by Tijan
Cut: Good. How’s Melanie?
Me: She’ll be okay, I think.
Cut: How are you?
Me: Easy peasy. I got Taco Belly tonight, so all is right with the worldy.
Cut: You know what I mean.
A pause.
Me: I really liked the distraction tonight.
Cut: Me too.
Me: I didn’t know I’d wake you up. I’m sorry. Go to bed so I can enjoy my fiesta potatoes guilt-free.
Cut: Will do.
Cut: Cheyenne?
Me: Still here. I’m eyeing the chicken quesadilla instead.
Cut: Your whole ‘idea’ thing? I hope it wasn’t just an idea.
Me: Damn. I’m going for the cinnamon twists instead now.
Me: You’re making me a girl.
Me: I’m really looking forward to some Cut Reaper Ryder tomorrow night. Sorry. Tonight.
Cut: Lol. Okay. Night.
An hour later,
Me: It wasn’t just an idea.
31
Cut
Hendrix sat next to me and bent over to finish tying up his skates.
It was before the game, we were heading out to start warm-ups. This was our normal thing. Hendrix and I were close, and we were close enough that when he glanced sideways at me, still tying up his skates, I knew I wouldn’t like whatever was coming my way.
“Heard we’re heading back to your girl’s Come place.”
“Shut up.” But that was funny. “And don’t say it that way either.”
He finished tying and sat back up. “Like what?”
“You know. Don’t be a douche.”
He broke, laughing. “Right. But we’re heading back for some party thing next week. After we get back from our away game.” He pulled on his shin guards, then reached for his tape. “How’s that going to go?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. Come Our Way. You. Your girl. The guy who wants to get in her pants.”
I was thinking, remembering. That first night flashed in my mind. “He works with her? That guy?”
Hendrix’s grin was slow and smug. “He does. He’s the one setting everything up.”
Of course.
Jesus Christ.
Of course.
I shook my head.
I didn’t need another problem on hand, but it was good to know. “Thanks.”
He dipped his head down.
We finished suiting up, and by unspoken agreement, both stood and headed out for warm-ups.
It was game-mode time now.
32
Cheyenne
I woke up with a gnawing in my stomach. I didn’t like it.
Bones are supposed to be gnawed on, not my stomach. I figure I had that feeling for a reason, so I was about to do something. I didn’t want to do this at Come Our Way. The weekend staff was on, and they were mostly college kids looking to do good. I didn’t want them to feel the same ‘not good’ feeling I was having, and I knew Dean was a hockey fanboy, so here we were.
I was waiting for him on the side street before heading down to the arena. Dean was supposed to be coming since he was going to the game after this.
I heard a car door shut. A beep. And I turned, there he was. Just finishing locking up his car, and he waved, jogging around and over to me. Eyeing his sweater, he didn’t have a right to wear Cut’s number, but I kept that fact to myself.
Dean had no idea about Cut. He had no idea about anything except his job and wanting to get the word out as much as possible, and getting as much funding in as he could get. Those were both good goals, but he went about it the wrong way this time.
“Hey, Cheyenne.” The wind picked up, blowing some of his hair around and he raised a hand up, smoothing it down before putting both his hands in his pockets. “What’s up?”
“You had no authority to send out those invites for a charity gala.”
Straight to business. We had a hockey game to get to.
He blinked a few times. “Whoa. Okay. I didn’t think you’d actually care that much. I just figured it was a one-time—”
“You sent those invites out and you opened up a hornet’s nest for me. No authority. None. You fucked up.”
This was always my favorite time.
Someone did something wrong, and now was when they either owned up to it or …
He scowled. “Are you kidding me? You can’t come at me—”
I stopped listening.
I knew what path he’d chosen.
He chose wrong, but he didn’t want to feel the bad for making a bad call. Therefore, he was now going to either deflect, attack, or say some excuse. The excuses were the best because the ingenuity was the genius. If an excuse was given, somehow it’d lead back to the person wronged and how everything was actually their fault.
Somehow him not getting my approval for the event would be my fault.
Him sending out those invites would be my fault.
Newsflash. None of this was my fault.
I interrupted whatever he was saying. “Company policy is that you needed a unanimous decision. I am one of those voices. I never gave approval. You violated a company policy.”
He started talking again. I tuned in, hearing, “If you’d just—”
I tuned out again. He was now attacking.
Me again. “No matter how you spin this where I’m at fault, you know I’m not. You fucked up. You.”
He stopped, his face all red and puffy, and he clamped his mouth shut.
He was seeing me, seeing I didn’t give a fuck what he was going to say, and then he growled. “If you had explained why—”
“No. This is where you don’t get the floor. I will be bringing you in front of the board.”
“What?! You can’t—”
“I can. Now.” I gave him my ticket. “Enjoy the hockey game.”
I was going, but I wasn’t sitting in my seats. Sasha and Melanie were pulling ranks. They wanted to enjoy the game with me, so after Dean looked down, frowning at my ticket, he crumpled it up and stalked off. Sasha and Melanie stepped out from around the corner.
