by Nana Malone
“Well, I’m still sorry I have to miss the first game. I didn’t make you a sign.”
“I know, it’s cool.” A part of him was relieved it would be an away game, and that he wouldn’t have the extra pressure of his family coming to see him. Sasha, though, he would have liked to have there.
“It’s not something I need right now, and it isn’t something they need right now,” he’d said.
She was quiet for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me about your dad? Is there anything I can do?”
Fox shook his head. “No. It’ll be okay. He just has to rest.”
She frowned. “Okay. But you know if you want to talk, I’m here, right?”
Heat prickled under his skin. He didn’t want to talk. “Yeah, I hear you. I promise, if I ever want to talk, you’re my gal.”
Fox might not feel like talking, but that didn’t mean Sasha didn’t worry. “How long has he been sick?” Sasha asked Echo at her next fitting.
“A while. My parents told me but wanted to keep it quiet as long as possible. They didn’t even tell the boys for…months,” Echo explained as she sorted through her fabric samples.
Sasha was wearing the prototype runner’s outfit Echo had designed, but after having learned more about the fabric manufacturer’s dyeing processes, she was worried the material wouldn’t wear well.
“So you don’t think it…means anything that Fox didn’t give me a heads-up?” Sasha asked. “I mean…he’s my best friend and my roommate. If something like this was bothering him…I want to make sure he knows he can trust me with it.”
Echo frowned at Sasha. “Of course, he knows that. I don’t think he talks to anyone the way he talks to you, to be honest. If he didn’t tell you…my guess is he hasn’t sorted it out, himself.”
Sasha got that in a way. “But to let me find out the way I did? The guys in sports were going through the interview footage, and they pulled me in because they know I know your family. It was…” Sasha sighed. “It was surprising and…scary, I guess. Our families have always been pretty close, and it was just unexpected.”
“It’s not as serious as the media are making it out to be,” Echo tried to reassure her. “He’s undergoing treatment, and he’s actually doing a bit better—feeling better, that is. It’s not something that can be cured. The main reason they had to finally go public with it is because he has to step down from the company for a while. The treatments take a toll. It was a business move more than anything.”
Sasha let the issue drop, standing still to allow Echo to move about her and make her decision, while Sasha tried to figure out why Fox’s silence on the issue bothered her so much. It hurt. But it wasn’t a personal hurt. She felt hurt on his behalf. It had to be difficult finally tackling the big leagues while things were so difficult personally. She hated the idea that he was hurting over something and she was too oblivious to notice, or he felt too weirded out to talk to her. Sleeping with him had changed everything.
To her surprise, he was already at the apartment when she returned from work.
“Hey Sash,” he said in greeting as he sorted through his duffel bags in the living room.
“You’re back. How’d your first game go? I mean, I did watch it so I know you did great. But how are you feeling about it? Were you nervous?”
He chuckled. “A little distracted, yeah. But good. I just didn’t realize the announcement was going to be made when it was. So I had to field questions.”
Sasha put her purse and keys down and headed over to where he’d been crouched on the floor, and knelt beside him. It was an awkward feat in her pencil skirt, but she managed. Reaching out to slip an arm around him and rest her head on his shoulder, she said, “I was just worried about you. Are you okay? It must be a pretty tough thing to have to deal with. Especially as you already have all this pressure.”
Fox shrugged. “I’ve known he was sick for a while now. But he didn’t want people to know until he was ready, and…”
“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” Sasha finished for him. “I get it.”
“It was worse when he and Mom first told us. Well, when Echo let it slip and they had to admit to what was really going on,” Fox corrected himself. “His doctors were still trying to figure out what was wrong with him, so that was pretty scary. The not knowing. It was easier once they said it was an autoimmune thing, though. I’m still not completely sure what that means, I just know it isn’t cancer. Anyway, once it had a name and they could give him stuff to treat some of his symptoms, it got easier.”
