by Sarina Bowen
“J-Babe!” Blake looks delighted to see me as he lumbers into the kitchen.
“Hi,” I say, hoping my reluctance doesn’t show on my face. I don’t know if I can handle this man’s ceaseless energy right now, not when I’m feeling so low.
I’ve encountered Blake too often for my comfort this month, which was inevitable given that I’ve taken to hiding out here because my roommate is unbearable. Blake practically lives in this condo (I honestly don’t know how Wes and my brother haven’t killed him yet), so the four of us have hung out a lot. Oddly enough, he hasn’t hit on me, not even once. I guess he was serious about the ball being in my court. Or maybe it’s because Jamie and Wes are always around.
“You look hot enough to fuck.”
Yup, obviously the latter. The big lug wouldn’t dream of saying something like that in front of his teammate and my brother.
“You need to work on your conversation skills,” I tell him.
“Naw. I make great conversation.”
He wanders over to the counter and props one hip against it. Even slouched over like that, he still towers over me, and I can’t help but eye the way his sweatpants ride low on his hips and admire every ripple on his chest under his faded gray T-shirt.
“And I mean it,” he adds. “You look gloriously fuckable. Shall we retire to our chair?”
Despite myself, a laugh pops out. That makes his green eyes light up.
“A laugh? Oh yeah, I’m totally getting some tonight.”
I resume my chopping. “I’m sorry to inform you that you’re not. I’m just here to eat.”
“Me too. I like eating. Food, but also other things. I’m a voracious eater, Jessie.”
I snicker.
“Holy cannoli! Another laugh? I’m on fire tonight.”
He’s so ridiculous, it’s impossible not to smile, but my good humor doesn’t last long. I’ve cut up enough peppers and now it’s time to dice an onion. But the fake tears it brings to my eyes confuse my already depressed mind, and suddenly I’m blinking back real tears.
“I skipped class,” I blurt out.
“Abrupt subject change,” Blake remarks.
I blink faster. “Well, I didn’t skip it entirely. I just left early.” Before Nurse Hailey could call me out for being a screw-up in front of my fellow students.
“Okay… Should I call the cops and report you?”
Stifling a sigh, I set down the knife and meet his bewildered eyes. “I didn’t observe.”
“Cheezus. Do you always talk in riddles?”
I quickly explain myself. “We were in the cancer ward. The kiddie cancer ward.”
“Eek.”
“I know, right? And we were supposed to sit down with one of the patients and talk to them, but, you know, observe them at the same time. For visible symptoms.” The sigh slips out. “I got the talking part down pat, but I totally dropped the ball on the observing. I didn’t take any notes. Everyone else took notes, and then Nurse Hailey wanted us to report our findings and…I just bailed. I was too embarrassed. I felt like such an idiot.”
I keep my gaze on the cutting board, because I’m yet again feeling embarrassed. I can’t believe I’m spilling my guts to this man.
A warm hand lands on my cheek, making me jerk in surprise. I raise my head and see Blake’s somber gaze fixed on me.
“You’re not an idiot, Jess,” he says quietly. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
“Yeah, I’m so smart I spent twenty minutes teaching a kid about knitting instead of doing the job I was supposed to do.”
“What was she like?”
The question comes out of left field. “What do you mean?”
“The kid you were talking to. What was she like?”
“Frustrated,” I admit. “She was knitting a hat for her brother and couldn’t get the stitching right.”
“Why not? Does she just suck at knitting, or were her hands too weak?”
I think it over. “No, her hands were steady. I mean, she had bruising on her wrists and the insides of her elbows from all the needles, but her grip was strong.” I chew on my bottom lip. “But she had dark circles under her eyes, too, so maybe she was too tired to knit.” I smile. “And she was kinda cranky.”
“Stage three cancer? Four?” he asks.
“Four.”
Blake nods, his fingertips lazily tracing my jawline. I find myself leaning into the warmth of those big fingers.
“Crankiness makes sense,” he says. “You see a lot of anger and irritability at the terminal stage.”
