Heartless King

by Hughes, Maya

  “If anyone asks I’ll tell them you gave it your all, now leave me alone. How in the hell did you get in here in the first place?”

  The jingle of metal on metal. “Declan gave me his keys. Said he had at least twenty sets made up.”

  Traitors. I’d have to find my phone so I could call a locksmith and get them changed.

  “There’s loads for us to do, so let’s get a move on it.”

  “What part of ‘not happening’ don’t you understand?”

  “Okay, but you can’t say I didn’t try.” The mattress sprung back and her footsteps retreated.

  And I must’ve fallen asleep. All I know is I didn’t even hear the attack coming.

  Icy needles splashed over my face and rivulets of freezing water streamed up my nose. I shot up from my bed.

  Imogen stood over me, holding a bucket I didn’t even know I owned, wearing a smile fit for an adorable anarchist.

  I spewed water out of my mouth and shook ice off my body. It thudded to the floor and the water splashed all over everything. “What the fuck, Imo?”

  “You wouldn’t do things the easy way, so I had to improvise.” She shrugged like she’d had no choice in the matter. An invisible force had propelled her helplessly through her attempted drowning.

  “By waterboarding me?”

  “Hardly, I didn’t even get out the burlap sack. Let’s go.” She nodded with a smile like we were on a prank show and I was missing the party downstairs. “Why won’t everyone leave me alone?” Gruff hadn’t worked. Time for a change of tactics. I’d go full-on dick. That got people to steer clear for at least a few days.

  “Because you don’t want to be left alone.”

  “Did you think the flashing welcome sign above my door had burned out? What part of any of this”—I gestured to my dark cave of a room, blackout curtains drawn—“makes you think visitors are welcome?” It was slightly cleaner than the last time she had been here, but I hadn’t exactly set out fresh scones and a pot of tea.

  She held onto the bucket and stalked toward me. “Why haven’t you changed the locks?”

  “The locks.” Hmm, what was this new word? Never heard of it. Apparently, since I hadn’t gotten off my ass to get it done.

  “I told you the guys had keys. Declan had enough made for the whole team. They’ve been showing up for weeks, if not months. If you truly wanted everyone to leave you alone, one phone call would’ve taken care of that. Hell, you could call the cops on them for trespassing, if you really wanted.”

  I crossed my arms and glared back at her.

  She set the bucket down, water droplets tracing down the side of the plastic, and took a step closer.

  “I’m not here to make your life harder.”

  I glanced down at my drenched clothes and back up to her. My face was set to ‘are you fucking serious?’

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures. The guys are worried about you. They want to know you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine. They’re here almost every day. Everyone can see for themselves. I’m fine. I’ve told them I don’t need their help. I’m fine.”

  “That was two more ‘I’m fines’ than anyone who actually has their life together would say.” She opened her arms wide and showcased the room. “Does this look like the room of a man who’s fine? Does downstairs look like the house of a man who’s fine? There was something on the counter down there and I didn’t know whether I should run away from it or try to communicate with it.”

  “They could’ve taken my word for it.” I turned my head to look at the water soaking into the floor.

  She shifted and stepped closer. “Do you know the best way to get them off your back?” Her hand lifted, fingers flexing inches from my arm before she made contact.

  That electric charge traveled straight up my skin, tingling and zapping through me.

  “Give this a try.” She ducked to catch my eye. “For real, put in some work and show them you will at least entertain this.”

  “My knee—”

  “Bailey told me.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “Told you what?”

  “Are we going to play this game, Colm? She told me the truth. Something I take it you’re keeping from the guys, based on how they’ve been talking.”

  I ducked my head, my shoulders inched up.

  Her fingers grasped my dripping forearm.

  Meeting her gaze, I looked into her eyes and I was lost. Everything else faded away. The stiffness in my knee. The loneliness and anger. The past.

  Everything was centered on the two of us in this room. Screw the rest of the world. She’d always been able to make it past my defenses, even the ones that were so ingrained I barely realized I wore them like a shield around me every second of the day.

  “Will you do that?”

  I shook my head, clearing away the fog of her touch and dislodging her hand from my arm. Don’t get too close, Colm. Remember what happened last time? How deep that burn went?

  “And what’s your big plan? How do I get everyone to leave me alone?”

  “We work together.”

  “If you say treadmill and weights, I’ll lose my shit.” And no matter how much I worked out, I couldn’t get on the ice. What was the point, if I didn’t skate again? Couldn’t skate again? Every trainer was focused on getting me playing again. Probably for the big fat bounty team physios got for player rehabs. They’d have shoved me onto the rink shaking and puking, if it meant they got paid. But this was Imo. Some of the sharp jagged edges of my fear were worn away. Maybe she wouldn’t be like everyone else.

  Her laugh came out as a huff. “Sick of the standard PT? You’re not the first client to feel that way. We can improvise, but you’ll have to do some work on your own.”

  Client. That’s how she saw me. I was a broken client she was working to get back on his feet and send on his way. Probably getting paid by the team or the guys.

  “For how long?”

