Mile High (Windy City Series Book 1)

Stevie flips my mother off with both hands, and I can’t help the sickeningly satisfied smile I’m wearing as I watch from above, out my penthouse windows.

I’m all too obsessed with that wild girl, and it’s hard to explain the swell in my chest from knowing she still has my back, regardless that she’s not ready to talk to me yet.

But that sense of pride quickly shifts to panic when I watch my mother disappear below me into the lobby of my apartment building.

I’ve been thinking about this for days, constantly practicing the words I want to say to her. But regardless of how ready I felt when I booked her flight or paid for her hotel, at this moment, all that preparation has flown out the window.

My sister tracked down her phone number last week, and all morning my thumb has been hovering over that same contact, wanting to cancel this meet-up altogether. Panic has been racing through me, anger too. But I couldn’t cancel. I’ve needed to face this woman since I was sixteen, but it wasn’t until now, realizing that my past with her was holding back my future, that it became an urgent necessity.

I can’t even count the number of messages I typed to Stevie, telling her what I was about to do, needing her help, wanting her to be there for me. But I didn’t send a single one. How selfish would that have been? Her desperate and pleading face, her strained and cracked voice have all been ingrained in my mind since that day I broke up with her. I couldn’t ask for her help when I did that, when it’s all my fault. So, I’m going to get through this on my own while knowing it’s a step to help me win her back.

As I’m pacing my living room, finally, the speaker by my door rings.

“Mr. Zanders, I have a…” my doorman hesitates. “A Mrs. Zanders here?”

She’s still using that name? Convenient.

Inhaling a deep breath through my nose, I exhale just as slowly. “Yeah, thank you. You can let her up.”

It’s less than two minutes later that I hear the elevator stop on my hall, and another fifteen seconds after that, her knock echoes through my penthouse, causing an unwelcome shiver to run up my spine.

Fidgeting with the watch on my wrist, I then adjust the collar of my shirt, unable to get comfortable. I contemplated dressing down, but I’m treating this as a business meeting, so a button-down shirt and slacks it is. Regardless, it’s not my attire that’s making me feel itchy and claustrophobic right now. It’s the woman standing on the other side of the door.

But this is my home, and this is my life. I’m in control here. I’m successful and proud of what I’ve created for myself. No thanks to her. I won’t allow her to make me feel as unimportant as she did the day she left.

With another calming breath, I straighten my spine and reach for the handle, swallowing my nerves as I open the door.

“Evan,” my mom says with pride. “It’s so good to see you.”

She holds my stare, her smile forced with hidden intention, and having this woman standing in front of me, I sense myself crumbling, turning back to that hurt sixteen-year-old boy she left.

Her eyes are as I remember, mirroring my own. Her hair is styled to perfection, but her light brown skin has aged over the last twelve years. She showed up at my game two years ago, but I only saw a small glimpse of her before security escorted her away. I hadn’t noticed the details.

Her clothes are designer, seasons old at this point. Her shoes and bag are worn beyond belief, reminding me why she left in the first place—for money. And why she’s most likely back now—for more.

“Can I come in?” she asks, breaking me out of my daze.

I move aside, allowing her into my home. It feels wrong, having her here. She brings a cold energy, fake and almost venomous as she enters, vastly contradictory to Stevie’s bright aura, wild spirit, and sweet nature. But I have to remember I’m doing this all to better myself and get that girl back.

“Wow.” My mother takes in the space, head spinning. Her eyes may as well be shining with dollar signs. “Your penthouse is amazing. How long have you been here?”

“Just over six years.”

She nods, silently appraising every little thing and reminding me that nothing has changed. “Can I have something to drink?”

“I have water.”

She lightly laughs. “A spritzer or even champagne would be fine.”

I roll my eyes, heading to the kitchen, leaving her to find the living room. My fridge is stocked with IPAs and sparkling water, neither of which she’s getting.

“Your neighbor with the curly hair is something else,” she calls out from the living room, and I can’t stop the smile spreading across my lips. “Quite the attitude on that one.”

I have no plans to explain who Stevie is. It doesn’t matter because the woman sitting in my apartment will hold no value in my life after today. She doesn’t need to know about the most important piece of all.

Putting the glass down on the coffee table in front my mother, I take a seat in a chair perpendicular to her.

“What is this?” She eyes the glass as if she’s shocked I didn’t pop a bottle of bubbles specially for her.

“Water.”

She forces that fake smile again before taking a sip. “I’m so glad you called me, Evan.”

God, I hate that name when she uses it.

Clearing my throat, I adjust my watch once more before spinning the rings on my fingers. My mother eyes me, watching the whole thing, probably calculating how much all my jewelry costs.

