Checked

by Elise Faber

  She was avoiding going into work.

  It was Monday morning. It was after Christmas. It was . . . two days since Gabe had cornered her outside her car and had declared—

  I like you, Rebecca. Too fucking much.

  And all weekend long, those words had been cycling through her mind like a mini tornado.

  I like you. Too fucking much. I like you. Too—

  Which made absolutely no sense. Gabe didn’t like her. She was too rigid, had too big of an icicle up her ass. Plus, she didn’t like him. He was arrogant and narrow-minded and—

  She sighed and slipped on her flats.

  He was not going to be the reason she failed at her job.

  She’d gotten phase one of the diet plan approved.

  Several of the players were coming in that day to discuss it and the accommodations she’d make for allergies. Then before next season, Rebecca would be in individual meetings with each of them—those in permanent positions as well as those who’d be participating in training camp and didn’t have a roster spot yet. Regardless, the idea was to get everyone on board with the diet and to adjust it for any necessary allergies, sensitivities, food preferences, or other accommodations such as requests to keep in lean proteins like fish and the occasional chicken, or some like Max’s—one of their star defensemen’s—request for a weekly cheat day. He’d found out about the plan at the party, along with her thoughts on how she wanted to expand it for next season and made the appeal, which she thought was fair.

  Once next year’s schedule was released, and if it was approved, Rebecca would just have to come up with a plan for that, as well as a schedule of times that would be best to take a break from the diet. She planned on looking at the games and anticipated practices, knowing that any cheat days shouldn’t come on those, while also knowing that the diet was going to be restrictive for many of the players and they needed to be satisfied enough that they would actually be willing to try and stick with it.

  She could only control the food the guys had access to at the Gold facilities and any team meals that were provided. Other than that, the players ate on their own, and she knew for her plan to be successful, they’d need to be committed.

  Hence, all the interactions she was forcing on herself that day. She needed to address any concerns and accommodations for phase one to go well so they could move on to phase two.

  She hoped it would, because it would be good for her, job experience-wise, and great for the team.

  Or at least that was what she was telling herself.

  “Stop stalling,” she muttered and slipped her purse onto her shoulder then forced her feet to move to the door. “This is what you wanted, what you believed in.”

  Right.

  There was that.

  And so, she walked downstairs to her car, got in, and didn’t allow herself any extra time before pulling out of the lot and onto the road that led to the rink. Neither did she delay in the parking lot, or walking down the hall to her office.

  She didn’t even hesitate in answering the knock on her door that signaled her first appointment.

  Something funny happened.

  Without allowing those stalls, those excuses, those postponements, the day kept right on moving. The minutes passed, along with the hours. And the meetings were . . . tolerable?

  Perhaps not the most ringing endorsement ever, but they weren’t as horrible as she’d imagined. In fact, the ones with Max and Brit were almost enjoyable.

  She’d even sort of forgotten that she was purposefully avoiding Gabe.

  See? Win-win all around.

  Snorting, she flicked off the light for her office and stepped into the hall, thinking about how good the meal she’d thrown in the Crock-Pot that morning would make her apartment smell when she walked through the door. Peppers, onions, and garlic made anything taste good, but most especially the mix of wild rice and tofu she’d left simmering that morning.

  Her mouth watered and she picked up her pace, closing the door behind her and walking down the hall to her car. It was late, so the space was mostly empty, and the few interactions she had were limited to simple waves or ‘Hellos.'

  Probably a good thing since she was maxing out on social for the day.

  The first sign of trouble was the fact that her car door didn’t automatically unlock when she tugged on the driver’s side handle, but she didn’t immediately process that fact because the car was new and she was still getting used to all the fancy bells and whistles, including doors that unlocked when she approached the vehicle rather than having to use her key fob.

  The second was the complete lack of power when she pressed the button to start her hybrid.

  The third—

  Well, who was she kidding? There was no third. That is, unless someone counted banging her head against the steering wheel as trouble. Which it probably was . . . but regardless, she was sitting in her car, her forehead against the fabric-wrapped wheel when the knock came on her window.

  She jumped, head whipping around to see Gabe peering in at her.

  It was winter in northern California, which meant that at nearly nine, the sky was pitch black, but she always parked under an exterior light and so she could see Gabe quiet clearly.

  And there was a lot of him to see.

  So much more than the previous week. So much more than before he’d said he’d liked her.

  She’d obviously acknowledged he was handsome somewhere on her mental registry. That was an indisputable fact. But it had also been easy to compartmentalize that away because she’d known Gabe wasn’t for her. Thus, any attraction had been shoved way down.

  That had been before I like you.

  Three words she’d never heard from a man before. Three terrifying words. And yet, three words that had flayed her to her core because they’d cracked open that door she’d thrown up between herself and the possibility of any type of normal relationship.

  She had anxiety.

  Her mother also had it.

