Page 57 of Return

Dean’s stomach tightened. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping like this, but he couldn’t make himself walk away.

“Why not?” Ellie asked.

“It only happened two days ago,” McKenna explained. “Between the proposal and the road trip, we just haven’t had the chance. We’re going to text him in a couple of days and invite him out to dinner. Until then, we’re not telling anyone else.”

Dean let out a slow breath.

No one else knew. Ellie was the only exception.

Dean wasn’t sure why it mattered so much that they wanted him to hear the news before they announced it to the rest of the world, but it did.

Ellie was as confused by Dean over the delay. “Why wait a couple of days?”

McKenna snorted. “We want to give him some time to get over that road trip. Tank would prefer it if Dean was in a good mood when we drop the engagement bomb on him.” He could tell from her tone that she was kidding. Even so…

Dean wanted to be offended by their reasoning, but he couldn’t.

The team was just coming off two brutal overtime losses, two games they’d come within inches of stealing before everything unraveled in sudden death.

“Probably a good plan,” Ellie agreed. “That man lives and breathes hockey, to the exclusion of everything else.”

Dean’s shoulders tightened when McKenna said, “Yeah.”

“He always has,” Ellie added, without an ounce of accusation or anger in her tone. She was just stating the facts as she saw them, and the worst part was…she was right.

Hockey had always come first.

Always.

For him, there was always another game to prepare for, another player to scout, another crisis to deal with.

His thoughts drifted to two nights ago. The team had just dropped that second overtime game during the road trip. Frustrated and exhausted, he’d called Vivian from his hotel room. For nearly twenty minutes, he had paced the floor while complaining about the blown opportunities, defensive breakdowns, and how the fucking puck refused to bounce their way.

By the time he came up for air, he realized she’d barely said anything in response. When he’d asked her what was wrong, she tried to brush him off, saying it was nothing.

He’d persisted until she finally told him the truth.

That day would’ve been Phil’s thirty-first birthday. That was when she admitted she’d taken the day off from work and driven to the cemetery. He’d heard the hitch in her voice.

There he’d been, narcissistically prattling on about a stupid hockey game, while Vivian was in pain.

The conversation was more difficult after that, because he didn’t know what to say, excruciatingly aware there was nothing he could do to comfort her from halfway across the country. They’d said goodbye, and he’d spent the rest of the night wishing he could be with her, to hold her and let her cry on his shoulder.

Instead, she’d been left to grieve alone.

That was when he tried to figure something out; if he’d known that day was coming up, would he have done anything differently? Could he have done anything differently? He was the coach. It wasn’t like he could just skip games.

Now, he hadn’t seen Vivian in eight days, thanks to schedules that refused to cooperate.

Then he considered Ellie’s comment again. For the first time in forever, hockey hadn’t been the only thing consuming his thoughts. Maybe that was progress. But was it enough progress?

Inside the office, Ellie’s voice floated into the hallway again. “So, how’s your ankle?”

Dean frowned.

“Still a little swollen, but overall, it’s fine. Even so, I’m thinking about milking it a little longer,” McKenna replied lightly.

“Why?” Ellie asked.