Thunk.

Jamie stepped onto the gravel of Veronica’s driveway, closing the driver’s door behind him with a thud.

It was early - not yet nine o’clock, the rest of her neighbourhood asleep on the weekend morning. Birds chirped from the tall trees above, dew sparkled on the green grass of the lawn, despite it being almost mid-October.

It had been a week, ten days exactly, since he’d seen her. Text and a single phone call they’d shared paled in comparison to this feeling, knowing Veronica was just a few steps away.

Jamie hopped up the steps of Veronica’s house, the wood planks creaking under his feet.

The road trip itself had been a mixed bag of sorts: two wins, one loss, and another in overtime. Starting the season off on a lukewarm skate wasn’t what Jamie wanted, but his previous five seasons in the league had taught him that patience was a virtue.

Deep down, he knew the same ethos went for Veronica, for any kind of a chance with her. In light of everything she’d been through, Jamie knew it would take time. Any of it, all of it, whatever it was destined to be, would take time.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t try speeding up the process, though.

It was why he’d accepted her offer so quickly. It wasn’t Jamie’s usual scene, he knew none of the bands playing at the festival, and it meant a day lost to recovering from the games they’d endured, of lost sleep caught up on before the next bout of games came about.

But the chance to be with her was too good to pass up. The curl of her hair, falling over her shoulder; that laugh of hers, tossing her head back when she thought something was extraordinarily funny; the colour she painted her nails, the lightest shade of pink.

Jamie didn’t want to miss a second of it, of being with her.

He didn’t get a chance to catch his breath, reaching the top step of her porch - the door swung open, revealing the girl he’d been dreaming about every night.

His mouth dropped open, at the sight of Veronica: faded denim cutoffs, peeking out underneath an army green tank top, that flowed long and past the hip. Legs, endless legs, went on forever, her feet tucked into brown ankle boots. Her eyes sparkled in the morning light, emphasized by the chunky gold necklace at her neck - large petals of metal, overlaid on one another, hung just past Veronica’s throat.

“Hi!” she cried, one foot on the threshold. At the sight of Jamie’s face, Veronica stopped short, skidding to a stop. She couldn’t help the giggles spilling from her lips. “Are you okay?”

His dark eyes blinked; he licked his lips. Jamie shook his head, cheeks flushing pink from acting like a total dweeb.

Let’s try that again, he told himself, embarrassed.

“Yeah,” he barked a laugh, running a hand through his hair.

Veronica just smiled, like she was used to stuttering and blushing from everyone who knocked on her door. A wave of her hand drew him inside, up the wooden steps and into the house that immediately felt like home.

“Got the tickets right here,” she said, pointing to an entrance table with two sets of wristbands, colourful ribbons waiting to be strapped on. “And directions and a parking pass, and a map just in case…”

Jamie laughed, knowing Veronica would have thought of everything. She was, after all, a teacher - organization was one of her strong suits. “Sounds like we’re going for a week.”

“And I’m all packed,” Veronica said, grinning at Jamie over her shoulder, leading him down the hall. Waves of copper hair fell over her shoulders, rippling down her back. “Got our bags loaded up, water ready to go…”

Her voice trailed off as she turned in the kitchen, bags of supplies at her feet. Veronica’s eyes moved to Jamie’s face, as he’d stopped dead in his tracks, one foot into the kitchen. A stunned look spread over his face, taking in the spread before him.

“Jamie?” she asked.

His gaze flew up to meet hers, panic spreading over his features. Paired with a black t-shirt, green cargo shorts and grey Vans, the look on his face made him seem younger, more boyish than normal. For someone so capable, so calm, little seeming to ruffle his feathers, he looked downright terrified. Again, Veronica bit back a laugh.

“What is it?” she managed, unable to keep the grin off her face.

“I just…” Jamie waved at the mess of bags on the floor, as if it were a wild animal. “What is all this stuff?”

This time Veronica couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, reaching for a satchel.