  Rebecca had seen what it had done to her parents' marriage, how it had crippled her mother, infuriated her father, taken so many choices away from her sister. Even though Rebecca had gotten help for the worst of her anxiety, many days were still a struggle, and she’d promised herself when she’d begun therapy almost ten years before that she wouldn’t be a burden on her partner, wouldn’t have kids and burden them—either by making them step up and act like a parent—as her sister had been forced to do—or to pass on this illness that made what most thought of as simple everyday tasks seem almost insurmountable.

  Avoiding the connection of a partner was smarter. And it was safer for everyone involved. Easier—

  Another knock had her blinking and cracking open the door.

  “You okay?” Gabe asked.

  “I-I’m fine,” she said and closed it.

  He opened it back up. “Rebecca. You—”

  She yanked on the handle, almost succeeded in shutting it again, but before it latched, Gabe had tugged it wide enough to fit his hips in the gap, which put a certain part of his anatomy right in her face.

  She slammed her palms over her eyes.

  Which gave him time and opportunity to push the door all the way open and then crouch down in front of her and peel her fingers back.

  “Hey.”

  Her breath caught. She shook her head.

  “Rebecca. Are you okay?”

  A nod. “I’m fine. My car isn’t.”

  He frowned then reached over and pressed the button on the far side of the steering wheel. Predictably, nothing happened.

  Irritated, she slapped his hand away. “Back up. My car won’t start. I’ll call Triple A.”

  Though she was in a safe spot, this was San Francisco and so, it would take a long time for a tow truck to make its way to her. She stifled a sigh, knowing the wait she had in front of her was going to feel interminable, especially when she was already exhausted after the meetings and social interactions of the day.

&n
bsp; Gabe seemed to recognize that because he reached across her and unclicked her seat belt, snagging her purse from the passenger’s seat as she was still processing his initial movements.

  Then her hand was in his and he was tugging her out of the car.

  “Come on,” he said, “I’ll give you a ride. You can deal with this in the morning.”

  She might as well have turned into a bobble-head for the amount of shaking her noggin was doing that evening. “I can’t just leave it—”

  “I’ll call security on the way, make sure they know.” He pulled her keys from her purse and locked the door then took off in the direction of his car.

  What the hell was happening here?

  Rebecca stared after him for nearly a minute before pulling herself together and trailing after him. When she neared the midsized SUV, he crossed around the hood and sat down in the driver’s seat, leaving her with very little choice but to open the door in front of her and sit in the passenger’s seat.

  “You know,” she muttered. “I can just go inside and catch a ride from Bex.”

  “Kevin packed her off an hour ago.” He started up the car and backed out of the spot.

  “Mandy—”

  “Gone.”

  “Brit—”

  “Departed.”

  She paused then snapped, “What? Are you trying to go through every option in the thesaurus entry for left?”

  A flash of white teeth. “If I did, I forgot some good ones. Absconded.” He tapped his chin. “Or vamoosed, for example.”

  “I can’t believe you.” She clenched her jaw tightly, gritting out, “You are absolutely unbelievable.”

  “And I like that I’m the only one who gets to see this side of you.”

  Her lips clamped together, throat going dry.

  “Everyone else gets the quiet, reserved Rebecca, and I get”—he glanced at her—“fire.”

  Fire.

  Fire?

  That made absolutely no sense. She wasn’t fire. She was cold. She was closed down. She—

  “I thought I had an icicle up my ass,” she blurted.

  They slid to a stop when the signal in front of them turned red, and that ill timing meant Gabe had the opportunity to glance over at her and the occasion to study her closely.

  Or at least her profile.

  Because she sure as shit wasn’t going to look at him.

  “I’ve been an asshole,” he admitted. “For a long time. I—” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, really. But I let personal stuff bleed into work, and you did nothing more than have the bad luck to—”

  A horn blared, making them both jump.

  Gabe hit the accelerator but didn’t continue talking, and as silence descended in the car, Rebecca couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Bad luck to what?”

  Silence for long enough that she didn’t think he’d answer. “To remind me of my ex.”

  “I remind you of your ex?”

  “Too much.”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  Well that was—

  “She—” He sighed. “That’s not fair. She might have the same look as you. Pretty green eyes, olive skin, red hair. But that’s not what makes you two alike.”

  The tone of his voice made it virtually impossible for her to figure out if that was a good or bad thing. She would have immediately assumed that it was a bad thing, based on the negative connotation of ex, but there was something in Gabe’s tone—longing maybe, melancholy definitely.

  “I fucked up with her, and seeing you every day was like a slap in the face.”

  Rebecca was quiet for a long moment. “At first, I thought we were having this conversation for you to apologize for being a jerk, or maybe for you to clue me in to your behavior so we could make amends.”

  A beat. “That is what I’m trying to do.”

  “Well, you’re failing at it.”

  “I—”

  “You see me, and I’m a slap in the face. Your behavior has been skewed by your ex, but that doesn’t excuse it. You were unprofessional, and I suffered because of it.” She sucked in a breath. “Does that about cover it?”

  Gabe pulled the car over to the side of the road. “I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?”

  She rolled her eyes. “What gave it away?”

