by Elise Faber
“Great! Brit says I’m required to tell you that I won’t cook or bake anything.”
“I’ll look forward to hearing that story at the party, I mean, dinner,” she said as the phone kept ringing. Mandy waved her goodbye as Char snagged the receiver, disappearing down the hall, and it took Char a few seconds to realize that the longing was back. This time it was intertwined with warmth.
Liam and his invite.
Mandy and the pseudo-baby shower.
The Gold were a family, and they were doing their best to include her. They’d done it all season, she realized, offered up the invites and stopped by to visit and chat. But she hadn’t recognized the gestures for what they were, not when she’d been obsessing over every aspect of the team and season.
Some GM, she was.
But even as she answered her phone, she knew this realization was less about her ability to do her job and more about her tendency to keep people at a distance.
Something to ponder.
Something to consider if she had the courage to change.
Because . . . Logan.
Seven
Logan
“Cheers, man,” Blue said, tapping his glass against Logan’s.
They were all sharing a pitcher of beer, Logan excluded. He’d stuck with water for the impromptu meal Blue, Coop, and Kevin had invited him to join in.
Lunch overlooking the water before Blue and Anna, his wife, took off for a much-needed vacation. The young parents were looking forward to some time together, especially as Anna had been earning her degree.
Their son, Aiden, would be staying with Max and his son, Brayden.
“I really hope Aiden sleeps for them,” Blue was saying. He’d been talking about the recent transition from crib to bed and how he and Anna had failed to stick with the change a few times before. Now their three-year-old was older and more stubborn . . . and much better at opening doorknobs.
Logan grinned and sipped his water.
“Why are you hoping for sleep?” Coop asked. “Don’t you want them to feel the lack of sleep pain?” Coop being a newer dad himself. His daughter was almost one and firmly entrenched in babyhood.
“I want them to watch him again, so I have some chance of sweeping my wife off on vacation again.”
Kevin met Logan’s eyes and they shared a look.
That look saying Good Thinking.
Coop got on the same wavelength, too, extending his fist for a bump before picking up the menu. They spent the next few minutes choosing food and ordering then talking about anything but hockey.
They’d all lived and breathed it, now they wanted to talk about family vacations and being lazy on a beach.
His cell vibrated in his pocket.
He glanced at the message and stifled a sigh.
Your mother is impossible.
Logan shoved it into his pocket, but the buzz that came a minute later was to be expected.
Your father says that I should quit my job and spend all day cooking and cleaning. Well, I did that enough while you three were growing up! No more!
Kevin scooped up a bite of pasta. “And then Rebecca—”
Logan typed out a message to each of them.
It said basically the same thing. Or a variation of it, anyway.
I’ll talk to him.
I’ll talk to her.
Thirty-five years and they still couldn’t hash out their own arguments.
“You good?” Coop asked.
Logan shoved down the knot in his gut, focused on this time with friends. “I’m good. Family stuff.”
“—then Rebecca said, ‘I’ll never make brownies for you again,’” Kevin finished.
They all sucked in a breath.
PR-Rebecca’s brownies were legendary.
“What’d you do?” Blue asked.
“I said I’d go rake the leaves.”
“At midnight?” Logan asked, having obliquely followed the conversation, about a “damn” tree Kevin had insisted on keeping when they’d moved into their new house, and the noise the deer living in the woods around them made while crunching through the leaves it dropped.
“Yup.” He shrugged. “In my underwear, with a flashlight clenched in my teeth.”
They all busted out laughing.
“Hey! Those brownies are the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth,” Kevin said. “You know you’d do the same.”
“Never in doubt, man,” Blue said. “Never. In. Doubt.”
“How long did you rake before she took pity on you?” Coop asked, displaying the insight that made him such a great player on the ice.
“Maybe ten minutes,” Kevin replied, grinning.
“Damn,” Coop said. “She must really love you.”
“Don’t know what she sees in you,” Logan teased.
“Hey!” Kevin tossed a napkin at him.
“I don’t know,” Blue said. “Log has a point.”
They started laughing again, chuckling through the waitress dropping off their food and refilling glasses.
“Assholes,” Kevin muttered, though he was laughing, too. He picked up his fork and narrowed his eyes at Logan. “You’re the only single one here. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done that’s pissed off a significant other?”
Logan froze, gut twisting again as he scrambled for an answer.
Scrambled to say anything other than he broke her heart.
Eight
Char
She was wearing those fucking slippers when the doorbell rang.
Char knew it had been stupid to put them on, but she’d crawled out of bed that morning and had seen the box. Then she . . . well, once the lid had been opened, her fingers stroking across the soft-as-silk liner, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from slipping them on.
Glorious.
Like walking on clouds.
Either that or she’d spent way too much fucking time of late in heels.
Probably both.
But now she was in her rattiest pajamas, with the slippers on her feet, her hair pulled up into a haphazard bun, and in no way prepared to be answering the door.