“If there is anything I can do for you, you know you just have to ask and I’ll do it. And if you want to move back in with your parents—”
“Whoa, now,” Fox’s brows drew up. “It’s not that serious. And there isn’t really anything I can do to help one way or another—”
“I’m sorry. I just…I know you moved in here as kind of a favor to me, and I wasn’t sure if maybe you felt obligated or something to stay, but since I’ve started working with Echo, money isn’t as tight as it was, so—”
He put his hands up. “You needing financial help was the excuse for me to move in here with you. I’d have done it anyway, if you’d asked. I love living with you,” he assured her.
Something tingled low in her belly. Okay, maybe a little lower than her belly.
Sasha sighed with relief. “And I love living with you. Now, if you don’t really need cheering up over what’s going on with your dad, do you want to celebrate your first official NHL game? You were pretty impressive. A four-to-two win for the team, never relinquishing the lead, and those two goals were totally not your fault. I mean, those two guys on your team should not have both been penalized, and if it had only been five on four during the power play instead of five on three, that goal never would have gotten in. And pulling the goalie during the last minute of the game? I mean, I know everyone does it but they weren’t going to make up the three-goal difference.”
Fox laughed. “Well, I’m still not happy about them. The one at the last minute, especially. But thanks. It was a bit nerve-wracking. I still think it’ll be worse for my first home game in net, but we’re in an every-other-day pattern for a while, so it could be another week before I get in there again.”
“I still say we should celebrate,” Sasha insisted, carefully using Fox’s shoulder to brace herself as she struggled to rise.
“After what happened last time, you really want to go out to a bar with me again?” Fox joked but then stammered. “Not that—”
“I know what you meant,” Sasha cut him off. She didn’t need him knowing she didn’t mind the idea of things ending that way a second time. “Actually a few friends of mine from college are having a little party of their own. Want to try that? We might find you that girl you’re looking for.”
His eyes narrowed a little, and he said, “So…a college party?”
“So you’ll come? I don’t know how crazy it’ll be. If it’s crazy at all.”
“Fine,” Fox nodded slowly. “Take me to your college party. Show me your academic ways.”
“Hop in the shower and put on something casual. You smell like a locker room. I’m going to go figure out what to wear.”
The party was in the early stages when they arrived. He couldn’t explain it, but he immediately felt out of place. He was happy he’d tossed on jeans and a T-shirt with just a funky blazer over it, instead of the button-down he’d planned on. Sasha was wearing a see-through shirt, so that the dark outlines of her bra were clearly visible. It wasn’t the lacy one he was so intimately familiar with, but damned if he didn’t want to be. She’d paired it with a sassy, floating skirt. The moment he caught sight of her long expanse of leg, he wanted to spread them wide open and bury his face in her heat. Licking her until she screamed. He was so caught up in his fantasy that he missed what she said. “Huh?”
Sasha frowned at him and rolled her eyes. “Relax. You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “You’ve been to a million parties.�
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She was right. And this wasn’t his first college party. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were on a date. After introductions were made they found the keg, and his mood vastly improved. All it took was one frat-boy wannabe trying to perform a handstand on a keg and failing miserably for Fox to decide it was worth attending.
“Let’s grab something to drink and walk around a bit,” Sasha suggested, clearly pleased that he seemed to be enjoying himself. “I need to find the rest of my friends and introduce you.”
Her friends were grouped in the living room, chattering loudly and laughing raucously. Sasha and Fox sat at the outskirts, listening raptly and doing their best to fade into the background so as to not draw too much attention to themselves. But that didn’t last long.
“I thought you said you were bringing your boyfriend?” one of her friends whispered loudly to Sasha. She flushed and explained just as loudly that, no, she had broken up with Ryan more than a six weeks ago.
“I said I was bringing my roommate,” she clarified.
“But you live with your boyfriend,” the friend insisted. Everyone laughed at the extent to which the poor girl was intoxicated, and when she heard everyone else laughing, the drunk friend laughed, too.