“Festival stuff, city slicker,” she teased, grinning up at Jamie. She lifted the bag into his open hands, a water bottle next to follow. Veronica stuffed a blanket under an arm, grabbing the remaining bag off the hardwood floor.

If not for his surprise, the shock of everything Veronica had packed for a day trip from Dallas, Jamie would have kissed her. The light in her eyes, and that dimple in her cheek - it had only been a few times that he’d seen it, that flash of who she was before Jeremy died.

And each time, he’d reached for her, pressing his mouth against hers.

But he didn’t have time to think now, to leap at the opportunity. Veronica was waving him out of the kitchen, nearly pushing him out the door, following close by.

“Come on, come on!” she cried, giggling as Jamie nearly tripped down the stairs. “Let’s go!”

Veronica took off flying before him, jogging to the vehicle that awaited them in the driveway. She looked like a child: happy, carefree, full of joy.

“Wait for me!” he cried, racing to catch up to her, as if he’d follow Veronica anywhere.
__

“What are we listening to?”

Jamie glanced at Veronica, her pretty features contorted in a horrified twist. It was as if she’d seen a rat, a spider, vermin crawling in her space, rather than a song on the radio.

They’d piled everything into Jamie’s SUV, the Saturday traffic light as they headed out of Dallas. It was a relief, really, to be getting out of town. The Stars had a rare three day break between games, and if not for Veronica, he would have spent the time off lazing on his couch or catching up on sleep.

Eyes ghosting over her features, Jamie knew he had picked the right choice.

“Country music,” he laughed, cranking up the tunes. It only made Veronica groan, tipping her head back in frustration. Jamie sang along with the lyrics, knowing it would drive her crazy - he’d found a weak spot and intended to exploit it.

She wears high heels, I wear sneakers
She's cheer captain, and I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find
That what you're looking for has been here the whole time

“Uggggggghhhhh,” Veronica growled, trying to keep a straight face. It was impossible, with Jamie singing along to Taylor Swift and bopping his fingers along the steering wheel with the beat. “I know that, by why are my ears being subjected to this crap?”

Jamie gasped, nearly swerving the vehicle into the oncoming lane.

“You’re not a fan of TSwift?” he demanded, horror on his face. His brown eyes widened, soft lips dropped open in shock. “How’s that even possible, Vee?”

Veronica giggled, face palming. “Oh, Jamie,” she shook her head, smiling.

“Nuh uh,” he said firmly, turning back to the road. A hand slipped out, turning up the volume even more. “I refuse to believe it.”

Strumming guitars filled the luxury SUV, reverberating off the walls and ceiling. Veronica covered both hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes against the sight of Jamie singing along.

“Can’t you see that I'm the one who understands you,” he crooned, not giving a damn about his terrible singing voice. He’d gotten Veronica smiling and would do anything to keep it that way. “Been here all along--”

Veronica reached out instinctively in protest, reaching for the volume. Jamie caught her fingers, holding them still in his. “So, why can't you seeeeeeeeeee, you belong with meeeeeeeee--”

She collapsed in giggles, her other hand wrapped around their clasped palms. Veronica fell back against the leather seat, the widest smile he’d ever seen spreading across her face.

There it was again: sparkling green eyes, chest heaving in delight. If he hadn’t been responsible for both their lives on the highway, Jamie would have reached for Veronica and kissed her. Again.

Barrelling down the highway to Austin, they took turns playing songs, each one making fun of the other’s choice relentlessly. Veronica would scroll endlessly through her phone to find the perfect song; Jamie asked her to find a particular tune while keeping both hands on the wheel.

“Twangy hillbilly!” Veronica had declared, grinning as Jamie selected Blake Shelton.

“Whiny emo crap!” Jamie cried when Veronica played Bon Iver.

But he couldn’t help himself, an innate curiosity to know everything about her. The hours flew by with his questions, of the songs she played, the bands she loved, what he might expect when they arrived at the festival.

“Plenty of under-dressed millennials pretending they’re fans of the music,” Veronica quipped, smirking at Jamie.

