Neutral Zone

by Amber Lynn

  “After we get you settled, maybe we’ll see how that works out for you. I’ve only had Henry for a few years, but the shelter said he was around eight when I got him, so I don’t think he’d be up for that. Me on the other hand, I would love for you to climb on my back for a quick trip around the living room.”

  “In your dreams. Does he bite or just drool over everything?”

  She joked but made a note to maybe give the piggyback ride a try someday. The idea of feeling Brady’s back muscles under her fingertips definitely had an appeal.

  The dog in question hadn’t done anything more than lift his head slightly before putting it back down. Nina figured she was lucky he wasn’t the affectionate type, otherwise she would’ve been knocked over when he came to greet his master at the door.

  “The latter, mostly. I’ve never seen him snarl or bite anything other than neighborhood cats if they roam through the backyard.”

  Nina didn’t trust the smile that Brady plastered on his face. She didn’t get the impression Henry, as Brady called him, was a biter from his total disinterest, but something about the smile made her think she needed to watch out.

  Looking around the house, it clearly needed a woman’s touch. There weren’t empty pizza boxes everywhere and surprisingly not any pieces of dirty clothes in sight. The huge big screen television was a little man-cave cliché, but it was something she could find herself spending some time in front of.

  “We should get you settled. Henry doesn’t handle stairs well, so we keep to the downstairs. There are four bedrooms upstairs, but only two have beds. I’d suggest taking the third door down on the right of the hall. It has its own bathroom.”

  Brady made his way over to the couch with Henry on it and patted the dog’s head as he sat down next to him. The move left Nina standing in the doorway with her essentials suitcase and no one to carry it to the suggested room. Movers were picking up the rest of the things Nina had decided she’d need. It wasn’t her entire closet, but for someone who changed her outfits three or four times a day, her luggage wasn’t something that would fit in the back of Brady’s little car.

  “You’re not going to give me the tour? At the very least, you should show me to my room so I don’t get lost, don’t you think?”

  “Nah,” Brady said as he leaned forward to grab a remote off the glass coffee table in front of the couch. “I read over the contract you had me sign today with a fine-tooth comb and not once did it mention carrying your luggage around for you. I only carried it to and from the car because I didn’t want you to scratch the paint job getting it out of the trunk.”

  “Really? Are you sure you read all the fine print?”

  It had taken them three days to come to terms. They were so busy going back and forth about what should and shouldn’t be included that neither one of them had much time for anything else. They met in Nina’s office with lawyers on both sides and basically camped out there.

  It was like they were working on a business merger instead of just a sex contract. The initial idea of just going without sex for three weeks and then making it like bunnies was more complicated than Nina had expected. Well, the part about insuring that they’d make it the three weeks was complicated.

  Nina thought just saying masturbation was okay and naming some kind of punishment in case the wait got too hard was all they needed, but Brady had to make everything complicated. He wanted so much stuff in writing that she almost backed out of the deal a handful of times.

  Brady claimed he just wanted to make sure he didn’t do something that would break the rules, which Nina pointed out would probably come back to bite him. Since he made things difficult, she insisted it was in writing that if he broke the contract, he had to take pills that made it impossible to get it up for six months.

  She’d originally tried to make it full-on castration, but Brady had threatened to tear the contract up if that was in it. Nina had high hopes the punishments wouldn’t be necessary, so she was fine giving a little.

  “You know I read the fine print. I went over all the pages with a magnifying glass yesterday just in case,” Brady said as he got up from the couch, putting the remote back on the table. “Lucky for you, I was just kidding about not helping you upstairs. I’ve lugged that suitcase around twice now, so I know you either filled it with rocks or gold bars.”

  He strutted towards her, causing Nina’s eyes to follow the sway of his hips. The man didn’t own a pair of jeans that looked bad on him, at least not that she’d seen.

  “That bag will be coming later. These are only the things I think I’ll need for the next couple days in case the buffoons bringing the rest of the stuff mess it up.”

  “Did your parents give you a thesaurus as a child with only synonyms for idiot?”

  Brady had made his way back to her and licked his lips. He did that all the time, so much so that Nina wasn’t sure whether he knew he did it. It was like his mouth always wanted to be ready for a kiss.