“I was living with my boyfriend until I broke up with him and I kicked him out,” she explained again.
“Don’t bother,” another friend chimed in while mixing a few types of juice with vodka and sipping the mixture until she nodded in approval. “She won’t remember what you tell her anyway, and I don’t think any of us care.”
“Gee, thanks guys,” she said, taking a sip of her own rum and Coke.
“Let’s play ‘Never Have I Ever,’” the deeply inebriated friend suggested.
“How do you play that?” Fox asked to a round of giggles that made him feel a little ridiculous.
“Don’t worry, not-boyfriend,” the drunk one said, jovially elbowing Fox in the side. “We’ll teach ya.”
And teach they did. Over the course of the next hour, he learned all sorts of things about Sasha. Sexual things. Things that would drive him crazy later.
For example, she’d never had sex in public. She’d never been tied up. She’d never had anal sex. At the rate they were going, he’d be wasted in no time.
The rules were to drink if you had done whatever was called out. And Fox had done…a lot. Turns out, he was a very bad boy.
When one of her friends announced she’d never had sex in a car, he gawked when Sasha didn’t drink. “You’re joking?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
Before he could stop himself, he said, “We are going to remedy that at the earliest possible convenience.”
Eleven
Holy shit, Fox was so sexy. His voice, low and hushed so only she would hear, sent shivers through her body. Did he plan on them remedying that problem tonight? Because she was game. No, dumbass, he’s teasing. She’d had to excuse herself so she could splash water on her face. “Behave.”
“I’ll try.”
When she returned, Fox was missing, along with Nell.
“Hey Erica, where did Fox go?”
“Don’t look at me,” Erica said with a shrug. “She whispered something to him, and he helped her get up and they went that way.” Erica pointed toward the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.
An unexpected stab of jealousy and disgust pierced her heart. But I don’t want him. Liar. Damn, that hurt. She and Fox weren’t together, a point she’d been emphasizing for weeks. There were times when she thought that being with him was something she might want, but she was so damn scared. She needed their friendship.
After that memorable night, she’d been less afraid of sex messing with their dynamic, but there was still so much that could go wrong.
Fire burned in her belly. He wasn’t hers. She had no right, and she knew it.
She turned the corner at the landing and spotted Fox quietly closing a door behind him and turning to come back down the stairs. He was alone and looked startled, but a wide smile spread over his face. Sasha jogged up the stairs to join him.
“You wandered off,” she said gently.
“I didn’t ‘wander’ anywhere. Your friend leaned in and made me a proposal that she probably thought sounded interesting.”
“You didn’t take her up on it?”
He frowned and stared down at her. “I told her to lead the way, and when we got to her bedroom I put her to bed. Tucked her in and everything, even found her little trash bin and put it on the bed beside her so she won’t have to look for it later. And she will need it. Hopefully, she can sleep it off.”
Relief flooded Sasha, quickly followed by guilt. He didn’t have to justify himself to her. She was ruining this. Why couldn’t she be normal?
“Thanks for taking care of her,” Sasha told him. “Sorry about…” She shrugged, unable to put everything into words. Uncertain how he’d react if she tried.
“No problem. Besides, I came with you.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
She reached down and took one hand out. “Come on,” she said leading him down the hall, glancing at the rooms on either side until she spotted one with an open door. Melissa’s name was plastered across the front. Sasha was pretty sure she’d spotted Melissa cheering her boyfriend and his friends on in a game of beer pong set up on the dining room table, so it would be some time before they came up looking to use the bedroom.
She ushered Fox through the door and closed it behind them, instinctively turning the lock. “There you go,” she said with a flourish. “Peace and quiet.”
Fox flipped the light on and looked around the room. It was pretty small—Melissa had forced a queen-sized bed into a room that was only meant for a twin, leaving little space to move around. She wasn’t one to keep things neat and tidy, either. Her dirty clothes littered the floor, and were interspersed with textbooks and notebooks for her various classes.
