36. Weston

I’m slumping back through the door of my penthouse after the final leg of the road trip when my mom’s photo—a picture of her stunned face when I surprised her on her birthday after my first year in the league, a picture she absolutely loathes—flashes onto my phone screen.

“Good evening, Mother Caroline.”

She laughs. “Good evening, Son Weston.”

“You watch the game?”

“Nope. Had to wash the cat.”

I can’t help but grin. We’ve been doing the same four-line routine for years, ever since we first started this post-game call ritual when I moved away for college. It’s not funny—never has been, really—but it never fails to make both of us chuckle.

And I like making Momma Scott laugh. She deserves it. She’s had things hard enough. After we lost Dad when I was seven—fuck cancer—she picked up the slack and never, ever let me down.

I’ve done what I can to help. It got easier when I started making big leagues money. I always swore I wouldn’t do what so many other guys do when their first monster paychecks hit: forget the people who got them there. I always swore I’d take care of her.

I’ve kept my promise.

“What is it I always say?” she asks. “If you put the puck on net…”

“ … Eventually, it’s going in,” I finish reciting. I really can hear her saying it to me at every stage of my life. Even way back when Hunter and I were little pee-wee runts, she encouraged us to go get goals.

“You’re the points leader for the league right now,” she informs me.

As if I don’t know it. As if I’m not aware that my contract is about to be up and I could ask for the moon and stars right now. But I won’t because, as quick as my rise has been, slumps are never far away.

Neither are distractions.

“Yeah. I’ve been working hard.” I don’t add exactly “how” I’ve been working hard. Mostly, it involves taking extra skates and late night five-mile runs to work off the energy that keeps me awake long past dark, dreaming of her. The she-devil who moaned my name while she came just a few feet away from me.

“Good. Scotts aren’t afraid of hard work.” She shifts the phone to her other ear. “Hunter called me, you know. He says a new woman moved into your building.”

“It’s an apartment building, Mom. A lot of people move in and out.”

We both know I’m evading. And we also know that she is very well aware this one isn’t like every other tenant who’s moved into the building.

Damn you, Hunter.

“So…”

I sigh. “So what?”

“Don’t play coy. What’s her name?”

“Renee. Renee DuBois. She’s in her thirties, I think. And she works for the team.”

“Renee. Pretty name. Hunter says you like her.”

I might kill the bastard next time I see him. At the very least, I’m gonna dangle him by his ankles over the balcony. Right now, my mom is picturing floral arrangements and Elvis singing Can’t Help Falling in Love while Renee floats down the aisle toward me dressed in white.

“I don’t date women I work with.”

“But you do like her?”

I sigh again. She knows me so well. Even if I wanted to lie to myself, there was no way I could lie to her. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t… won’t… can’t date her.”

“Sounds a little bit like it does matter.” I can hear her pursing her lips to avoid letting the smile take over her face.

I rub my thumb over the mouthpiece to mimic a crackle. “What’s that?” I pretend to call to someone. “There’s a fire in the building? A cat stuck in the tree? Some old lady needs help crossing the road?” I turn my attention back to the phone. “Sorry, Mom. Looks like I’m needed elsewhere.”

She laughs, not worried in the least. She knows I’ll sit on this phone as long as she wants to talk. Hunter teases me all the time about being a mama’s boy. I’d get mad, but he isn’t wrong. She and my sister Molly are the only family I have left. I don’t intend on letting them go anytime soon.

“First, you’re coy; now, you’re a wiseass. But alright, fine, keep your secrets. I won’t say any more—other than that we have family dinner this week and if you want to bring a date, I wouldn’t mind. I’m just saying.”

“Mom.” I shake my head but smile. All in the world this woman wants is grandchildren. She’s relentless in that department. “How’s Molly?”

“She’s Molly. Doing her own things.”

My sister Molly is a free spirit. That’s what she calls it, anyway. But it doesn’t take a shrink to see that she’s working out her sadness in any and every way she can. We’ve all got our coping methods. She just got dealt a particularly shitty hand.

