Benched

by Elise Faber

  “Kind of,” he said and walked over to his bag. “Just so you know, I didn’t do this alone. Dan and Stewart helped.”

  She paled as he handed her the envelope.

  “I didn’t look, and neither did Stewart. I think Dan only looked so much as he had to for the investigation.”

  “Investigation?” Her hands clenched, wrinkled the brown paper. “My brother looked?”

  “Turns out that a lot of funds have gone missing from the Gold’s coffers, enough that the IRS noticed and alerted the FBI.”

  “Dan?”

  Stefan knew what she was asking. Had her brother known when he’d come to visit months before?

  “No, Dan didn’t know. It wasn’t his case.” Stefan paused. “But it turned out he knew the FBI team investigating. When I called him a few days ago, he talked to his buddy and found out about it. He was able to cash in a few favors, so the original and digital copies of your pictures were lost.”

  Brit's eyes were suspiciously glossy. “You did all that?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” He touched her check.

  “You called.” She bit her lip. “Thank you.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Not to me.”

  They sat in quiet for a moment. “So what about your dad? Why did he decide to buy the Gold?”

  “Apparently, he’s been wanting to buy an NHL team. He thinks it’s a good investment—or at least that’s what my mother says. Devon was so panicked to hide the tax mess he caved when my father put in an offer.”

  “Your mother—”

  “I don’t know.” He clenched his jaw, tried not to put into his voice how much the notion infuriated him. “They’ve talked some. I think they’re trying to put the past aside.”

  “That’s good,” Brit said. “Your mom deserves to be happy.”

  “Be reasonable, why don’t you?” he said then, “And yes, she does.”

  He stifled a sigh and took Brit’s hand. The envelope crinkled, and she glanced down as though surprised to still find it in her fingers, then released a shaky breath.

  “Oh, God.” She sank to the bench, dropped the folder into her lap, and put her head in her hands.

  Stefan sat next to her. “It’s okay. It’s finally okay.”

  Releasing her head, she asked, “How did Stewart know?”

  “Overheard Susan and Jessica talking. Apparently, he has some lock-picking skills, and you know your brother is as good as any hacker.”

  “I didn’t even know he’d finished his assignment.”

  “He was just heading back to the States when I called.”

  Brit nodded, her eyes back on the envelope. A moment passed before she opened the small metal brads and pulled out the pictures.

  Stefan looked away.

  “No,” she said. “This is it. The thing I was most ashamed of and”—she flipped to the next and the next until she’d looked through the entire stack—“as I’m seeing them now . . . I wonder what I was so afraid of. They’re bad. Terrible, even. But they’re also not any reflection on me.” She turned to him. “How could I have ever thought otherwise?”

  “Because you’re human.” He stroked a finger down her cheek, the skin slightly flushed but still as soft as silk. “And something was done to you without your permission. It was unacceptable, and when you went to the people who should have had your back, they didn’t. What’s the saying? ‘You can’t cure normal’?”

  Brit rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly normal.”

  “No,” he said. “You’re so much more. Which is a big part of why I love you.”

  She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, pressing the wet cotton of his shirt into his skin. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that.”

  Fingers trailed through her now-damp hair to the delicate skin of her shoulder as he joked, “You could say it back, you know.”

  He felt more than saw her smile. “Yeah, I could. I love you, Stefan.”

  Brit shoved the pictures back into the envelope and set it on the bench then rotated to face him. “You want to know when I knew we had something different?” Her expression had gentled, those brown eyes melting with affection.

  “When?”

  “From the beginning.”

  Stefan laughed, and her cheeks were tinged with the slightest hint of pink.

  “The attraction was always there,” she continued, “but seeing you react to the team, your tenderness when I freaked out on the stairs . . . well, I”—her lips curved—“I’ve got a weakness for men who protect my crease.”

  He chuckled. “Couldn’t resist, could you?”

