“I spent three days worrying about what they were going to do,” Babs said. “Three fucking days. They shoved us around some, and they fucked up my neck, but that’s what playoff hockey is. If we’re going to keep going, we’re going to have to take a hell of a lot more than what they’re giving us.” He reached over his shoulders and pulled his jersey up and off, and then tossed it into the laundry bin. One sleeve hung over the outside. “Hell, if we make it to the next round, we’re all going to be black and blue by the end of it, no matter which of those teams we face.”
That was the truth. The Coyotes and the Kings were currently beating each other to a pulp, and whichever team won that series would face either us or Vancouver.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m trying to say other than we need to fucking man up. Our game isn’t a hitting game—we’re all about speed and possession, about playing to our strengths—but that doesn’t mean we can’t hit. It doesn’t mean we can’t fight back. It doesn’t mean we let them dictate how the game is going to go, that we can’t merge our game with what they’re trying to make us do and use it against them. It doesn’t mean we can’t exploit their weaknesses like they’ve been doing with ours. It doesn’t mean we have to roll over and take whatever the hell they want to dish out to us, but that’s what we did tonight. I don’t know about you boys, but I’m done with fucking rolling over. I’m not going to play dead. I’m done with all of that bullshit. I’m just fucking done with it.”
No one else really needed to say anything after that. Babs nailed it with his speech, and the fact that it came from him—from one of the boys out there on the ice and in this locker room, maybe even more so because he was the youngest guy on the team—was all it took for it to sink through all their thick skulls.
By the time the team got done hitting the showers and talking to the media, the air in the locker room wasn’t quite so thick anymore. It was a little easier to breathe than it had been, but I was still antsy to get out of there.
I wanted to get back to Sara’s place. In about twelve hours or so, I’d be gone again for a few days. I wanted to spend what time I could with her before then. Standing around and waiting for Babs and Soupy to finish up was driving me crazy, especially since I didn’t really have anything to do. Several of the boys were going to head out to Kells for dinner and drinks—surely Burnzie’s idea—and Nicky came over to ask if I wanted to join them.
“Nah,” I said. Usually, I would go. I didn’t have anything better to do. But my life wasn’t the same as it had been before.
“Come on,” he said, draping his arm over my shoulders. “I’ll take you home after. A night out would do you good.”
“Some other time.”
He gave me a you-are-totally-pussy-whipped sort of look while shaking his head.
And maybe he was right. Maybe I was pussy-whipped. If that’s what this was, I was okay with that.
My phone beeped with a text message, saving me from having to further explain my disinclination to go along with the rest of the boys. I pulled it out of my pocket, and Nicky walked away still shaking his head.
It was from Cadence. And tonight was another school night.
Cadence: Well, that was quite a game.
Me: You liked that, did you?
Cadence: Sorry, forgot to use my sarcasm font.
She followed that last one with a slew of goofy emoticons that made me snort.
Me: Aren’t you supposed to be asleep right now?
Cadence: Yeah. They needed you out there tonight. But they’re going to figure it out, Cam. I know they will. You probably didn’t see it, but they showed it on TV here. When Babs came back in the second, they showed a close-up of him on the bench. He looked like he was ready to put the whole team on his back and carry them to the next round. He’s going to do whatever it takes.
Me: Yeah, he is. But go to bed.
Cadence: I am. I love you, Cam.
Me: I love you, too.
I was just putting my phone back in my pocket when it beeped again.
Cadence: Cam?
Me: Yeah?
Cadence: You know how sometimes rumors fly about NHL players and everyone talks about them at school here and believes they’re true?
Shit. Yeah, I knew all about that kind of thing. And the way she asked it made me one hundred percent certain that whatever rumors she’d heard were surrounding me.
Me: Yeah, what about them?
Cadence: Are you really dating Scotty Thomas’s daughter? They say you got her pregnant, but that doesn’t sound like you. You haven’t even mentioned her to us before. I don’t know what to say when kids talk about you like that at school.
Talk about someone letting all the helium out of my balloon. I hadn’t been prepared for that. I wasn’t planning on talking to my mom or any of my sisters about everything going on with Sara and me until I had a better grasp on it myself—until we had decided what our plan would be moving forward. I didn’t know what to say to my teenaged sister about this.
I mean, she was right. It wasn’t like me. I wasn’t the kind of guy who would date the coach’s daughter. Not normally. This thing with Sara wasn’t something I’d planned. And I sure as hell wasn’t the kind of guy who went around getting women I wasn’t committed to—fully, irrevocably committed to—pregnant. I didn’t want Cadence, or any of my sisters, to think that sort of behavior was okay. I wanted them to be in healthy, long-term relationships before they ever thought about making babies, and I was their example. I was the one they could look up to and see the right way of doing things.
Until now. Now I was the guy who went and knocked up the coach’s daughter and was being talked about all over freaking hockey-mad Canada. If it was already all over the place, though, she deserved to hear the truth. All of my family did. I just didn’t know how to tell them.
Spilling the beans via text message wasn’t exactly high on my list, but Cadence had taken the options out of my hands.
Me: I am dating her, yes. Her name’s Sara. And she’s pregnant. That much is all true.
