Fall With Me (Playing For Keeps Book 4)

It’s a five-minute drive to the arena, and I panic for all of it.

I worry that Ryne will come back while I’m gone.

That Lennon will come to some grand realization, the one I keep waiting for her to come to, and she’ll stop waiting for me to get my shit together.

And I worry about what Garrett’s going to say in the safety of his car.

But when we pull into his parking space at Rogers Arena, he still hasn’t said a word.

“Um, did you . . .” I shift in my seat “. . . wanna say something?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.”

He waits for me to get out, then falls in step beside me as we head for the doors. Then he stops.

“You know what? Actually, yeah, I do wanna say something. You can want some space. You’re entitled to it. But you’re one of my best friends, and I consider you my family. Not only does it hurt when you ignore my calls and messages, but it makes me worry.”

I want to deny it, argue that the only person who’s ever worried about me is my gran. But I see it. Etched between his eyes, the same ones that bounce between mine, beg me to hear what he’s saying. In the tension stacked in his shoulders, the hands curled into fists at his sides. So instead of arguing, I stay quiet.

“Need some space? Cool. Take ten seconds to text me back and let me know you’re safe and you’ll contact me when you’re ready. I know you’re going through it right now, Jaxon, and I know you think you have to do it alone. But you don’t. So if you don’t wanna talk, that’s okay. I’ll sit beside you in silence so you know you’re not alone. That’s what family does.”

I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say. I want to tell him everything. How terrified I am that one day, when I go, they’ll have no choice but to leave me in the past and move on, no matter how slow they do it. How desperately I want this to work out exactly the opposite of every time before this. Not just with Lennon, but with all of them.

And I don’t know how to put that into words without laying all of me on the line.

The truth is . . . I’m afraid to be vulnerable. I’m afraid to tell them how much they mean to me. How much I love them. Because I do. These guys have a special, once-in-a-lifetime way about them, the way they accept each other so wholly and without question, show up for each other day in and day out. It’s rare to find that, and I can’t accept that somehow, after all these years, I’ve found it. Surely, I can’t be lucky enough to keep it.

So “I’m sorry” is what I tell him. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. I’ll text you next time.”

“Thank you.” He pulls his phone out while we walk through the halls, heading to the conference room. “Carter’s gonna be ten times worse than me, by the way. He’s been acting like he’s getting dumped all week.” He sighs, typing a message out before tucking his phone away. “He really doesn’t handle rejection well.”

“What do you mean?”

Another sigh. “You’ll see.”

I can’t imagine what he’s done that I’ll—oh. I stop in the doorway of the conference room, where Carter is dressed from head to toe in black. A black hoodie, hood up over his black baseball cap. Black sweatpants, even though we’re now in June, and it’s seventy-two degrees outside. “Is he going to a funeral or something?” I whisper to Garrett.

“Or something. He said he’s in mourning, and he’s wearing all black, like the shadow over his aching heart.” Garrett points at me. “That’s an exact quote.”

Carter’s eyes coast the room, and when they land on me, he leaps to his feet. “Jaxon! Jaxon!” He waves aggressively, as if I could possibly miss him, then shoves Adam out of his seat and straight to his ass, pointing at the now-empty chair. “I saved you a seat. Here. Right here.” He pats my back when I cautiously make my way over, then shoves me down into the chair. “Next to me.”

“What’s with the hood?”

“Oh, this?” He rips it off, spins his hat so it’s on backward. “Just vibing. You know how it is.” He claps his hands, thumbing at the tables running along the back wall. “Want me to make you a plate? I’ll make you a plate.” He disappears before I can tell him I’m not hungry, and Adam’s just finally dragging himself to his feet, plopping down in the chair beside me.

He frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. “He could’ve just asked me to move.” His gaze slides to me, softening. He squeezes my shoulder. “Love you, buddy.”

An arm comes around me from behind, putting me in some sort of headlock. Emmett presses a loud kiss to my head. “Love you.”

Garrett plops into the seat to my right. “You already know I love you.”

“Garrett!” Carter shrieks from where he’s loading up two plates with food. “Out! Get out! I’m sitting beside Jaxon!”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he mutters as he shifts into another seat. “Coulda sworn Olivia only gave birth to one baby.”

I snicker, then fold my lips together when I realize it. They’re good. Fuck, they’re so good at making me forget. At making everything feel normal. At making everything feel light again. It’s effortless, too, like all they had to do was walk into the room and turn on the light.

Our GM pops his head into the room, and it quiets. “Hey, guys,” Axel says.