“Is this what it looks like in dorms?” Fox inquired, pointing to one of Melissa’s bras hanging by its straps on a bedpost.
“Actually…” She looked around at the posters, decorative lights, and multitude of mirrors. “Yeah. I’ve seen my share of dorms that look just like this.”
Fox laughed and plopped down on the bed, leaning back on his elbows for a moment before laying all the way back. “God. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until now. Though some of it might be the beer.”
She lay down beside him, both of them stretched sideways on the bed with their legs hanging off. They both stared at the ceiling, the only surface of the room Melissa hadn’t gotten around to decorating. Their shoulders touched, their arms running alongside each other down to the backs of their hands.
“I’m sorry about your dad being sick,” she whispered.
“Me too.” Fox’s voice was quiet and thick.
“Do…do you think that, him being sick, you being worried about him, do you think that was part of why you didn’t make the team during the tryouts? Was it too distracting?”
The bed moved as Fox sighed deeply.
“No,” he finally answered. “I think I wanted it too much, and I have a nasty habit of sabotaging myself.”
She propped herself up on an elbow. “You do not sabotage yourself.”
“Come on,” Fox challenged. “I choke all the time. I can take care of what I need to do until the pressure gets turned up, and then…” He raised his hands to his throat and made wheezing noises until Sasha elbowed him gently with a laugh.
“Well, you didn’t choke during the game the other night,” she reminded him.
“What do you call letting a goal in during the last minute of the game?”
“Nerves. I think you get in your head and can be too hard on yourself.”
“How is that different from self-sabotage, exactly?”
“Because with self-sabotage there’s an element of thinking. Particularly that on some level, probably subconsciously, you don’t deserve what you’
re trying to get…or you’re unaware that you don’t really want it.” She propped herself up on her elbow so she could look down at him. “But I know you. You do want this. And you deserve it. You know you do. So, you’ve just got a bad case of nerves to work out.”
“I do want it,” he admitted after a minute. He raised his hand enough to run his fingers along her forearm. “And I’m not just talking about hockey. I think my self-sabotage goes beyond that.”
Sasha shifted on the bed so that she was on her side, facing him, and could throw her arm across him and rest her head on his shoulder in a sort of hug.
“There you go being too hard on yourself again. You’ll get it. You’ll adjust and be fine,” she assured him, then raised her head enough to give him a comforting peck on the cheek before resting against him again and closing her eyes.
He slid his right arm over to clasp her left hand where it rested against his chest, stroking the back of her hand with his, twining his fingers with hers. Sasha snuggled closer against him so his left arm could circle her back instead of being crushed between them. In the process, he pressed her body against his. Something shifted between them, and when she reopened her eyes, she found him watching her intently, leaning closer.
“What are we doing?” she asked softly.
“I’m going to take care of a few things on your ‘Never Have I Ever’ list,” he told her as he eased her legs open and crouched at the side of the bed. She started to sit up, but he upset her balance when he slid his hands under her thighs and wrapped his arms around them, leaving her completely open to him.
“Fox?” She panted in anticipation as he rubbed his cheek against the tender skin of her inner thigh.
He’d shaved sometime in the morning, so while there was no scratchy stubble, there was still a distinct friction. “There were a few things you didn’t drink to that everyone should have to drink to,” he murmured against her thigh.
She didn’t have to ask him which of her responses he intended to rectify. Her fingers dug into the bedspread as Fox’s tongue went to work on the sensitive skin of her thighs. Then, with his thumb, he eased back the elastic of her panty. “Fuck, you’re wet.” He settled her legs so they were hooked over his shoulders, while he ran his right hand from her knee up over her hip to her navel. The muscles in her belly contracted violently, as she fought to direct the course of his tongue by wriggling her hips. When he sucked on her, she dug her heels into his back, arching and crying out as she shook in ecstasy.