In the age-old history of bad days, this one definitely put the shit icing on the crap cake.

“Sixty-one!” Roscoe blew his whistle, stopping the kids mid-practice. “You falling asleep out there?”

“I’m doing the best job I can,” Nick Harper shouted back. He looked exhausted, and for about half a second, Roscoe felt bad for him. It was a rare practice without any media hoopla, and he’d been running the kids hard for an hour, pushing them right up to their limits.

Still. The youth tournament was less than three weeks away, and no matter how hard they worked, Roscoe couldn’t get consistent results. Reggie and Nick were strong and solid, and a handful of others were close seconds, but the majority of the kids lagged way behind. At this rate, they’d be going home with a pocket full of jack shit—well, unless he counted the nosediving public opinion polls sure to follow a loss, not to mention another black mark on Roscoe’s record. He needed this win. The whole team did.

“Your job,” he said to Harper now, “is to get that puck into the net. You’re missing every shot. Hence, you’re not doing your job. And if you’re not doing yours, I can’t do mine.”

Roscoe shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. He was being a total prick—again. Pretty much his standard operating procedure lately, and he was starting to hate himself for it.

“Alright,” he said to the group. “Take five to hydrate. Then I want the forwards on center ice with me. Kenton, Jarlsberg, Kooz—collect your starters and run ‘em through defensive drills until they can stop pucks with their eyes closed.”

“What about us, Mr. Sunshine?” Dunn skated up to Roscoe and cut his blades, showering him in shaved ice. “Christ, you look like old balls on a soggy cracker.”

Roscoe wiped his face on his sleeve. “You can go fuck yourself.”

“Eh.” Dunn shrugged. “Not as fun when there’s only one.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Ouch.” Dunn at least had the decency to look surprised. “What the hell happened? You two were pretty damn cozy last weekend at Wellshire.”

“Don’t remind me.” It twisted his gut to think about how happy he and Ally had been that night. How quickly it’d gone to shit.

“Hey,” Dunn said. “What’s going on?”

Ignoring him, Roscoe skated over to the players’ bench and grabbed his water bottle.

Where did he even begin? In the three days since that fight with Ally, he hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours, haunted by the image of Ally’s face etched with heartbreak as Roscoe pushed and pushed and pushed. He knew she was in pain that night, knew she was having a hard time, and still he couldn’t give her even a minute to take a breath.

Thing is, Roscoe knew she wasn’t fucking her ex. Deep down, he’d fucking known that from the get-go. He knew her, despite all the secrets—knew all the parts that really mattered. Yeah, her story had a hell of a lot of gaps, but even as she’d stammered over his questions, she still hadn’t looked like a woman caught cheating.

She’d looked like a woman who’d seen a ghost.

And instead of giving her a little breathing room, a little time to explain, he’d attacked her, lashing out like some damn wounded animal backed into a corner, all because he couldn’t deal with his own fucked up relationship mistakes.

“I got pissed and said some dumb shit,” Roscoe snapped, “and now I’m out on my dumb ass. So if you don’t mind skating your pretty little face somewhere else, I’d like to sulk in private.”

Dunn’s eyebrows rose, then that pretty face broke into a grin. “I just want to state, for the record, that I fucking called this.”

Roscoe chucked him on the shoulder. “You find this funny, asshole?”

“Nope. But I did just win a hundred bucks.” Laughing, he said, “Eva and I bet Henny you were in love with her. And now I know my girl and I were right, Mr. Loverboy.”

Roscoe shook his head, but he wasn’t denying it. Just couldn’t believe how fucked he was.

“To be fair, Eva called it first,” Dunn said. “She’s got a knack for this shit.”

“Eva’s planning a wedding. And women planning weddings want everyone else to fall in love and get married, too.”

“She called it.”

“That’s not calling it. That’s more like a disease, Dunn.”

“Wedding disease?”

“Exactly. Probably all that cake testing. Sugars affecting her brain or something.”

Dunn crossed his arms over his chest. “Sugars.”

“You keep repeating everything I say.”

“And you still haven’t denied I’m right.”

“You’re…” Roscoe ran a hand through his hair, averting his eyes. “Not wrong. But what the fuck does it matter? I blew it the other night. Acted like a prime douche bag.”

“If you want my advice—”

“I don’t.”

“Communication is really the foundation of—”

“Seriously? Seriously?”

