“I know,” I whispered into Hawk’s fur.
“But I promise you, baby, Iwillhelp you reach your goals.”
I stood, ignoring the tears raining down my face, and nodded. The question I wanted to ask ping ponged around my brain, but I bit my tongue to keep from asking it.
“Thank you.”
Skating away from the man and dog I wanted in my life, I cursed whatever deity hated me so much that they made my life a constant, never-ending struggle. Somehow I knew after that one night that all the crap I’d gone through in life before this moment paled in comparison to how leaving Alex and Hawk behind.
TWENTY-FIVE
SASHA
Aiden left Hawk and me standing on the ice days ago. If I thought my mind and body were obsessed with him before, I was sorely mistaken. Aiden filled my every waking moment since meeting him, and most of the sleeping ones held thoughts of him and the things we’d done that one night I got to spend with the boy, especially in the last few days.
I lay stretched out on the sofa in my office. Hawk lay next to me on the floor. We should’ve gone home hours ago, but the house was fucking enormous. It even echoed. I hated it. The school spared no expense when they built it, but for a single guy and a dog, yeah, I’d rather stay right here in my office.
I felt closer to Aiden here. Freaking ridiculous notion, but I wanted the boy at my side, in my bed because I damn sure couldn’t evict him from my mind. I lay here trying my damnedest to figure out a way around all the obstacles standing between Aiden and me.
The school.
The team.
The league.
That didn’t even take into account the vast age difference. Which I didn’t give a fuck about, but Aiden might, especially in a few years.
Groaning, I thought seriously about screaming in frustration or regressing to a toddler so I could have a full-on screaming tantrum where I flopped around on the floor banging my fists and kicking my feet.
I didn’t see a fucking way around them, over them, or through them. An insurmountable obstruction in the form of policy and ethical… shit. The only way for me to have Aiden was to give up my coaching position. I knew it as sure as I knew my shoe size. I wanted to say I could be with him and keep my two lives separate, but if the way I’d handled things since finding out he was one of my players was anything to go by, yeah, I wasn’t so positive that I could.
I worried about him all the fucking time—more than any other player on the team and there were several who needed some high level supervision. A couple of them partied hard, several had issues with grades, a few others were daredevils, and then there were the pranksters. My eyes rolled at the last group. A couple of fraternity boys who were good kids but man they liked stirring shit.
Once I met the team and saw them through a couple of practices, I pulled out their files. I skipped over everything except their medical reports to see if there were any injuries we needed to worry about, avoiding their personal data. It got harder and harder to keep my promise the longer I worked with the team, but I did everything I could so I didn’t discover who Mikal’s kid was by mistake.
When I got to Aiden’s file, which I purposefully put on the bottom to force myself to look through all the players’ files, I dug deeper than with the rest. I still turned past his family looking for any tiny smidgen of information I could find… his favorite foods, drinks, pastimes, whatever. I needed to know it all. Stupid didn’t cover it, even so, I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know more about him. I hoped that doing so would help me shake the grip he had on my attention loose, so I could maybe take advantage of the club membership I was wasting.
Life had it out for me, that was for fucking sure. I finally peek my head out of the cocoon I wrapped my ass in after the accident, and the first damn attempt I make at having a life, it pulls the rug from under my damn feet after letting me have a taste of something I’ve spent years longing for.
Aiden Mercer ticked every box on any list I’d ever made for what I wanted in a boy.
Sexy?
Beyond so.
A boy who regressed, just enough but not too much?
Not that there was anything wrong with age play, but it didn’t tickle any of my fancies. Kink dynamics were fluid. If you made a connection with someone, a true connection, and they had a specific need, your own could pivot. If that happened, fine. It was more about the connection for me than anything else.
Dynamite in the sack?
Fuck! He wore me out that night at the club, and every time I saw the boy, he set my soul on fire.
Hawk’s head popped up.
“What is it, buddy?”
He surged to his feet and waited, ears perked up and twitching.
