“Okay.” I set my mug down. He met my eyes for the briefest of moments, causing goose bumps to break out all over my body and a shiver to race up my spine. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at him. “Liam?”
“Yeah?”
I bit down on my lower lip, and his eye fell right on that spot. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
“I hope you don’t stop flirting with me. It feels too good.”
He let out a groan that sounded pained, and I raced back into his bedroom and closed the door before I could think better of saying something like that.
I’d slept like shit last night, but the lack of rest hadn’t really affected me as much at practice as it should have. I’d even scored three times in our shootout drill, which almost never happened for me these days. I couldn’t seem to score anywhere, whether it was in a game situation or not.
I really needed to avoid sleeping on the couch again, though, whether the lack of sleep had affected my play or not. A couch like that wasn’t really designed for anyone to sleep on it, and when you consider that I was six foot one and weighed 210 pounds, give or take, it wasn’t a good long-term solution.
Lucky for me, Babs didn’t seem to mind that Noelle was going to be sticking around for a while. When I’d shown up in Portland at the trade deadline, Babs had offered to let me stay with him, in the room Soupy had vacated, through the end of the season. Then I could deal with finding something more permanent in the off-season.
Even though there was a pretty wide gap in age between us, I’d taken him up on the offer. Having a place to go home to was always preferable to going back to a hotel room. As professional hockey players, we lived in hotels more than enough when we were on the road.
I’d been living alone on Long Island since Liv’s death, so it was nice to have someone else around, too. Someone to talk to. And now, having Noelle around would only help that more. Her presence was all it took to put me in a better frame of mind, to lighten my mood. So no matter how badly I’d slept last night, I wasn’t going to let Noelle sleep on the couch instead of me. She’d been sleeping in a car, for God’s sake, and I didn’t have a clue how long that had been going on. Weeks? Months? However long she’d been homeless, she deserved to be pampered, and sleeping in a real bed didn’t even come close to what I would call pampering.
Although, I sure as fuck had no intention of trying to convince her to share my bed with me. She was the first woman I’d felt such a strong attraction to since Liv—or really any attraction at all—and I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Even though Liv would want me to move on with my life, to love again and be loved, I didn’t know if I could. It felt like I was being unfaithful just flirting with Noelle the way I had been so far, which was ridiculous. How could I be unfaithful to Liv when she was dead?
The sense that I was cheating wasn’t going to stop me from flirting, though. I couldn’t seem to make myself stop. Noelle was so different from anyone I’d ever known before. She fascinated me. Thank God she was flirting right back and enjoying it as much as I was—if she’d been honest with me this morning, that is. But that didn’t mean we needed to jump into bed together, so I needed to find somewhere to sleep other than on the couch.
“We’ve never put anything in that third bedroom by mine other than a couple of boxes my parents sent to me,” Babs said. “You could have it. I can clear the boxes out.”
Now that we’d finished with practice for the day, he was in his stall and putting on his clothes. His was in the row opposite mine. When I’d joined the team, they’d put me next to Nicklas Ericsson, the top goaltender on the team and a fellow Swede. On my other side, they’d put RJ. Having Nicky and RJ on either side of me and Babs not too far away gave me a little sense of comfort within this dressing room. I knew those three guys and Soupy best out of all the boys on the team. I hadn’t been the new kid on the block since my rookie season, so it had been a long time since I’d felt like the odd man out.
I pulled a clean T-shirt over my head. “I guess I could find somewhere to buy a bed while I’m out shopping with her today. I don’t know how easy it’ll be to get something like that delivered on short notice, though.”
“You need another bed?” Zee asked. Eric Zellinger, the team captain, had just come back into the locker room from the showers. He came over and stole RJ’s seat, since RJ was still tied up with the reporters in the media scrum. “Dana and I just decided to turn one of my guest bedrooms into a gym. We’ve got a full bedroom set that we need to find a new home for—hardly been used. It’s yours if you want it. We just need to find a way to move it from my house to your condo.”
Cam Johnson grunted. “That’s easy. I’ve got a pickup.” Jonny sat down in his stall so he could put his shoes on. “You and I can load it, and Babs and Soupy can help me unload it at their place.”
“How the fuck did I get roped into this?” Soupy asked, but he didn’t sound upset.
“Because Babs is still fucking half asleep after taking Katie to prom, and I don’t want to have to carry a bed all by my fucking self,” Jonny said.
“I’m not half asleep.”
“You’d be even more awake if you’d gotten her home earlier, dipshit.” That came from David Weber, Katie’s dad and the oldest guy on the team. He said it with a grin, though. Webs was always giving Babs a hard time, but I didn’t get the sense there was any real bite behind it. His daughter was in high school, and now she had leukemia. It was only natural for him to bark at young guys like Babs.
Babs turned around in his stall and busied himself with putting things in his gym bag. “We weren’t late,” he mumbled.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jonny said. “Soupy’s helping.”
