"Put me down, Jesse!" She had a death-grip on his arms.
"Say please."
"Please."
"Say you didn't mean it. That our team is awesome."
"Jesse." She grimaced as he finished one lap around the ice. "I won't lie for you."
He kept skating, a grin cracking his lips as his sister squeezed her eyes shut. A year younger than Jesse's eighteen, she couldn't have been more different. There wasn't a risk-taking bone in her body, at least not anymore.
They’d switched places over the last two years with Cass preferring safety and Jesse going for the risk.
"Fine," she yelled. "The Gulf City Hurricanes are the best thing to ever happen to hockey. Happy now?"
He slowed and lowered her feet to the ice. "That'll do."
"The things I say for you." She shook her head and crossed the ice again, pulling herself back up to sit on the half-wall.
Jesse retrieved his stick and tapped it against the wall near her feet. "We do kind of suck, don't we?" The joking gone from his voice, he sighed.
"That question sounds like a trap."
"It’s not."
"Well..." She paused. "Then yeah, you guys kind of make my eyes bleed."
"Thanks for the imagery."
"I live to please."
Jesse laughed, but he couldn't get her words out of his head. The Hurricanes hadn't always been bad. When he made the team as the only freshman, they won the league. Now, in his senior year, the season was almost halfway over, and they had yet to win a game.
"We have to do something."
Cass narrowed her eyes. "Who is this 'we' you're talking about? You remember who I am, right?"
He did. Cassandra Carrigan didn't do people. In fact, she avoided them at all costs. Two years ago, she’d been walking in downtown Tampa with their parents when a gunman shot their mom. She'd watched their mother die in front of her, and since then, she refused to go out in public. Two years of taking high school classes online and staying in the house had turned her into a hermit.
Jesse never pushed her, but he invited her to the rink whenever he was sure it would be relatively empty. She watched his games, but from the safety of her bedroom on a delayed stream.
He shook thoughts of his mom and that awful day away. "Okay, I need to do something about it. It's my last year of playing. I can't let us go down in such dramatic flames."
She kicked her feet against the wall. "It's not like you can suddenly teach these guys how not to fall on their butts."
"No, but there has to be something." His team shouldn't be as bad as they were. They played in top-notch facilities owned by their coach. He lifted his eyes to the rafters where old team banners hung. Their coach played for a decade in the NHL, and he couldn’t even whip them into shape.
"I think the guys need a bit of tough love. I'd basically pay you to go all captain on Roman."
"Roman?" He laughed. "He and Damien are the only guys on the team who can put the puck in the back of the net. Besides me, of course."
"So humble, brother."
He grinned. Most people just thought of Cassie as the golden boy's weird sister, but she was his best friend. Everyone else would love her too, if they got a chance to get to know her.
Living in Gulf City, Florida was like living in a fish bowl. Everyone knew everything about their neighbors. Locals glommed together to withstand the tourist seasons. It had its benefits, to be so close to everyone you grew up with, but for anyone different, it wasn't such a good thing.
He wanted an easier life for his sister, just like he wanted his team to win a game. One.
But neither seemed possible.
"Think we should get home?" Cass hopped off the wall.
Jesse’s shoulders dropped. "Probably. Dad said he had to work today, so Will and Eli are probably driving him up a wall."
The twins were six when they lost their mom. Jesse didn't know if that made it easier for them, or if it was better to have both the years of memories and the grief.
Since that day, their family changed in more ways than just losing a mom. Jesse loved his dad and was grateful he provided for them, but he put all of his grief into his work and never quite came back from it. As a high-profile lawyer, his clients were demanding.
His kids tried to be less so.
Jesse took care of his siblings when he could. Sometimes he was all they had. He was lucky to have Cass and Mary—the twins’ part-time caretaker.
"Yo, Jess!" Roman's voice boomed across the ice. The tall, blond boy waved from his spot near the tunnel to the locker rooms.
Cassie went still. She knew Roman, Jessie's best friend. He’d once been her friend too, yet she rarely spoke to him … or anyone else anymore.
"You okay?" Jesse asked. It was a question he knew bothered his sister because she never wanted to answer it. Yet, he worried about her, and that would never change.
She nodded.
He gave her a long look before skating across the ice. "Rome, man." They bumped fists as they'd done a million times before in their lives. "What are you doing here?"
"Lifting in the weight room." He shrugged. "Have to keep my strength up.” For what, neither of them knew. Even his optimistic best friend knew their hockey season was toast.
"Some of us are actually preparing for the next hockey game."