Melanie frowned at me. “You gave him your ticket?”
I nodded.
Sasha was frowning, too. “Why?”
“I told him to come down, that he could go to the game if he wanted. He said yes, but he didn’t know that I was going to ambush him.”
“Cassie told me that you have season tickets. That seat is going to be better than any seat we all get together.”
I shrugged.
Sasha was giving me a harder look, her eyebrows pulled together. “You’re setting him up.”
Melanie glanced at her, then to me. “Huh?”
I only shrugged again, but I was.
I would lose if I brought this to the board. They wouldn’t be happy Dean didn’t get my approval, but they would deem his cause was worth it. I didn’t want that precedent. And after Dean found out my family connections next Saturday, I didn’t want him doing something like this again, because he would. He would find out about myself and Cut, and that’d make it so much worse.
I was doing this to get in his head.
I wanted him to feel bad.
I wanted him to feel indebted to me.
I also wanted it to look on paper that if I was actually upset with him, why would I give him my season tickets, because at some point down the line, this could be a him versus me sort of thing, and even though I wrote the grant to get Come Our Way so much money in the first place, it was Dean who continued to bring in more money. The board for Come Our Way liked Dean, a lot, and they should.
But I didn’t like how he went over my head. There’d be consequences.
“Let’s go to the game.”
“Wait.” Melanie grasped both our arms, stopping us. “What if Cassie sees me?”
I frowned.
Sasha inclined her head. “That was the point.”
“I know, but…” Melanie flushed, glancing away. “I’m ju
st really nervous to see her.”
Sasha took her hand from her arm and held it a second. “You’ll be fine. Cassie will see you and know she’s made a dumb mistake.”
“You’re right.” Her head lifted a bit higher and she squeezed my arm before letting it go. “Let’s go.”
Turns out, that’s not what happened.
33
Cheyenne
The game was insane.
They were tied at one to one. The Bravado were pushing hard back at the Mustangs. Cut’s line was tired. The second line was tired. The third. Fourth. All of them. There were so many shots on goal, too, so I could only imagine how tired the goalies were.
I was tired just from the stress of the game, but we were in the third period. Just starting. There’d been no Cassie sightings. I saw Cut looking for me in my normal seats, then skate past when he saw Dean there instead. He had crumpled up my ticket, but I knew he’d still use it.
As seats went, we didn’t get too bad considered we got them the day of the game. With each game that passed, with how well they were doing, this wouldn’t be a thing that could happen soon. Each game would be sold out days, if not weeks, before the game. That’s just how it was. I knew the box seats were gone the first day any opened up, and that was if they weren’t already bought from a years-hold which happened. A lot.
Either way, it was fun to sit and cheer with Melanie and Sasha.
Sasha informed us that she did not want to talk about Chad. Nut-Brother was a douchebag of epic proportions, so we were in the one-word zone during the game.
I asked now, “I’m going to hit the bathroom before things get super nuts. I’m walking by the concessions. Want anything?”
“Beer.”
I looked at Melanie. She shook her head. “I’m good. Just hurry back.”
“Will do.” I pushed out our row and headed up the stairs for the hallway.
It was after the bathroom, after I went to get beer for Sasha, when I was turning back to head for my seat.
Cup in hand, I was walking past a wall.
I didn’t think anything of it, not at first.
It was a transparent wall, more of a boundary for crowd control. People walked one way if they were leaving the seats and returned on the side where I was.
A man and a teenager were heading from their seats, and I wasn’t paying attention. Or with me being on my meds, I was enjoying that I wasn’t paying attention. I could do that now, but then the teenager ground to a halt.
I noticed that. It was odd, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I kept going.
The man stopped, turned back. I heard, “Hunter?”
And that, that had me paying attention.
My head whipped back. The teenager was staring at me, mouth hanging open, and he was gaping at me. He was on the other side of the wall, maybe ten feet away, and I was slammed back from a force inside of me.
It was Hunter.
It was my brother.
Then, a third male was coming after that.
I tagged him from my periphery, and I noticed his walk first. I knew that walk, but I didn’t know it enough. It was teasing me, nagging at me, but back to the teenager.
Holy—I was taking him in. Looking at everything.
His eyes.
His hair. Brownish with blond streaks.
His little nose.
How clear his skin was. Youthful. Young.
He had an athlete’s build.
He was wearing Cut’s number.
This was my brother, but he was older. He was a teenager now.
He wasn’t the ten-year-old I remembered, the kid I squatted down to brush knuckles with at my mom’s funeral.
The back of my mind already identified the man—and the other guy coming toward us—Chad. And my father. That’s what made sense, but I didn’t care about them. I was busy taking in my brother when the other two stopped, took in what was going on, and closed ranks.
Literally.
Chad and Deek stepped in front of Hunter, and a growl came from me. It was automatic. I didn’t know I was going to growl until I heard it, and then I wanted to growl again. I swung my gaze to Chad and stepped toward the wall. “Move!”