My forehead wrinkles. “How do you know that?”
“My grandpa died of colon cancer a few years back. He was a cranky son of a bitch by the end. The pain got to him, screwed with his head.”
I think back to Leila, trying to remember if she’d shown any signs of pain. Her breathing hadn’t sounded too stable, and she’d been so pale. And thin. So damn thin. My heart clenches at the memory.
“Sounds to me like you observed plenty.” Blake’s thumb teases my lips, and then he lightly pinches them. “Maybe next time you should write that shit down. Or at the very least, stick around for the debriefing, or whatever you call it in nursing school, and tell your teacher everything you just told me.”
I bristle, but only for a second. He’s right. I had observed. I’d observed without even realizing it, and now I feel like an even bigger idiot.
“Argh!” I groan. “Why didn’t I stay?”
“Panic?” he offers.
Yes. Panic. And that crushing feeling of inferiority that my awful roommate seems to instill in me. “I saw Violet’s clipboard and…” Another groan slips out. “She wrote a fucking essay, Blake, and it killed my confidence.”
“Violet? The evil roommate?”
I nod. I’ve complained about her every time I’ve visited the condo, but I’m surprised Blake actually paid attention. He doesn’t come off as someone who retains information, unless it relates to sex or hockey.
“She makes me feel like such a loser,” I confess. “She’s just so…smart. Scary smart. She spends all her free time with her nose buried in a textbook. I swear, she studies twenty-four/seven. I asked her if she wanted to study together and she…” My cheeks heat up. “She laughed at me.”
Blake hops up on the countertop and rests his hands on his massive thighs. I’m surprised the counter doesn’t collapse under his hefty weight. “Well, that’s your mistake right there, honey. You don’t try to make friends through studying.”
“But that’s all she does! This nursing program is literally the only thing we have in common.”
“No, it’s not.”
I roll my eyes. “You know something about Violet that I don’t?”
“I know something about college,” he says with a shrug. “Thing about college, Jessie, is that it’s goddamn stressful.”
I can’t help but snort. “Uh-huh, I’m sure you were so stressed at whatever party school you went to. All those exhausting frat parties! God! How did you ever survive?”
He wags a finger at me. “Well, aren’t we judgy. I needed a C-average to be eligible to play hockey—you think I kept that up without going to class? I went to class, dudette. I even wrote a few papers. Typed them up and everything.”
Guilt pokes at me. I really do need to stop judging this guy. “Sorry,” I mumble.
He waves off the apology. “Anyway, school means stress. And stress makes everyone a little bitchy.”
“So you’re saying I should be patient with Violet?”
“I’m saying you should get trashed with her. Fuck studying. Take Bitchy Betty to a bar and get lit. I guarantee you’ll find some common ground if you both let down your guards.”
I stare at him.
“What?”
“That’s not bad advice.”
“Course it’s not. It’s grade-A wisdom.”
I bite my lip again. “What happens if we go to a bar—that’s if she even agrees to it—and we�
��ve got nothing to talk about?”
“Naw, that won’t happen. Text me the deets. I’ll come along. People always have shit to say to me.”
He’s right about that. “You’re inviting yourself to my roommate bonding date?” I say with a grin.
“Why not? I’ll bring a couple of the guys. Maybe Bitchy Betty is just bitchy because she needs a good lay. Is she cute?”
“Violet?” I picture her stern face. She’s so severe that it’s hard to objectively assess her appearance. “I guess she’s cute,” I finally answer. “She’s got great skin, and she’s very petite. Like a china doll. Brown eyes, glasses—”
“Lemming,” Blake interrupts. “Yeah, Lemming will be all over that. He’s got a librarian fetish.”
My eyes widen. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. Every away game, he asks the team manager to try to put us up in a hotel that’s got some business conference going on. Then he sits in the bar and waits for a glasses-and-pantsuit-wearing broad to walk in.” Blake grins. “My friends are the coolest.”
“Your friends are the weirdest.” My teeth dig into my lower lip. “I don’t know how Violet will feel about hanging out with a bunch of rowdy hockey players.”
