Page 81 of Knocked Sideways

“Yeah, I know,” Petey said. “Oh, right, he asked me to tell you. Coach gave him permission to go up to Montreal early because Lily never showed up. Remy didn’t fill you in yet?”

“No.” Jed’s blood was starting to rise again, and he knew he didn’t sound remotely as calm as he would have liked.

“Whoa.” Petey dropped his arm. “You are, like—kinda worked up, Monty. I wasn’t sure you had those feelings in you, bud. Maybe take a breath.”

“Don’t make your brother wait, Moreau.” Hal pulled Petey away from Jed and nudged him toward the entrance. “Jed, come have a drink with me before dinner. We haven’t talked in a while.”

“I don’t need a drink.” He just needed to hear from Remy that he was okay, and maybe also get an explanation for why Remy thought it was a good idea to head up to Montreal alone.

“It wasn’t a request.” Hal clamped a hand around Jed’s arm hard enough to draw a sympathetic wince from Petey. But Jed barely noticed. He let himself be steered to the bar, where Bakesy was already waiting with a couple of beers.

There was nothing to worry about, he reminded himself, as Hal and Bakesy started talking strategy for the Montreal game. Remy was fine, just too—Busy? Distracted? Forgetful? None of those words seemed remotely plausible—to let him know what was going on.

As the evening went on and his notifications stayed empty, it got harder not to think, Maybe “together” didn’t mean what you thought it meant. Because didn’t couples tell each other important things like, “Hey, I think I’m going to drive to an entirely different city tonight because I’ve got to figure out what’s going on with my sister, who I’m worried might be dead?”

He thought they did, even if he was relatively inexperienced in the relationship department.

He shouldn’t get all worked up.

He’d hear from Remy soon.

And if he didn’t, if they weren’t what he thought they were, he would be fine, because he had been fine before, and a few weeks of thinking he and Remy might have something special wasn’t going to change that.

When the text finally came—“Got to Montreal to find Lily, see you tomorrow x”—it didn’t make him feel better at all.

It was irrational, he knew, but it made him feel worse. There was no indication that Remy was sorry he hadn’t seen Jed before he left. Remy didn’t even want to talk to him.

Jed realized, feeling sick, that Remy didn’t seem to feel like he actually needed Jed at all.

By the time Jed got on the bus with the rest of the team, he was in a pretty bleak mood.

“Did you hear from Remy?” Hal asked, sitting down next to him. “I hope his sister’s doing alright.”

Jed grunted in reply. He knew better than to open his mouth around Hal when he felt like this.

“Is that a no?”

Jed grunted again and threw in a glare for good measure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such a shitty mood.” Hal’s brow wrinkled in concern. “I know you’re not going to want to talk about it, but is everything working out between you two?”

As if in answer to Hal’s question, Jed’s phone pinged. He tilted the screen up, relief starting to flood through his body, when he saw that it wasn’t Remy’s name on the notification—it was Mike’s.

Ridder

Hey

Heard from Lads that his sister’s in the hospital

Sounds like she’ll be ok but i think he was pretty freaked out tbh

Keep an eye on him for me

Jed went cold all over. Then numb. Remy had reached out to Mike about Lily. And he clearly hadn’t told Mike what was going on with Jed. Which was apparently not what he had fucking thought, at all.

“Jed?” Hal asked again. “Everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” Jed said automatically. It wasn’t fine, but it had to be fine. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around how Remy had looked at him so sweet and so hot in the hotel yesterday, like Jed mattered to him, when apparently Jed didn’t matter at all.