Carter stops on his way back to his seat, and I swear he puffs his chest out. “Axel.” He flicks his head up. “Hey.”

He’s trying to be intimidating, but the smirk Axel wears says intimidated is the last thing he feels. They’ve been doing this little dance for a while now, since Jennie’s studio opening when Axel asked Carter’s mom to dance, and then to have dinner with him.

“Apologies, but we’re running a bit late. Hang in here if you want, go for a walk, whatever. Be back in a half hour.”

The five of us stay seated while the rest of the team disperses, grabbing snacks on their way out the door. Axel salutes us before he turns to leave.

“Oh, hey,” Carter calls after him. “My mom told me to tell you she can’t make your date tonight. She’s busy, and also, she doesn’t wanna.”

“Oh, hey,” Axel calls back. “Your mom told me to tell you she can’t make it to your place for breakfast tomorrow morning. She’s busy, and also, she’s my breakfast.”

Carter gasps. “How dare you!” He shoves the plates into my hands and dashes to the doorway, poking his head out. “Holly Beckett is an angel!”

“Holly Beckett is my angel!” Axel yells back.

“Unbelievable,” Carter mutters, sinking down beside me as Adam, Emmett, and Garrett head to the snack table. He tears one of the plates from my hands. “These were both supposed to be for you, but now I’m worked up.” He shoves a sprinkle doughnut in his mouth. “I wa’ gonna make ’nana pancakes fo’ him fo’ bweakfast tomowwow, ’cause he wikes dem.” He swallows, licking his fingers. “He can forget it now.”

“I always wanted to be bilingual,” Emmett murmurs. “Never dreamed the second language I’d learn would be Carter with his mouth full.”

Adam sighs. “We’re all fluent in it.”

“Jennie knows it better than anyone, though,” Garrett says. “Every once in a while, I’m like, what the fuck did you just say? And Jennie will just repeat Carter’s entire sentence like it was in perfect English, never misses a beat. A lifetime of practice, she always says when I ask her how.”

“Ollie’s getting pretty good at it,” Carter says.

“She has no choice,” Emmett reminds him. “She wants to spend the rest of her life with you. Cara’s constantly reminding her that’s the path she chose.”

“Rosie thinks it’s cute when we talk with our mouths full.” Adam shrugs. “She says it’s adorable that we all have this sort of secret language, and that we spend so much time together, we have no choice but to become like each other.”

“I’m terrified of losing Lennon and everything I love in my life,” I blurt out, and holy fucking fuck, it feels so damn good.

The room goes silent, and I stare down at the plate in my shaking hands, my knuckles white from how tight my grip is on the flimsy cardboard.

“Oh my God,” Carter breathes out, shaky and barely audible over the thud of my pulse. “It’s happening,” he whispers. “Britney’s Bitches . . . assemble.”

Somewhere I’m conscious of the soft shuffle of feet as the guys ditch their plates, make their way back over to us. Chairs shift, turning to face me, and my friends surround me as they take a seat, waiting for me, for whatever scraps I’m willing to give them. For the first time since Bryce died, I want to give them everything. I want to trust someone with all my pieces, even the ones no one’s ever loved. I want someone to help me carry them, because I’m too damn tired to carry them on my own anymore.

So I swallow the tightness in my throat that feels a lot like fear, close my eyes, and jump.

“I’ve been trying . . . I’ve been trying so damn hard to be better, to be what people want. It’s never been enough. It’s never been right. I’ve never been right, not for anyone. And I’m just waiting for Lennon to realize that. To realize there’s someone better. Someone who follows instructions, doesn’t put his ass on the line every single time he steps on the ice because he can’t figure out how to stop using his fists.” I drop my face to my hands, running my fingers through my hair, tugging on the strands. “I forgot her name. I forgot her fucking name, because I couldn’t help it, couldn’t ignore a few words meant to get me worked up. And I tried. I swear to God, I really tried. I saw the look on her face the week before, saw the fear. And I didn’t want to be responsible for that again.” My chest rises sharply, my breath rattling against my rib cage. When I release it, my body sags with relief, eager to give up the fight. “I failed her. I’m gonna fail her over and over. And every time, I’m gonna wonder if this is it. If this is when she realizes I’m not worth it. If this is when she walks away, same as everyone else.”

Emotion clogs my throat, building behind my eyes. I lace my fingers together, resting my elbows on my thighs, chin on my hands, and I try to breathe through it. It’s sharp and painful, the tightness in my chest, stretching across my shoulders, churning in my stomach. It runs through my body, right down to my toes, and my feet move of their own accord, bouncing quickly. I close my eyes to the feeling, the urge to flee that always wins, and a single tear drips down my cheek.