Cadence: So the baby’s yours? You’re going to be a daddy? You conveniently neglected to comment on that part.
More emoticons. I got the impression she was using them since there was no such thing as a sarcasm font.
Me: I want the baby to be mine.
Cadence: Wow.
Me: Wow? And that means…?
Cadence: Does this mean I get to be an aunt?!?!??!?! Squeee!!!!!
Me: Go to bed, Cadence. We’ll talk about it at a reasonable hour. I’ll call you after school tomorrow.
I supposed I’d have to call Mom before that, plus talk to Corinne and Chloe at some point in the not too distant future. If Cadence was hearing this shit at school, then Lord only knew what they’d been hearing. I was going to be on a plane for a few hours tomorrow, so I’d have to work it all in somehow. Hell, I probably should have already talked to at least Mom about it so we could decide together how to go about telling the girls, but it was all happening so fast.
I hadn’t talked to any of my family as much as I should have since this all started. Not since that final night of the regular season. They were probably putting it off to the team being in the playoffs, and maybe me being upset with myself over the suspension, but it was so much more than that. It was Sara, and Scotty, and the baby, and all of these things that I didn’t know how to talk to them about.
Cadence: Kk. Love you lots.
Me: I love you more. Go to sleep.
Cadence: No chance. I’m gonna be an aunt. I can sleep later.
I was chuckling as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. She never ceased to surprise me with her reactions to things.
“Sexting with Sara again?” Burnzie asked on his way out with the guys. He had a shit-eating grin on his face. “Not that I blame you, man. I’d be doing the same and more if I were in your shoes.”
“Not sexting. And not Sara.” Not that I owed Burnzie any explanation at all.
“All right. Have it your way.” He walked backward through the open doorway so he could continue talking to me, and he winked, which irked me. I didn’t like anyone thinking about Sara like that, even though I knew Burnzie was harmless where she was concerned. “Just thought that with the whole broken rib thing, a little harmless sexting would be the only action you’d see for a while…”
I groaned inwardly. He had no idea.
IT WAS SO late by the time Cam and the guys got back to the house that both Tuck and Maddie had passed out where they were. That meant Tuck was fast asleep on Daddy’s lap with Buster snuggling right alongside the pair of them, and Maddie had stretched out on the sofa between me and her mother. Her head was resting on Rachel’s lap and her feet were brushing against the side of my thigh, tickling me lightly with her toes every time she moved so much as a muscle.
Soupy went to pick Maddie up, but she came awake as soon as she felt his presence and got up on her own. Babs lifted Tuck off Daddy’s lap and high up into the air. True to form, that little boy didn’t stir at all. I’d never seen anyone sleep as hard as Tuck could, the complete opposite of his sister. He just wrapped his arms around Babs’s neck in his sleep and held on tight, as though this happened all the time. For all that I knew, it did happen all the time. Tuck adored Babs more than he loved ice cream—and that was saying something—and Babs seemed to like being around those two kids a lot. He’d make a good father someday, but for now he could be everyone’s favorite pseudo uncle.
Cam plopped down beside me on the sofa as soon as Maddie had evacuated the spot, putting his arm around my shoulder and kissing my cheek. I was surprised that it didn’t bother me, especially because Daddy, Rachel, and some of Cam’s teammates saw the whole thing. But it didn’t. Not in the least. It felt comfortable and right, like there was nothing else he should be doing—and that was a scary thought. Maybe even scarier than the whole idea of him possibly falling in love with me.
Rachel gathered up all of her stuff and the kids’ backpacks, and they were all about to head out the door when Daddy stopped them.
“Babs,” he said, and they all turned around in the hallway. Daddy nodded slowly. It was his approving nod, one I’d seen dozens of times over the years when he was proud of me. I doubted it was one that his players saw very often. He seemed to hold it back with them more often than not. It’s not my job to stroke their egos, he’d said to me more times than I could count when I’d asked him why he didn’t do the same things with his team as he did with me. I’m not here to pump anybody’s tires. I’m trying to get the most out of these guys that I can. Sometimes, though, that little bit of approval could go a long way in getting more out of someone.
“Good game tonight,” he said now. “I’ve known you had that guy in you since the first day you stepped foot in Portland, when I picked you up at the airport. Nice to finally see him come out to play.”
Babs shuffled his feet and blushed, but he was grinning so hard his dimples came out. I wished Katie were here to see it. She’d probably melt and fall to pieces all over me. Understandably, though. Those dimples were lady-killers. For some reason, I doubted he’d figured that part out yet so he could use it to his advantage. He gave Daddy a little nod. “Yeah, thanks, Scotty.” Before my father could say anything else to embarrass him, he spun around and headed out to the car, toting Tuck along with him.
“I’ll see you boys tomorrow,” Cam said as the rest of them followed Babs out the door.
“That kid’s going to be this team’s captain someday,” Daddy said to Cam once the door closed behind them. “Maybe not when you or I are still around, but mark my words. He’s a born leader.”
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Cam said, and he proceeded to tell us all about how Babs had called a players-only meeting after the game tonight and all that he’d said.