  “No.” She reached up, cupped his cheek. “Bad hockey puns aside. You get me, Stefan. And if you’ll take me, I’m yours.”

  His arms wrapped around her waist and held her tight. This is right. She was right. “Only if you promise to take me in return.”

  “As if that were ever in question.” One side of her mouth slid up. “I feel like I should be promising something like, ‘In sickness or injury, in the event of a trade or penalty shot.’”

  Stefan laughed, pressed a kiss to her ear, her throat, her lips. “Proof positive that goalies are weird.”

  The notion was a common one. Who signed up to have hard cylinders of rubber shot at them at speeds faster than the typical car traveled?

  The woman he loved did.

  “So biased,” she said. “And I’m not weird. I’m quirky. Quirky is cute. Weird is . . . just weird.”

  “Noted.”

  “Also, I have something that should help Dan with his investigation.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone.

  A few taps on the screen then Susan and Jessica’s voices poured out of the speakers. “What’s better than painting him as the blackmailing bad guy. . . Men are scum . . . We’re going after the Gold. The board. Devon Carter . . .”

  “How—” Stefan shook his head.

  Brit smiled. “Jessica and Susan decided to pay a house call, but apparently they also didn’t know cell phones could record their scheming.” She shrugged. “Or maybe they just thought me too dumb to think of it.”

  “God, I love you.” He pulled her close. So close that the towel slipped, and her breasts pressed against his chest, until her scent wrapped around his very being and soothed all the ragged edges.

  He bent and sealed his mouth to hers, fell headlong into the swell of love.

  Things wouldn’t be easy, wouldn’t be perfect.

  But they had the sport. Had the team.

  And each other. They definitely had each other.

  Which was how he knew they would be okay.

  EPILOGUE

  Six Months Later

  “Pierre wants to see you in his office,” Max told Stefan as he came out of the shower after the first day of training camp.

  His gut got a little tense, but it no longer churned at the mere mention of his father’s name.

  They were working toward something that might resemble a friendship someday. It wouldn’t ever be the father-son relationship he’d dreamed of as a child, but Stefan also no longer possessed a soul deep fury at the man who’d fathered him.

  Brit had been a big part of that.

  She’d never told him he should forgive his father, but she had facilitated opportunities for them to begin building bridges—weekly dinners when they were in town, the occasional team outing.

  Another reason he loved her more every day.

  It was getting easier to be around Pierre, and while the past wouldn’t just disappear, Stefan found it wasn’t quite so hard to shove it back where it belonged.

  “Want me to wait for you?” Brit asked when he sat down next to her. He’d promptly shoved Stewart out of his spot after he’d patched up things with her last season.

  Her face was freshly scrubbed, her blond hair back in its usual ponytail. He wanted to kiss her.

  So he did.


  Then flipped off the room at large when somebody wolf-whistled.

  “No, go on,” he told her once they’d broken apart. “I know it’s your night for dinner with Mandy. I’ll fend for myself.”

  “Or grab the guys and go out,” she teased.

  “Or that.” He laughed and stole another kiss. “See you tonight.”

  His eyes trailed her as she grabbed her bag then headed over to the PT suite. She was gorgeous as ever, maybe even more beautiful because the secrets and pain that had once weighed her down were gone.

  Last season, she’d led the team to the third round of the playoffs before they’d lost to their conference rival, the Minnesota Wild. She’d been capable and strong, but the team had gotten tired after having gone to seven games in each of the previous two rounds.

  Despite the elimination, she still ended up with the second best GAA—goals against average—in the league and had endeared herself to hockey fans for life with her goaltending acrobatics.

  Stefan still didn’t know how she managed to anticipate the play so well, how she seemed to instinctively know where the players would shoot.

  It was thoroughly impressive, and her skill at her job was just another thing he loved about her.

  “Whipped, dude,” Stewart said. But there was no smirk in his tone, only amusement.