“When I lost Bryce, the only solace I found was in thinking that life couldn’t get any worse. That I would never know another loss that would hurt me the way his did. And then his parents left. And when I withdrew into myself because I felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore, all my friends left, because I wasn’t the same person they’d known. And when I fought too much in LA, in Carolina, in Nashville, when the only thing I was good at became the risk teams weren’t willing to take anymore, when I got traded, I lost my friends, my family, all over again. They moved on, forgot about me, and I could never figure out what about me made it so easy for them to do it.”

Another tears slips out, followed by another, then one more. I swipe them away, but then Carter lays his hand on my back and something inside me breaks. Or maybe it was always broken, gripped tightly in my fists, bound by fear, fear of being judged. And by speaking it out loud, the fear slowly dissipates. It runs over my hands, gently prying my fingers loose. It sifts through the cracks like sand, spilling at my feet, finally free after all these years.

“It’s not just Lennon I’m afraid of losing,” I admit on a fractured whisper. “I never wanted to make Vancouver my home. I wanted to treat it the way I’d been treated all these years. I wanted to remember, for once, that no matter how much I’d grow to love it, no matter how many friends I made, how easy it was to convince myself I’d found a place here, that this wasn’t my home. That it never could be. Because one day, I’ll get traded. I won’t be worth it anymore, and I’ll have to get on a plane and leave all of this. Leave a family I try to convince myself every day doesn’t actually love me the way they seem to. Because I know what loss feels like, the kind where people become so intertwined with your life you can’t imagine it without them. And I am so fucking tired of getting my hopes up and putting myself through it, over and over again.” I pull in a deep breath, and my shoulders shake as I let it go. “It was supposed to be easier to push you all away before you could leave me.”

One moment, I’m sitting here, Carter’s hand on my back as I crack myself wide open, spill everything I’ve been holding on to for way too many years.

And then I’m on my feet, wrapped up in the middle of four men who wind their arms around me, holding me tight while I let it go.

Except it feels a lot like they’re hugging a twelve-year-old boy who lost his best friend, and somewhere along the way, himself.

For the first time in my life, I don’t have to hold myself up.

And nothing has ever wanted to make me fall to my knees more.

“You’re forcing it on yourself,” Emmett tells me as we break away, taking our seats again. “You’re so scared about the possibility of Lennon leaving, about not being enough of a reason for her to stay, that you’re forcing the loss on both of you. You think you’re gonna fuck up. You think you’ll be traded, you’ll make her upset, you’ll argue, and you think that she’s just going to up and leave because you’re not worth the fight. But have you ever stopped to ask her if she thinks you’re worth the fight?”

“Have you ever stopped to ask if we think you’re worth it?” Garrett looks me over, his gaze swimming with my pain. “Because for the last year and half we’ve been looking at a teammate and friend we call family, someone we can’t imagine our lives without, and you’ve had one foot out the door the entire time, waiting for things to end.”

“We’re all scared of things,” Carter murmurs. “It’s what you do with that fear that matters. You can spend your life pushing away the people who want to love you because you’re afraid one day you’ll lose them. Or you can cling to it. The love, the happiness, that full feeling that makes you realize how truly empty you were before them. Life is hard enough as it is. There’s no reason for any of us to do it alone.”

Adam meets my gaze, the emotion he holds there so palpable I feel the way it crawls over me, a hand at my back. “At the end of the day, the only person you need to be enough for is you. But for what it’s worth, you’ve always been enough for us too.”

The words crash into me at full speed, splintering apart, millions of tiny slivers that prick my skin, work their way underneath. I’ve spent so many years focused on other people’s opinions, I haven’t stopped to consider my own. And now? Now I’ve spent too many years focused on their words that they’ve become mine too.

Not outgoing enough. Not gentle enough. Not sensitive enough. Not resilient enough. Not disciplined enough. Not flexible enough. Not fast enough. Not memorable enough.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

When will I be enough?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years, a knife lodged in my chest, twisting itself deeper each time I dare ask. But the pain is nothing compared to the question I find myself asking right now.

Why am I not enough for myself?

“We’re not going anywhere, Jaxon,” Carter says. “All of us could be traded. We could be spread out across North America, and we are always going to come back to each other, because we’re family. Me, Garrett, Adam, Emmett. And you. You are part of this family. Sure, we didn’t have you two years ago. Now we do, and if we lost you, we’d never be complete again.”