After that, we all sat there for a while watching all the post-game coverage and listening to the talking heads wax poetic about how the Storm just weren’t going to hack it this year, that they’d gotten into the playoffs but they were poised to flame out and head home in a couple more games. “Next year will be a better year for the Portland Storm,” they kept saying, over and over again. But Daddy and Cam didn’t want to hear about next year. They hadn’t given up on this year yet.
Eventually, Daddy got frustrated with all the commentators and flipped the TV off. “Help me up, Cam. I’m ready to hit the sack.”
Cam? When had Daddy started calling him that and not Jonny? Or had it already been going on for a while and I hadn’t noticed? All of these developments were happening a hell of a lot faster than I was comfortable with, so I sat there chewing it over while Cam helped my dad out of his chair.
Daddy waved him off when he tried to accompany him down the hall. “I’m all right with the rest of this on my own. Good night, you two.”
He didn’t attempt to shoo Buster away when he trotted along beside him. Was he going to let that dog spend the whole night with him? That might be enough to turn my world on its head.
“’Night, Daddy.”
He went off on his own, walking easier than I was able to do most of the time. Every time he would get up to go do his walking lately, I was starting to feel the urge to get up and do it with him because he seemed to be further along in his recovery than I was. But then I would try to get up and the pain in my side would convince me it was better to stay down, and so I’d let him do it on his own.
He hadn’t been acting as if he was tired. I could only guess that he was trying to give me and Cam time alone together, and I honestly didn’t know what to make of any of these changes in my father’s behavior. I doubted bypass surgery could have been enough to bring all of this on.
“What’s that pout about?” Cam asked when he came back to the sofa. He sat beside me with a sexy, smirky sort of expression that did a number on my girly bits—because there might be any number of things that Cam Johnson frequently did, but smirking was definitely not one of them. He was usually stoic. I rarely had any luck naming any expression he bore on his face. But this? This was definitely at least close to a smirk.
It looked insanely hot on him, especially with the growth of facial hair lining his jaw. I wasn’t used to seeing him like that yet. As long as I’d known him, he was always smooth-shaven. But now the buzzed hair on his head was actually shorter than the hair on his face.
Before I had time to think about what I was doing, I lifted my hand and let my palm slide over the scratchy surface of his jaw, trembling from the rasp against my skin.
His hand came up and caught mine, and he shook his head. “You’re trying to distract me. Why are you pouting?”
I hadn’t thought I was pouting before, but now I definitely was and there was no point in trying to deny it. “Because Daddy doesn’t need me. He’s healing faster than I am. I still need help, but he’s doing so much more than I’m able to do right now, and I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I know how I feel about it.”
I had a hard time not rolling my eyes. “And how is that?”
“Glad. Because it means you need me.”
The way he said it and the look in his eye combined to make me shiver all over.
“I don’t know how I feel about that, either,” I said.
“About what?” He brushed my hair away from my eyes, tucking it behind my ear.
“Needing you.” It felt normal—almost unnaturally so—to tell him that. Like there was nothing else I ought to say to him at that moment.
Cam grunted, or maybe it was a moan. It was hard to discern over the white-water rush of my pulse in my ears. “I need you, too,” he said.
Such a simple statement, only four little words, shouldn’t have had such an effect on me. They shouldn’t have been able to turn my insides to mush, to make my belly flutter with the force of a thousand moths heading toward a flame, to cause all the air in my lungs to stop in place and refuse to budge, but that’s exactly what happened.<
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I licked my lips and watched his eyes follow the path of my tongue. “I think we’re talking about two different kinds of need.”
The corners of his lips curled up. “You need me that way, too. Just as much as I need you.”
He was right about that. So fucking right.
Over each of the last few days when he’d helped me to shower, his touches had grown bolder, and I hadn’t been able to resist touching him in return.
Each night when he’d been with me in my bed, I’d let my hands roam over his chest and arms and abs. I’d kissed him. A lot, actually. I’d kissed him as deeply, as hungrily, as desperately as I could and for as long as I could manage, until my pain had taken over and I’d been forced to stop. Even then, he’d held me and splayed his big hands over my body, and the feverish burn inside me had only intensified.
I needed him as much as I needed my next breath. Maybe more.
Damn him.
I DIDN’T MAKE love to Sara that night, despite the fact that I could tell she wanted it just as much as I did. Her skin was flushed and pink and glistening with a sheen of sweat even though she had just been sitting there on the sofa. I didn’t touch her other than where my hand met her wrist. That, combined with the fact that her eyes locked onto mine, her pupils dilated until her eyes were more black than blue, proved I was right; she was just as hot and bothered as I was.
How much we wanted to be together didn’t really matter at that point. She was still in too much pain for what we wanted. Besides, the thought of doing more than kissing her here and touching her there while we were in her father’s house, while he was just down the hall from the living room, really didn’t sit well with me. Even taking her upstairs wasn’t good enough, wouldn’t get us far enough away from him. The thought of him somehow walking in on us was more than enough to cool me off for a while.
Instead, I’d helped her climb the stairs and assisted her in changing into one of those silky nighties she always seemed to sleep in, and then I’d held her all night long.
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