Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
My chest tightens, just slightly. “Eight. My father’s idea initially—it was the right sport for a boy in my family. Traditional. Physical. He came to exactly one game.”
“And your mother?”
“Never.”
The word sits there, harshly reverberating.
Livia doesn’t rush to fill the silence and I’m grateful for that because I need a second to reorganize all the emotions that her questions keep dislodging.
“But you loved it,” she says finally. It’s not a question.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I think about how to answer honestly without giving her more than she’s owed under this arrangement. “Because when I was on the ice, nothing else existed. Whatever was happening at home, whatever was missing… none of it followed me onto the ice.” I look at her directly. “It was the one place I didn’t have to be anything except what I actually was.”
Livia goes very still considering that.
“You played Major Junior,” she says. “What about the billet families you lived with? You mentioned them at Thanksgiving.”
I go slightly still because she’s straying.
“What about them?”
“You were placed with a family to live.” She keeps her voice neutral. “For a kid who grew up the way you did, that must have been a significant adjustment.”
“It was fine.”
“Did you bond with any of them?”
“I mean… I respected them. I got along fine with them. Do I still keep in contact with any of them? Sure. Like I’ll get Christmas cards or the occasional email.”
“But you must’ve gotten a glimpse of a different type of family unit than what you came from. To my way of thinking, billet families do what they do to offer their family unit to make boys living away from home feel safe and secure.”
“And there’s a stipend, don’t forget,” I point out.
She rolls her eyes at me. “You know what I mean. What was it like seeing a different type of family than the one you had? And I use the word family loosely in that respect.”
I breathe out through my nose and admit the problem. “It was a lot to adjust to.” The words come out quieter than I intend. “First family, I was fourteen. They had two other billet players and three kids of their own and it was—” I stop, trying to reach back for the feelings. “It was loud. Full. The kind of house where people just walked into each other’s rooms and nobody thought twice about it. I didn’t know what to do with that.”
“Because you’d never had it.”
“Because I’d never had it,” I confirm, and I hate how simple that sentence is and how much it contains.
“Did it get easier? Subsequent billet families?”
“Some.” I shift in the chair, and it occurs to me… it’s not so difficult opening up on this subject. “I kept more distance after the first one. It was easier that way.”
“Why easier?”
I look at her. “Because billet situations end. Season’s over, you move on, they take the next kid.” I hold her gaze. “Getting close to people who are temporary is just a specific kind of loss you sign up for voluntarily. I stopped signing up for it.”
I watch her face while she writes more notes. I’ve been watching her long enough to read the small things. The slight tension at the corner of her mouth. The way her pen slows when she’s touched by what she hears.
She knows she’s getting close to a revelation. I can feel it the way you feel a change in pressure before a storm.
“The attachment difficulty,” she says, looking up. “You’ve obviously carried it into your adult relationships. Teammates… maybe romantic relationships?”
“We’re getting near the edge of what I agreed to,” I say.
“We’re still on family.”
“No, romantic relationships are definitely not family.”
She blinks at me. “Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”
I’m surprised by the question. She knows it’s not within the confines of our agreed-upon subject, but the curiosity I see in her eyes goes beyond professional.
I can’t help but tease. “Why… are you wondering if you’re going to be the future Mrs. Locke Donovan?”
She snorts and shakes her head. “Hardly. But I can’t help my curiosity about if you are able to form personal attachments outside of family and hockey, the two areas you struggle with.”
I lean back in the chair and look at her, letting the silence marinate a bit. She’s close to breaching our agreement and it’s making me feel spicy. “How did it feel?” I ask her, my voice dropping low. “Coming on my hand in my car.”
The color that moves into her face is immediate and she can’t stop it, which is the most satisfying thing I’ve seen in a while. She holds my gaze though. Doesn’t look away, doesn’t stutter, doesn’t reach for the professional composure like a shield.
“I liked it,” she says. Simple and direct, and the admission makes my dick twitch. “More than I should have.”