Hold On Tight

[Fourteen] Fuck you, Seguin

I want to thank @mahgadahling for her support of the story and for the brand new cover!! This chapter is dedicated to her. Thank you!

Haley rolled her eyes when she saw the rolled-up poster in her brothers' hands. "Please tell me you aren't actually going to hold that up."

Dylan glared at her, still not happy with the bomb she dropped on him the night before. "You can bet your ass I'm holding this up. Every time he's on the ice."

She sighed as she shouldered her way through the crowd of the American Airline Center. "Dyl, I'm sorry, okay? It's not like I wasn't going to tell you, I just –"

"Weren't going to tell me." He stated, deadpanned.

Tugging at the bottom of her dark grey jersey, she picked at a loose thread. "I don't know what it is, yet. He apologized, and –"

Her brother scoffed as he pushed on her lower back, guiding her to the correct set of stairs that would take them down to her seats. "Wow, he apologized. When's the wedding?"

Haley glared at him, his sarcastic tone making her want to slap him. "Stop, Dylan. I know he hurt me, I remember how fucked up I was, how fucked up I've been, but I've never been someone to close myself off to second chances. He apologized, and no, I don't fully forgive him, but he is sorry, and he's trying to make it up to me." She let her eyes roam the seats, her stomach dropped when she spied three heads of blonde hair in the first row. "And I'm going to let him. It might be stupid, and I might regret it, but as my brother, all I need from you is to support my decision. You've met him one time, which you didn't even fucking tell me about, and all you did was lay him out on the ground. Get to know him, I promise you, he's really something."

He did nothing but glare at her, and she felt her body deflate. She knew it wasn't going to be easy to convince him that everything would be okay, and if it wasn't for a certain brown-haired scruffy man, he wouldn't have found out until she had a tighter grasp on what was happening. She felt her nerves build again as she remembered her and Tyler's conversation from the night before.

"So what did you tell your brother?"

Haley rolled her eyes as she laid her jersey out on her couch, not wanting it to get wrinkled before the game the next day. "There's nothing to tell my brother."

She heard him scoff on the other end of the phone. "Right, because he's not going to notice that you're perfectly okay at a Dallas game. And what about the seat change? He bought the tickets, Hal. He's going to know something's going on when you lead him to the glass."

"I'll deal with it."

"And when you guys come to the locker room after the game? What about when I hug you like I haven't seen you in days, huh?" He paused when she sighed. "I hate to remind you of this, but you kind of hated me a month ago."

Haley held the phone tighter to her face, keeping an eye on the closed door of her spare room to make sure she could continue the conversation without her brother overhearing. "That's not going to be a problem, because I'm not going to the locker room after the game."

"What?" He didn't sound happy. "Haley, I want you there. I want to introduce you to Av. I want some of the guys to meet you."

She rubbed her head where a migraine was forming. Why did everything have to be so difficult? "There's time for that, Tyler. And I just agreed to do whatever it is we're doing a couple days ago, you're moving too fast."