“Like me?” he laughed, feeling more and more like he was out of his element. This beautiful girl, with her smarts, her interests so different from his, made Jamie feel like he needed to step up his game.

“Except you’re wearing too many clothes,” she giggled, settling back in the seat. His face staring straight ahead, Veronica couldn’t see the flush across his neck.

Eventually silence settled upon them, the way it does on road trips, long stretches of highway and scenery flying by. Her eyes moved over Jamie’s body as the building melody filled the space between them. With nothing to distract her, her gaze fell on his tattoo, the intricate engravings on his skin.

Tentatively, Veronica reached out, heart hammering in her chest as she allowed her fingers to brush over Jamie’s forearm.

He jumped, flinching as he turned to her.

“Sorry!” Veronica cried, sucking in a mouthful of air. She snatched her fingers back, folding both hands in her lap.

“No, no,” Jamie said, frowning. He chastised himself for ruining the moment, after everything had been going so well. And now here he was, pulling away from her? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

She smiled shyly, working up the courage to touch him again. “I just, I haven’t seen these up close.”

Jamie glanced down at his arm, where her fingers had brushed against. Unlike the sleeve adorning his left arm, his other tattoos covered only a portion of his skin, intricate lettering in black ink.

“What does it say?” Veronica asked, her fingers lingering on his skin.

She’d seen it before: when Jamie casually leaning against the kitchen island of the home she’d shared with Jeremy; at Stars’ team events in the spring, as the season was winding down. And of course, when she had slept in his bed, sound asleep on his back, an arm resting gently over his head.

“Brothers,” he replied, trying to keep his gaze on the highway whilst Veronica brushed against his skin, sending sparks skittering along his spine. He kept one hand on the wheel while the other reached over, tracing the letters. “Jordie has the same one.”

“Really?” Veronica grinned, looking up to meet him in the eye. “Did you guys--”

“Get them together?” he asked, his heart racing at the look on Veronica’s face. “Yeah, my first year in the league.”

Again, she laughed.

“Little Jamie Benn,” Veronica said, a teasing tone in her voice. “All bony elbows and long hair, following his big brother around, straight to the tattoo parlour?”

Like the touch of her hand, Veronica’s breath swept along his skin, making his fist clench harder around the steering wheel. It took all he had in him for Jamie to keep a straight face, while she fawned over him.

“Pretty much,” he said sheepishly, ducking his head. The blush on his face wasn’t only from Veronica calling him out, but the thought of her skin along his. “We lived together, hung out together, and then got the chance to--”

“To play together,” Veronica finished for him, the corner of her mouth turning up in a smile as he nodded. Her eyes flicked back to the detailed lettering on his forearm - something caught her eye. “Wait, does it say--”

“Forever,” Jamie said, the word coming out in a rush. He’d been holding his breath as Veronica’s fingers had swept over his skin.

“What?” she asked, eyes snapping up to his.

Veronica’s heart hammered in her chest as the thoughts raced. Did he mean that for me? What does forever even mean?

He bit his lower lip, unable to contain the thought. I’ll mean it for you, if you let me.

Instead, he sighed, again running a finger over the tattoo, where she had touched him. It drew the opposite length, backwards on the letters that spelled ‘Brothers.’

“Brothers one way,” he said softly. Veronica was barely able to hear him, the soft tenor of Jamie’s voice. “And forever the other.”

Overwhelmed - by the sound of his voice, the touch of his skin under hers, even the thoughtful gesture he and Jordie had inked on their arms - Veronica swallowed hard.

“Oh,” she said.
__

Veronica stared in amazement, as Jamie devoured his Reuben sandwich. He tore through the rye bread, the sauerkraut and corned beef, like it was the last thing he’d ever consume.

They had stopped in Prairie Dell, a small town outside of Austin. Veronica knew the lineups at the music festival, and the overpriced food options, were waiting for them. Best to fuel up first, before hitting the stages. A deli on the side of the highway had beckoned them; Jamie’s stomach had growled at the sight.

Now, seeing him wolf down his meal in minutes, it was clear she’d made the right decision.