“She’ll love it,” he assures me. “And would you quit biting your lip like that? It’s making my dick hard.”
Shaking my head, I pick up the knife again and get back to dicing. “I should’ve known you couldn’t go five minutes without bringing up your stupid dick.”
“My dick isn’t stupid. He’s the smartest fella I know.” Blake slides that enormous body off the counter and lazily approaches me.
I stiffen, but for some reason, I don’t move. I just stay put as he slowly eases in behind me, planting both hands on my hips as he nuzzles the nape of my neck.
My pulse quickens. Damn it. Why is he so frickin’ sexual? And why does he smell so good? I’ve got an onion right under my nose, yet all I can breathe in is Blake’s woodsy scent.
“Jess…”
I squeak when his groin tucks up against my butt. Oh my God, he is hard. Unbelievably, mouth-wateringly hard, and his erection is so impressive that I choke down a moan. The first and only time he’d slid that huge monster inside me, I almost came on the spot. I’d never felt more full in my entire life.
“Jess,” he murmurs again.
I find my voice. “Mmmm?”
He rotates his hips, and a jolt of desire shoots down to my core. “I haven’t had sex since June.”
The hoarsely voiced confession startles me. “Somehow I don’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth. Haven’t been with anyone since I went down on you at the wedding.”
I’m tempted to turn around so I can look into his eyes, gauge if he’s telling the truth. But I’m afraid that if do, the lust I’ll find on his face will shatter my defenses.
“I jerk it every night thinking about you,” he rasps, his lips tickling the shell of my ear. “So for the love of God, babe, why don’t you put me out of my misery and throw me a bone? You know I’ll make it good for you.”
I have no doubt about that. My gaze unwittingly travels across the open-concept space and lands on the massage chair. Every square inch of my body begins to tingle as dirty, filthy images flood my mind. Blake unzipping his pants while I wiggled out of mine. Blake’s teeth sinking into my neck as his hands toyed with my breasts. His low growl of need as he lowered me onto his cock and—
“Jess! You here?”
Blake and I break apart at Jamie’s shout. I immediately pick up the knife, while Blake slides to the other side of the counter. My cheeks are hot enough to start a brush fire, and I pray that Jamie doesn’t comment on it.
My brother enters the kitchen, shrugging out of his fall jacket as he says, “Oh good, you started dinner. I’m famished.” He glances over. “Hey, man, what’re you doing here? Wes said there was some team PR meeting after practice.”
Blake nods. “It’s only for the guys who are playing in the charity tourney.”
“Oh, you’re not doing that? I thought you were.”
“Trainers didn’t want me to take any chances. You know, ’cause of my bum knee. It’d be stupid to risk reinjuring it for a game that doesn’t count for standings.”
“Truth.”
As the two of them continue to chat, I keep my gaze on the onion I’m dicing and force my heartbeat to regulate. Thank God Jamie came home when he did. Five seconds later and I would’ve been bent over this counter, presenting myself to Blake like a dog in heat.
Jesus. Imagine if my brother had walked in on that? I’d never hear the end of it.
14 Bitch, I’m Canadian
Jess
“Wow. You got a special favor from Nurse Hailey?” Violet peers at me over the lip of her pint glass, her nose scrunched up.
“Not so special,” I say, hating my defensive tone. “She said it wasn’t a big deal that I hadn’t turned in my observations that same minute. She was happy to have them before class today.”
I’d sweated it for forty-eight hours, though, thinking she was going to give me a lecture about turning assignments in on time. Instead she’d said, “I’m glad to see you feeling more upbeat today. That ward always gets to me, too.”
“Um…” Nurse Hailey’s sympathetic look had surprised me. “I’m sure I can get used to it.”
“You will,” she’d said. “But not because you’ll be hardened to it. But rather because your work in nursing will become a real balance between the good and the sad. Once you’re sure you’re making a contribution, the scary stuff gets easier to take.”
