by Toni Aleo
Kacey could still remember the first time she met Lacey. Karson was completely head over heels for her, his eyes glassy anytime she was near, and Kacey just knew her brother would marry no one but her. And man, Lacey was beautiful. She’d had short hair from when she was going through chemo back then, but now she had long, gorgeous blond hair that went to her butt. Her eyes were still the same beautiful green that was brought out by her long, dark lashes. She had gained weight only in her stomach, the rest of her thin and lean, and that drove Kacey crazy. Kacey was convinced when she had a kid, she’d blow up. She loved food more than life, and the thought of feeding two instead of one gave her the giggles. She could eat what she wanted and no one could say anything to her about it. She would be growing a life. And looking at Lacey, she realized she wanted that more than ever.
She needed a man first, though.
Unfortunately.
“Three a.m.”
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Why are you awake now?”
Kacey had no clue, but she was pretty sure it was because the last time she’d slept in her bed here, Jordie had been on top of her. Not that she was going to tell her sister-in-law that.
“Not sure,” she sighed before taking a long pull of her coffee. Meeting Lacey’s knowing gaze, Kacey smiled. Lacey knew all about Jordie, but they didn’t speak of it when Karson could be in hearing distance. It wasn’t that Karson hated Jordie, he loved him, but Jordie wasn’t good enough for Kacey. No one was, in the eyes of her older brother, but if he found out how Jordie had basically cut off all communication with her and everything else, she was sure that Karson would kill him. So before Lacey could ask anything, Kacey said, “You look gorgeous, Lace.”
“Please.” She scoffed, waving her off. “I’m as big as a house.”
“Whatever.” Kacey laughed. “Pregnancy looks good on you, sister.”
Lacey grinned before looking down at her belly, her chest rising and falling before glancing back over at Kacey. Her eyes were full of worry, something Kacey had seen a lot of since they announced the baby was coming. “Yeah. I guess I just feel big.”
“It’s all in the belly,” Kacey promised, and it wasn’t a lie.
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” she said, rubbing her belly in a very protective way. “I wish she could stay in there, y’know?” she whispered, almost so low that Kacey didn’t hear her. Thankfully, she did though.
Biting into her lip, Kacey reached over, taking Lacey’s hand in hers. “Lacey, she’s gonna be perfect and healthy. Don’t worry so much.”
“I try not to,” she said honestly, looking over at Kacey and squeezing back. “But it’s so damn hard. I worry that she’ll go through what I did, and I don’t want that for her.”
“None of us do, Lacey, but the good thing is she’ll always have us. Between me, Ma, Dad, and you guys, that little buttercup will never be alone through the fight. But I promise you don’t have to worry about that right now. If ever. Let’s be positive about it.”
Lacey’s lip started to wobble, and before a tear could even fall, Kacey was up and around the island, her arms around her sister-in-law, holding her tightly. She knew that Lacey’s past with breast cancer still weighed heavy on her beautiful heart. Despite the support groups, Lacey just couldn’t shake the worries that ate her alive. It worried Kacey, but Karson had said one of the main things was reassuring her that it wouldn’t happen, to stay positive. Holding her tightly, Kacey kissed her cheek. “It’s okay, Lacey, don’t worry. Enjoy this. You are having a baby, a little you and Karson. What a blessing!”
Lacey wrapped her arms around Kacey’s middle since she was so much taller than her, nodding her head against her arm as her body shook with small sobs. “I know. I want to be happy and excited like Karson and you guys are, but I’m just so nervous.”
“Don’t be,” Kacey urged against her hair. “Enjoy it.”
“I am. Really, this is the most amazing thing in the world,” she said, and Kacey knew it was more for herself than for her. Sending her a grin, she slowly parted from Lacey. “But the nerves do eat me alive. And that’s why I’m so glad you’re here, ’cause when Karson isn’t around, I get a little crazy.”
Kacey grinned. “You, crazy? Please.”