“How we gettin’ on, here?” a voice drawled, their waitress appearing at the table.

Veronica glanced up to the woman in her fifties, whose blonde curls were pulled tight as a corkscrew. She perfectly complemented the diner decor: white arbrite tables, teal pleather banquettes, a jukebox in the corner of the restaurant. A white apron was tied over her blue uniform, and the way she looked at Jamie was pure Texas charm.

“We’re great,” Veronica answered for them, drawing the attention away from the man next to her, just a foot away in the corner booth. “The food’s delicious.”

The waitress refilled Veronica’s coffee cup, raising an eyebrow at Jamie. “Seems like it. You eaten in days, boy?”

It was clear that the waitress had no idea her customer was the captain of the Lone Star State’s up and coming hockey team. She looked at him like he was any old customer stepping through her doors.

Veronica snarfed a laugh over the rim of her mug, as Jamie looked up in surprise. Like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, his brown eyes widened, mouth dropped open.

“I…..um…..I,” Jamie stammered, somehow apologetic for consuming the food that had been set before him. “Sorry, I’m just--”

“Oh, I’m just pulling your leg, sweetie,” the waitress grinned, waving a hand at the forward. She turned to Veronica, a bright smile on her face. “How’s your merengue, darlin’?”

Veronica glanced down at the last few bites of her lemon pie, having devoured her slice just as Jamie had his meal, in record time.

“Clearly I hated it,” Veronica grinned. “Is that shortening in the crust?”

“Oh, can’t reveal our trade secrets!” the waitress said, in mock horror. She glanced between her two patrons, before turning to walk away. “Y’all let me know if you need anything else, alright?”

Cup to lips, Veronica inhaled the rich aroma of the coffee, nodding at their server.

“You’re good at that,” Jamie said, drawing her attention back to him.

“Huh?” Veronica asked, confused.

Jamie rolled his eyes. “That ‘yes, ma’am,’ and ‘alright, now’ stuff,” he grinned, laying on a thick Southern drawl.

“Shut up!” Veronica beamed, swatting his arm. He only tucked back into the remnants of his sandwich, shaking his head.

“You are!” Jamie insisted, munching on a crust of bread. “You sure it was Colorado you grew up in, and not the great state of Texas?”

She blushed, a wave of copper hair falling in her face. Jamie grinned, dipping a fry into a smear of ketchup. He was enjoying this too much: the way Veronica was with the waitress, the way he was finally beginning to see who she really was, under her bruised and battered exterior.

And more than that, as someone besides Jeremy’s girl. Jamie’s heart fluttered at the thought.

“Tell me about it,” Jamie said, stuffing a few fries into his mouth.

Veronica’s head snapped up. “Huh?”

“Colorado,” Jamie’s said, lips twisted into a smile that made Veronica blush. Even hearing him say it, the place she’d grown up, made her heart race.

“Ummmmmm,” she trailed off, glancing upwards at the tin tiles on the diner’s ceiling. Where did one start? Childhood? Leaving home for the big city?

Jamie sensed her hesitation, wanting to make it easier for Veronica. “Favourite childhood memory,” he declared, leaning both forearms on the arbrite table.

Veronica’s laughter came out as a bark. “I’m only doing this if you are,” she insisted, brows drawing together in a furrow.

“Of course,” Jamie smirked, holding both hands up in a sign of surrender. “But you first.”

“That one’s easy,” she said, pushing away the empty salad bowl, contents consumed. “Skating out on the lake with my grandfather.”

It instantly brought back memories for both of them: for Jamie, memories of the first time he’d taken the ice with his brother Jordie, their mother tossing her youngest out on the rink’s frozen surface.

“I can still feel it, you know?” Veronica asked, her emerald eyes meeting his dark orbs. “The way the ice bumped under my skates, the wind howling, falling flat on my ass.”

Jamie burst out laughing, her smile the permission to share in the collective memory - he had experienced the same, out on the ice with players years older than him. The bruises had come fast and furious until Jamie had been able to get his footing, learned to skate circles around the other kids.