A few of the guys grunted, and that was that.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that the boys were so willing to help, even though I was the new guy on the team. They were my teammates now, and with every hockey team I’d ever been part of, teammates were more like brothers. Like family. They helped each other out when help was needed.
But I was still taken aback by how quickly they came up with a solution to my problem and chipped in.
Now I could feel better about convincing Noelle that she needed to stay with me without her assuming I was just trying to get her into bed.
It had taken more than a mere small effort on my part, but I’d somehow convinced Liam that he didn’t need to buy me an entire closet full of clothes. I’d relented and let him buy me more than I’d felt comfortable with, but mainly because I got the sense that it made him feel good to spend money on me.
I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it had more to do with Liv than it did with me, though. Why would he want to take care of me like that? Why did it matter to him if I had clothes for every occasion under the moon? He didn’t know me.
He still managed to buy me about half a closet full of clothes, despite my protestations.
When we returned to his condo, there were so many bags that it would take us two trips to unload the car and get it all upstairs. I didn’t know what I’d do with it all when I went to a shelter or if I was ever in a situation where I was living out of a car again. There wouldn’t be anywhere near enough room for all of it. Maybe I could give some of it to the other women in the shelters, but I didn’t know how many other women these clothes would fit. Maybe some younger girls, though. If not, I could always take the excess to Goodwill. But then I’d feel bad because I’d allowed Liam to spend all that money, and I was just giving it away. It presented me with quite a conundrum.
Liam hadn’t been willing to listen to any of my arguments about why he shouldn’t buy so much for me.
You’re not going to a shelter, he’d said. What car would you live out of now that your car is gone? You can just stay with me and Babs.
He’d made it sound almost like a foregone conclusion that I would stay.
I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have a job, and he didn’t owe me anything. I was the one in his debt, not
the other way around. He’d saved me from sure death last night, he’d given me food and shelter for an evening, and now he was buying me clothes so I’d have more than just what I’d been wearing when he first met me. And then there was the fact that I couldn’t keep stealing his bed from him and he’d been adamant that he wasn’t going to let me sleep on the couch.
It just wouldn’t work, no matter how much he wanted to make it work. And if I did stay, how would I ever explain the situation to my brothers?
Yeah, so I got laid off because Helping Hands couldn’t afford to pay me anymore and lost the house because I couldn’t keep paying both your tuition and the mortgage and then the car burned up on the highway along with everything we owned. Oh, yeah, and I decided to move in with two men I didn’t know at all. It’s great! They’re buying me all sorts of gifts and everything.
I couldn’t make sense of it in my head, no matter how many different ways Liam tried to convince me it was for the best.
Babs was playing a video game in the living room when we came up with the first load of bags. He paused the game, set down his controller, and grinned. “Need help?” He leaped to his feet and took the bags from my arms, carrying them to Liam’s bedroom and tossing them on the bed.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, a little dazed by how readily he’d offered assistance. I wasn’t used to having anyone drop everything to help me, outside of my family—and none of them were around. Not to mention I rarely let anyone see when I needed help. It was a really bad habit, and I was always trying to feel better about asking, but it wasn’t easy for me. I was far more at ease about giving help than receiving it. But right now, I had both Liam and Babs helping me in more ways than I could count.
Babs came with us when we went back for the rest. In the elevator on the way down, he turned to Liam. “Soupy and I helped Zee get that bed upstairs. We’ve got it all set up for you in the third bedroom.”
My jaw dropped. “Bed?” No one had said anything to me about bringing in another bed. They must have made those plans at practice and neglected to tell me anything about it.
“Yeah, Zee and Dee are getting rid of a whole bedroom set so they can have a gym in one of the extra bedrooms,” Babs said like it should all make perfect sense to me even though I didn’t have any idea who Zee or Dee were. “Kally bought it from them.”
Liam winked at me as the elevator arrived at ground level and the doors opened. “So I don’t have to keep sleeping on the couch,” he explained. “It’s fine for a night or two, but the couch is not a good long-term solution.”
“Hold on.” I stumbled after the pair of them with their long legs as we headed back into the parking garage. “Why do you need a long-term solution?” That would mean he intended for me to be around long term. Which, of course, I knew he thought was for the best since he’d been trying to convince me it would be okay all afternoon. But bringing in a bed and setting up another bedroom turned this into a far more permanent situation than I’d counted on, and I didn’t know how to react.
“Since you’re going to stay,” Babs said matter-of-factly, as if it had already been discussed and agreed upon, despite the fact that I hadn’t been part of that conversation.
“I can’t stay,” I said, but neither of them acted as though they’d heard me. “Really, you can’t just turn your lives upside down for me like this.” They didn’t even slow down, let alone acknowledge that I was trying to have an argument with them.
When we got to the car, the two of them loaded their arms up with all of the remaining bags, leaving me standing there empty-handed. I closed the trunk and followed after them back to the condo again. Like he had earlier, Babs dropped his load onto the bed in Liam’s room and left.