  “No, they did not. I learned all my impressive vocabulary on my own. It comes in handy when the people who work for you can’t find their way out of a paper bag.”

  Grabbing her bag, Brady started wheeling it towards the staircase that was across the open space in the dining room section. Nina had been so focused on the horse dog on the couch and following Brady’s movements that she hadn’t really looked around. There had to be ten or fifteen rooms in the place, all of which she assumed were minimally decorated like the two she’d seen.

  The dining room had a small round table with four chairs around it. It wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t cheap either. The wood was a rich color that stood out against the pale wood floors and tan walls.

  “You’re not winning any nominations for best boss, are you?”

  Brady laughed as he scooped up the black suitcase like it weighed nothing. For claiming it was full of rocks, he swung it around easy enough.

  “Of course I am. People like to keep me happy, which means they nominate me for stuff like that. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t.”

  Nina was right behind Brady as he started up the stairs, so she didn’t miss him shaking his head from side to side. They were alike when it came to their sexual appetites and desires not to commit to any one person, but he generally got along with people. It probably helped that he had the same aptitude that they did.

  “You’re something else, Nina Hughes. I’m kind of surprised you don’t have someone follow you around to taste your food to make sure it’s not poisoned.”

  The idea made Nina laugh. Surprisingly, no one had suggested it before, probably because no one was about to sign up for the job. Nina had made enemies over the years, even heard a few death threats, but no one had seriously come after her. Curtis was more than likely the most sincere when it came to threatening to kill her, and she wasn’t losing any sleep over it.

  “Random people don’t get close enough to my food to worry about that. I own the restaurants I eat at, and my personal chef sort of does serve as my official taster.”

  Brady stopped on the third stair from the top and looked over his shoulder. The confusion on his face seemed out of place. Nina was way more concerned about someone shooting her than messing with her food, so the confusion didn’t make any sense.

  “You own restaurants. Is one of them Luigi’s?”

  The question was silly. They’d just eaten at the restaurant a few days before, and Nina thought she’d made it pretty obvious that she owned the place. She’d called the chef by name and sat at her usual table without being led to it.

  “Didn’t you know that already? I thought that was why you picked it.”

  Hannah knew of Nina’s handful of restaurant holdings, and there was no reason her friend wouldn’t share that information. Nina figured Brady had picked it to let her know he was aware the business with her name wasn’t the only thing she had in her portfolio.

  He shook his head as he turned around and started walking again. When they made it to the
top of the stairs, turning left was the only option. The hallway was fairly wide, but nothing more than doorways for the fifty feet or so it stretched.

  Nina followed along, disappointed there wasn’t a single thing hanging on the white walls around her. She’d grown used to the playboy side of Brady and had hoped there would be some deeper insights revealed once she got a look at his house, but there wasn’t a personal touch anywhere to be seen.

  “Does it upset you that I own some restaurants? I didn’t think my full portfolio was needed for our contract, but if you want to take a look at the fifty or so holdings I currently have, I can have someone bring over the details for you.”

  If she had any confidence that she could list them all, she would’ve tried. Some of the minor holdings were things others had brought to her and she delegated taking care of the details. The restaurants and retail ventures she invested in were what she paid attention to.

  “I think it’s better if I don’t know. Luigi’s is one of my favorite restaurants, and I thought you’d be impressed with the intimate atmosphere and good food, but as I already figured out, you’ve been there a time or two. I just didn’t realize you owned the place.”

  He stopped at an open doorway and stood to the side as he waited for Nina to catch up. She was only a few steps behind him, so he didn’t have a long wait.

  Looking in the room, Nina saw the wood flooring the rest of the house boasted continued to be a theme. She was used to plush carpet under her bare feet, so she wasn’t looking forward to what was sure to be a cold floor anytime she wanted to go somewhere else in the house. She had a pair of slippers, but since she wore heels all day, she preferred going without anything on her feet when she was at home. Thankfully, it was still summer, so she could hope the chilly toes wouldn’t be horrific.

  There was a large queen-sized bed with a black comforter and a rainbow of colored pillows. The pillows seemed out of place, causing Nina to look over her shoulder with her brow raised. Brady shrugged, not bothering to make a comment.