I hang my head, trying to feel the words. To let them soak in. To believe them.

“I wanted to hate you,” Garrett whispers suddenly. “So badly, when you stepped off that plane, I wanted to hate you. And you made it impossible. Didn’t even fucking do anything, just showed up day after day, and then I was looking for you.” He drops his head, lacing his fingers together. “You were there for me when my dad almost relapsed. When I thought I was losing Jennie.”

“You’re there for the kids, reading them bedtime stories, carrying them on your back, making them feel safe,” Adam says.

“You’re there for the girls,” Emmett adds. “Day in and day out. Lending them your ears, holding them up when they need it.” He smiles. “Doing face masks and eating junk food and just giving them nights that make them so happy, have them forgetting about the hard stuff for a couple of hours.”

“You’ve been there for us every day, Jaxon.” Carter looks at his hands, wringing them between his knees. “On the ice, and everywhere else that matters. You’re always there.” His eyes come to mine. “Can’t do it without you.”

Emmett cocks his head. “What does Lennon deserve?”

Fuck. What doesn’t Lennon deserve?

I blow out a heavy breath, rolling my shoulders as I sit up, thinking about the world I’d give her if I could.

“She deserves . . . stars. Fifty million of them instead of ten thousand. She deserves pink tulips, and extra shelves in her shower. A spacious countertop for her hair products, and a big window in the bathroom that gives her the best natural light to do her makeup. She deserves someone who wraps her hair for her on the nights she’s too tired to do it herself, and silk sheets on her bed just in case. Homemade instruction manuals to help her learn, a telescope to help her dream, and watching the Northern Lights dance through the sky. She deserves someone who hears her, who sees her. Someone who accepts all of her, without question and eagerly. She deserves love.”

Emmett’s eyes move over me. “Sounds exactly like the way you’ve been loving her.”

Before I can respond, the door opens, the quiet room suddenly alive with laughter and chatter as everyone files in again, grabs a second round of snacks, finds a seat.

Coach heads to the front of room, whistling to get everyone’s attention. “Sorry about the delay, guys. I promise, we’ll keep this quick so everyone can head home and get some rest ahead of game one tomorrow. Let’s start with the best news, shall we?” He looks up with a grin, gesturing at me. “Riley is officially back on the ice tomorrow, thank fucking fuck.” The room erupts with hoots and hollers, and my ears burn as I drop my face, a grin crawling its way up it. “Jaxon, we can’t do this without you. We’ve missed you. Now for the love of God, take care of your head. This team isn’t a team without you. We love you, buddy.”

It’s a funny, powerful thing, the way something can shift your whole perspective. Because this morning I woke up and wondered how much longer I had left with the people I love. And now, as my team gathers around me, twenty-three men that dogpile on top of me right here in the middle of the room, I can’t imagine ever being anywhere else.

When Garrett parks in front of my condo an hour later, killing the ignition, he looks at me. “Can I ask you something? You talked about what Lennon deserves, but what do you think you deserve?”

I look out the window, at this beautiful city I’ve refused to call home. A place that’s given me everything I’ve ever wanted.

“Friends,” I answer quietly. “Family. Home. Lennon.” I look down, knees bouncing as I whisper the thing I’ve wanted more than anything my entire life. “Love.”

Garrett grins. “Yeah, you do. So go take it.”

I’m going to. I swear, I’m going to. I hype myself up the whole elevator ride, telling myself no one can love Lennon better than I can, better than I have been. I tell myself that this time, I’ve given myself to the right people, the people who are going to appreciate me, always make space for me at their table. I tell myself I deserve it.

And then, as I exit the elevator, I find Lennon in the hallway, grunting and groaning as she lugs boxes of IKEA furniture out of the apartment, lining it against the wall. The same furniture she’s been storing here since her own apartment flooded.

“What are you doing?”

She startles, hand on her heaving chest as she spins around. “Oh. Jaxon. You scared me.” She bats a handful of curls off her forehead, trying to stuff them back into the clip haphazardly holding the rest of her hair on top of her head. It’s useless, and somehow, the entire clip dislodges, beautiful chestnut spirals spilling down around her shoulders.

She gestures at the boxes. “Moving all this stuff out.”

My heart kicks itself into overdrive. “Why?”

I know the answer. I know it before she says it. I was expecting this, pushed her to it, and yet when she answers me, my world still skids to a stop, throwing me from the mountain I’ve just conquered, tossing me carelessly to the ground when I’ve only just managed to get to my feet.

“My landlord called. My apartment is ready.”