“Good talk, bro.” Dunn slapped him on the back, but then his eyes turned serious. Clamping a hand over Roscoe’s shoulder, Dunn gave him a quick squeeze. “Hey. You’ll figure it out.” Then, with another sly smile, “You don’t have a choice. Eva already included her in the final head count. And if you screw that up, there won’t be a safe place you can hide.”

That finally got a laugh out of him, blowing some of the tension away.

Dunn was right. He’d figure it out. This was Ally. He wasn’t about to ghost on her after one fight. Yeah, they had some shit to work through, but who didn’t?

Thing was, he knew Ally wouldn’t make the move here. He’d watched her withdraw last night, curl up into her little shell. Then he’d asked for some space, and walked away.

So Roscoe could stand around holding his dick on principle, staring at his damn phone for the call that would never come, or he could march his ass over there and straighten this thing out.

The choice was obvious.

“You good?” Dunn asked.

Roscoe chugged the last of his water, then scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“Sweet. Let’s go whip these ingrates into shape.”

He played it low key for the rest of practice, letting Dunn and Henny take the offensive lead while he ran backup, helping the kids where he could. He paid a little extra attention to Nick Harper, hoping he hadn’t done any permanent damage with his earlier call-outs, but Harper seemed pretty resilient. At the end of practice, the kid even fist-bumped him on his way off the ice, just like old times.

It was Reggie who threw Roscoe off his game.

“What’s going on?” Reggie asked, skating over to him after the rest of the kids had vacated.

Roscoe folded his arms across his chest. “With?”

“Right.” Reggie rolled her eyes.

“You know, kiddo, one day those eyes are gonna roll right out of your head.”

“Oh, God. Now you sound like Mom.”

“Because we’re both right.”

“Because you’re both corny. Anyway, did something happen with you guys? Because I know for a fact we had two cartons of Cherry Garcia ice cream in the freezer, and now they’re totally gone. She dogged them, Roscoe. And this morning I found an empty container of frosting in the trash, but did she bake a cake? Nope. And my Netflix queue is suddenly full of sappy eighties rom-coms.”

Roscoe bit back a smile, marveling at her Sherlock-ian skills.

“It can only mean one thing,” she said.

“Your mom had a slumber party and forgot to invite you?”

“More like a pity party.”

Roscoe felt a little jab at his heart. As funny as it was to think about Reggie putting all the clues together, Roscoe hated the idea of Ally sitting home in bed, crying into her ice cream over the way they’d left things. The way he’d left them.

God, he was an asshole.

Thinking about it again now only made him feel like more of an asshole. He was no closer to knowing the details of her past relationship than he was the first time they’d gone out, but it was obvious the man had hurt her in some way. Maybe she’d escaped a bad marriage, leaving him in the dust. Maybe he’d left them, abandoning Ally with a kid to raise on her own. There were any number of fucked up possibilities—probably some Roscoe couldn’t even imagine.

No wonder she was so hot-and-cold, so skittish. Here she was in Buffalo, keeping her head down, trying to build a new life for her and Reggie. Then along comes Roscoe, trampling in like the proverbial bull in a china shop, demanding answers about the very things she and Reg might be trying their damnedest to forget.

Then again, carrying around a photo of the guy wasn’t the best strategy for forgetting him…

Roscoe shook it off. There was an explanation—had to be. And this time, he owed it to Ally to be patient enough, compassionate enough, and trusting enough to hear her out, no matter how hard it might be to swallow the truth.

“She picking you up soon?” he asked, ducking Reggie’s all-too-perceptive gaze.

Reggie shook her head. “She had a meeting. I’m taking the bus home. And before you freak out, Mom is okay with it.”

“Your mother is okay with the bus?” Shit. Letting her kid take public transportation? Now he knew Ally was avoiding him. “Tell you what. Give me ten minutes to clean up, and I’ll take you home. But I need to make a couple of stops on the way. Actually, I could use your help with something, if you’re up for it.”

“Hmm. Can we get more ice cream?”

“Is this bribery?”

“You say bribery, I say fair compensation for services rendered.” Reggie held out her hands, balancing them like the scales of Lady Justice herself. “You get me ice cream, I make myself scarce so you and Mom can kiss and make up. Preferably before my Netflix queue gets totally jacked.”

Roscoe laughed. God, he loved this kid.

“Regina Heinz?” he said, clamping a hand on her shoulder. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”