I watch the Winterhawks skate off the bench and start a haphazard line for the obligatory sportsman handshake. The Thunder are still peeling themselves off the ice where they jumped on top of Casco.
The Winterhawks’ season is over. They lost in the first round of the playoffs, which, according to my father, is worse than not making them at all. His team lost twice in the first round that I remember, the last time being when I was sixteen. Even though it was a home game and we lived twenty minutes from the arena, he didn’t come home until four in the morning. He was drunk. I remember being woken up by his angry, slurred words. I guess Trey had either waited up for him or woken up and gone downstairs to share his sympathies, but my father didn’t think that was endearing. I woke up to him tearing a piece out of my poor fourteen-year-old brother who idolized him. According to dear old Dad, Trey was a loser for saying “you’ll get ’em next year,” because all that mattered was this year. Winning next time doesn’t change the fact that they failed this time. Failure is not acceptable—ever—and if Trey would get that through his skull, maybe he’d try harder on his own team, which had lost a few nights prior.
I had gotten out of bed and gone downstairs to grab Trey and drag him back to his room before he cried in front of Dad and made the whole thing worse. I remember smelling whiskey and perfume—not my mother’s—emanating from Dad.
But Sebastian is not my father. He’s his own type of hockey player. He’s his own type of man, as he’s proven to me over and over.
Deep breaths, Shayne. Don’t start letting past trauma ruin your life.
“Steph, what’s he like after something like this?” I ask softly. “Should I stay away tonight or text him or…?”
Stephanie opens her eyes and turns her head to look at me. She gives me a small, warm smile. “He’s depressed, but he’s not usually bitchy or anything. He’s quiet, though. He doesn’t like to talk about it—or really talk at all—for a day or two. But he doesn’t like to be alone either, so if you had plans to meet him when the plane lands tonight, keep ’em.”
I nod and give her a thankful smile. Jessie sags back into the couch. “Jordan is going to be bitchy. And Devin is going to call and rub it in, because he and Luc are still in it. Ridiculous brotherly love.”
She laughs at her own words and shakes her head. “Honestly, they show they love each other by pushing each other’s buttons. With a sledgehammer.”
I smile at that. I have a feeling it would have been awesome to grow up in Jessie’s small town with Jordan and his brothers. Wild and crazy but amazing. And I’m dying to meet her sisters too. Seb’s already mentioned he wants me to go to Jordan and Jessie’s wedding with him this summer so I’ll get the chance. I realize that taking a chance on Sebastian has brought more than just him into my life, and I’m grateful. So grateful.
Stephanie’s phone beeps and she grabs it off the coffee table. After glancing at the screen and typing back a message she says, “The plane is supposed to land at midnight.”
“Seb text you?”
Stephanie shakes her head. “No, it was…Chooch. I guess because I’m staying at Seb’s while they’re on the road. He doesn’t want to startle me if I’m sleeping.”
She stands up and stretches. “I’m going to get going and vacate their guest room before they get back. Seb and Chooch will need their space. But not from you. He doesn’t need space from you. Remember that!”
She’s pointing at me like a lecturing schoolteacher. It makes me smile guiltily and raise my hands. “Okay! Okay!”
Jessie stands too, and when I do, she reaches over and hugs me. “Good luck with your sad panda.”
“Good luck with yours too.”
“Thanks for having us over. I love your new place,” Steph says as we stand. I glance around the space, which is slightly smaller than my previous one but it has its own balcony and a dishwasher, and I can walk outside with much less chance of being mugged.
I hug them both and then close the door behind them. Damn, I wish the Winterhawks had won the game. I walk over to my phone on the coffee table and pull up his number and send him a simple text with my new address and the wordsI’m here if you need me.
Slightly after midnight my front door buzzes. I was dozing on the couch so it startles me. I walk over to the intercom, press the button and say, “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
The sound of his voice sends butterflies fluttering around my abdomen, and without a word I buzz him in. When he opens my apartment door he’s wearing his Winterhawks workout gear—track pants, a kangaroo hoodie and sneakers—and dragging his travel bags with him. The hood is up over his head, and as he glances at me while he toes out of his shoes, I’m struck by how tired he looks and how piercing his blue eyes are against the dark shelter of the hoodie.
I’m standing in the archway that divides the front entry from the living-dining room wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of underwear. He walks to me, leaving his bags in the front hall, and I try not to freak out. I don’t know what to expect and I can’t draw on previous experience, but honestly, I wouldn’t blame him if he was angry right now.
He stops directly in front of me and puts his hands on my hips. Then he drops his head onto my shoulder. It’s like an act of defeat. Of surrender. And it’s heavy with sadness and cloaked in the weight of his now broken dreams of another Cup. I cradle the back of his hooded head and whisper against the fabric next to my cheek, “I’m sorry.”
“Moi aussi,” he whispers back hoarsely. I don’t know much French but I know that means “me too.” He lifts his head and those crystal blue eyes land on mine again.
I want to make this better for him, but I can’t. So instead of taking away the pain of the loss I decide to try to give him a new emotion. I push up on my toes and kiss him. He responds immediately and with a passion I wasn’t expecting in his current mood. As our tongues meet I reach up and push the hood off his head so I can run my hands through his thick hair.
Without hesitation I grab the bottom of his hoodie and start to pull it up over his body. He lifts his arm and helps me remove it, and then his big, warm hands are under my T-shirt and seconds later, it’s gone too. He’s needy and I am suddenly too and it’s creating a frenetic urgency to everything. We can’t get naked fast enough.
When all our clothes are lying on the wood floor, he cups my ass and lifts me up, carrying me to my bedroom, which is still full of boxes. The only thing I have really set up in there is the bed. He turns and sits on the edge of it. My knees are on either side of him and he’s holding my ass, so I’m hovering above his dick, which is rock hard and pointing up at me. His eyes fly around the room for a second and then he asks, “Condom?”
“I’m on birth control,” I admit. “Have been the entire time.”
He tips his head up to look at me. I nod as if he needs more confirmation. But that’s not what he wants to know. “Are you my girlfriend?”
