“I’m sorry,” she almost pleaded with her voice and her eyes.
“No big deal.”
“We’re all very protective of Tiff,” Emma rushed to make it better. In her typical Emma way, she wanted everyone to get along and be happy. If only they could be so lucky to all live in Emma’s rose-colored world.
* * * *
Their dinner took longer than expected, and they missed the movie so Isaac dropped them off at the barn, turning down Avery’s invitation to come inside and watch TV and gorge on popcorn. He recognized the olive branch she extended, but he didn’t feel like being social. The news about Tiff bothered him on too many levels, and he didn’t want to be around anyone.
Shit.
Parked in front of his garage was a truck. He’d hoped ignoring the problem would make it go away. It hadn’t. Blake was here. At his house. Now their house. Isaac hadn’t shared his space with a person since Jenny.
As he pulled into the garage, Blake got out of his truck and waited. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Isaac groused, not at all happy about the situation.
“You don’t want me here, do you?” Blake spoke bluntly.
“Not really,” Isaac shot back, just as bluntly.
“You didn’t really forget I was moving in today, did you?”
“Actually, I did.”
“Well, I’m here.” Blake grabbed a suitcase in one hand and a cat carrier in the other. Oh, crap, Isaac had forgotten the guy had a cat. The cat was the very reason Blake couldn’t stay in the place the team had found for him. What kind of guy had a cat, anyway? Seemed weird.
Isaac shrugged, grabbed the other suitcase, and led Blake into the house, wishing he could strangle the teammates who’d put him in this situation. At least the house had a large bedroom at the opposite end of the house with its own attached bathroom. Isaac placed the suitcase inside the door.
“Here you go. This is your room.”
“Thanks.” Blake glanced around with a grim smile on his face.
Hal waddled in the room and sniffed Blake’s leg. Isaac expected him to lift it on Blake’s jeans, but he didn’t. Instead he sat down at Blake’s feet, wagging his stump of a tail and whining.
“He doesn’t usually like men.”
Blake laughed and patted his head. “All animals love me. How is he with cats?”
Isaac shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
Blake sat the cat crate on the bed and opened the door. A small kitten poked its head out of the crate and gingerly crawled out. Hal sniffed at the kitten and got a sharp whack across the nose in response. He yipped and ran from the room.
“I don’t think he’ll be a problem.” Blake chuckled. “Nick is a tough little guy. He survived a freezing snow storm.
Isaac nodded, staring at the miniscule kitten Blake now held in his huge hands. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”
“Thanks.” Blake smiled at him. Isaac forced a smile back and escaped from the room.
It was bad enough he’d been forced to share a room on the road, now he’d been manipulated into sharing his house. Nothing personal against Blake—he seemed like a decent guy who minded his own business—but Isaac valued his privacy above all else.
And the guy had a fucking cat. What kind of defenseman had a cat?
* * * *
Blake knew Isaac didn’t want him there. Hell he’d have to be an idiot not to know. He didn’t care. Blake needed this place not just to live and because he had a kitten, but because he needed the company. He’d been alone too long, pushed people away, and it hadn’t been healthy.
Isaac did the same thing, and Blake had made it his mission to figure out what made the kid tick. Blake’s career might be on the downside, but Isaac was only twenty-six and extremely talented if he could just get past his attitude and be a better teammate.
That one week with Sarah had taught him about the damage a guy could do to himself by cutting himself off from people and going it alone.
Thinking of Sarah depressed him. She’d encouraged him to return to the NHL when the opportunity arose. He hadn’t wanted to walk away from their short, whirlwind relationship. She’d said he’d never forgive her if he didn’t give his career another shot.
And when she’d kissed him goodbye at the Madrona Island ferry landing, he’d felt as if he’d left a huge part of himself on that island. She’d broken it off with him, insisting she didn’t want a long-distance relationship. She wasn’t leaving the island and her veterinary practice, and he had to be where his team was.
It was for the best.
Yeah, right. Bullshit.
He talked to her every night, but he could sense her pulling away, and pushing him in the opposite direction. Maybe it’d all been a Christmas illusion. They’d fallen fast and hard, declaring their love in twenty-four hours. Practical Blake wasn’t the type to do that, but it’d seemed so comfortable, so real, and he believed it still was.
But she was right, as usual; he needed to take his career as far as he could take it. She’d be there waiting when he came back. Of that he was certain.
But what if he pursued coaching after his playing days ended? Then what? Hell if he knew.
For now, his entire focus would be hockey—his game and Isaac’s.
He have to deal with his personal life later.
It was always later.
And someday later might be too late.
Chapter 13—A Plan
As February turned into March, Isaac settled into a routine of sorts, somehow managing to keep his hands off Avery in the process—though that part was killing him. They hung out a lot. She watched his games, he watched her ride. They laughed and talked, and Isaac enjoyed every minute of his time with her. He’d was attached in a way he’d never been attached to anyone but his sister.
In some ways life was better than it had ever been for him, and in other ways, it was pure torture.
