Heartless King

by Hughes, Maya

  My lips stayed sealed. Gotten through to him or given him a way out of facing his real problems, not to mention him being determined not to skate again.

  “You’re getting him to work out? Stick to a plan?”

  “They’re probably overselling it. We’ve met one time. And I didn’t get him to comply without flinging a bucket of ice water in his face. I wouldn’t say he came along willingly.”

  “Hmm, ice bucket. I’ll add that to the list.” She pulled out a small notebook and scribbled down the words. “Anything is better than where we were. My ass is on the line. After the last injury, I made some promises about his comeback. The back-to-back injuries are a double whammy. And I might’ve given the impression to the higher ups that he’s further along in his progress than he is.”

  For the first time since we walked into the room, her personality didn’t fill it to the brim. “Do you think he might be ready by the start of the season?”

  He wouldn’t even set foot on the ice right now. “He’s not there yet, but he’s determined to be up to speed by the time the trade window closes.” I was glad I’d had so much time to practice lying recently; it made this lie come easier.

  “That’s months away. I can’t hold them off for that long.”

  “What about the end of the year? Give him until December. He can do it.”

  She eyed me, but I didn’t shrink under her assessing gaze. “I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.” Dragging her fingers through her hair, she cursed under her breath. “I’ve never met a bigger bunch of prima donnas in my life. Can I see what you have planned for him?”

  I walked her through my unorthodox training regimen for the next nine weeks.

  “And you’ve discussed all of this with him?” She pointed at the calendar and listed activities.

  “He was enthusiastic after our initial rocky start.”

  She made a noise of approval. “This will be enough to get him back to starter shape?”

  “If he does the workouts for our days off, it’s possible.”

  “Possible isn’t going to cut it. I need him back in condition or he’s going to get cut.”

  “When it comes to my clients, I don’t deal in absolutes, so I won’t lie to you either. We can never know one hundred percent what will happen.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she locked her arms across her chest. It felt like she was trying to peel back layers of my skin with her eyes. Then a miracle, the corner of her mouth lifted. “I respect you for not blowing smoke up my ass.”

  “You seem wound so tight, I don’t even think smoke could make it up there.”

  She barked out a laugh and punched my shoulder.

  Wincing, I gritted my teeth, keeping myself from rubbing the sore spot.

  “He’s in good hands.” Her gaze held genuine affection. Under all her bluster, she cared about these guys. She went up another notch in my eyes.

  I smiled. “I’m trying my best.”

  17

  Colm

  “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Imo tilted her head to the side and narrowed her gaze. “There are much easier ways.”

  Springy blue foam blocks and mats covered every inch of the floor. My toes sank into it. Bright fabric hung from a fifty-foot ceiling. The room held the distinct smell of sweat, determination, and disinfectant.

  “You have everything you need, Imo?”

  “We’re good. Thanks for letting us sneak in.” She smiled at the sandy-haired guy with a gymnast’s build in a tank top and shorts. The guy responded to her thanks by looking at Imogen as though they were at a bar together on their third round of drinks.

  I bristled, a possessive streak racing through me. Had she found any other wounded birds at bars since our night together and nursed them back to health with mind-blowing sex? What was his connection to Imogen?

  “You’re in good hands.” They both turned to look at me. Mr. Gymnast extended his hand and I shook it out of ingrained reflex. “Enjoy your PT.” He clapped me on the shoulder as Imogen was walking away.

  Mr. Gymnast walked behind her and checked out her ass. A long lingering stare—I was surprised it didn’t come with a wolf whistle or maybe him getting down on all fours and panting. I squeezed my fists at my sides.

  “Hey, Imo check this out.” She glanced over her shoulder as he ran across one of the floor mats, twisted into a triple backflip, and landed in a foam pit. Why didn’t he run over and hump her leg while he was at it?

  She laughed and clapped. “Don’t worry, Colm, we’re not doing that today.”

  “Today?”

  “Fine, ever. Way to ruin all my fun. Today we’re tackling this.” A cylinder the size of an industrial soup can sat on its side between her legs.

  “A can?”

  “Not just a can. We’re working on your balance, so we’ll also be using this.” She grabbed a piece of wood shaped like a miniature surfboard from the floor. Like a horror movie come to life, she set the wood on top of the cylinder and popped up on top, balancing herself. With small corrective motions in either direction, she held her hands out to her sides as it wobbled, trying to buck her.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “It’s easy.” She hopped down and motioned me forward.

  “Are you trying to reinjure me? Who told you this was a good idea?”

  “My physiotherapy degree, and helping over three hundred patients get back on their feet.”

  “And you put them all up on a death wheel?”

  “Most aren’t as difficult as you, so we can go the more traditional route, but you put the conditions in place and here we are.”

  “There’s no fucking way, Imogen.”

  “We’ll start at the wall with a smaller cylinder. You promised me you’d be cooperative. Or I can report back to the guys that you’ve backed out and they should buy a new game system for your house.”

  Narrowing my eyes at her with my mouth tight, I bit out one word. “Fine.” I’d have much preferred a two-word option.

