24. Dylan

Chapter 24

Dylan

Me, Shiloh, and Hudson. We’d been inseparable growing up. The three musketeers, amigos, best friends.

I jogged and then ran through town, past people who paused in their games and picnics, past policemen chatting at road barriers, past children swinging on the playground and yelling, “Higher!”

I ran until I felt a hand come down onto my shoulder. The one I expected to feel from the moment I’d seen him.

Hudson Blaire.

I turned, and Hudson pulled me into a hug I didn’t expect or deserve. But I still gripped him as he pounded on my back. My eyes stung with the emotion I would not release. Especially not here, in front of all these people.

I could feel their stares on us as Hudson pulled back, his eyes red and watery. He’d never been embarrassed about showing his emotions, and I always wondered if it had anything to do with not being as competitive as me and Shiloh. Until college, when he’d had an unexpected growth spurt, Hudson had been smaller than the kids in his grade and had rarely made any of the teams he tried out for. Shiloh and I had protected him fiercely, and everyone quickly learned if you messed with Hudson, you messed with us—and we were big and ruthless, if necessary. We didn’t usually start fights, but we’d finish them.

“Hey,” Hudson said. He swiped his hand under his eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

I couldn’t talk past the knot in my throat, so I nodded. What I wouldn’t give to be on the ice right now, away from this conversation. How did you apologize for blowing off your friend’s calls and no-showing a funeral?

“Are you joining the team?” Hudson indicated my tight Icy Peaks shirt. I’d worn it to meet Rosie’s dare—and because I knew it’d make her laugh. It was so small I didn’t have full range of motion of my arms. Now, I felt stupid wearing it. Shiloh was dead, and I was out here trying to get a girl’s attention. What was wrong with me?

“Nah,” I said quietly. “Contracts and all that.”

Hudson’s smile was a ghost of the one he used to have, but it still reached his eyes. “Since when have you let a little ol’ piece of paper stop you from doing what you want?”

And there it was. The spark of challenge in his expression that Shiloh had shared. These two were always able to get me to do pretty much anything—from streaking down Main Street in the dead of winter, to racing back and forth on the ice until one of us collapsed in exhaustion.

The question was: did I want this? To play on the softball team? To spend more time with Hudson and Rosie and the people I’d never looked back at?

To face the things I’d been hiding from?

I wasn’t sure yet, but I’d never backed down from a challenge—until the hardest one in my life took me clear off my feet. Losing Shiloh was more than a challenge. I’d fallen into a crack in the icy lake and was fighting for my life.

“Listen, Hud.” I cleared my throat as I stared down at my hands. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t fast enough—”

Hudson’s hand grabbed my arm in a tight grip that cut off my apology. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I clenched my jaw. “I should have anticipated something like that could happen. I should have passed the puck to Gage or Bret or taken it all the way in myself.” It had been a series of bad events, one after the other. Shiloh uncharacteristically slipping on the ice and falling. A player from the other team not seeing Shiloh in time as he raced forward. An accidental injury caused by the impact of that player’s skate against the soft skin of Shiloh’s unprotected neck.

When it happened, I’d felt as though I’d fallen through the ice into a murky lake. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get to him fast enough even though I thrashed desperately toward him. I’d known it was bad. Just not how bad until three hours later, when I was sitting in the hospital waiting room with Shiloh’s wife and saw the doctor’s expression when he came to get us.

Hudson’s hold on my arm tightened. “There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it. Not even you, Dyl.”

My memory flashed on the image of Shiloh crumpled on the ice as I roared his name. I tried to calculate the distance, the rate of my skating, the blur of faces in my periphery, and urged myself to get there faster.

But I was never fast enough to rewrite the past.

I’d been going to therapy twice a week since I got to Winterhaven, but I hated to talk about it, much less think about it.

Hudson gave me space to process. I’d missed him. I thought I’d pushed him away since Shiloh died, but I was wrong. Hudson had respected my need for solitude, and he’d stepped back temporarily. But I could tell by his determined expression, his time of allowing me to push him away was over.

“We’re facing our hardest opponent tonight—the Bookish Ballers,” Hudson said. “They’ve won the last three games against us, and I, for one, am sick of seeing Max Eriksson’s smug grin around town.”

The ache of emptiness where Shiloh used to be was almost overwhelming, but I grabbed the olive branch Hudson was extending, and I felt a little less like I was drowning.

Plus wiping a smug grin off Max seemed like a pretty good idea.

“Do you have a jersey that’ll actually fit me?” I asked, my joviality sounding forced.

Hudson’s hold tightened, and he pulled me into a whole, comforting hug and then released me before my emotions could take over once again. “I’m sure I do somewhere. But what’s the fun in that?”

I let out a snort-laugh, surprising both of us. How could I be laughing right now? Having fun? Something in my expression must have shown my thoughts, because Hudson turned serious once again.

“It’s okay to be happy, Dylan. You know he’d want that.”

He would, because that was the kind of person Shiloh was. So I nodded and followed Hudson at a jog back to the team.