She was a woman in an industry dominated by men.
She was a black woman in an industry dominated by white men.
In too many ways she was the sole representation of her gender, her race, oftentimes both, but she’d long ago accepted that fact, accepted that she needed to always be perfect.
A hole in her black graphic tee emblazoned with “This shirt is the color of my soul”—a hole that showed off a fair amount of side boob, was nowhere near perfect.
Neither were lavender and fuzzy slippers.
And her cause was certainly not helped with the embroidered stars and moons.
The bell went off again.
She weighed her options and decided to ignore whoever was at the door, whether it was a salesman trying to sell her pest control or a player who came needing counsel. The season was over. Char could give herself one day off, for God’s sake.
Plus, she reminded herself, as guilt crept in because she was the one who’d created the whole open-door policy at her house for players and staff in the first place, if it were a serious problem, they’d call her. Everyone had her number. So, if it was important, her cell would ring, and she’d deal with it.
For now, she was going to make herself breakfast—er, lunch.
Except . . . maybe she should check the camera?
Just to be sure.
“No, Char,” she growled. “Take this day.”
Nodding to herself, she pushed off the stool where she’d been checking her emails, because her inbox didn’t take a day off, even if she was planning on doing so, and headed to her fridge.
The doorbell didn’t ring again, so she was safe from that disruption, at least. But as she surveyed the contents of her refrigerator, Char knew another was headed her way. She’d either need to put on suitable clothing—read: not a T-shirt with a near-guaranteed nip slip—or order in. The
choice took her all of two seconds.
Order in.
After closing the fridge door with her hip, she moved back to the kitchen island and her stool where she did most of her work, even though she had a perfectly nice office.
But the truth was that she never felt comfortable in that room of mahogany wood, with the big desk she’d felt obliged to fill the space with.
Maybe she’d redo it over the break.
Go with white walls. A glass-topped desk. Pale blue accents. Maybe a soft, cushy chair she could curl up in.
Yeah, that would be nice.
It would give her the same vibes as her kitchen—soothing and flowy. Though, she knew the real likelihood of her feeling comfortable in her office, even post-remodel would be unlikely. Or maybe not unlikely so much as she knew she would always be drawn to the kitchen.
Because it was the center of the house.
Where she’d sat with whatever mix of her family was around, siblings, aunts and uncles, her sassy grandmother, all talking over one another and teasing incessantly as they’d cooked dinner. What some would have called the proverbial Girl’s Zone, had been thoroughly invaded, her dad crossing battle lines when he’d cooked his special chicken or pasta or red velvet cake recipe, or when Char’s mom had been watching the Super Bowl but her father couldn’t have cared less about the big game.
On those instances, her dad had made snacks while her mom had yelled at the TV.
But on Oscars Night?
The roles had been reversed.
Fluid lines of quote-unquote gender responsibilities. Both taking turns, and both recognizing when something was important to the other so they could support and care for each other.
Perfection.
That was her parents. They were still married after thirty-seven years and still sickeningly happy.
Char couldn’t be jealous or resentful. Not when they’d given her a childhood filled with so much laughter and love, not when she had learned so much from them.
But when she’d learned so much, had so much, it was hard to picture a relationship that wasn’t everything they’d had, and Char had enough insight into herself to know that she couldn’t ever settle for anything less than what her parents had.
And enough to know that she may never find it.
Anywho, she digressed.
This wasn’t the time to think of her love life—or lack thereof lately—nor the time to remember with painful clarity that the one time in her life she’d felt some semblance of peace and happiness that mirrored her parents’ own was when she’d been with Logan. This was time to regroup, recharge.
To prepare for next season.
Nodding to herself, she reached for her cell.
But as she unlocked it, opened the app to DoorDash in some lunch from Molly’s, a flicker out of the corner of her gaze drew her focus.
She spun, and a shriek caught in the back of her throat.
Char clamped a hand to her chest, heart racing. “Motherfucker,” she snapped at the man—the man!—who was leaning casually against the opening that led into her kitchen. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”
Logan shrugged, a tiny smile curving the edges of his mouth.
She lifted her brows. “A shrug,” she said. “That’s your response?”
“You didn’t answer the door.” Another fucking shrug. “The back slider was unlocked.”
Patience. She was striving for it. Striving and not finding it. “There was a reason I didn’t answer the door,” she growled.
“Oh?” Affecting innocence. “There was?”
She stomped her foot.
Which was the complete wrong move because it drew his focus . . . to her feet.
To those fucking slippers.
Char braced herself, waited for him to comment on the fact she was wearing the gift she’d deliberately thrown in the trash two nights before. Instead, his lips curved farther as his gaze slid upward, gliding over her flannel rainbow-printed pajamas, then higher still to her T-shirt. Stopping there. Pausing to take in the saying screened on the front, and maybe it was just her, or maybe the man just never missed a detail, because she felt the hot weight of his stare settle on the hole.
