And I head inside, leaving him with a smile and a wave.
I make my way up to the psychiatry wing and run into Shelby Garrison in the elevator. She has her nose buried in her phone but she smiles and tucks it into her pocket when she sees me. “Speak of the devil.”
“Hello and why am I the devil?” I ask with a friendly grin.
“You’re part of the Garrison group chat gossip this morning,” Shelby informs me, and I immediately groan and lean against the elevator wall.
“This has to do with your cousin, right?” I ask, and Shelby nods. “The idea of a Garrison family group chat is terrifying because that’s half the town. But being a topic in it…. Shudder.”
Shelby giggles. “You harbored a fugitive. What did you expect?”
I can’t help but laugh at that. Shelby laughs with me as she flips the end of her long red ponytail behind her shoulder. “Seriously though, how did Con end up at your place? I didn’t know you were close.”
“We weren’t,” I reply and then catch myself. “Wearen’t. He thought the apartment was empty. And when I discovered him there it was late and there was the storm and I couldn’t kick him out.”
“You have a good heart, Mac,” Shelby says as the elevators open on her floor and she starts to get out.
“Hey!” I say before she can disappear down the hall. “Did you tell TP or his insignificant other where I live?”
“No!” She looks genuinely shocked. “I know better. Why?”
“He showed up at the barn yesterday.” Shock washes over her face and I can tell it’s genuine, not that I doubt Shelby. She’s always been nothing but authentic with me. “I’m fine. I got my stuff back and now I’m officially rid of him.”
“Good,” Shelby replies and shoots me a smile tinged with sympathy. “Time to move on to bigger and better.”
I nod as the elevator doors slide shut and it chugs upwards again. I am ready to move on… right after I attend that stupid party with my fake boyfriend. If Conner is even going to follow through on that crazy idea.
Chapter 10
Conner
Itug on my winter boots as Mayhem walks into the hall. She's eating an enormous bowl of ice cream covered in caramel sauce, hot fudge, whipped cream, sprinkles, and what looks like crushed Oreos. I'm immediately jealous. Oh to have a nineteen-year-old metabolism again.
“Where ya going?” she asks before shoveling a mouthful of her snack into her mouth.
Mayhem is the tallest woman in our family at five foot ten inches, but much more slender than one would expect for a woman who wears between twenty-five and fifty pounds of goalie gear every day. She’s the second Garrison to become a goalie, and she’s better at her position than any of us are at ours. I’ll gladly tell anyone who asks.
“Mac’s shift ends soon and her car was frozen solid this morning and didn’t start. I gave her a lift in so I’m going to pick her up,” I explain and pull open the door to the hall closet to grab my jacket.
“Oh. So that’s where you went at the crack of dawn this morning,” Mayhem notes. “You drove her to the hospital?”
“You heard me leave?”
She nods and swallows down more ice cream. “You’re into her?”
My brain flashes back to the kiss. How good it felt and the way my whole body came to life with something other than anxiety and dread when I lifted her off that bar stool and she wrapped those long legs around my waist.
“If I could be into someone, I would likely be into her,” I confess because, of anyone in my entire family, I trust Mayhem the most with my secrets. It’s weird because we’re so far apart in age, and despite taking pucks to the face for a living and spending far too much time with sweaty vile male hockey players, and the misogyny they hurl at her on the daily, she's a very girlie woman. A T-Swift, Barbie, romance novels, frilly skirts, and blown-out hair type of girl. She's also an introvert and I've always been the family's biggest extrovert. I have three male cousins closer in age you'd think I'd be tighter with… but Mayhem is my go-to with secrets and fears and all of that.
Now, she takes that admission in stride and swallows another heaping spoonful of ice cream before asking. “And why, exactly, can’t you be into someone?”
I stare at her. She genuinely doesn’t get it. “What the hell do I have to offer someone right now?”
Mayhem’s face goes slack. “Conner, you can’t be serious.”
“I am, and if you give me a pep talk like Mama C or Dad, I will leave Silver Bay and possibly never come back,” I warn her. “At least not until this whole bullshit is settled.”
“You are so much more than your career, Con,” Mayhem tells me, completely disregarding my warning. I glare. “Sorry. I’ll shut up. You just go and pick up the pretty girl you would be interested in if you hadn’t tied your whole self-worth to a sheet of ice and a rubber disc.”