I don’t share this wisdom with Violet, because I am not in the mood to hear her sour opinion on it. Or on anything else. We’ve been at the bar for ten minutes, and I’m already certain it’s a mistake. Not only do Violet and I have nothing in common, she keeps blatantly showing off all the knowledge she’s socked away in her frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes.
There’s an anatomy quiz tomorrow on the central nervous system. I think I’m finally ready. It’s the first time I’ve felt confident about classwork this year.
“Today Ashleigh and I read ahead in the anatomy textbook,” she announces.
Of course they did. Ashleigh is one of Violet’s nerd friends.
“The circulatory system is going to be a real bitch. All those veins and arteries? It’s, like, ten times harder than the quiz we’re taking tomorrow. And—God—Ashleigh actually confused veins and capillaries today. I mean, I’m sure she’ll pull it together before the test, but can you believe it?” She gives a little shake of disgust at the idea, while I make a mental note to Google capillaries later.
My confidence dissipates like the foam on top of my beer. I’d ordered the least expensive draft they had. The one flaw in Blake’s plan to go out drinking with Violet is the fact that the team’s favorite bar—Sticks & Stones—isn’t cheap.
Speaking of Blake, I crane my neck, wondering when he’s going to show up.
“So who’s your friend, anyway?”
“Blake Riley? Oh, he’s my brother’s neighbor. You wouldn’t know him. Hockey player. Not exactly up on his anatomy.” Wait—that wasn’t strictly true. Blake is very well-versed in the reproductive organs, and, well, my nervous system. Whenever he touches me, all my synapses short out…
I catch a funny look on Violet’s face. “What?” I ask. “Something wrong?”
She uses a low, hushed voice I’ve never heard before. “You can’t be serious. Not that Blake Riley. Not the Toronto forward.” Her eyes become saucer-like.
Uh-oh. Have I fucked up yet again? “What? You don’t like hockey?”
She gulps. “Bitch, I’m Canadian. Of course I like hockey. I love hockey. You can’t tell me you know Blake Riley.”
I shrug. “Of course I do. All my Toronto friends are on the hockey team.”
“All. Your. Friends,” she repeats slowly.
“What, like that’s weird?”
Slowly,
Violet’s wide eyes track upwards, over my head. “Oh God.” She puts both hands to the sides of her face and gasps.
A deafening sound booms down from above. “Yo! J-Babe! What are we drinking?”
Blake has arrived. But I can’t take my eyes off Violet, because something is very wrong with her. She’s holding on to her face, and her mouth has flopped open. She’s doing Edvard Munch’s Scream, basically. It’s so unusual that I’m instantly uneasy.
“Hey, are you okay?” Why would she hold on to her face? Is there weakness there? “Are you…stroking out?”
Shit! What are the signs of stroke? Facial drooping, difficulty speaking! Check and check!
But then she thrusts a hand out. “Blake Riley! I’m a huge fan of your work. That overtime goal against Pittsburg in the playoffs was seminal to my existence.”
I make a note to look up seminal later. That word must have two meanings. I only know one.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Blake says, reaching around me to shake hands with typical Blake-like enthusiasm.
I turn to greet him, and he’s so close behind me that we’re suddenly face to face. Big, green eyes blink into mine. And, damn it, a sizzle shoots through my chest, tingling through all the various veins and arteries. And maybe even my capillaries, if I knew where those were.
“Hi,” I say stupidly.
He winks. “How’s it hangin’, J-Babe?”
“Not bad. You?”
He makes a face and claps a hand on his thick neck. “Got a crick right here. It’s nothing a beer won’t fix.” He turns away, waving a hand. “Lisa! Une beer avec moi!”
“That’s not proper French,” I point out.
“Baby, I’m very proper when I French.” He grabs my ass on the bar stool, and I slap his hand away.
“Don’t squeeze the Charmin, dude.” I’m still watching Violet carefully, because she’s not quite back to normal.
Her eyes are still twice their usual size, although she’s talking now. “How on earth do you two know each other?”
“Well, Jess is fun people,” Blake explains, patting me on the back. “And I like to have fun. Also, her brother is married to my teammate.”