Page 107 of With the Assist

“I’m not brooding.” I stare straight ahead at the concrete and glass. “I’m thinking.”

“That’s worse,” she replies. “Thinking never goes well for you.”

I shake my head, a smile tugging at my mouth despite myself. “What do you want?”

“Well,” she says lightly, “I was going to ask how lunch with Ryan went, but then I opened my phone and saw that little press clip from a couple weeks ago. You know the one where you announced your girlfriend. You’ve been avoiding me since then, so I figured I’d start there.”

My grip tightens on the phone. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, that’s why you’ve been sending me to voicemail,” she teases. “Mom and Dad are hassling me for details. It was adorable for about thirty seconds, but after weeks it’s become deeply annoying.”

I sigh. “You can tell them you don’t know anything.”

“I have,” she says. “That hasn’t stopped them. They’ve upgraded from curious to invested, which means they’re asking me when you’re bringing her home for dinner so they can interrogate you directly.”

“I’m not bringing her home.” Nausea churns in my gut.

“Mmhmm,” my sister hums. “You could come alone then.”

“You know we don’t get along,” I add, the words automatic and well-worn.

There’s a reason I don’t go home as often as I should. A reason why dinners feel more like obligations than comfort.

“I know,” she says carefully. “But at some point, you’re going to have to deal with that. All of it. You can’t keep circling around it forever.”

I stare out the windshield, jaw tight. “This is not the time.”

“When is? Because from where I’m standing, you having a girlfriend might actually help. At the very least, it’ll force everyone to stop dancing around it all.”

I almost tell her that it’s fake and nothing more than an arrangement that ends in January. It’s rules and an end date with no realfuture in sight, which means telling my parents about her would only serve to make things worse.

Most people assume that my parents are proud. After all, parents should want their kids to reach their dreams. And what parents wouldn’t support their son playing a professional sport if they were good enough to do it and loved it enough to commit?

Well, mine.

They expected me to be married, settled with kids, and in the family business by now. As if I could ever love insurance the way I love hockey. If they knew my contract was on the ropes, they’d throw a party.

Don’t get me wrong. They love me. They care about me. They just think I chose something silly to spend my life doing. This silly little game prevents me from finding true fulfillment, which for them is a family, kids, and a life without press coverage.

It’s a fundamental and age-old argument that’s driven the wedge so deep I’m not sure it’s possible to bridge the gap. I do hate that Delaney is stuck in the middle, though.

The words sit right there, ready. Tell her it’s fake.

Instead, I say, “I might’ve blown it.”

Her tone shifts immediately. “Okay. That’s different.”

“She doesn’t want anything serious.” I struggle to explain while staying vague about the details. “She was clear about that from the start. And I agreed. But now…”

“But now you caught feelings,” she finishes.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

I rub a hand over my face. “She wants no strings. That’s it.”

“And can you handle that?”