But as my thumb absentmindedly traces the ring on my pinky, I remember why I’m doing this.

“I called you because we need to talk.”

“I was hoping—”

“I need to talk,” I correct.

Her hazel eyes widen before she adjusts her shoulders. “Please do.”

“Why’d you leave?”

Her chest vibrates with a sharp breath. “Evan, can we leave the past in the past and move forward? That’s what I want most in the world, to move forward.”

“No. Why’d you leave?”

She shakes her head, looking for something, anything to reason her abandonment. “I sacrificed a lot when I was with your father.”

“Like what?” I challenge, not letting her get off the hook with vague answers.

“I sacrificed the life I envisioned for myself. The things I wanted.”

“Material things. Your family wasn’t enough for you.”

“Now, that’s not true.”

“It is. You chose money and bullshit material things over your kids.”

She stays silent, having no argument.

“Do you know what it felt like, being sixteen years old, getting out of hockey practice, and sitting in the parking lot waiting for you to show up? All my friends were driving off with their parents, and I sat there waiting. Dad showed up two hours later, and when we got home, all your things were gone. Who the fuck does that?”

“Evan, I want to move forward.”

“So do I!” I yell from my seat, causing Rosie to jump up from her dog bed before sitting attentively next to me. “That’s why you’re here, Mom. I want to move forward, and I’m holding on to so much anger for what you did that I can’t. You were the one woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally, and you didn’t.”

I pause, allowing her to tell me I’m wrong. To tell me that she did love me. That maybe she didn’t love my dad enough, or maybe she didn’t love our small town in Indiana, and that’s why she had to leave, but that it was never about me.

She doesn’t say she loves me.

“So, where do we go from here?” she asks instead. “How do we move forward?”

“We don’t. I do.”

Her brows pinch in confusion.

“I brought you here so I could look you in the face and tell you that I’m done. I’m done holding on to the anger and hurt you caused. I’m done hiding your name from the press because I’m afraid people will find out about you. And I’m done letting your inability to stay when I needed you most hold me back from the people who want to be in my life. People who would never abandon me the way you did.”

She sits there, emotionless as a jolt of pride flows through my body.

Tilting my head back, I close my eyes, a slight smile sliding across my lips. Every muscle in my body relaxes, feeling the physical effects of my words.

“I came out here, expecting you to want me to be in your life again.”

“No. You came out here, expecting me to pay to have you in my life again, but guess what, Mom. I’m not sixteen anymore, and I don’t give a shit about you.”

Her lips part, falling open. “That’s why you brought me all the way here? You flew me here for this?”

“Yep.”

She stays silent in shock.

“Let me guess. You thought I’d fly you out here, pay for you to stay close by. Put you in your own box suite at my games.”

Her act completely dissolves in front of me. “I thought you wanted me in your life again. I thought you flew me out because you missed me!”

I shake my head. “No, I’m good.”

She’s getting flustered on my couch, fidgeting and looking around the room, eyeing every little thing that may be of value. As if she’s cataloging what she expected to gain from me.

“You don’t want to be in my life again anyway, Mom. Admit it. You were hoping I was still that sad teenage boy who missed you and would do anything to have you back. You thought I would give you whatever would make you stay. You don’t love me. You don’t want me. You want the things that come with me.”

Stevie runs through my mind first. The person who means the most to me, who has never taken anything from me, yet I want her to have it all. Next is my dad, who I blamed for my mother’s absence. That man worked double-time to make up for her lost income, so I wouldn’t have to stop playing hockey. I always thought he abandoned me the same way she did, but in fact, it was the complete opposite. He stayed and worked more so my life wouldn’t have to change.

Those are the people I want to give everything to. Not the woman across from me.

My eyes fall on her purse. It’s designer, but at least a decade old at this point, and all the pieces fall into place. “When did he leave you?”

I have no idea what the man she left us for looks like, though I’ve tried to picture him for years, wondering what she saw in him. He breezed through town for work, taking my mother away on his private jet. But deep down, I know exactly what she saw in him. She saw dollar signs, enough to leave her family.

My mother’s shoulders straighten, holding faux confidence as if the reason she’s here has nothing to do with the bankroll that left her. “Six years ago.”

Figures. Right after I got into the league, she started trying to worm her way back into my life.

“Do I have any siblings I should know about?”

She exhales a disbelieving laugh. “No.”

I nod repeatedly. “Okay. Don’t call me again.”

Her hazels dart to mine. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly.”

I watch as the wheels turn in her mind. “I know how secretive you are from the press. I know things they’d love to know. Things they’d pay to know.”

She’s desperate now, grasping for straws.