Isaac usually hated being played, and he figured he was—by his teammates, by Sockeye management, and by Blake. The way he saw it, the captains and coaches had set Blake up as some kind of watchdog mentor for Isaac, or Blake had taken it upon himself. Either way, while Isaac didn’t like it, they had him by the short hairs so he tolerated Blake’s constant presence. Yet, despite his annoyance, he kind of liked the guy.
Every morning, after running the steep logging road with Blake, they collapsed in exhausted heaps on the entryway floor. Blake’s constant companionship prevented Isaac from being alone with Avery. Good and bad, depending on a guy’s point of view. Bad, if he wanted to heave all common sense into the dumpster and attempt another try at getting into her pants. Good, if he considered Blake’s hovering as a way to keep him in good graces with Coop and to force Isaac to keep his relationship with Avery as strictly friends.
Isaac had never had a true friend before, but he’d had plenty of sex. In his world, those two things didn’t exist together. By his way of thinking, a sexual relationship with Avery would ruin the friendship. He didn’t know if he could survive losing her as a friend.
Once a week when the team was home, Isaac took Avery and Emma to dinner, and usually Blake tagged along. Blake showed no interest in either twin, other than as friends. Which was good. If Blake showed any interest in Avery, Isaac just might have to kill him.
When Isaac wasn’t thinking about hockey, he was thinking about Avery. He tried to keep his mind on hockey one hundred percent of the time, but no man could do that, and Isaac was, after all, only a man.
Somehow over the past two months, Avery had become the center of his universe. He didn’t hurt when he was with her. She filled in those empty places, lit up the dark ones, and made his future not so dim. She’d become his best friend, the person he wanted to talk to first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. But she was so very much more than that. She was his drug, the best drug he’d ever binged on because she made him feel like maybe, just maybe someday he could be worthy of someone’s love.
Someone like h
er.
But he didn’t know when that would be and how much longer he could wait.
Blake was as hard to read as Isaac and as private when it came to his own life, but he sure as hell liked to pry into Isaac’s, while Isaac kept their conversations about hockey. He never asked about Blake’s personal life because asking would be to care. And Isaac didn’t want to care about anyone—except Avery.
But his body cared. It cared about getting laid. He desperately needed a release for the tension and frustration building inside him before he exploded. It’d been two months since he’d last had wild, crazy sex with Avery on the lounge couch. He’d never gone this long since puberty without burying his dick deep inside a willing woman, yet his fixation on Avery made it hard to muster interest in other women.
While he couldn’t have Avery, there were plenty of other women waiting in line. A smart guy would avail himself of their special talents before he did something really stupid, like give in to his need for Avery or take his frustrations out on an unwitting teammate. He couldn’t do either.
After Saturday’s home game, he found two puck bunnies draped across his car, waiting for him. How they’d gotten into the private player parking area was anybody’s guess, probably bribing a security guard. Judging by how little they wore considering the chilly evening, they weren’t just looking for autographs.
The leggy redhead approached him first, walking like a runway model with that weird stilted walk he didn’t find the least bit sexy. The brunette followed a few seconds later, licking her lips and looking him up and down as if he were her next meal. He guessed he was.
Ten minutes later they were ripping off his clothes in a deserted concrete stairwell. Oddly detached, Isaac watched as the redhead deep-throated his dick and the brunette bit and licked her way from his thighs to his ass to his shoulders. When she tried to kiss him on the mouth, he turned his head. Kissing her seemed too personal. Hell, he didn’t even know or care to know her name.
He’d waited so long for a female to touch him, that he came hard and fast inside the redhead’s mouth, a physical release not the least bit emotionally satisfying. She licked him off her lips and cupped his balls, but he pushed her away, pulled up his pants, and zipped them.
“What about my turn?” the brunette pouted.
“Party’s over,” he said indifferently.
“You really are an asshole,” she spat back.
“Yeah, I am.”
Repulsed by his actions, Isaac walked away, feeling dirty, used, and disappointed. In himself. Sex with anonymous women had never bothered him before, but it sure as hell did now.
He wasn’t sure what had changed, but he was certain it had to do with a blond-haired, blue-eyed horsewoman who had his dick tied up in knots, and his balls aching for her to bust them.
Isaac was disgusted with himself, and that disgust gave way to an epiphany. It hit him like a lightning strike from heaven so hard he pulled over to the side of the road until his hands stopped shaking, and his vision cleared.
And he owed it all to the puck bunnies. Well, somewhat.
He didn’t want nameless, meaningless sex with strangers. For the first time in his life, he wanted something more. Sure, he’d had a long-time girlfriend once, but it’d been a roller-coaster, drama-filled relationship fueled by alcohol and drugs.
He didn’t want that either.
He wanted normal. Isaac had never in his life had normal. He wanted to know what normal felt like. His childhood had been anything but normal. He was a teenager before he figured out it wasn’t normal for a father to pit brothers against each other in the name of competition, urging them to use their fists to solve their brotherly disputes, while Dad and his buddies bet on who’d come out the winner. Other times he’d make the boys drink whiskey until they puked, telling them if they were going to be men, they’d need to learn to hold their liquor. When they weren’t beating the crap out of each other, they were competing for the stingy attention of an alcoholic father in their respective sports, but nothing was ever good enough for Dad.
