The Not-Outcast

by Tijan

  Assassin mode back on. I was fully not paying attention to anything in the feelings department.

  Spying my purse (I didn’t even remember bringing it with me), the rest of my clothes, and my sandals, I nabbed all of them.

  I tiptoed out of the door, still being my assassin badass self, and once in the hallway, once I had pulled the door shut, I moved down the hall a little bit. I shimmied up my skirt, toed on my sandals, and was ready to roll.

  I was not waiting around, so I reached for the door, and the alarm panel caught my eye at the same time I had the door open. An ear-splitting alarm pierced through the house, and I had a split-second decision to make.

  Stay or bail?

  I bailed. And awkwardly fast.

  So not an assassin move.

  My sandals were kicked off. I bent down, grabbing them and then I was running barefoot down the driveway. I turned down the sidewalk just as I heard the front door being wrenched open behind me, and I immediately went into stealth-mode.

  I mean, not really.

  There was actually a line of tall privacy hedges blocking his house, so I’d only managed to get behind the hedges. If he came out to the road, he’d see me. Because of that, I hotfooted it down the block. Seeing a tree big enough to shield me, I stepped on the other side of it.

  Then, I called Sasha and gave her my new location.

  I was walking down the block, on the other side of the road when Sasha found me.

  I’d told her that I was going to be on the move.

  A short toot on the horn and her minivan pulled up next to me.

  It’s an unspoken rule that no one is to ask Sasha why she has a minivan. It’s been asked before, and the person who asked the question was never seen again. (That was a bit dramatic, but for real, I never saw the girl again who asked. I’m sure she lives in New Jersey, now married with two kids, but I learned to respect that rule.) I never asked why she drove a minivan. She just did. It was now Matilda, our home-mobile. Or that’s what Melanie called it. Sasha didn’t have a name for it.

  The back had been converted into a small bed, so some mornings, it was the miracle van and not a minivan. Which was amazing if Sasha was picking us up on hangover-mornings.

  I climbed up, strapped in, and turned.

  She had my coffee waiting for me in hand. I took it, and there was a breakfast sandwich perched on top.

  I so loved my girl.

  “Thank you,” I moaned from how good the coffee smelled.

  She gave me a cocky grin before pulling forward and turning at the next street. “So, you ran, huh?”

  I groaned, closing my eyes. “I hid.”

  “You hid?”

  “Behind a tree.”

  She choked. “A tree?” She groaned. “Girl.”

  “I know.” I groaned again.

  “And your reason being?”

  I was already shaking my head, knowing she was going to ask. “I have no idea.”

  Bleak. I was so bleak.

  She let out a sigh, hitting the turn signal and pulling over. “I should take you back.”

  “No!”

  Christ. My heart stopped just at the thought of that.

  “You don’t think I don’t know how you felt about him in college?”

  Oh. Crap. Where was Melanie with the toilet jokes when I needed her?

  “College?”

  I was still so bleak here.

  I knew this was a serious talk because Sasha was not sticking to her one-word commentary. She was being real. And her voice was gentle as she said, “And since college. He’s best friends with your brother—”

  “Stepbrother, and he’s not family anymore. Deek and Natalie divorced.”

  “Still. You guys share a brother. That connects you, and he’s connected to your hockey hottie in a big way. Why do you think I was hitting on him last night?”

  Blood rushed to my face. I was hot, like red in the face hot.

  I didn’t think she knew, so I thought it’d been a ‘miss’ kind of thing.

  I eyed her, biting my lip. “You knew?”

  She laughed. “You go to every home game. I know you work a lot, but gurl, I am not stupid.”

  “You’re at the strip club.”

  She snorted. “Like I don’t keep tabs on my girls. You included.”

  See. Total secret agent.

  Pressure was building in my head. I knew I should have her take me back, but there’d been dreams and delusions. All that got steamed over when my own stepbrother took one look at me in college, in my own living room, and gave me such a look of disdain and condemnation that was burned in my head to this day.

  Sasha and Chad had had a night, and that’s how he ran into me for the first time at Silvard. He knew I was there. I knew he was there, but we’d successfully avoided each other up until then. I came into their lives for a brief stint before going away again, but his mom and my dad had been married during that time. They had still been married when the college plans were put in motion, meaning that Deek wanted me to get to know my stepbrother. That’d been the entire reason I went to Silvard.

  Funny how everything turned out, and not in a good way.

  Deek and Natalie divorced that first year we were at college.

  Cut got drafted the next year. He left, and Chad followed him.

  I was the only one who stayed at Silvard, but it worked in my favor.

  I hadn’t seen Chad since that day in the dorm.

  “I’m not ready.” I was talking about talking to Cut.

  It was weak. I knew it, and so not like my usual awesome badassness confidence, but he had the power to shatter me. A girl like me, we took that seriously. He could send me right back to who I’d been when I had an entire delusional relationship with him in my head.

  I felt safer gawking from a distance than being live and in person in his presence.

  “Okay. Well, I have something to distract you with.”

  I looked over.

  She cringed, before pulling back to the road. “I slept with your stepbrother last night.”