  “I’m trying to apologize—”

  “How about you start with the two words I’m and sorry?”

  His lips twitched. “I’m sorry.”

  “Great.”

  The twitch turned into a curve of his mouth. “Good.”

  “Now, we can move on.”

  An expression crossed his face, but before she could process what it meant, he glanced behind him to check traffic and pulled back onto the road. A few blocks later, he finally agreed, “Now we can move on.”

  But something about his tone struck her as wrong.

  Before she could work up the courage to find out why, he asked her for her address, which was really something he should have done before leaving the lot, but she decided this wasn’t the moment to bring that up. Instead, she rattled it off and didn’t add anything further to the conversation aside from a simple, “left here,” “take this exit,” and an “up ahead on the right.”

  Fifteen quiet minutes later, he’d pulled into her parking spot in front of her apartment complex, and threw the SUV in park, then made his way around to open the passenger door before she’d unbuckled her seat belt.

  She put out her hand for her purse.

  Gabe didn’t pass it over, but his voice was gentle. “I’ll walk you up.”

  Rebecca waggled her fingers. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll walk you up.” The gentle disappeared, granite appearing in its place, and she mentally weighed her options for a heartbeat before deciding that giving in would get her to her apartment sooner, and that meant wild rice and garlic and comfy sweatpants would quickly follow.

  She sighed. “Fine.”

  Then started for the stairs.

  Gabe trailed her, and one flight later, they were outside her apartment.

  “This is me,” she said, holding out a hand for her purse.

  He fished out her keys then handed them to her. Not what she wanted, but since it put her one step closer to sweatpants, she accepted them, unlocking the door and pushing it open. The delicious aroma of her simmering Crock-Pot greeted her, and she immediately inhaled deeply, pulling it further into her lungs. Then she shook herself and put her hand out for her purse again.

  Gabe set it in her palm. “That smells delicious.”

  She smiled. “It tastes delicious.”

  He put his hands over his heart as though she had stabbed him. “That’s just cruel.”

  Her heart skipped a beat as their eyes locked, and both of their mouths curved into grins, the moment stretching and tightening with a tension that was equally uncomfortable and intoxicating.

  It was terrifying.

  It was exhilarating.

  It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

  She nibbled at the corner of her mouth. He leaned closer—

  Then took two steps back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rebecca.” Another retreating step. “You should lock up.”

  She didn’t know what motivated her to say it, what force rose out of the awkward and anxious to extend the words. But then again, with Gabe, those nerves always seemed to fade away, and so perhaps the offer wasn’t so surprising.

  “Want to come in and try some?”

  Five

  Gabe

  So lovely and sweet.

  So not for him.

  Her cheeks flooded with pink as she invited him into her apartment. Him. The asshole who’d been on edge around her since she’d joined the team, who’d done his damnedest to ignore the fact that she was beautiful and reminded him far too much of his ex.

  An ex he hadn’t wanted to be an ex.

  But who’d become one anyway.

  Which was the exact reason he should tu
rn around and leave Rebecca to her life, to commit to the plan he’d concocted—namely cooling his asshole-ness and keeping their relationship cordial and professional.

  As he was thinking that, as the heartbeat of silence stretched longer, he watched the smile from her lips flatten out, the light in her expression disappear.

  And he found that he couldn’t allow that to happen, couldn’t watch her turn into a diminished version of herself, not when he was the cause, not ever. So, he closed the distance between them, slipped past her and into her apartment, and declared, “You cooked, so I’m on dish duty.”

  Then he couldn’t decide if that was the smartest or the stupidest thing he’d ever done.

  In the end, it was both.

  But in that moment, he couldn’t have done anything else.

  After a few seconds, Rebecca moved, flipping the lock on the door and setting her purse on a table that sat just inside the hall. Her gaze flitted to his then away and he kept watching, studying her as she straightened her shoulders and sucked in a breath.

  Then she slipped off her shoes, tucked them neatly on the shoe rack that was placed next to the table, and moved toward him.

  Cinnamon.

  She always had the barest hint of spice wafting around her, but he hadn’t been able to pinpoint where it came from. She didn’t chew gum or pop mints. He’d never seen her put on lip balm or lotion.

  So, was it just Rebecca?

  Was she really spice, just hidden beneath shy?

  Gabe had been trying to resist the urge to discover that for close to four years now.

  And now he was in her apartment.

  Brilliant move.

  Because the scent of cinnamon was more intense inside her place, weaving together with the smell of whatever she had cooking. It soaked into his senses, drew him toward her.

  She sidestepped him and moved into the open kitchen that took up one corner of the space, pulling out a drawer and rummaging around inside it for utensils. The pale gray drawers had feather-shaped handles, the cabinet doors circular crystal knobs that twinkled in the light.

  Feather-shaped.

  Twinkling crystals.

  Now that was unexpected.

  Turning, he studied the rest of her space. It wasn’t cluttered in the least, and he would have been shocked to find it wasn’t totally organized based on what he knew about her very deliberate and particular work habits, but he also hadn’t expected so much . . . personality.