Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 84344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Alex: Sorry I can’t be there with you. But enjoy my Big Mac for me. Just like old times.
I laugh, thinking about how every single time I’ve lost in the playoffs, she’s been there waiting for me. The ping in my chest starts as I think about how she is usually here when I need her. We would come back to my house, but there would be nothing open except McDonald’s, so we would order Big Macs and after five bites, then she would tell me how disgusting she felt eating it. I would proceed to finish hers and mine. But she’s moving into her new house tomorrow, and I know it’s selfish for me to expect her to drop everything for me.
Instead of texting her back, I get in the shower and finish the two Big Macs before I power down my phone. I lie in the middle of my bed, looking up at the ceiling in the dark, and thinking about what the fuck I’m going to do next.
Chapter 2
Alex
“This is the last box,” my father says, walking into the kitchen with the box in his hand.
“That is for my bedroom.” I smile at him. “You can leave it on the counter.” I look over my shoulder at him. “I’ll take it up later.”
“Yeah, right,” he huffs out, turning and walking toward the staircase. His big six-foot-four frame heads up the stairs with the box in his hands.
I hear laughing behind me and look over at my cousins, Franny and Vivienne. “What?” I ask them.
“You knew damn straight that he wasn’t going to let you carry that box upstairs,” Franny points out, shaking her head and washing her hands. The two of them have been over helping me unpack since nine this morning.
“I told him I hired movers.” I smirk. “He was the one who puffed out his chest and said he could do all the work.” I hold my hands in front of me.
“I come bearing gifts.” Erika, my cousin Cooper’s wife, walks into the room with three massive pizza boxes in her hands.
“Good,” Vivienne says. “I’m starving.”
I smile when Franny goes to one of the cupboards and takes out paper plates; she should know where most of the stuff is since I bought the house from her. She didn’t want to take my money from me, and then my father called her, and she told him no also. But I refused to take it from her, so I’m renting to own it, and it’s the second most grown-up thing I’ve done in my life. The first being I decided to finally make Dallas my full-time home instead of living out of New York.
I look around the room, not even able to wrap my head around the fact that this is my new home. This should be one of the happiest days of my life, but something is stopping me from having that moment.
“Knock, knock, knock.” I look over to the front door and see Julia walk in. Julia is my sister-in-law Jillian’s twin.
“What the hell are you wearing?” I ask her as she walks into the room wearing jeans and a white top with high heels.
“What the hell are you wearing?” she huffs out when she gets into the kitchen and sees Franny and Vivi there with me, all of us wearing yoga gear.
“We are clearly underdressed.” I laugh, putting my hands on my hips. “Why would you wear that to unpack boxes?”
“Unpack boxes?” she shrieks, looking around at the brown boxes all over the place. The moving truck got here this morning at seven. “Why didn’t you tell me that we were unpacking moving boxes?” She throws her hands in the air.
“What the hell did you think we were doing?” Franny asks her, trying not to laugh.
“I thought we were doing unboxing videos,” Julia says, and Vivi can’t help but throw her head back and laugh. “You know, like influencers on Instagram.”
“Oh my God,” I say, putting my hand to my mouth.
“Did we or did we not do unboxing last month?” she asks, and I just shake my head. “You had like the whole glam light blinding me in one eye. I couldn’t see for a week.”
“That was a merchandise drop.” I can’t help but laugh now. “It was to help get donations for the Summer Hockey Program.” The reason I finally made the leap to Dallas was when I took a job to run the Brad Wilson Hockey School. Wilson and Franny got together, and she mentioned me to him. To be honest, I felt like I had no idea where my life was going. There was nothing I was doing that made me feel like I had a purpose. Until I sat down and had lunch with Wilson. He had an idea, but the two of us together have been unstoppable, and I finally have something that I can call my own. It helped I had some experience from helping with The Max Horton Foundation, which my father started when he was still playing in the NHL. His foundation works hand in hand with sick children making sure that they get the help they need.