  “No way!”

  She grunted. “Way.”

  We were back to the one-word responses.

  From: Koala Boy

  To: Cheychey

  Subject: That doesn’t sound good.

  From: Cheychey

  To: Koala Boy

  Subject: Crisis averted. How are you? MISS YOU SO MUCH

  From: Koala Boy

  To: Cheychey

  Subject: settle, jeez.

  5

  Cut

  I woke up to an empty bed, and I was in a fuck mood ever since.

  She ran.

  It wasn’t that she left. It was that she ran. The girl freaking sprinted from this house, because when that alarm goes off, you shit your pants and she wasn’t anywhere near the door shitting her pants. That means she took off.

  So, yeah.

  Fuck day.

  Saturday was supposed to be my rest day, but then Chad showed up.

  He stalked inside, slamming his door shut on his end of the house we owned.

  We technically owned two houses, one on each lot, but since it was the two of us, we merged them together. The bigger house was mine. The smaller one was his. The pool was behind my side of the house, but when Chad had parties, it was both of our houses. (Which meant he used my side of the house.) It was a cool project we did together, but I was getting tired of a few things.

  “Hey.”

  He stalked through the room, to the fridge and yanked it open.

  Okay.

  “Not a good night?”

  He grunted, taking out some day-old pizza and he tossed the box on the oven. The top was flung open. The slices were dumped on a plate. The microwave door was shut harder than it needed to be.

  My roommate/best friend/brother was in a mood.

  “Did you go to the event?”

  A second grunt. This time he turned with a glare. “You weren’t there.”

 
; “I took off.”

  “The guys told me.”

  Right. I hadn’t texted him, but we were guys. We didn’t do that.

  “Did you see your girl?”

  A third grunt. “She kicked me out of bed.” The microwave beeped, and he hit the button. The door swung open and he had a whole slice stuffed in his mouth before he shut the microwave door on the back-swing.

  He came over and sat at the table where I was.

  “The Not-Russian?”

  A fourth grunt as he stuffed a second slice in his mouth.

  Then he was up, going to the fridge, and he pulled out a beer.

  He opened it as he came back, and catching my look, he shook his head. “Don’t start.”

  So, I didn’t start, not that I ever did.

  “Wanna go skating today?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  That was my Saturday.

  I bent over to lace up my skates just as Hendrix dropped down to the bench beside me.

  “Yo.” He was doing the same thing, his head turned my way. “What happened with that girl from the gala on Friday?”

  It was Sunday and we had a game today. I’d tried not to fixate on her, but damn. It was hard. Best I’d ever had. I was riled up and claiming her, because apparently that was a thing with me. I had no clue until her that I could possess such strong feelings…but now, I wanted to punch someone for just being asked about her.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?” He straightened up, checking his skate. “You were all gung-ho on her that night.”

  “Yeah, but the next morning was a different story.”

  I stood, not wanting to talk anymore. Not about her.

  Grabbing my stick, I headed out. We’d be going out to warm up soon.

  Nodding at each of my teammates, we lined up in the tunnel.

  Hendrix was coming right behind me, and he was giving me that look. I could feel it. I knew what that look meant.

  I was full of shit.

  He knew I was full of shit.

  I didn’t want to be full of shit, but I was full of shit.

  That girl. Damn.

  Cheyenne.

  We never exchanged numbers.

  We’d gone faster than that.

  There’d not been a lot of talking once we got to my house.

  Six fucking times. Six. Fucking. Times.

  I’d never had that with another girl, not in a matter of a few hours. Maybe a whole day, but Christ. And when I woke, I was aching for her all over again. But she was gone. The alarm was blaring, and I looked out the door. Nothing. She must’ve just left, so I didn’t know if she got a ride or what, but she was outta there.

  Fuck, man.

  Fuck.

  I don’t indulge in one-night stands. You never knew what you’d get if you did that. I preferred casual relationships, keeping with the same few girls who knew the score. They lived their lives but were open if I called on them. One recently got engaged, so she called to end our arrangement. I don’t know. Maybe I’d been a little sore on that?

  I didn’t think so. I’d been genuinely happy for her when she told me that, but Cheyenne-No-Last-Name was under my skin.

  I hated it.

  It’s a groin kick to the ego, having a girl dash from your bed and disappear like what we’d just done meant nothing. And it’s not like I won’t see her. We were signed up to volunteer at their homeless kitchen. She’d be there, or I was assuming. I remembered from being briefed on the venture that it was mostly run by volunteers, but they did have a few full-timers. She was probably one of them.

  Alex. Hendrix. Frank. I caught a couple side looks, so I was figuring they all knew.

  I wanted to get on the ice.

  I wanted to get the game going, and I wanted to destroy the Riders.

  They were in our city. It was our ice. It’d be our win.

  6

  Cheyenne

  My upbringing wasn’t normal, and that statement was an understatement.

  Nothing had been normal about where I grew up, how I grew up, and how I ended up out here in Kansas City. I loved this city. I loved the Midwest. It was different than the west coast. There were different values here, and sometimes I didn’t like them, but it felt simpler at times, too.