The hole. The hole.
Lurching, she reached for a hoodie lying crumpled on the counter next to her laptop and slid it on, zipping it to her chin.
Which she lifted and paired with the order, “Get out.”
The man crossed his ankles, made himself more comfortable against the wall. “What happened to your open-door policy?”
She resisted the urge to find another hoodie to put on, or better yet, one of her business suits. Royal blue with a crisp white shirt. No pencil skirts for her. They just made her five-foot-two frame seem even smaller. She was wide-leg trousers and fitted jackets. Starched, collared shirts with neat rows of buttons. Classic, put-together.
Not hole-riddled rainbow pajamas.
But . . . she was also a professional, and this was her job.
“What did you need, Logan?” she asked. “Is there an issue with someone on staff? A concern about your contract?” His face didn’t change, except . . . she thought she detected a glimmer of pain in his emerald eyes, prompting her to ask, “Your family? Are your folks okay?”
He pushed off the wall, walked toward her. “They’re fine.”
“Good.” She held her ground as he closed the distance between them, as he came close enough for her to smell the spicy, masculine scent. It took precisely one second for her to be back in the bed of his truck, his body pressed to hers, the cool nip of the evening air on her skin. He was so fucking handsome it took her breath away.
And he’d broken her.
A fact that was very hard to remember when he was so close, when he was brushing back a loose curl of her hair that had escaped her slipshod efforts at a bun, and when that simple touch felt incredible.
She stepped back.
Tactical retreat. A necessary retreat, because as hard as she’d made her heart, as effectively as she’d been able to keep the men she’d dated safely away from the inner sanctum of her emotions, this man had always been able to waltz right through those barriers.
“You asked what I needed,” he said, taking a step toward her, making her retreat all but ineffective.
Char glued her feet in place, held her ground.
She would only retreat so far.
Which Logan seemed to know because his smile grew, because he took another step closer.
“What do you need?” she asked.
Closer again. Logan moved until his boots brushed against the toes of the slippers, until his scent surrounded her again, until she could feel the heat of his body wafting through the thin layers of her clothing.
Scorching emerald eyes.
A calloused palm smoothing back her hair.
The man who’d always been her weakness coming so, so close.
He lowered his hand, the back of his knuckles brushing her temple, trailing over her cheek, down her throat.
She shivered.
“You.”
The word was laced with heat and made her gaze dart to his, where she felt her pulse speed for a second time in as many minutes, her heart thumping against her lungs. Need had darkened those emerald eyes, a need she recognized from their time together, a need her body felt acutely.
Her nipples went hard. Her mouth watered. Her thighs trembled.
Her pussy throbbed.
God, had she ever wanted another man as she always wanted Logan?
“No,” she said, not sure if she was answering herself or telling him to back off. Not sure if she could honestly say she did want him to back off.
Either way, Logan retreated, stepping away from her, walking with loose-limbed grace over to where he’d been standing when she’d first noticed him in her kitchen and stooping to pick up two canvas tote bags.
“What are you doing?” she asked when he headed over to her fridge.
“Putting these
away.”
These presumably being the groceries he was stocking her refrigerator with. Milk. Eggs. Several blocks of cheese. A jar of jelly. Mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup. A bag of apples, a container of spinach, a loaf of bread. He closed the door, went back over and retrieved two more bags. Rice. Bananas. Bread. Cereal.
And more.
Charlotte finally got over her shock, started toward him.
Logan was just stashing the box of cereal in her sadly empty pantry when she reached him.
“What the fuck are you doing, Logan?” she snapped, grabbing the box from the shelf and shoving it against his chest. “I don’t need groceries.” He glanced down at her, and she didn’t need to be a mind reader to hear his thoughts. Or frankly, the single thought that was present in his expression. You don’t need groceries? One look at the empty fridge, the scarce pantry would disabuse that notion.
But what she’d really meant was that she didn’t need groceries from him.
She didn’t need anything from this man.
Logan put the box of cereal on the shelf, well, on a higher shelf, one she wouldn’t be able to reach without a stool, and Char knew the move was deliberate, same as his stacking several cans of soup and other nonperishables on that same shelf. Presumably out of reach, but she’d been short her whole damned life. She had plenty of stools.
In fact, she reached for the one propped in the corner of the pantry.
She’d shove those cans of soup so far up his—
“I’m trying to feed you,” he said, snagging the stool from her grip and shoving it into the opposite corner.
She’d have to go through him in order to reach it. Ugh. Fine. She had another stool in the hall closet. She’d go grab that and—
“Don’t be difficult.”
Char’s feet skidded to a stop and she halted mid-turn to rotate and face him, fury erupting through her. “Difficult?” she asked, almost tripping over the word she was so fucking pissed. “Difficult?”
He didn’t know anything about difficult—or rather, anything about how difficult she could be.
She’d honed those skills over the years.