  14

  Imo

  I licked my lips, expecting I’d need to pull the bucket treatment at least a few more times before he caved. I’d had to use the ice water bath three times with Preston.

  The weight of expectations rested on my shoulders, a heavy burden I couldn’t shake. The whole time I’d walked over, I kept trying to talk myself out of it. Give myself all the reasons to tell Terry I was sorry, tell Bailey why it wouldn’t work, and tell the Kings that I wasn’t the miracle worker they thought I was.

  Colm didn’t want to see me. He’d made that clear. And the fire in his eyes had been a different kind of ignition than what I’d seen that night months ago. But there had been loss in his eyes, too. How could I walk away from that? How could I walk away from this new and different Colm who was waiting for someone to wrap the lifeline around his waist and drag him from the churning waters and into the comfort of a safe boat?

  I was exhausted. I didn’t want to be here, but I couldn’t walk away. The balance I’d maintained in my life was shaky, and he could topple it. My perch on the chasm of loss and life had seemed safe before he burned a trail across my body with his lips.

  Now he stood in front of me, soaking wet with an expectant look on his face. Oh shit, the pitch. My big plan on how to make it all better. Get Colm back on the ice, save Bailey’s fledgling recruiting career, get Terry the donation to the center she needed, and keep my life as close to normal as possible. Maybe a nap.

  “We meet three times a week, until the trade window opens. Thirty sessions.” Meeting that often and building his confidence in his recovery could see us cutting things short and only needing a month.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. The t-shirt clung to his wet skin. Even after being laid up for months, his muscles bulged under the soggy fabric. Pecs and biceps for days—well, it seemed months in his case—but he was leaner than he’d been before. “Five, and we meet every other week.”

  From the boredom on his face, I expected him to start inspecting his nails and
yawning.

  “Be realistic. Twice a week for twenty sessions.” There were people who’d kill for what he had. The healed muscles and bones. The support. The money.

  “Every other week. Five.” His jaw ticked, muscles tight like a rubber band stretched to capacity.

  The gauntlet had been thrown, but I wasn’t backing off. Other than Preston, I’d never worked with someone I knew, so I pushed harder than I might with my other clients, rather than respecting Colm’s boundaries and slowly easing him into things. If the bucket of ice water hadn’t clued him in, I wasn’t going to play fair. Stepping forward, I steeled myself and got in his face.

  “From what the guys have said, you haven’t been working out. We need to recover your lost capacity. Consistent work and form will help your muscle strength, flexibility, and reflexes improve much quicker.”

  “And the average recovery period for someone with my kind of injury is less than three months. I know.”

  “Then why aren’t you sweating your ass off to be back with your team?”

  “Why should I?” He glared at me with defiance teetering on the edge of contempt. The lost guy from our night together had been swallowed up by this angry shell. Based on his charts, he was physiologically primed for gradually building back up to his old regimen. But his head was in the way. Fear had a way of paralyzing people. It could freeze them solid even as a truck bore down on them and their body screamed to move.

  As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he’d opened the door. He’d given the Kings keys to his house and hadn’t change the locks. He could’ve called the cops when I showed up for my impromptu dunking, or at least grabbed me and tossed me outside. Even that would’ve been some welcome exercise as long as he kept a solid form while doing it. Hell, he could’ve had someone pack up his life and gotten on a plane, never to be heard from again.

  But he hadn’t. He’d rejected every chance he’d had to truly shut everyone out. Colm wanted this. He wanted to recover.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be an asshole about it. Hope was a cruel mistress and sometimes we fought against the things we wanted most because pretending we didn’t want them was a hell of a lot easier than going after them full tilt and falling short.

  “Are you going to fight me the whole way?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged like he had all day—and he did. He had the rest of his life to be a stubborn ass, but once he saw that a full recovery was possible and got over whatever lies he was telling himself, he’d stop fighting. Getting over the hump, though, showing him he could trust his body again…it would be a doozy. “But you’ve signed yourself up for an assignment when no one asked you to.”

  “Except for your family, friends, and trainer.”

  His jaw clenched.

  “Fifteen sessions. Twice a week every other week and once in between.” I felt like I was haggling at a Saturday Farmers’ Market.

  “Seven.”

  “Ten. Less than once a week and you’re going to lose out on any progress we make. Give me at least that. And you have to do the program I give you for the rest of the week in between our sessions.”

  “Eight.”

  “Colm, don’t be an asshole. The people who care about you want you strong and healthy. Don’t deny them or yourself that just because you want to be stubborn. Ten.” I held out my hand.

  His rough calluses slid against my palm, sending a zing down my spine. This was the first time we’d touched since that night.

  “Deal, but I’m not getting on the ice.”

  My jaw and hand dropped. Now it was my turn to stand there like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water at me. “You’re…” The plan had been a few sessions to see if he’d kept up with the plan his doctors and previous physio had set out for him, and then see how he’d been on the ice. The guys had said he hadn’t skated with them since the injury, but no ice at all? “But how can—”

  “Figure it out, Miss ‘Let’s get you back on your feet.’” He sliced his hands in front of him. “I’m not getting on the ice. If you can’t agree to my terms then I can’t agree to yours.”

