Page 96 of Thin Ice

“What do you think it would have been like?” I ask.

“Two men playing D1 hockey with goals of playing professionally?” He exhales on a wry laugh. “I think it would have been hard.”

He’s right; it would have been. Just with Quinn and I, it was difficult, and we both had to make a lot of sacrifices. It was especially hard for Quinn when I left school after sophomore year to officially join the Stormbreakers in Seattle.

“True, but I think you would have made it better.”

I tentatively reach out to where Beck has his arm resting on the chair. When he doesn’t pull back, I take his middle finger in mine and lock them together.

His lips lift in a quiet, affectionate smile. “You give me too much credit. Who knows what would have happened? Maybe we both would have ended up being assholes.”

“You would have kept me in line, just like Quinn has.” I may have fucked up our relationship, but she’s always kept me grounded, never allowing my head to get too big or any sort of notoriety or money to turn me into the kind of asshole my dad is. Not only because she dislikes him as much as I do but because her upbringing wasn’t like mine.

Like Beck, Quinn didn’t grow up in a wealthy family. She worked her ass off to pay for college and never takes the privileged life we lead together for granted. If I ever show any signs of “small dick energy,” she calls me out on it.

Beck’s finger grips mine. “No point in imagining. Even if it did happen, maybe the universe’s grand plan was for me to never play hockey, and I would have ended up injured regardless. Or maybe we wouldn’t have met Quinn or broken up anyway once we played professionally.”

“There’s no way to know, but I’m sorry it wasn’t our future.”

“It’s not like you had control over the college I went to or my injury.”

“No, but I’m still sorry. More importantly, I need you to know that I meant everything in my apology last night: I’m sorry for what I said and how much I screwed things up.”

“I know,” he replies, low and gravelly. “But it’s in the past now.”

“You mean that?”

“I do.”

A ten-year weight lifts off my shoulders as the sun shines over us and birds begin to chirp their morning songs. The light highlights the laugh lines beginning to form around his lips and a small frown line in the middle of his forehead.

The relief at finally being forgiven is replaced by a bone-deep regret that I wasn’t there to see what made him laugh all these years. I wasn’t there to soothe the frown line, either, and I was likely part of the reason he has one at twenty-eight.

“Why do you look sad?” Beck asks.

“Thinking about the time we missed.” I look down at our locked fingers. “And…”

“And?”

I spot a glass of water he must have brought with him on the ground near his feet, a reminder of the question swirling in my head.

“I want to ask you something, but you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He removes his finger from mine, but to my surprise, he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he flips my hand over and starts to trace the lines of my palm. “Sounds serious.”

His soothing touch relaxes me enough that I don’t hold back. “Can you share with me why you don’t drink?”

“Ah,” he says. “I could tell you wanted to ask me last night.”

“I did.”

He sighs. “When things in my life got bad, I turned to alcohol.”

I draw my brows together. “I don’t mean to sound pompous, but was it because I ended things?”

He shakes his head. “I was depressed after what went down between us, but the drinking started in college, my freshman year. It was just casual at first, mostly at parties, but it picked up after my injury.”

My gut aches, and I once again find myself wishing I could go back in time and change things. “How bad did it get?”