Centered (Gold Hockey Book 9)

by Elise Faber

  For Liam.

  Which was a nice gesture, really, he got that.

  But it was . . . too fucking much.

  Hence, the big guns.

  Moms and their superpowers.

  “I love you, guys,” he told his mom. “But I’m already trying to adjust, and it’s hard when dad is texting me every hour.”

  “I know, Li.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, babes. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  A pause. “I wonder if I can put parental controls on his phone?”

  Liam laughed but half-considered the idea for a second before discounting it. “He’d probably be on the next plane out here if you did.”

  “There is that.” She sighed again. “I’ll get him straightened out,” she promised. “Now, tell me. How do you like San Francisco? It’s been years since I’ve been there.”

  They spent a few minutes chatting about the weather—positively balmy when compared to Buffalo, where his parents lived—and the tourist sites his mom wanted to see when they were able to schedule a trip out—probably in a couple of months, since Laich’s wife was pregnant and his mom was on babysitting duty.

  It felt nice to catch up on the banal things.

  “Have you met anyone special out there?” she asked just before they hung up.

  It felt even nicer to be able to answer that question with—

  “Yes, Mom. And she’s great.” He leaned back on his couch and grinned. “Now I have to convince her I’m just as great.”

  His mom laughed. “Well, babes, I can’t wait to meet her,” she said. “Because I know that won’t take you long.”

  “You have to say that. You’re my mom.”

  “Yes, I do.” A beat. “But it’s also true.”

  He’d scoffed, but his heart had been full by the time they hung up.

  And best part of that conversation? Aside from the ego boost of his mom saying he was great?

  The text messages and voicemails from his dad stopped.

  “I can’t believe I’m at the movies and not eating popcorn,” he grumbled, partly because the movie theater popcorn smelled amazeballs, permeating the air around them until he could almost tangibly grab on to it, but mostly because he wanted to see what Mia would say.

  She didn’t disappoint.

  Shifting in the seat next to him—armrest up, thanks to his bit of sneaky . . . but also probably because she allowed it to stay up—she reached into her purse.

  “Here,” she snapped, smacking him in the chest with a bag.

  At first, Liam thought she’d brought popcorn.

  Then he glanced down and nearly busted a gut.

  “Carrot sticks?” he exclaimed.

  A roll of her pretty brown eyes. “Yes,” she said primly. “And you don’t have to say it like that. Carrot sticks are delicious, low calorie, and I believe they fit in quite nicely with your plant-based meal plan, if what you were telling me about it was the truth.”

  He glared down at the carrots.

  Cruelty. That was what the carrots were. Delicious, buttery, freshly popped popcorn all around him, and he had carrots. “I was telling the truth,” he muttered.

  “Good,” she said. “I like it when people are honest.” A beat. “Now, eat the bloody carrots.”

  “Appetizing,” he said darkly, but on purpose, because he knew when she heard she would turn to glare at him, and that the action would bring her lips very close to his.

  “I—”

  He kissed her, tasted her outrage on his tongue, soothed it with teasing sips, gentle strokes, letting her know he’d only been playing. No words, only touch. Only the two of them and their bodies, their mouths, their mingled breaths.

  Her hand was against his chest, resting on the spot over his heart, probably able to feel how rapidly the organ was beating.

  Because of this woman.

  Because of the soft and hard.

  Because of the—

  “Ow!” he exclaimed, leaning back, hand coming up to his bottom lip, which she had nipped with enough pressure to sting.

  “That’s for teasing me,” she said with a glare, and then she surprised him by taking his mouth in a hot, slow kiss that had his cock going hard and his brain threatening to melt and leak out through his ears.

  “What was that for?” he asked when they broke away, his lungs sawing.

  “For teasing me.” A coy smile curved her lips, making him want to kiss her again, to forget about the fact they were at the movies at all, and to—

  Fuck it. He kissed her again.

  “What was that for?” she asked this time, her mouth swollen and tinged with red. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, and Liam couldn’t help but wonder if they would get even heavier after he made her come.

  “That”—he rubbed his thumb lightly back and forth over her bottom lip—“was a thank you for the carrots.”

  She snorted, and he really deserved another smack across the chest from the bag of orange veggie sticks. Instead, as usual, she surprised him. Mia slid a little closer and rested her head against his shoulder, soft and sweet. But her words, when they came, were tart, just like he preferred.

  “Just shut up and eat the damn carrots.”

  The lights overhead had gone dim. The first preview was cueing up on the screen. He didn’t like people who talked during the movies—and that included the previews.

  But that wasn’t why Liam shut up, why he ate the damn carrots.

  He shut up, he ate the carrots because Mia had given them to him. Because she’d thought ahead enough to know he might get hungry, because she’d brought him a snack that he could eat and keep on the meal plan.

  She was taking care of him.

  In her own way. In the perfect, most thoughtful way.

  So much soft inside that hard exterior.

  Liam shut up and ate them because he knew how lucky he was to have the gift of Mia revealing that softness to him.

  And because he wasn’t going to squander it.