Lacey smacked her playfully before turning to mix the potato salad. She looked perfect doing it too, if that were possible. She made being a wife look so damn good, and Kacey hated how jealous she was of her. “I want your life, Lacey.”
Lacey scoffed. “Say what? You have a great life; you’re a gold medalist.”
She nodded. “Oh yeah, I know and it’s awesome, but I want to be the successful wife making potato salad while my kiddo grows inside me.”
“One day, don’t worry,” Lacey said with a wink. “Then I can sit there and tell you what to expect and warn you of the sleepless nights and scare the shit out of you. Man, the team’s wives don’t hold back.”
Kacey laughed. “Um, I bet! Especially with Elli—I’m pretty sure she’s been through everything.”
“She has and, good Lord above, it’s scary.”
Grinning, Kacey nodded. “I bet, but I’ll sit back and watch you. Learn from your mistakes,” she added with a wink and Lacey laughed.
“I’m sure there will be a ton!” she groaned as she added the pickles.
“Doubt it.”
Lacey grinned before she shrugged. “So, no new man in your life?”
Kacey looked up and made a face. “I’ve been dating nothing but idiots for the last year.”
“Eh, not all of them were that bad,” she said with a knowing look.
“Ha. Please.”
“So you haven’t spoken to him?”
They both shared a long look. It didn’t take a genius to know exactly whom her sister-in-law was speaking of. Shaking her head slowly, she picked at a hangnail as she answered. “Not since I walked out of his cabin seven months ago.”
“I’m sorry, Kacey. I really hoped that something could have happened between you two.”
Kacey shrugged, trying to act indifferent about it. She didn’t want Lacey to know how much she was hurting. “Eh, it wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess not,” she said slowly.
Biting her lip, Kacey watched her for a moment and then finally asked what she had wanted to know for months. “Have you spoken to him?”
She knew that Lacey had. Karson and Jordie were best friends to the extreme, basically holding each other’s dicks when the other peed, but still no one had spoken about him in months. Maybe something had changed?
When Lacey shrugged slowly, she reached for the salt and pepper before biting the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, of course, we have.”
“About me?” she urged and Lacey looked away.
“No, Kacey, I wouldn’t do that in front of Karson, and I’ve only seen or talked to Jordie with Karson.”
“Oh,” Kacey said sadly. She wasn’t hoping for a different answer. She should have known better. It wasn’t as if Lacey would betray her and talk about her in front of her brother, but she sort of hoped that Lacey had been able to get Jordie alone. Because she wanted to know something, anything. Maybe that he missed her. Or that he even talked about her. But it seemed that she didn’t matter to him, something she needed to accept. “So he hasn’t asked about me?”
Looking up, Lacey slowly shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I thought maybe he was talking to you on the sly.”
“Nope, nothing.”
“That really sucks,” she said softly. “He could really benefit from having you in his life.”
Her statement sounded really loaded, but before Kacey could ask, Karson strolled into the kitchen. “Hey, people are getting here. You ready, love? Ew, Kacey, you gonna fix your hair or something? The team is starting to show up.”
“Fuck you,” Kacey shot back as she redid her ponytail, looking her brother over. He had gained a little weight over the summer, probably sympathy eating with Lacey, which was just too
damn cute. But nonetheless, Karson was basically her male twin. Despite the two-year age gap, they looked so much alike it was scary. Both with caramel eyes and dark hair, tall and broad shouldered with lean, strong bodies. There wasn’t a summer where they didn’t work out or spend the day playing hockey. While Karson was an ass and drove her insane, he was her best friend and she loved him more than words could describe. She knew he loved her more than that and was disgustingly overprotective. Hence why he didn’t know that there had been a relationship between her and Jordie. He thought they’d only slept together once, and he was still very unhappy about that. But despite all the love between the two siblings, they fought like cats and dogs. “I am supposed to be in bed.”
“Then why aren’t you? I told you we were having this party today. You should have come in tomorrow,” he said, coming up behind Lacey and cuddling her close to him.
