

"If you call me again, I'll file a restraining order," I growled. "I lost enough of myself being with you, Paige. I'm finally on the right track, and I'm not going to let you fuck it up."

"It's not like I tied you down and shot you up! I didn't force you to do a damn thing! You did it because you wanted to. You were with me because you wanted to be with me."

"And now, I don't," I said evenly. "I never want to see or hear from you again. Have a nice life."

I try to imagine what I would've been thinking if I'd rolled up to that lunch and found Paige eight months pregnant.

Probably, It's not mine.

That's what I thought when Jodie Barnes knocked on my front door with a little blonde-haired kid glued to her leg.

Paige lied to me enough times that it would've taken God Himself to descend from the heavens and confirm paternity before I would have given her a dime.

But I didn't go to the lunch. I blocked Paige's number, cut off all contact, and never heard from her again.

In some ways, it was for the best.

The two of us were always a disaster waiting to happen. If I'd found out she was pregnant, I would've gotten back with her, if only to be there for my kid. But it would've been a fucking wreck.

Paige turned me into a cynic. The up-and-down, loop-de-loop disaster of our relationship made me doubt I could ever have something healthy. Something functional.

Which is why I keep telling myself that I can't hire a private investigator to look into my own girlfriend.

Owen pitched that idea during our weekly coffee meeting. I didn't tell him exactly what's going on because he's suspicious enough of Mira as it is, but I hinted that there might be more to her past than she's told me.

"I'll give you the number of my P.I.," he said, sliding his reading glasses on and flipping his ancient phone open.

I shouldn't have been surprised he had a private investigator on speed dial. This is all coming from the man who Hulk-smashed through my front door and dug in my bathroom trash can. Trust isn't his strong suit.

Yet another reason why I don't want to take his advice: hiring someone to tail Mira and dig into her past is not the stuff healthy and functional relationships are made of. If Mira found out, any pretense that we trust each other would dissolve like smoke.

Then again, things can't keep going like they are.

We've been passing ships for days now. I told Daniel I'd talk to Mira, but we came home from the double date and went straight to sleep. The next morning, I went in for an early practice. Then Mira went to the movies with Taylor that night. She got home late and slept in her own bed so she wouldn't wake me up.

Every day that passes without me saying something makes it harder to work into a conversation.

All the time, I keep thinking, Why isn't Mira bringing it up?

She knows she lied. She knows I know she lied.

We've been living with an elephant that neither of us wants to point out, but it's getting hard to focus on anything else.

At home or on the ice.

"Whitaker!" I hear Jace yell my name half a second before a body slams into me.

I crash into the boards hard enough that my helmet bounces off the tempered glass.

I manage to stay on my skates and whip around, shoving whoever the fuck just plowed into me in the chest. "Watch where you're fucking going," I spit.

Carson grins, skating backwards. "Sorry, pal. I didn't see you there."

"The fuck you didn't."

Jace skates over, ice spraying as he skids to a stop. "Walk it off."

I hear the warning in his voice. Don't do anything stupid. Don't let him get to you.

The problem is, Carson has already gotten to me. And to my family. His little stunt made me realize that I don't trust myself or anyone else as much as I thought I did.

No matter how much time passes, I'm always one slip up from being back where I started.

One drink.

One leaked photo.

One woman who lowers all of my defenses and lies straight to my face.

"I almost forgot he was here," Carson protests innocently. "He's been nothing but a waste of space today, anyway."

Without warning, I shove off the boards and throw myself at Carson.

He topples over, his helmet smacking off the ice. I pounce onto his chest. The air whooshes out of his lungs as I shuck my gloves off and reach for his neck.

"You fucking piece of?—"

There are hands on my shoulders, yanking me back, but I shrug them off and lunge for Carson again.

He takes swings at me, but they're clumsy and panicked. The asshole was ready to fight, but only on his terms. He didn't think I'd be stupid enough to fight back.

Unfortunately for him, I am that stupid.

I wedge my hand against his Adam's apple, and he makes a satisfying choking sound… just as Jace and Davis haul me away.

"Let me go!" I roar.

"Stand down!" Jace orders.

I elbow-check him and wrench one arm free, but Davis skates around in front of me and shoves me back. "You don't wanna do this, buddy."

Wrong. I'm fucking dying to do this.

I'm about to plow through him, too, when a string of angry Russian curses slices through the chaos.

"Goddamn children!" Coach spits. "Children on a fucking playground. That's what you all are."

Nathan holds out a hand to help Carson off the ice, but Carson swats him away and crawls to his feet. His face is red and his eyes are narrowed on me.

"Whitaker! Deluth!" Coach points to the locker rooms. "Fuck off for the day. Don't come back until you know how to solve your problems like adults."

I want to argue, but I'm no good here, anyway. So I snatch my gloves off the ice where I tossed them and skate for the far exit—the one furthest from Carson.

"Z!" Jace chases me down. "What the fuck is up with you, man?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah," he snorts. "Looked like ‘nothing' while you were trying to murder Carson in front of the entire team."

"He plowed into me!"

"Because he's an asshole who's trying to get a rise out of you," Jace says evenly. "If you were thinking straight, you would've walked away. So I want to know why you aren't thinking straight."

There's no point in telling him. There's nothing Jace can say that will clear this up.

The only person who can answer the questions swirling around in my head is Mira… and right now, I don't think I'd trust a single word out of her mouth.

"Whatever it is," Jace says finally, "figure it out and come back tomorrow ready to make nice with Carson."

"Not going to happen," I grit out.

He throws up his hands. "Fine. Then come back ready to not kill him. How's that?"

It's still a high bar, but I nod and shove through the double doors.

I give Carson ten minutes to clear out of the locker room before I shuffle in there to grab my shit. As I'm leaving, my phone buzzes in my bag. It's a text from Hanna.

That guy called looking for Mira again. I would've forwarded it to you, but he was calling from an unknown number.

I stare down at the message, trying to convince myself that the sense of wrongness swirling in my gut is all in my head.

I want everything to be fine.

The last few weeks have felt like crossing the finish line at the end of a long race. I've been living in the kind of happy ending people strive for their whole lives. After years of pulling myself together and cleaning myself up, here's my reward.

Here. Rightfuckinghere. So close I can taste it, feel it, touch it, smell it.

Now, I have to face the possibility that it's all been one big lie.

When I pick up my phone and punch in the number I've been staring at for three days, I'm not doing it because I want to bring my world crashing down.

I'm doing it because I lived too many years of my life in a lie, and I won't do it anymore.

Not even for Mira.

"Hello?" a deep voice answers.

"I got your number from a friend." I glance down at Owen's scribbled handwriting. He didn't give me the P.I.'s name, but I don't think I need it. "I have a job for you."