  But . . . he still got the final word in. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bar of dark chocolate. One that Nutritionist Rebecca recommended because it was high in cacao and didn’t have any added sugars.

  In fact, it was the one sweet they were allowed to eat on non-cheat days.

  But Liam hadn’t brought it for himself.

  He handed it to Mia, nipped her ear when she tried to refuse and hand it back.

  And then he smiled when she opened the wrapper with a sigh before proceeding to eat every last bite.

  She might be taking care of him, but he’d be damned if he didn’t take care of her right back.

  Twelve

  Mia

  She wasn’t sitting on the glass this time, but still the view was pretty damned good.

  Maybe even better than being in the front row.

  Because higher up, she could see more of the ice, really bear witness to how fast the guys were.

  Max skated up the boards, crashing into a player from the opposing team with enough force to make Mia wince and struggle to recognize the funny, laidback troublemaker who’d attended so many of Brayden’s classes and belt promotions over the years with this intense, brute who apparently didn’t have any qualms with laying out his opponents.

  She watched as he merely straightened his helmet in a quick move then continued skating into the other team’s zone, her eyes struggling to compartmentalize every detail on the ice.

  Look, she’d been to games previously.

  Once, after the team had begun their inaugural season, sitting way up in the top row. Twice in a box, a Christmas present from Max and his family.

  But she’d never been as invested in the games as tonight, as the previous time she was here. Because . . . she was here for Liam. Because she watched his every shift with kind of a nervous energy, wanting him to do well, wincing when he got checked, breath catching when he skated down for the offense. She was taking in the whole team, sure, but she wasn’t rooting for
the whole team, at least not like she was rooting for Liam.

  His confidence was growing play by play. Even just newly knowing him, Mia could see that much, just as she saw the joy, the determination on his face every time he was on the ice.

  And watching him skate with Blue and Coop was something special.

  It was almost like they were an extension of each other, moving in unison, no fumbles, constantly rotating, shifting, changing around until the other team struggled to keep an eye on them.

  By the time the third period rolled around, Liam’s line had already scored three times. One from Blue, two from Coop, Liam assisting on all three.

  Watching his smile, huge and proud when he’d skated over to high five Coop after the winger’s second goal, made her heart swell.

  Good man.

  You don’t let a good man go.

  The thought, in her mother’s voice, came so far out of left field that Mia almost felt the words like a physical slap.

  God, it had been so long since she’d thought about her mom.

  Usually, all of her guilt centered around her dad, around what had happened after. Typically, she was able to forget the painful events that had led up to everything after because she had so many regrets about hurting the man who had been the center of her universe.

  Tonight . . . was different.

  She couldn’t not look at those men on the ice. Fearless, strong, brave, and not remember that her mom had been like that once.

  Everyone who had known her and her father through the studio thought that she inherited her strength from him—and Mia supposed she had in a way. Her dad had continued on after they had lost her mother, had invested blood, sweat, and tears into the studio, the programs that had been her mother’s, his wife’s dream.

  But his strength was a quiet steadiness.

  Enduring like the ocean’s waves eroding a beach or a river cutting through stone over thousands of years.

  Stark. Harsh. Cutting down, pulling apart, reducing to pieces.

  He’d been the perfect complement to her mom.

  She was confidence and the blasting heat of the sun. She was lightning, the boom of thunder, an earthquake forming a huge crack in the crust of the planet.

  Fearless. Quick. Burned hot, hotter than any other person Mia had ever met.

  Ying and Yang. Two opposite sides of the coin. All the clichés.

  But what she remembered most was how her mother’s hot had tempered her father’s cold, how the pieces had been rebuilt after they’d been taken apart, how the sharp and quick had been interspaced with slow and enduring.

  Once she’d had everything.

  After . . . she’d only had erosion.

  After, she had guilt. Her own special brand that paired with her father’s derision had shattered her totally, and she’d been reformed, any of that lightning in a bottle she might have inherited from her mother shoved deep down because her father couldn’t bear to see it.

  No more adventures. Everything was carefully controlled.

  No more pushing the limits because she’d destroyed them with her selfishness.

  No more fluff or extras or asking for something she didn’t decidedly earn on her own. Those urges, those needs, had to be buried away because her father couldn’t tolerate her asking or begging or wanting something.

  Because her wanting, her begging, her asking had changed everything.

  The sharp trill of multiple whistles drew her eyes to the ice, had her focusing on the game rather than the bleak thoughts and sad memories blaring through her mind.

  She glanced up to a scrum in front of the Gold’s net, one of the players from the other team bumping into Brit. Liam got between them, pushing back the asshole who was taking a cheap shot at Brit well after the whistle. Mia had watched enough hockey to be pissed that he’d dared to touch their goalie and cheered when Liam gave the fucker a hard shove. Unfortunately, the player was a good six inches taller and had probably twenty pounds on Liam. He shoved back hard, and Liam fell, landing ass first on the ice.

  Mia winced, but he was on his feet in an instant, launching himself at the player who’d knocked him down, but Max had already gotten there, had the asshole in a headlock.