  Mike had done as promised. He’d checked the attitude at the door, worked hard as hell, and as thus, had become one of the Gold’s biggest assets.

  Stefan was happy to have him on the team.

  He turned to Mike and narrowed his eyes. “Dinner. Text me, and I’ll meet you and the guys after I talk to Pierre.”

  Two minutes later, he was walking into his father’s office.

  Pierre had dismissed the entire board—well, with the help of Dan, Brit’s recording, and the rest of the FBI, they’d resigned . . . then promptly been indicted on charges of money laundering and embezzling.

  Susan and company would be enjoying all of the comforts of a prison cell for many years.

  Once the board was out of the picture, Pierre had hired a new GM, appointed a new board, and things were in much better shape, management-wise.

  Stefan had half-expected his father to be at the rink every day, making snide remarks and generally making a mess of things.

  He hadn’t.

  Pierre travelled often for his various businesses, and though he seemed to be in touch with the pulse of the team and checked in often, his father hadn’t been a nuisance.

  Despite everything, he might even be starting to tolerate—okay, like—the guy. With Brit in his life, everything from the past seemed very much in the past, and the anger . . . well, the anger was getting very hard to drum up.

  “You wanted to see me?” Stefan asked once he was through the office door.

  “Yes. Want to sit?” Pierre indicated an empty chair in front of his desk. “It’ll only take a moment.”

  There was a note of something in Pierre’s voice. Nervousness?

  “Okay.” Stefan sat. “What’s up?”

  Pierre straightened a stack of papers, opened and closed the drawer.

  Definitely nervous.

  Was it about the team? A trade? Brit?

  “I’ll just get straight down to it,” Pierre said. “I want your blessing to court your mother.”

  Stefan’s fist shot out before he’d even comprehended what had happened. It collided against his father’s jaw with a loud crack.

  Pierre’s head whipped back, and Stefan felt a moment of horror at what he’d done.

  Then his father grinned, and the pang eased. “I guess that is up for interpretation?”

  Stefan didn’t reply, only glared. What had he been thinking? Like his father? Fuck no. He was going to kill the bastard.

  “Look,” Pierre said. “I did wrong by your mother and you. So damned wrong.” He rubbed his jaw, the red mark from Stefan’s fist large and spreading by the moment. “But the thing about getting older, about working hard and getting everything you thought you ever wanted is that it feels empty without someone to share it with.”

  Unfortunately, Stefan understood that feeling very clearly.

  Pierre watched him, eyes serious now, all signs of the previous grin wiped away. “I’d like to have an opportunity to change that.”

  Stefan thought about what his father was saying, knew how lonely and miserable he’d been without Brit. He couldn’t give his blessing. It was too soon for that, but—

  “It’s really up to Mom,” he told Pierre. “If she says yes, I won’t stand in your way.”

  A flicker of emotion crossed his father’s face. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just don’t hurt her again, and we’ll be okay. You so much as make her cry and . . .”

  Pierre nodded, was quiet for a moment before he said, “I’d like a chance with you too.”

  That wasn’t so easy. Part of Stefan wanted it, had always wanted it. The rest wasn’t so willing. “We’ll see.”

  “Tough crowd,” Pierre quipped.

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” his father said, voice filled to the brim with remorse. “No, I can’t.”

  Stefan wanted to tell his father to fuck off, to leave him and his mother alone. But it had been six months since Pierre had reentered their lives. Six months of building tentative bridges and not being a total asshole.

  So, with a mental shrug, Stefan gave into the part of him that wanted to see where things went with his father. If nothing else, the last months had taught him that sometimes it didn’t hurt to take a risk with his heart. “The guys and I are going to dinner. Want to come with?”

  Pierre’s eyes were suspiciously shiny. He cleared his throat, looked away. “I’d like that very much.”

  As they walked out together, Stefan thought that, for the first time in a long time, happily-ever-afters might actually be a reality.