“I don’t want it to be something you deal with, Jessica. Hockey is my passion. I love it. I’m excellent at it, and it’s always going to be part of my life, even when I’m not playing professionally anymore. I don’t need someone to love the sport the same way I do, but I need a partner who is at least going to understand my passion and help me foster it, not wait for my career to be over so I can fill my time with something else.”

“But we’ve invested all these years together.” She frowns. “And I’m already part of this family.” She glances around the room, her sudden panic obvious as she sends an imploring look to my mother.

And there it is, the truth neither of us wanted to face, and clearly she’s still struggling with it. Jessica’s family is exactly like she is: poised, proper, a little cold, and emotionally unavailable. My family might be a bunch of lunatics, but they love fiercely. And I realize that this is the reason Jessica is here. That, and I think this is my mother’s way of trying to stay in control of her family in the face of so much change. Of course she’d try to keep pushing Jessica and me back together, even though we’re two mismatched puzzle pieces.

This is a conversation Jessica and I should’ve had a long time ago. And it’s the primary reason we stayed together for as long as we did. I felt bad taking my family away from her when I knew she was so attached to them. And they were just as attached to her. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I wanted to make my family happy, so I stayed in that relationship for more years than I should have. And then I met Queenie, and she turned my entire world upside down.

“It’s not really me you’re here for, though, is it?” I ask softly.

“I-I—of course I am.”

I shake my head. “But you’re not. It’s not me you want back: it’s my family. We hardly saw each other except for a month in the off-season. And even then, we spent that month with my family. Otherwise it was once every six weeks, if that. You only ever attended games when they were in Nashville. And you always came with my family.” I take one of her hands in mine. “Look, Jess, I care about you and I always will, but being in love with my family isn’t the same as being in love with me.”

She exhales a long, slow breath. “I do love you, though.”

“I know, and I love you, but it’s not the kind of love that’s going to help us build a life together.”

She’s quiet for a few long moments before she squeezes my hand, bottom lip trembling with the threat of tears. “We’ve been a part of each other’s lives for so long, Ryan. I don’t even know who I am without your family.”

“I’m not asking you to give them up.”

She sighs. “But you have a new girlfriend. I feel like I don’t even know where I fit in anymore. I just . . . in my head I always believed eventually you’d be more focused on me than on hockey, and until then I could count on your family, but now that I’ve had time to reflect on it, I think it’s more that I’m afraid to be alone. But that’s not a reason for us to be together, is it?”

I shake my head and give her a sad smile. “It’s really not. Neither of us would be happy in the long run. I’m sorry, Jess. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know.” She pats my cheek. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body.” She looks around the now-empty room, a little embarrassed. Apparently my family finally got the memo and gave us the privacy Jessica didn’t think we needed at first. “I’m sorry it took me so long to finally see what you seemed to know all along.”

“I think we both held on longer than we should have. It can be easy to become complacent when you’re comfortable with someone, which is what we were.” I don’t want to bruise Jessica’s ego any more than I already have. I’m just as responsible as she is for the way things have turned out between us.

“I’m going to go upstairs and pack my things and see if I can book a flight back home.”

“I can help with that if you need me to.”

“I wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone, and you could probably use a little time to talk to your family.” She inclines her head toward the living room. “Thank you for your thoughtfulness; you’re an unfailing gentleman. And for what it’s worth, I want you to be happy, even if it’s not with me.”

“I want the same for you.”

She kisses me on the cheek and heads upstairs.

Since it was an afternoon game, I’m able to get her on the last flight out tonight—first class, obviously. I give her a few minutes to collect herself and then take her luggage from my bedroom out to the car I called to take her to the airport. I would drive her myself, but I don’t want to make the situation more awkward than it already is.

I feel bad about the whole thing, but it’s been a long time coming. And I’m glad she now realizes, just like I have, that our relationship didn’t have what we needed for it to last a lifetime.

My family is sitting in the living room, murmuring among themselves. Gerald has found the scotch I never drink, and everyone else is holding a cocktail or wineglass. So nice of them to make themselves comfortable while I deal with the mess they’ve made for me.

Gerald holds up a mason jar. “You have to put fifty bucks in here.”

I should ignore him, but I don’t. “Why?”

“Because you swore.”

“It’s a dollar a swear, not fifty bucks.”

“Yeah, but it’s you, so there’s a markup.”

I don’t bother answering, because anything that comes out of my mouth is probably not going to be nice.

“I can’t believe you threw away your relationship. Jessica has been part of our family for eight years.” My mother’s disappointment is clear in her tone and her expression, but for once I don’t want to placate her.

“He did the right thing!” Hanna snaps before I can speak my mind.

“How can you say that?” Mom’s hand goes to her heart, and she looks aghast.

“He wasn’t happy with Jessica, and he hasn’t been for a long time. It was right for him to end a relationship that wasn’t working for him, for either of them.”

“But he loves her and she loves him, don’t you, Ryan?” Her expression turns imploring.

“I care about Jessica, but I’m not in love with her, and she’s not in love with me either,” I say.

“Of course she is. It’s just a phase. Every relationship goes through this; you’ll see. A little more time and you’ll both come back around.” She wrings her hands anxiously.

“That’s not going to happen, Mom, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better it’s going to be for all of us.” I’m frustrated that she’s still harping on this point for reasons I don’t understand.

“It’s King’s life,” Hanna adds. “And it’s his decision if he wants to pursue a relationship with someone he feels is better suited to him. Which is exactly what Queenie is.”

“How can you say that?” Mom retorts.

“He’s been happier and far more settled over the past few months than he ever was with Jessica, and the way he talks about her tells me everything I need to know. He’s an adult, making adult decisions, and out of all the children you’ve raised, he’s certainly turned out the best.”

“Hanna—” I try to cut in.

“Let me finish, please,” she implores. “He’s the most successful, the most grounded, and he has never, ever been a pain in your ass. You’ve never had to bail him out of jail; he’s never borrowed money. Even as a kid he didn’t get into trouble, so have a little faith that he can make a good decision when it comes to finding someone who balances him out.”

That seems to shut everyone up for half a second. Until our mother changes the subject, which is something she likes to do, especially when she’s wrong. “Are you going through a rebellious phase?”

“I’m thirty. I make seven million dollars a year, I live in a house that’s totally paid for, and I drive a Volvo. No, Mom, I’m not going through a rebellious phase.”

She purses her lips. “I don’t know that this girl is right for you.”

“With all due respect, Mom, you’ve never even met her, so whatever opinion you think you have is based on tabloid garbage, and it’s not your responsibility to make those kinds of decisions for me since I’m an independent adult.”

“Burn,” Gerald mutters.

No one tells him to shut up, because he’s right.

She purses her lips, clearly unhappy with the direction this conversation has taken, so she switches gears. “Are you doing this because we didn’t tell you about the adoption? You know, we decided as a family to raise you and Hanna and your brother as siblings, because it was better for Hanna, and for you. Both of your lives would’ve been so much harder otherwise. We were trying to save you from the stigma all of that would have brought with it.”