  Things were calmer for me, for my head, and that was my biggest relationship in my life. But actually seeing Cut, having Cut see me, talk to me, and what else that happened, I was shook. For real. Shook.

  I didn’t want to say that I followed Cut out here after college, but when an opportunity came to move here, I jumped at the chance.

  Cut had already been here.

  He left Silvard after the first year, taking Chad with him so I had a whole three more years stepbrother-free, but also Cut-free and I hadn’t enjoyed that last part. It was probably for the best. I concentrated harder on my head, on my schooling, and being able to open up Come Our Way had been one of those benefits.

  But Cut was connected to other people from my life, and it was those that were giving me the bigger headache.

  Cut was connected to Chad.

  Chad was connected to Natalie and her new husband.

  They were all connected to Hunter, Koala Boy.

  Koala Boy was connected to Deek.

  Deek and Hunter were connected to me, but Koala Boy more than Deek.

  Everyone had moved here. Not all at the same time, but the migration was connected in some ways.

  Cut came first. Chad went with him.

  Three years later, I came. No one knew I was here.

  Then two years ago, Natalie’s new husband got a job transfer here. I knew this because I liked to cyberstalk my little brother. And a year ago, Deek came because Hunter was here.

  So, everyone left Pine Valley except (from what else my cyberstalking had uncovered) Cut’s family. They remained back in Oregon.

  I didn’t have thoughts or feelings about Natalie, Deek, or Chad. I truly didn’t, but Hunter. My little brother was a different story. The problem was Natalie. Well, the problem was all of them, but mostly Natalie. She never approved of Donna, and that cloud of judgment extended to me.

  Once my head got clear, I thought long and hard about when I lived with them, and after Donna died. It took a bit to understand it, but it was hard to explain it. Sasha got it. She met Chad, who ditched her after finding out that I was her roommate. I was the one who had to break that to her, and it hadn’t been pretty. She was hurting because of him, but she also wanted to rip his head off because of me. I loved my girl, but back to the whole shitbag of Natalie and Deek.

  It was when I was trying to explain it to Melanie one night that I was starting to piece it together myself.

  “Melanie. I lived on the streets.”

  She’d been tipsy that night. It was martini night and she swung her martini to the left, her eyes rolling to the right. “So?”

  “So.” We were talking about our families and she didn’t understand how I couldn’t have one.

  Because I didn’t.

  Donna told me her parents were dead. She had no siblings. She never talked about aunts or uncles. And well, with Deek…

  “Your dad just abandoned you? He brought you in and then what? Paid for your college and you never talked to him again? That makes no sense.”

  “Well.” From Sasha.

  Melanie lifted her pinkie finger at her. “Don’t start with the one-word explanations. I’ve had way too many martinis to even start thinking that game is fun.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thank you.”

  And Melanie swung her head back to me. “Your dad’s rich. Why aren’t you rolling in dough yourself?”

  Because that would make sense to Melanie, who came from a family where everyone shared everything. She moved to Kansas for school and fell in love with the city. She stayed so we got Melanie, but she lost her family life. They all lived in Texas, though they came up six times a year.

  We were heading into winter so the next time they’d
come up would be end of spring.

  Their family was Italian so when her family visited, there were carbs. Lots and lots of carbs, and my stomach was shifting, growling, because apparently I needed some carbs today.

  But I kept digressing and that was a normal thing for me, because well; because it’s me.

  It’s how I’m programmed.

  But back to Melanie who didn’t understand that sometimes people you share blood with could be strangers and I was trying to explain that. Sasha gave up long ago, but her family situation wasn’t much better. No. It was, but that was a whole other ordeal itself. Her family lived in Jersey and her mom did nails and her dad ran a pool hall.

  Finally, I broke it down. “You know those assholes who look down on homeless people?”

  Melanie took a sip of her martini. “Yeah?” Her eyes were narrowed. She knew I was going somewhere with this.

  I did. “Natalie was one of those people. Me coming into her house didn’t change anything. As far as she figured, she was just housing a street teenager.”

  Of course, I never considered myself someone who lived on the streets. It’s just where I hung out when Donna was on a bender or when she locked me out. And sometimes those times lasted longer than a day, or a week, or a month, but to someone like me, and how I was, I was just giving my mother space while she sorted her latest drug habit.

  “That’s…” Melanie made a face, her cheeks stretching tight. She put her martini down. “…awful.”

  That was my life. I wasn’t one to dwell, so I didn’t.

  I moved on, like focusing on Cut Ryder.

  But fast-forward to today and my mind was going in circles and my stomach was in my chest. My heart was beating through my bladder.

  I didn’t dwell on my family, but coming to Cut’s hockey game and I couldn’t help but start dwelling.

  I didn’t like to dwell.

  It never led me anywhere good.

  But I was here. At his game.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have come?

  Maybe so, but I was here. My season seats were a few rows above where the players came out. Normally I never worried about them looking up, which they did on occasion. But none of them knew who I was. At least not before Friday night. There was no reason for me to even care in the past. The only person I would’ve hid from was Chad, and he wasn’t on the team. So no worries then, but it was a bit different this game.