He blanched, then shook his head. “Can’t, Cheyenne.”
I surged toward the wall, my heart surging with me, and I slammed my hand against it. Palm flat. One hard pound. Not a slap, a pound. This was the street side of me. This was the part that was still inside of me. I growled again, “Move.”
His eyes went wide, but he took a deep breath and held firm. “I can’t.”
But it didn’t matter.
Hunter had moved to the side, around his dad. “Cheyenne.”
I grimaced, shoving the street in me back down, and I went over to him. “Hey. Hey there.”
We’d exchanged pictures. I didn’t have social media accounts, but I used Come Our Way’s Instagram page to follow his. I’d seen him grow up over the years, but it’d been too long. Way too long.
“You got big.”
“Hunter.” His dad moved in, throwing me a sideways look, but his tone was half hushed and half cautious. I didn’t spare Deek a look, and he knew why. Before his call to the Mustangs, I might’ve been welcoming, but he made his choice.
“Dad, stop! She’s your kid, too.”
Deek threw me another look, but he ducked his head and moved back a step.
Chad came up. He took in Hunter, me, and sighed. He put his arm around Deek’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s grab this little punk a beer, because apparently he thinks he’s an adult.”
Hunter rolled his eyes up. “Har har. Don’t be sour because she actually wants to talk to me.”
Chad laughed, pulling Deek with him.
Hunter laughed, too.
They exchanged lighthearted punches to their arms, but then Chad was heading away. Deek was stiff next to him, and Chad glanced over his shoulder at me. Hunter had already turned back, so only I saw the very real and very serious warning in those eyes.
He didn’t trust me.
I hadn’t thought much about Chad before. What I said to Cut had been the truth, but now I was doubly grateful because if I had cared, that look would’ve filleted me. As it was, I turned to the only one standing in front of me that could hurt me, but I knew he wouldn’t.
“You’re the Koala Man now.”
Hunter laughed, ducking his head down. He ran a hand over the back of his head, giving his hair a little shake before dropping it back down. His head went back up and he shifted on his legs. Feet apart. He was giving me the cocky athlete stance. “I play hockey, too.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m like Cut. First line.”
He was damn proud of it. I could tell.
I hadn’t gone to any of his games, obviously. I knew what school he went to. He’d told me over email. I knew of two girls he was interested in. I knew his friends’ names. I knew he liked his school, but he missed where he had been. I knew he had two best friends there whom he really missed, and one was a girl, and that girl was someone he thought he could have feelings for. I also knew that he was shutting it down because he was here, not there.
And I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that did Deek know? Did Natalie know?
I was betting not that much.
“You’re liking it?”
Some of the cockiness faded, and his hands came out of his pockets. He nodded. “Yeah.” He started eyeing the wall between us. “I’d say you should sit with us so we could catch up, but knowing—” He nodded to the side where Chad and Deek were still in line for beer. “—I bet they’d actually shit their pants, huh?”
Melanie would like him.
I grinned. “Yeah, but imagine how smelly their shits would be if you gave them the slip and sat with me instead?”
Hunter laughed a little louder, his shoulders eased a bit more, too. “That would be almost worth it.” He got somber, his smile fading. “I don’t get their problem. They a
ct like—”
I knew.
They acted like I was my mother.
I changed the subject on purpose. “Do you get to see Deek a lot?”
He shrugged, and his face closed up. “Every now and then”
So he was saying he didn’t. Which was interesting since Deek moved out here because of Hunter.
“How’s your mom doing?”
His face opened back up a little, a small grin showing. “She’s good. I mean, as good as can be. It’s Mom, you know.” His face shuddered. “Or, I mean, no. She’s not your mom. She’s Natalie. Chad would understand.”
I was nodding, going with it. “I’m sure he would. I bet he’d have a whole joke to insert. I don’t. I’m sorry.” Gah. I wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. “I just don’t know Natalie that well, you know?”
His eyes grew fierce. “You would if she gave you a chance. Fucking Nata—”
“Hey!”
He stopped, his eyes widening at my sharp tone.
I eased it back, a little. “Sorry. Just…she’s your mom. Appreciate her.”
We never went serious in our emails. Everything was light and joking, and it hadn’t been a hardship. Seeing him now, though; seeing the changes, seeing what I missed out on, it was a little harder to remain all surface-level here.
I was swallowing some bitterness, and I didn’t usually feel that.
“You, uh, you look good. You seem different, too.” He inched forward toward the wall, dropping his tone. “It’s not right that I didn’t see you all those years. I’ve talked to Dad and Mom about it, but I don’t care what they say. It’s not right. We should’ve…”
“Hey.” I tapped the wall.
He was blaming himself. He shouldn’t do that.
“Hey.”
He paused, frowning at me, but I saw the fight still there. He was torn.
“Your parents had reasons for keeping me away.”
He snorted. “Maybe in the beginning, because they were worried about your mom’s influence, but not later. You were in college and I was…” He trailed off because he was still growing up.