“Trust me, I know,” he nodded, remembering the tears he’d shed after the first skating - and falling - at the rink, thinking he’d never love the game with the other kids running him ragged. “I still feel that way every time Segs bowls me over on my butt.”

Veronica giggled at the thought, the image of Tyler trying to knock Jamie off his game.

“Okay, my turn,” she said, reaching for the recently refilled cup of coffee, the steaming aroma filling her nostrils. Downing a sip, Veronica set her sights on Jamie. “Favourite thing to do in Dallas.”

His mouth dropped open, the answer all too easy. “Play--”

“That doesn’t involve the rink,” Veronica interrupted, holding a finger between them to stop Jamie from revealing the most obvious answer in the book. “Surely, there’s more to you than killing it out there on the ice.”

Not really, was the first thought that flashed to his mind. Besides practicing and playing games, Jamie usually stuck close to home. Off days were spent watching football, hitting up his favourite restaurants. The hockey players’ old habits of keeping habits died hard - even after years on the team, Jamie still went to the same places to eat, the comfort of the known appealing.

Except when it came to her, to this beautiful girl just an arm’s length away. With Veronica, it was suddenly apparent how little he’d been doing outside of hockey. That the people and places he associated with the Big D all tied back to one aspect of his life, playing for the Stars.

She saw it on his face, the hesitation, the embarrassment, and finally, panic. The flurry of emotions reminded of her Jeremy, of what he’d told her when they first started dating, of his work with the team.

“All they know is this,” Jeremy had said, as an older brother might lament, of his younger sibling. “They’ve spent their entire lives chasing, trying to make it to The Show, and when they get here? It’s like they’re suddenly all alone, and hockey’s all that’s familiar.”

It had been why Jeremy had taken players under his wing, helped the newbies acclimate to living in Dallas, to making millions a year, to the pressures that came with the new, unknown territory.

It had been how Veronica had met Jamie in the first place, that night under the rink, outside the Stars’ dressing room. When he’d shook her hand, and avoided her eyes, too shy to utter more than a few words.

So like her fiancee, the man she’d loved and lost, Veronica gave Jamie a break, a pass at pretending to know all the hot spots Dallas had to offer.

“My favourite,” she emphasized, leaning forward on the table between them, “is shopping for books.”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, mossy green in the afternoon light. The curl of her lips and the breathy way the words fell from her tongue, made him smile just the same.

“Books?” his perfect eyebrows furrowed, his features contorted.

Veronica laughed, amused at the way it sounded like a foreign object, like it’d been since high school since he had picked up a book.

“What was the last good book you read?” she offered, hoping the question was less intimidating than her last one.

“Uggghhhhhh,” Jamie squeezed his eyes shut, mentally filing through the long nights flying around the league, how he’d filled the hours between game time and sleeping and practice. “The Hockey News?”

“That does not count!” she shrieked, again swatting his arm. Between the sparkle in her eyes, the dimple in her cheek, and the brush of her fingers, Jamie would have let her keep doing that if she insisted. “Alright, the next time you have an off day in Dallas, I’m taking you book hunting.”

“Hunting?” he asked, those brows lifted skeptically. He reached for the last bits of his meal, knowing it was time for them to hit the road again, if they wanted to make the music festival at all.

“Yes,” she insisted, leaning on the table between them. “The library, flea markets, maybe even my favourite used book stores.”

“Used books?” Jamie asked, the thought conjuring images of dusty shelves and musty copies of books his grandmother might read.

Veronica bit back a laugh, as much by his unease at her suggestion, and at the swipe of mustard left across his lip as Jamie finished the reuben. Unaware of the condiment smeared against his lip, he pushed away the empty plate, wiping his fingers on a paper napkin.

“Used books,” she answered him, nodding and sliding along the pleather banquette until they were inches apart.

Jamie’s eyes widened. Her fingers reached for a new napkin. His breath hitched as she wiped the mustard away, her eyes lingering on his lips.

“I promise you’ll love it,” she whispered, eyes flicking up to meet his.

Notes