Just once, Isaac wanted to ask a girl out, take her to dinner, sit on her couch and watch sappy old movies, bring her flowers, all that crap guys did when they were wooing a woman.
Yeah, that was what he wanted.
Normal.
With Avery.
* * * *
“What’s wrong with you?” Blake asked the next morning as he leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Isaac slam stuff around.
Isaac whipped around, hands fisted, ready to shut Blake up. Blake chuckled at him, not the least bit intimidated, which irritated Isaac even more.
“I’m going for a run,” he said, abandoning the coffee he’d been about to make.
“I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t want company,” Isaac growled, hoping for once his shadow would take the hint and get lost.
“I don’t care. I’m going anyway.”
“Suit yourself, old man. Hope you can keep up.” Isaac regretted the words as soon as he said them. He could tell by the look on Blake’s face his callous words stung.
He really was a first-class asshole. He didn’t deserve Blake’s friendship, did nothing to earn it, and didn’t understand why the guy stuck around.
Maybe Blake liked being treated like shit.
Or maybe, just maybe, Blake was one of those rare good guys.
Isaac would be the last to admit it, but he needed to talk. Regardless, he pushed himself up the hill, ignoring the pain in his side that would’ve driven a lesser man to his knees. Blake ran beside him, keeping pace, even though Isaac could tell it was killing him as much as it was Isaac.
Except Blake had a lot more miles on those legs of his.
At the very top of the hill—hell, mountain—Isaac sank to the ground, his back against a big cedar tree, not caring about the wet grass soaking his ass.
Blake stood over him, hands on his knees, as he gasped for air. Finally he straightened. “Only a woman could tie a man in knots like this.”
Isaac clamped his mouth shut, refusing to incriminate himself.
“It has to be Avery.”
Scowling, Isaac eyed him. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m the guy at dinner once a week with you guys. How could I not know?”
“Well, smart guy, trust me, you don’t know the half of it.” Before he thought better of it, Isaac laid out his previous night with the puck bunnies, not glossing over his disgust with his own actions. Blake listened, rubbing his chin in thought, but didn’t say a word until Isaac finished his tale of shame.
With a long sigh, Blake sank down onto a log. “You’re going about this all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Isaac glanced up and met Blake’s honest gaze, seeing no recrimination or judgement in his friend’s eyes—and Blake, he realized with a start, was a friend.
“You don’t see that you’ve changed?”
“How?” Isaac sat up straighter, paying full attention now.
“You’re upset about the puck bunnies.”
“Yeah.” Isaac hung his head in shame.
“Have quick hook-ups with nameless women ever been an issue for you before?” Blake pointed out the obvious.
“No.” Isaac wasn’t sure where this conversation was going.
“So why are they now?”
“I guess— Okay, fine, asshole. I have changed.” Isaac leaned back against the tree, and let his hands dangle between his knees. “I’m not the same guy.”
“And?”
Isaac glanced up, meeting Blake’s eyes. “And somehow meaningless sex has become too meaningless.” Isaac buried his head in his hands and sighed. “I want more.”
“Yeah. I can tell. You’re a fighter. Go after what you want.”
“Coop’s not a fan, and I need his support to stay on this team. One bad word from him, I’m gone.”
“Then change his mind. Be the guy he’d love to have date his sister-in-law.”
&
nbsp; “Are you kidding? I’m not that guy.” Isaac would’ve rolled on the ground laughing if the whole deal hadn’t been so pathetic.
Blake rubbed his chin. A slow smile crossed his face. “You’re going about this all wrong.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes. “How is that?”
“I’ve known Coop for a long time. We played in the minors together. He’s a straight shooter, and he expects the same from his friends and teammates. Be a straight shooter.”
“How?” Isaac was all kinds of skeptical.
“He’s playing the protective, big brother role. Tell him you want to date his future sister-in-law. Ask for his permission. Let him know that she’s different from all the others, that she’s special to you. Convince him that she’s your Izzy.”
“I don’t know if she is.”
“You won’t know until you spend more time alone, instead of having Emma and me as chaperones.”
“Coop would rather castrate me.”
“At first, yeah, but give him some time to think about it. What do you have to lose? If he goes all wacked on you, you’re pretty much where you started.”
“What if it ruins my chances with the team?”
“What’ll ruin your chances is him finding out you’re sneaking around behind his back. He might come off as all kinds of pissed off when you talk with him, but he’ll appreciate your honesty, and he won’t use it against you when it comes to the team. Trust me on this. I know the guy.”
“I don’t know what I can say that’ll earn his blessing.”
“Then ask him. Let him set the parameters.”
“Why does this matter to you?”
Blake stood and stretched before he responded. “Because I was a lot like you once until—until tragedy changed my world. We have a lot in common—you and me.”
“You’re not toxic.”
“Neither are you.” Blake levelled him a long, serious look then his mouth crooked into a half-smile.
Isaac shook his head slowly. “That’s because you don’t really know me. I’m an alcoholic, but I’ve been clean and sober for over two years,” he admitted. “I’m poison. I’ve destroyed everyone in my life who I’ve ever cared about. How’s that for toxic?”
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