  “I’m happy to see you’re looking forward to this as much as I am.”

  “Let’s get this over with. How much are they paying you? I can pay you double.”

  “This isn’t about the money. It’s about you getting to where you need to be. Where you deserve to be.”

  “And where do I deserve to be?”

  “On the ice.”

  Just the words sent a cold shiver down my spine. Rinks used to be a second home for me. Waking up at 4am to get ice time and playing late into the night after school until I had to get Liv home for dinner had been my life. But now that word made my hands clammy and sent bile rushing to the back of my throat.

  “I said I’d do your sessions. Nothing about getting back onto the ice.”

  She laughed, keeping her hands flexed at my sides, like she could take my entire weight if I toppled over.

  “What’s funny about that?”

  Her head shake and continued laugh were like needles under my skin.

  “What about any of this is funny?”

  “That’s almost exactly what Preston said after…” And her laughter died, the smile falling off her face like she’d dropped her ice cream cone after standing in a three-hour long line.

  Preston. Of course. When hadn’t her life revolved around Preston? Was that why she’d left that morning? Not only because I was a mess in need of a firehose and Mac truck of ibuprofen, but because she was still in love with him?

  “After what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But know you’re not the first person to be worried about getting back into their normal life after life whips a curveball at them.”

  She and Preston had been together for so long, they’d been almost like an old married couple from the way Declan and Heath described them. I’d only met Preston once before the accident. I lost my parents, but she’d lost her partner. Was it still hard to be without him? Did she still compare everyone to him? When she was with me, was she wishing s
he was with him? Had she hoped it was his arms around her? His mouth taking hers and plundering the depths of her desire? Had she worried about calling out his name when I sank into her?

  Was that why it had been so easy for her to walk away after our amazing night together? Was that why she was here now? Guilt? Or was it money? An overactive Florence Nightingale syndrome?

  “Saint Preston. Canonized and memorialized for eternity,” I grumbled, staring straight at the cinderblock wall in front of me, determined to get this balancing thing down.

  After five failed attempts, one of which nearly sent me flying on top of Imogen, I got up on the balance board. The knee brace caught on the fabric of my sweatpants, tugging them lower with each rock.

  “I’m going to pull these up before the ladies over there get even more of a show.” Her hands were on my hips, dragging the soft fabric back up my body. At the same time I reached down to grab them.

  My hands landed on top of hers where she’d reached out to help with my balance, but her touch was the ultimate distraction. Her long, soft fingers under mine, pressed against my body.

  All the balance I’d achieved evaporated. The board went out from under me and my full body weight crashed to the side, taking Imo with me. I turned as I fell, wrapping my arms around her.

  We hit the ground with a thud and a bounce. The spongey floor softened the fall, taking the pain I’d anticipated out of the impact.

  “Shit, are you okay?” Imo braced her arms on either side of my waist, scooting down my body toward my knee.

  The blood rush was so fast and the sweatpants were so baggy, the tent was inevitable. Could I go a damn day without getting an unwanted erection around her? Was I in eighth grade and going through puberty again?

  Jesus I needed to get laid.

  Jumping up faster than I’d thought possible after my injury, I avoided eye contact and shoved my hands into my pockets, shooting my hips back as the blood finally left my most problematic appendage.

  “Why don’t we try some different exercises?” Her gaze bounced to every spot in the whole warehouse-sized room that wasn’t near me.

  She ran me through a series of exercises and drills. The soft, springy action of the floor kept the harsh impact from jarring my joints too much. Sweat poured down both our faces. She was beside me for most of them, pushing me, goading me, taunting me to get my ass in gear and move it. No wonder she was in such amazing shape.

  “I’ve had seventy-year-old grandmas do this faster than you. Get going, Frost.”

  With flushed cheeks and stray hairs plastered to the side of her face with sweat, Imo gulped from her water bottle, making that reverberating bottomless pit sound people only made when they’d run a 5k with no water. She’d put in just as much work as me throughout the day, never letting me flag or stop pushing myself.

  “Have you talked to Liv lately? Or Ford? Everyone always said you two had a bromance for the ages.” She stopped tying her laces and she turned her head, looking at me.

  “None of your damn business.” Not like the guys hadn’t already spilled everything they knew like a piñata at a seven-year-old’s birthday.

  “Come on. Every time the group got together, you two were always like a group within the group. There were more than a few women that summer who wanted to know if you were gay.”

  My head snapped up. “Glad we were able to entertain.”

  “Seriously. Why?”

  “Ask the guys. They’ll fill you in on all the gory details.”

  “Other than him dating Liv, the apartment, and the unfortunate intimate moment caught on video, everyone is stumped.”

  “Shouldn’t that be enough?” I began counting on my hand. “The sex tape he let someone leak online. Not sharing that my sister’s apartment burned down, so I showed up to a pile of smoldering rubble and nearly lost my mind. Him banging my sister when he said he’d protect her. Oh, and I know.” I raised a final finger high in the air. “Things tend to get tense when a guy bangs your almost-fiancée.” I grabbed my towel. “Are we done?” I needed to get out of that place. Throwing open the doors, my chest was tight and it was hard to breathe even out in the midday sun. My stalk off was stopped by her hand wrapping around my arm and yanking me back toward her.