“I didn’t want to drive on the Fourth of July, and Ma and Dad basically pushed me out the door. Dad wants me to start training with you guys on Monday.”
“True,” he said with a nod. “Well then, go put on your party shoes and drink a few more cups of coffee, ’cause it’s time to party!”
“You’re an idiot,” was her decision as she downed the rest of her cup. “Where is the dee to your dum?”
“What?” he asked confused as Lacey giggled softly.
“Jordie,” she said, acting as if she was bored.
His shoulders dropped, his grin gone as he looked away, reaching for the bowl that Lacey has pushed to the side. “He won’t be here.”
“Really? Why? That’s weird,” she said, watching her older brother, who was obviously uncomfortable. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. He can’t come.” He then disappeared, and Kacey looked across the island at Lacey.
“What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t know,” Lacey lied with a shrug. But the thing about Lacey was that she couldn’t lie for shit.
“You’re lying to me,” Kacey said, surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said again, still ignoring eye contact. Before Kacey could ask anything else, the side door opened and Kacey promptly forgot her next question. Because in walked a freaking Greek god of sexiness. Tall, very tall, taller than her, and that didn’t happen much since she was almost 6’1”. He was carrying a couple cases of beer with ease, his shoulders flexing as the tank he wore pulled to the side due to the cases against his chest, showing off one hell of a pec. It would be a great place for a tattoo, but he was bare, his virgin bronze skin only covered in light blond hair. His eyes were the color of the ocean, his blond hair brushed to the side, his face full of sharp lines that were surprisingly beautiful. His nose was a bit crooked, but that was a hockey player for you, and at least he had all his teeth. Fake, yes, because they were bright as hell and blinding her as he set down the cases, grinning over at Lacey.
“Hey, Lacey, where do you want me to put these?”
Lacey didn’t even smile at him, obviously still thinking of their previous conversation. But Kacey has already forgotten it and was consumed with Mr. Tall, Light, and Hot. “Over here, please. Sorry, my head is running a billion miles a second.”
“No problem,” he said in a low tenor of a voice, lifting the cases and taking them to the cooler Lacey had opened. “Almost ready for that baby, yeah?”
She smiled up at him as he placed them in the cooler. “Almost.”
“You look beautiful, as always.”
Reaching over, she squeezed his arm with a grin pulling at her lips. “Thanks, Liam.” She then looked over at Kacey and her brow rose. A slow, Cheshire cat grin covered her lips and she asked, “Hey, Liam, have you met my sister-in-law Kacey yet? You know, she is the new athletic trainer for the Assassins and also a gold medalist.”
God bless her. Free babysitting was in Lacey’s future, anytime she needed it.
Liam’s eyes then moved over to Kacey, and an appreciative grin came over his face. Oh, yes, nice smile.
“Kace, this is Liam, he plays for the Assassins.”
“Wow, hey, Liam Kelly,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. They shook slowly, their eyes locked.
“Kacey King.”
He grinned sheepishly, almost in a boy next door way, and it hit Kacey square in the gut. “Wow, you are like King’s twin. Way prettier, of course.”
She got that all the time and wasn’t offended. The way he said it too made her belly warm with desire. He had a sexy voice, low, but still not raunchy the way she had come to love. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who would flip her upside down and eat her out, but he did look like the kind of guy who wanted a wife and family. And since that’s what she wanted, she smiled sweetly at him, batting her eyes as Lacey grinned. He seemed like a clean-cut, stand-up guy, maybe not the type she usually went for—but the type she had been going for had been screwing her over lately. Plus, he played hockey and that was a win in her book. No ring and he wasn’t glued to his phone yet—while most guys would have put the cases down and pulled it right out—and he had great eye contact.
Hmm. He could be the one.
“Jordie, how are you feeling?”