  How was he going to get back to playing if he refused to even set foot on the ice? Was self-destructing his plan all along? Wait out the season until they had no choice but to cut him?

  “Do we have a deal?” He held out his hand with a smirk that told me he was enjoying this.

  “Things might get a little unconventional if you’re holding firm to that no ice thing.”

  “Do your worst, Imogen. No ice, but I can handle anything you serve up.”

  I pumped his hand up and down. “I can work with that, but remember this conversation later. This is me saying I told you so.”

  15

  Colm

  Imo shoved the metal handle into my hand before walking over to the pantry.

  “What the hell is this for?” I was tempted to let it fall.

  “For today’s session.” She filled the bucket with water at the sink and hauled it off the counter. Rummaging around under the sink, she grabbed a bottle and unscrewed the top. A pungent lemon scent filled the room. “Perfect, I love a citrus smell. It’s invigorating.”

  I could hear the smile in her voice, even with her back to me, and her shoulders shook, like there had never been anything more exciting than a lemon scented cleaning solution.

  “Gets the blood pumping, right?” With a glance over her shoulder and a grin out of a 90s sitcom, she screwed the cap back on.

  “You’re batshit crazy, aren’t you?” Maybe I’d missed it, staring into her eyes for too long. I’d missed the crazy whirling around them that could have her standing over me with a bucket of ice water and suggesting that cleaning my house would be our first session together.

  “Nope, high on lemon cleaning products.” She lugged the bucket over to me, setting it at my feet. Water sloshed over the edge, spilling onto my toes and the floor.

  “Whoops, someone should probably clean that up.” She tapped her chin and looked up at me, eyes widening at the mop in my hand like it had appeared out of nowhere and she hadn’t shoved it at me less than three minutes ago.

  Had Imo always been this…mischievous? “This is how you’re going to help me? Your plan is to have me mop floors?”

  “No.”

  Some of the tension left my shoulders.

  “You’re also going to vacuum as soon as I find it, clean out the fridge, and do some laundry. Things are piling up.” A quick pat to my shoulder and she turned.

  “I’ll do the dishes.” She grabbed the sponge beside the sink and turned on the faucet.

  “Cleaning? Cleaning my house is how we’re going to get through the next ten sessions? Will you make me clean yours next?”

  She turned, bracing her hands on the edge of the sink. “Would you leave the house if I said it was?”

  I swallowed.

  “When was the last time you went for a walk around the block? Or have you been hiding in here since you got back from the hospital?” She chucked the sponge down and walked over to the curtains in the living room. Grabbing a fistful of each side she flung them open. The room was bathed in the harsh morning light.

  I winced, slamming my eyes shut against the bright flood of sun into the room.

  “When was the last time you opened the front door, walked outside for something other than meeting a delivery man, and did something? Anything?” She stood in front of the window, the sun casting a glow around her body, framing every inch of her.

  My train of thought wasn’t just gone, it had pulled out of the station and was barreling over a cliff. “Outside?”

  “Yes, it’s the place where the sun and birds and other people live.”

  I shrugged. “Recently.”

  From the arm cross and the toe tap she wasn’t buying it. “Perfect. If you’ve got no problem with leaving, we’ll do something outside the house for the next session. Until then, you’ve got work to do.” She pointed her chin toward the sudsy water th
at was pooling around my feet.

  Before going back to the sink, she dug around in her oversized bag and pulled out a speaker.

  My hands tightened on the mop. It was the same speaker from that night on the beach. The one we’d sat beside while the sound of the waves and the music rolled over us.

  The song that came out this time wasn’t slow and melodic, it was fast-paced. Something you could dance to. Or at least, something she could dance to.

  Imo mouthed the words and swayed her hips to the beat, sometimes using the sponge as an improvised microphone.

  My cheeks twitched, and it seemed the muscles hadn’t quite atrophied over the past few months—a smile tugged at my lips as she dragged a sponge across the counter after dumping a pizza box into the trashcan.

  We’d gathered three garbage bags full of stuff already and I’d been tasked with dumping them out in the trash bins outside. She’d watched me from the doorway with a cautious gaze, like she expected me to burst into flames the second the sunlight streaked across my skin, or maybe hail a taxi and abandon her in my house. I had half expected something similar, but the fresh air was no longer summer muggy, and the fall crispness it was edging toward felt good.

  Back inside, she stood on her tiptoes, wiping a cloth across the top of the fridge. She coughed and sputtered at the dust stampede that rushed across her face, and embarrassment burnt my cheeks. I’d let this place go. My meticulousness was covered over by my three month wallow session, but watching this magical, annoying creature invade my space, bringing light and brightness to my house, made it feel more like a home. Like a place I could do more than just drink under the cover of darkness.

  She turned and cleared her throat, catching me staring at her ass, and I sputtered, kicked at the bucket, and kept my head down, mopping.

  As she’d said, the citrusy smell made the room feel cleaner.

  She opened the windows to let the stale air out. The guys hadn’t let me starve, but they weren’t neat freaks. My house had become a window into what it would’ve been like had we all roomed together in college.