“And she’ll be at family dinner?”

“I hope so.” I don’t miss the note of wistfulness in my mom’s voice. Her relationship with Molly is strained, not because of what happened to Molly, but because Molly has had a lot to deal with and she thinks she has to do it alone.

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know: same old, same old.” We talk about her blood pressure, about some new book she’s reading, about her bingo partner who has a daughter who loves hockey.

“ … you know I don’t want to date your friend’s daughter.”

“She might be a very nice girl!”

“And if it doesn’t work out—which it won’t—you lose a friend.” I shake my head and sip my post-game protein shake. “I think I’ll take my chances on Tinder.”

“You’re not on Tinder. Or Match, or Bumble, or?—”

“Who taught you about dating apps?” I cackle.

“ … Or anything else that might lead to grandchildren before I’m too old to enjoy them,” she continues as if I hadn’t spoken. “Oh, listen, there’s someone at the door. I’ll see you on Thursday, Weston. I love you.”

I exhale. “I love you, too, Mom.”

I hang up. It’s only a second later when the phone rings again. This time, my sister’s photo flashes onto the screen. I’m getting hit from all directions tonight, it seems. Double dosage of the Scott women.

“Hey, Peston.”

“What’s up, Moll?”

Unlike Mom, she doesn’t waste any time with meaningless chit-chat. “I talked to Mom, who talked to a very reliable source…”

“Hunter,” I fill in with a grumble.

Molly is solemn. “I can neither confirm nor deny. Anyway, said reliable source mentioned that you’re dying to get sticky with the girl next door. I thought she was an actress, but Hunter said she’s working with you. Shot some naughty pics of you, actually. Or at least that’s how he made it seem. What’s the story here and why do I have to hear it from someone else?”

I sigh. Leave it to Moll to take whatever Hunter said and twist it around to suit her purposes. “I’m not dying to ‘get sticky’ with anyone, least of all Renee. She’s friends with the actress and is house-sitting her place. And she works with me, so I’m not dating her. And there were no naughty pictures. They were perfectly respectable. Did I answer all your questions?”

She laughs. It’s good to hear that sound. There was a time, after everything she suffered through, when I didn’t think she would ever laugh again. “You honestly don’t believe your own bullshit, I hope. Your voice changed when you said her name. Real soft and tender and, like, swoony. You know what that tells me?”

“Nope. And I don’t care.”

Of course, she’s just going to tell me anyway. “You don’t just want to get sticky with her. You want to make her yours.”

“You don’t know shit.”

She laughs wickedly. “I know everything. And it pisses you off so bad, you can’t stand it.”

I wish she did know everything. I wish she’d known never to get involved with Jackson Yates. I wish she’d known he’d break her heart and then some. I wish she’d known he’d leave her in pieces and, years later, I’d still be trying to help her pick them up and glue them all back together.

“I can stand it all just fine. Don’t you worry about that, Moll Doll.”

I stare into the abyss that is the window of my apartment. There isn’t any blue in the sky tonight, only a thousand clouds and a whole lot of gray. If I was some kind of morose poet or someone who led with emotion, I would say it matches my mood.

“What about you? You seeing anybody?”

“No.”

That’s all she offers. We talk my love life to death—pick apart, analyze, dissect. But hers is off-limits. She’s closed herself off; I get it. I just wish there was a way for things to heal.

“Moll…”

“I’m fine, West. I don’t want to date right now. I just need to… process.”

I know when to let it go. My sister hasn’t let anything go since the womb, but I love her anyway, as much of a pain in my ass as she might be.

I just need to process. I get that. I’m processing stuff, too. Even now, this thin wall separating my penthouse from the one next door seems like such a feeble boundary between what I want and what I’ll allow myself to have.

Molly is suffering in a different kind of way, though. She had what she wanted and it nearly destroyed her.

Who’s to say which suffering is better?