Looking up, he met her pleading eyes and asked, “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Not really,” she answered slowly. “But I want you to know I’m doing this for you.”

Holding her gaze, he knew that was a fact. Elli loved him.

“Yeah, I know that, Elli, and you know I love you for it. You’ve always taken good care of me,” he said and she smiled.

“I have and I always will. You need this, Jordie. I don’t think you are dealing with your feelings right. I swear, it’s like you’re changing in front of my eyes, and it’s killing me. Honestly…” she started, her voice breaking. When her eyes filled with tears, he had to look away. “You’re like a brother to me, Jordie.”

“I know,” he said softly, and she was the sister he’d never had. “I’ll go.”

“Good,” Bryan said.

“You’ll come back a billion times better,” Charles informed him. “This is for the best.”

He could dispute that, but maybe he was the wrong one here. That was his MO lately. Always being wrong.

“You’re making the right choice,” Elli said, and he looked up at her then as she wiped a stray tear away. He didn’t want to make her cry; he didn’t want to make her worry. Elli was very special to him, not only as his boss but as his friend. There wasn’t a dinner he wasn’t invited to, a holiday he couldn’t crash, and a place he couldn’t sleep. She mothered him and was ten times the mother he’d had. The slow burn of guilt filled his chest, and he had to look away once more.

He had consistently been making bad decision after bad decision. Each one was staring back at him from behind his closed lids, and he wished he could make them all go away. But still they flashed in his face, demanding his attention.

Going in for the puck when he knew there was a goon of a player behind him and ending with his leg in two. Which resulted in his career being up in the air.

The drinking. Fuck, the drinking.

Getting involved with his best friend’s sister.

Falling in love with said sister, and then pushing her away, like he always did with everyone.

And all of Louisiana.

It was time to make the right choice for once.

He had to, because he had already lost the one person who meant everything to him, and he couldn’t lose hockey too.

That couldn’t happen.

“Ma, I don’t know, maybe I should wait. I don’t actually have to be there till August for summer training.”

Kacey King watched as her parents packed her belongings into her little Civic. She was about to embark on the sixteen-hour drive to Nashville from her home in Wausau, Wisconsin. She grew up in the gorgeous town and to leave it was a little scary. She had friends here, and she knew the town like the back of her hand. She grew up playing on the frozen ponds and all her memories were here, but with her parents moving to Nashville and the new job that Karson, her older brother, had gotten her, Kacey knew there was no other choice. She had to go.

I want to go, she told herself for the hundredth time.

Karl King looked back at her and shrugged, his brow furrowed as he stuffed her comforter into the backseat. “We can’t go until the house sells, Kace. So you go, help your brother and Lacey with the new baby, work out with the guys to get to know them before you start, live life. You’ve been a zombie lately. It’s weird,” he essentially barked at her as her mother came up and wrapped her arms around her.

“A pretty zombie though. Like, the prettiest,” she commented, moving a piece of hair out of Kacey’s eyes, eyes that were the exact shade of caramel as hers. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to go,” she informed them. “It’s just that I don’t want to impose on Kar and Lacey. The baby will be here in no time.”

Karl stood up straight, his hands on his hips. “You aren’t imposing; they want you there, Karson said it himself. It’s stupid for you to get an apartment when: one, you’re broke and haven’t started getting paid yet, and two, we will be there soon.”

He was right, but still.

“I’m not that broke,” she commented softly and he scoffed. After clearing her debts by using the money from her endorsements from winning the gold at the Olympics, she may have been a little low on funds. But still, she could manage. The thought of living with her brother and new sister-in-law and niece gave her the shakes. She didn’t want to bother them, but everyone was so insistent.

“We know, love, but this is for the best. With the Olympics and everything, you know, you haven’t had time to relax and figure out your next move. This will give you the chance to do that,” her mother reminded her, like she had been doing for the last few weeks once they decided they wanted to pick up and move to be closer to their new grandbaby. “Plus, with Lacey being so fragile lately, she could use you there.”

Kacey knew that too. Her sister-in-law wasn’t very stable, even with all the groups and counseling she and Karson had gone through. Lacey was still a nervous wreck that her baby girl would develop breast cancer like she had. Everyone tried to ease her concerns, but poor Lacey couldn’t think any other way. Add in the fact that she was running three lingerie stores, dealing with a family from hell, and the constant worry for her child, and Kacey’s sister-in-law was one step away from needing to be in a padded room. She probably did need Kacey there. Especially since they had become best friends over the course of the last year.