Once Liam and I were alone, he set his bags down along the wall near the door and moved closer to me. Not close enough that we could touch but close enough that I could feel the warmth and solidness of his presence. He was somehow very steadying even when he threw me completely off my guard. All of my reactions to him contradicted each other.
“I can’t,” I said into the chasm between us. “I can’t stay here. I can’t just keep taking and taking from you like this.”
“You’re not taking from me. I’m giving to you.”
“That’s the same thing!”
He shook his head. “It’s not even close to the same thing. It’s all about intent.”
He was frustrating me so much I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes and letting out a huff that sent my bangs flying. He made me want to pout, and I hadn’t pouted since I was about twelve years old, at least as far as I could remember.
“Noelle?”
I tipped my chin up so I could look into his eyes. They looked troubled, and it made me wish I could soothe whatever ailed him. It was a curse I’d always had, this need to make everyone around me feel better any way I could. My frustrations all seemed insignificant when someone else needed help.
“Yeah?” I said when he didn’t go on.
“I know it’s crazy. I do.” Liam took another step toward me. He was close enough now that his long arms could reach me even if mine couldn’t reach him. “But you said last night that Liv would be proud of me. But that’s just it. She’s been gone for a year and a half, and I still feel like I need to do whatever I can to make her proud. Taking care of you like this—making sure you have everything you need—that would make her proud.”
I started to shake my head, but he didn’t let me get a word out.
“I don’t know why you were homeless,” he rushed on. “I don’t know why you don’t have a job right now. I don’t know why your family hasn’t stepped in and done all the things I’m trying to do.” He reached out with one hand and brushed a piece of hair away from my eye, his fingertips trailing over my skin and making me shiver. “But I do know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you walk out of here and didn’t know you would be all right.”
“But you’ve done so much for me that I’ll never be able to repay.”
“You’re already giving me the only repayment I could ever want or need.”
Now he’d lost me. I hadn’t done anything for him. Nothing at all. I frowned. “What on earth am I giving you?”
“You make me smile. You make me laugh. You make me feel things I haven’t felt since Liv died. You make me feel alive—and glad that I am.”
He was overwhelming me; I couldn’t process it all. He’d known me for less than a day, and already he was pinning all of that on me. How could I be responsible for any of that? I hadn’t done anything but let him give and give and give while I took and took and took.
“I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I finally said.
Liam swallowed hard. “I know. Trust me, I know. I don’t know how to deal with it myself.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Please just stay? Give me a chance to prove I’m not crazy. Give me a chance to show you how much you’re giving to me, too.”
Whether I stayed or left, I still didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a plan for what I’d do tomorrow, let alone in the next month or so before Ethan and Chris came back to Portland for their summer break from school. It wouldn’t hurt anything to stay for now while I worked that out—at least not if Liam would let me make myself useful in some way or another.
That was just it, though. I needed some sort of equality or I would be taking advantage.
I did enjoy it when he flirted with me. Not to mention when I flirted with him. I didn’t get a chance to do that, much. It’s hard to have time or energy for flirting when you spend so much time trying to sort out a plan for surviving until the next day.
“How about we make a deal?” I suggested.
“What kind of deal did you have in mind?”
That was an excellent question.
Four weeks, with the understanding that she could leave after a week if she was absolutely sure it wasn’t going to work out—or, more realistically—if she thought she had been wrong, and that maybe I really
was a serial killer. That was how long Noelle had agreed to stay. Granted, she could leave whenever she wanted. I couldn’t force her to stay with me…but this was the compromise we had come to.
After haggling over it for a while, we had eventually settled on four weeks because that was how much time was left in the NHL’s regular season. After that, the playoffs would start—and depending on how the Storm did over the next few weeks, I might be staying here to play in the postseason, or I might be heading back to Sweden to start my summer earlier than any of us wanted.
We were right in the thick of the playoff chase at the moment. This year, it looked as if for the first time in five seasons, the Portland Storm would get in. Nothing was guaranteed, though. We couldn’t let up. We couldn’t back off. We were going to have to fight tooth and nail every game for the rest of the season, and even then we might be on the outside looking in once we got to the end.
But Noelle was going to stay at least until then…unless she decided I actually was a serial killer. She had agreed to let me provide her with a place to stay and food and clothes and all the other essentials a person needs, and in exchange, I would help her find ways to feel useful during that time.
She was already helping me just by being here, but she didn’t understand that. But maybe if she hung long around enough, I could make her understand how different I was with her in my life. That was what I hoped for, at least. I couldn’t think about forever—she was right in that we didn’t really know each other at all, and so agreeing to anything beyond a few weeks was ridiculous—but I wanted to at least think about the immediate future.
Now that I’d been around her for a couple of days, I didn’t like the thought of her just waltzing out of my life, never to be seen or heard from again…and I was pretty sure she could do that to me.
I wasn’t ready to lose her. I didn’t even really have her yet, but I definitely wasn’t ready to let her go. Noelle made me feel as if I had someone in my life worth holding on to for the first time since Liv had died, so I couldn’t screw this up.
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