  “He what?” Her eyes were wide like high beams in the dead of night. “Why didn’t anyone ever say anything about that?”

  “No one knows.”

  “But—how—”

  I cut her sputtering off before she hurt herself. “It’s a long story.”

  “And I drove here.” She gestured to her car. “Buckle up, buttercup, I’ve got all day.”

  With a grimace, I looked down at my phone and back up to her. Shoving it in my pocket, I trudged to her car.

  * * *

  “Wait. Wait. Wait.” She waved her hands in front of her. Droplets of ice cream splattered on the table. Covering her mouth with the back of her hand, she shook her head. “She told you when you were down on one knee?”

  I sucked down some of my milkshake, not sure I wanted to relive every moment of my humiliation in front of Imogen. My forehead throbbed as I tried to get the extra thick shake through the straw.

  “I’m waiting here. You can’t end on that kind of cliffhanger.” She shoved at my shoulder.

  “Better that than at the altar.”

  “And Ford wasn’t going to tell you? He’d have let you marry her.”

  “He said she came to him all teary-eyed and freaking out, apologizing and saying she’d never do it again.”

  “Wow.” Imogen set down her spoon and sat back in her chair. “I get why he did it.”

  “Slept with my girlfriend.”

  Her gaze narrowed. “No, the reason he wasn’t going to tell you. He was trying to protect you. Keep that pain from you. No one wants to see someone they care about in pain.”

  “What about honesty? He’d have just let me marry someone who’d cheat on me like that?”

  She opened and closed her mouth. Lifting her spoon, she pointed it at me. “Touché. So why didn’t you want anyone to know you were dating her?”

  “Sleeping with the daughter of the owners of your biggest rival team isn’t the best way to win friends and influence coaches to get your ass off the bench.”

  “But no one? You didn’t introduce her to anyone? She didn’t think it was weird she never met any of your friends.”

  “Everyone was down here and I was up in Boston. It didn’t come up.”

  “Did she meet Liv?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t ‘of course’ me. If she’d never met Ford before that night, it’s not out of the realm of possibility she’d never met Liv.”

  “What did Liv think?”

  A shrug. “She thought she was nice enough.”

  “Do you want to know what I think?” Imo leaned in conspiratorially like she was about to let me in on a heist she’d been cooking up for years.

  I leaned in closer. “Not really, but I’m thinking you’re going to tell—”

  “You knew she wasn’t right for you. You felt that it was off and you didn’t want to introduce her to everyone because you knew they’d see it too.”

  “Or maybe I’d subconsciously been worried Ford would bang another woman I was interested in and ruin that relationship too.”

  “It happened more than once?” Hot fudge trailed across Imo’s chin.

  “In college. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Dude, you have the worst taste in women.”

  I leveled my gaze at her. “Or friends.” Yanking a napkin out of the holder on the table, I handed it over to her and tapped my chin.

  “If you thought he was the problem, then why were you still friends with him after?”

  Dragging my hands down my face, I stalled.

  “My first hockey try out.”

  Imo looked up from inspecting her napkin to me. “Are you going to make me pry it out of you or will you just spill it?”

  “T
he other players were out for blood. Making the team meant not just a spot, but scholarships for some people. We were kids, but they were playing like 70s enforcer hockey players and I could feel the bruises blooming under my pads as I was pinned to the boards behind the net. Two of them had me up against the wall, and then out of nowhere the crush of the opposing players was gone.”

  “Ford was there. Threw down his glove and stick and went after both of them. Hitting them with his bare hands, splitting his knuckles on their helmets. Our team had an open net after he cooled off in the penalty box, but we didn’t let them score.

  “After that, we were inseparable. He took the penalty for me when it could’ve cost him his scholarship. He had my back no questions asked because he saw what was happening and knew it was messed up. That kind of loyalty doesn’t come around often.” I gritted my teeth.

  “Isn’t that the kind of guy you’d want there for your sister?” Imogen reached across the table.

  Dodging her grasp, I lifted my shake to take another blood vessel-bursting sip.

  With a soured mood that felt like day-old bile, we ended our adventure for the day with her driving me back to my house. Imogen’s words clanged in my ears, repeating until they lost their meaning.

  ‘Isn’t that the kind of guy you’d want there for your sister?’

  “You think I should be fine with my sister being with Ford?” I blurted out so loudly, Imo jerked at the wheel.

  “I think she’s an adult and knows what’s best for herself.”

  “Do you have a little sister? Have you been the one taking care of her since she was little?” I snapped. “What the hell would you know about it?”

  Her face dropped and I felt like an asshole. “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

  She finished the drive in silence. She parked out front, but she didn’t turn the car off, and her fingers tensed on the steering wheel, but she didn’t say a word.

  I let myself out, but had to duck back in to grab my jacket.