  Brit meanwhile had calmly grabbed her water bottle and skated away from the mess . . . though Mia did see the other woman share a little love tap to the opposing player’s cup.

  Mia chuckled.

  Sneaky. She liked it.

  She liked even more the fact that Liam didn’t back down from the physicality, that he was as perseverant as a pit bull but didn’t seem upset that the bigger, and presumably stronger, Max had stepped in.

  Liam just grinned, fist-bumped his teammate, and then skated to the bench, the whole episode more about protecting their goalie and the other team’s frustration to not be getting any sort of offense going, rather than an intent to injure or something that would result in penalties.

  There were, however, plenty of f-bombs, Mia thought, reading Liam’s lips as he made his way to the bench, chirping at the player who’d hit Brit.

  This was a different side of him to witness, but she found she liked the fire.

  Then he glanced up, seeming to pick her out of the hundreds of other people in her section. His gray eyes stared intently into hers, and the smile he sent her way? Well, that hot, sexy as shit smirk warmed her from her head to her toes.

  The last of the painful tenterhooks of her past slid away.

  The man had kissed her on the studio doorstep the night before, refusing to come in, to come up for a glass of water—no beer on non-Cheat Days, either. He’d said he owed her one date where he didn’t break any rules.

  That had made her frown and ask, “What rule could you possibly be breaking by coming inside?”

  To which he’d bent very close, the heat of his chest against hers, his hot breath in her ear, raising goose bumps on her skin, and then he’d said, “Because if I come inside, I’m going to be coming inside, J.B., and I think that’s illegal with these plate glass windows overlooking the street.”

  Probably the line should have pissed her off. He’d made an assumption about what she was offering.

  But Mia would have been lying if she’d said she hadn’t been offering to let him inside—her body that was.

  Also, ew.

  That was way too much inside talk for this time of the evening.

  Was there ever a good time—?

  She shook her head sharply. God, she was as bad as him, except Liam’s innuendos sounded a hell of a lot sexier when breathed in her ear in that rasped velvet voice rather than the dirty thoughts in her mind.

  Rolling her eyes at herself, she knew that innuendo or not, she wanted Liam.

  It was probably too soon. But then again, that was her mantra when it came to Liam. Even though it was exactly what her father had cautioned her against time and again. Don’t want too much. Don’t expect more than you’re given. Don’t need another person.

  She’d spent the ten years since her mother had died grasping on to that lesson, trying to ease her dad’s pain, to realize his dreams, and in turn, her mother’s dreams.

  Closed down. Locked up. Safe. Secure.

  The part she’d missed was what had remained unspoken by her father, but what was still very much there. Don’t need another person . . . so much that it will eviscerate you when they’re gone.

  Yet, she’d still wanted that, still yearned, still needed.

  Only, she hadn’t known that until Liam had shoved open the door.

  And fuck, how she wanted.

  Him. Her. In bed. On Kite Hill. At the movies. In her studio cleaning fucking mats.

  He’d told her that when he looked into her eyes, he saw himself.

  Well, when she looked into his, she finally felt like she could breathe.

  Probably, that should have terrified her—how much she wanted, how much this man made her feel. But he’d opened the door, and Mia was feeling more and more like the Mia of old
. More and more like the Mini-Maura, as she’d often been called growing up.

  A spitting image of her mom.

  A near-replica in personality.

  Quick to laugh. A streak of mischievousness a mile wide. Easy laughter. Intense drive and a work ethic that would put most people on the planet to shame.

  Only the last two had remained on the surface over the decade since her mother had died.

  Now, the rest of those traits were bubbling up, seeping through cracks in the steel surrounding her, keeping her safe. She found she really liked teasing Liam, found she could laugh when he was nearby . . . and when he wasn’t. Mia was herself again, really truly herself for the first time since the day she’d turned sixteen.

  Since the day everything in her life had changed.

  The buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game, and she stood, the past slipping back down, her eagerness to see Liam overtaking the shadows of her memories. She shuffled her way up the stairs, slowly made the trek around the concourse until she arrived at a familiar bank of elevators and saw the smiling brunette standing there.

  “Mia!” Mandy called, waving wildly.

  “Hi,” Mia waved back, pushed her way through the crowd.

  “Great game,” Mandy said, swiping her card and preceding her onto the elevator.

  “It was really fun to watch,” Mia agreed.

  Mandy nodded, practically bouncing on her toes. “And no one got hurt. Oh! Did you see that play with . . .” She trailed off, talking about something along one of the goal lines, and while Mia was happy to see the other woman, wanted to get to know her better, if she was being honest, she wanted to see Liam more.

  That sexy smile.

  That joy on his face when he’d played.

  Her mom was in her heart, encouraging her forward, whispering to let the steel go completely.

  To give in to the want, the need.

  The thought of what giving in might mean had Mia’s pulse pounding in her veins, her breathing coming faster.

  Then the elevator doors opened, and she saw Liam standing there.

  Hell, who needed to breathe?

  She launched herself out of the metal car and into his arms.

  His mouth collided with hers, and the rest of the world fell away.