He flashed his teeth in a half-smirk, half-smile thing Roman was good at. "Good on you, man. Still trying."
Jesse bristled at that. Of course, he was still trying. The season wasn't over yet. He reached out and shoved Roman back. "You just know you won't get better no matter how hard you practice."
Roman grinned. "That a challenge, pretty boy?" He'd been calling Jesse pretty boy since the girls started fawning over his long lashes and bright blue eyes when he was barely a teenager.
Jesse gestured to the ice. "Be my guest."
"I'll go get my skates." He turned back into the tunnel.
Jesse skated back to where Cassie still stood. "He's going to shoot around with me."
She made a sound in the back of her throat but didn't utter a word.
"Go ahead." Jesse knew her too well.
"Why do you insist on keeping him around?"
"You don't like Rome?" He pursed his lips. Everyone liked Roman Sullivan—including the old Cassie. But he shouldn't expect this new version of Cass to be like everyone else. "I'll tell him to leave."
"Something tells me you're going to be the one leaving." She nodded toward a very angry looking girl marching toward the ice, her figure skates digging into the rubber flooring.
"Jesse Carrigan," she huffed. "Do you know how to read?"
He swallowed heavily as he always did when faced with Charlotte Morrison, the gorgeous daughter of Coach Morrison and most forbidden girl in the entire school.
He couldn’t take his gaze from the storm building in her eyes.
To be continued…
Get it here!
Note From Michelle
Whew. This book tore the guts right out of me. One of my readers recently made a comment that I didn’t write romances or fantasies, I wrote ‘life books’. I liked that and it’ll stick with me for a while.
At this point in my author career, I’ve written about twenty-five different books. Each is special to me in its own way, but none of them hit me quite like We Thought We Knew It All. These characters are heart and soul type of people. I’ve put them through hell, but I won’t apologize to them because it’s made them strong.
Why the ten year time gap? That’s the question most people want to know. It’s not really a popular writing tool, but for this story to work, Callie and Jamie needed to experience the world. In book 1, they were young and in love. But they were also hurting. They hadn’t yet learned who they were or what they wanted out of life.
Theirs is a forever kind of love. But for them to truly find each other, they needed to find themselves first.
This series touches on a tough subject. I first wrote it
years ago when school shootings were a part of life, but not nearly as much as they are now. It’s a struggle to understand why they happen and what drives a person to commit the act. But this series wasn’t about the act itself. The true story was how our characters were forever changed by that one night, how any kind of trauma can change someone’s view of the entire world.
None of it ever goes away. We all have to live with it. But these events, whether it be shootings or other physical violence, they haven’t destroyed us. Yes, we break a bit more each time. But as Callie says, “Only kids believe they’re untouchable. Maybe that’s not what invincible means. Maybe it means that we can be down, but not out. We can rise up from the ashes. Invincibility is not being unbreakable. It’s using our brokenness to make us stronger.”
I hope this series has made you think, but more importantly, I hope it has made you feel. Thank you for reading Callie and Jamie’s story.
About Michelle
Michelle MacQueen is a USA Today bestselling author of love. Yes, love. Whether it be YA romance, NA romance, or fantasy romance (Under M. Lynn), she loves to make readers swoon.
The great loves of her life to this point are two tiny blond creatures who call her “aunt” and proclaim her books to be “boring books” for their lack of pictures. Yet, somehow, she still manages to love them more than milk duds.
When she’s not sharing her inexhaustible wisdom with her niece and nephew, Michelle is usually lounging in her ridiculously large bean bag chair creating worlds and characters that remind her to smile every day - even when a feisty five-year-old is telling her just how much she doesn’t know.
See more from Michelle MacQueen and sign up to receive updates and deals! www.michellelynnauthor.com
Also by Michelle MacQueen
The Gulf City High series
Jesse and the Ice Princess
Roman and the Hopeless Romantic
Spencer and the Younger Girl
Nate and the Invisible Girl.
Redefining Me
Dating My Best Friend
Dating the Boy Next Door
Dating My Nemesis
The Invincible series
We Thought We Were Invincible
We Thought We Knew It All
Discovering Me
Dating Nashville
Dating Washington
Dating Texas
The New Beginnings series
Choices
Promises
Dreams
Confessions
The Dangers of Dating a Diva
Kissing the Debutant (July 14)
Rockstars Anonymous
Love is a Lyric (Fall 2020)
Love is a Dance Step (Fall 2020)
Love is a Harmony (Fall 2020)
Love is a Drum Beat (Fall 2020)
Invincible- The Complete Set Page 36