“Go for it. I’m not hiding anymore. You want to tell them what a terrible mother you are and throw yourself under the bus, be my guest. I kept you hidden because I was embarrassed that my own mother couldn’t love me, but there’s nothing for me to be embarrassed about. I’m enough. Lindsey is enough, but it’s you who places value on all the wrong things. When you go, who is going to be there for you? Your purses? Your shoes? Your money? That’s a sad life, Mom, and I’m not angry at you for it anymore. I feel bad for you.”

How the hell did this woman cause me so much panic over the years? She’s not worth it. She never has been. The desperation is seeping out of her, and it’s pathetic. In fact, looking at her now, I feel nothing. She means nothing to me.

“You know I blamed Dad for you leaving? You weren’t here for me to be angry at all these years, so I was angry at him instead. But that man stuck around and worked his ass off for Lindsey and me. You did him a favor by leaving. He deserves so much more than you.”

“Evan—”

“You should go.” I stand from my chair, Rosie at my side.

My mother hesitates, her brows lifting in disbelief. She gathers her bag and smooths out her top as she stands. I lead her to the door, sensing her following behind reluctantly.

“Your flight leaves at two, and you’ll be checked out of your hotel in an hour, so I’d hurry and pack your things if I were you.”

“What?” She stands in the hallway outside my apartment in shock.

“Thanks for not loving me enough to stay, Mom. It made it a lot easier to recognize the people who do.”

I close the door on her partway, but change my mind.

“Oh, and you should really retire that bag. Outdated if you ask me.”

Okay, that was petty as fuck, but I couldn’t help it. Closing the door, I lean back on it, feeling the freest I have in twelve years.

Once I pass security, I essentially run across the tarmac at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, racing towards the plane. I’ve been dying to talk to Stevie while trying to respect her boundaries of needing time.

The Stanley Cup Finals start tomorrow with game one in Pittsburgh, and I’ve been itching to get this road trip started for reasons outside of hockey. It took everything in me not to call her after my mom left yesterday, but we’re going to have three days in Pittsburgh together, and I’ll be able to explain it better in person anyway.

I hope she’s proud of me. I think she will be.

Coaches, staff, and my teammates litter the aisle as I wade through the crowd to my seat in the exit row. Standing on my toes, I look over the boys’ heads and into the back galley for Stevie, but there are too many people in my way.

Taking my seat, my knees bounce, anxiously waiting for her to come do the safety demo. Everything will be okay. It has to be.

“Jesus.” Maddison plops into his seat next to me. “You fucking sprinted out here.”

“Sorry.” I look towards the back galley again but find no sign of Stevie. “I get to talk to her today, so I’m just anxious.”

“Don’t worry,” Maddison reassures. “She’s going to understand. Just tell her everything.”

After Stevie’s name got released, I was worried she’d be fired. But she’d tell me if she had, and I haven’t heard a word from her yet.

“Are you two ready for me to brief you on the window exit?”

Finally.

But looking up, it’s not my curly-haired flight attendant wanting our attention. It’s not Indy, and it’s not that bitchy one either.

“Who are you?” I harshly ask.

“I’m Natalie.” She offers a kind smile, the innocence radiating off her.

“Where’s Stevie?”

Her brows furrow. “Who’s Stevie?”

Who’s Stevie? What the hell?

My eyes shoot to Maddison, but he’s equally as confused as I am. Jumping from my seat, I dart towards the back galley, shoving my teammates out of the way when I have to.

“Where is she?” I ask Indy with desperation.

She inhales a deep breath, eyes unable to meet mine.

“Indy, where the fuck is she?”

Finally, she looks up at me, her gaze full of sympathy. Unable to answer, she simply shakes her head.

“Did she get fired?” I frantically ask, my voice rising. “Did that chick really fire her when her name got released?”

I take a quick step towards the front of the plane, ready to give that lead flight attendant a piece of my mind, but Indy grabs my arm, holding me back.

“She didn’t get fired. She quit after our last flight. Before her name was even released.”

What? There’s no way. She promised she’d talk to me today. She wouldn’t lie to me.

Would she?

“Did you know?” My throat is tight, my eyes burning as I desperately look at Stevie’s coworker.

Indy shakes her head. “She didn’t tell me until after we landed. I had no idea.”

I melt into the wall behind me in disbelief. Is this really happening? Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why’d she let me believe I still had a chance?

She was the best part of this season, and now in the final hours, she’s gone.

I need to see her. I need to talk to her and apologize. Tell her about my conversation with my mom. Take responsibility for breaking up with her because I was scared. Beg for her to understand.

I need her, but she’s not here, and I’m not sure I can wait three more days until we’re back in Chicago.

“One more thing you should know,” Indy says, regret lacing her tone. “She took a new job. She’s moving to Seattle.”