Looking up from where he was staring at the crack in the floor, Jordie’s brow rose. His stance probably told the poor little mousy therapist, whose name he still didn’t know, that he was bored. That he hated this place with all the passion in his soul. That he would rather be face first in a beehive but, yet, she was still grinning at him. He leaned back in his chair, one leg up on the rung of the chair beside him while the other hung to the side. His arms were across his chest in a very aggressive pose and he was working his lip, praying for the time to pass. It was easy to say that rehab blew big donkey dick and Jordie was ready for it to be over.
But in case she didn’t know that, he figured he better remind her.
“Feel great. I hate this place and I’m ready to go.”
A few people nodded in agreement. It was mostly men, fellow athletes who were too far gone and needing to clean up. Jordie was nothing like these guys and didn’t understand why he was in here with pill poppers and true alcoholics.
“We still have about an hour left.”
“Yeah, I know, but I mean out of this place.”
Her brows came in. She was a cute little thing, nice legs and okay tits. She had sweet little green eyes though and a small little mouth that resulted in a small little meditative voice. “You have forty-five days left, Jordie.”
“Don’t remind me,” he groaned, leaning back and letting his head drop.
“In the forty-five days we’ve been together, you have shared absolutely nothing with me and nothing with the other therapist before me at your group meetings.”
“Because there isn’t anything to share.”
“Sure, there is. You’re an alcoholic.”
“No, I like to drink,” he said, still with his head hanging. “That doesn’t constitute an alcoholic.”
“It does when you drink to not feel something.”
He glared. “I mean, what’s the point of drinking if it’s not to forget? Everyone does it.”
“In moderation. Before you entered here, you’d gone to PT drunk five out of the six sessions, according to your physical therapist. And you also went drunk to your group meetings that were planned while we waited for a spot to open up here.”
He shrugged. “Hey, those are good odds in my opinion. And plus, they all drove me to drinking because I hate them so much.”
She tsked while a few of the guys laughed. “You shouldn’t be going drunk at all.”
“Sure, and I won’t ever again,” he said, sitting up then. “Now, can I leave?”
Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. “The answer is still no.”
“There isn’t anything for me here. This place isn’t going to magically fix me. I’m not going to be ready for a sober life once I leave. I’m good. I don’t want to talk, I don’t even want to drink a
nymore, so maybe it has worked. I don’t fucking know. I just want to play hockey and be out of here.”
“There is a lot wrong with you,” she countered without missing a beat.
Jordie scoffed, rolling his eyes before setting her with a dark, challenging look. The whole time he had been here, she had hounded him for information, trying to get him to open up about shit he didn’t even want to speak about. He was good having all his past secrets deep inside him. And plus, they had nothing to do with the fact that he liked to drink. He drank because it numbed the pain.
The pain of his career hanging in the balance.
The pain of not knowing the future.
Most of all, the pain of letting Kacey go.
Therapist Lady knew none of this. She knew nothing, only what was on paper. And he didn’t think it was any of her business about anything else. She wanted to know about his past? Read his file and leave him the fuck alone, was his opinion.
But yet, she continued to come at him. It was time to shut her up. “Oh, yeah? Please enlighten me, Ms. Therapist Lady.”
Glaring, she held his gaze for a moment and then looked down at her file, clearing her throat. His chest seized up right as he realized what she was about to do. Before he could stop her though, she was talking.
“Well, let’s see, shall we?” she said very slowly. “But first, you’re okay if I share?” she asked, her eyes challenging, and he shrugged. He refused to be weak in front of these wack-jobs and her stuffy ass.
“Do you, lady.”
She smiled coyly. “Okay, well, your mother has been married ten times in the course of your life. When you were four, you were raped by her third husband, more than once. You were found on the bed bleeding and unresponsive from multiple areas after he beat you almost to death—”
“I don’t see how this has to do with anything. I don’t even remember it.”
“Fuck, man, did the fucker rot for it?” Manny, a tight end for some pro football team, asked and Jordie shrugged, not wanting to shed any light on that drama.