  Since he seemed troubled about Nina owning one of his favorite places to eat, she didn’t think it was a good idea to tell him she was in talks to buy his team. She’d made a habit of going to games with Hannah the last months of the previous season and immediately saw ways to improve things. The initial calls her lawyers made seemed to be well-received, so she figured it was only a matter of time before the deal was done.

  “What’s this room usually? A spare room when your bed isn’t big enough for all your nightly houseguests?”

  Nina’s bedroom was probably pretty close to the size she observed when she stepped further into the room. Other than the bed, the only other furniture was a matching dresser to the oak bed frame. There were two closed doors in the room, one presumably to the bath Brady had already mentioned the room had and the other to what Nina hoped was a closet big enough to handle the large wardrobe she had coming.

  “My sister uses it when she’s in town. The other furnished room I mentioned tends to go to my parents. My parents were supposed to come down for a week or two since some endorsements deals this summer has made it hard for me to go visit them, but they decided to fly to the Caribbean instead.”

  “Come down? Where exactly do they live?”

  Nina walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, wanting to both test its firmness and see how the comforter felt. The sheets were what she really wanted to check out, but she wasn’t ready to strip the bed down.

  “London,” Brady said. When he saw Nina’s surprised expression, he was quick to continue. “Ontario. You do know I’m Canadian, right? I technically have dual-citizenship, but I was born and raised in London.”

  “But you don’t have an accent. I mean, you kind of do, but I’ve never heard you say eh or aboot or anything like that.”

  Brady laughed as he put the suitcase down and wheeled it into the room. He put it next to the bed and moved to stand in front of Nina. The smile on his face literally spread from ear to ear. Nina didn’t like when people laughed at her, but there was something about the smile that made it hard to be mad at the guy. She had plenty of other reasons for that.

  “I’ve lived in the States for almost a decade now, so my ehs and aboots only come out when I’m back home. Even then, it usually takes me a day or two to get back in the habit. You really didn’t know I was from Canada?”

  “No,” Nina said, shaking her head. It was hard to believe someone hadn’t let that cat out of the bag. “I guess that means we’ve got a lot to learn about each other.”

  That was an understatement. Nina didn’t usually get a life story about her lovers, but learning more about the man she was temporarily living with seemed like a good idea.

  Chapter 8

  “I’m in way over my head,” Brady said as he took a shot from the blue line.

  He hated admitting it. He’d avoided it for days, but heaven help him if he wasn’t going insane living with Nina. Okay, maybe not insane. He just didn’t know how to act half the time.

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t seem surprised.”

  Curtis passed him a puck, so Brady could take another shot at the net. Preseason started in a couple weeks, which meant the fun task of running through drills to prove you could make the team was underway. It was sometimes fun to watch the rookies try to figure out the faster pace of the game, but Brady was a little preoccupied thinking about Nina.

  There were five more pucks in the pile, but Brady straightened from his slightly hunched position and leaned against his stick. They’d listened to the coaches’ directions and ran drills all morning. It was only in the last twenty minutes that they’d been given a chance to break off and work on other things. If anyone was paying attention, they’d notice Brady couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.

  “I knew living with her wouldn’t be easy. I just thought if I turned it around and made it on my terms, things would be easier. She’s bought Henry a whole closet full of clothes and tries to get him to wear pajamas to bed.”

  Brady tapped his stick against his head as he thought of all the disruptions in his life. The only place in the house that still seemed to be sacred was his bedroom. As far as he knew, Nina had never stepped foot in there. There weren’t any new pieces of furniture anyway, like the hall tree next to the front door or the display cabinet that had found a home in the dining room.

  His houseguest had raided his trophy room and brought everything out for visitors to see. The items on display included various important pucks, his first goal in the big leagues and first, and only, hat trick to name a couple; his MVP trophy given to him by the team one year; and about a dozen random trophies from the twenty years he’d played hockey.

  He was proud of his accomplishments, but having them all out in the dining room seemed a little weird. So was some of the art that found its way to his walls. Curtis would appreciate the dozens of paintings that appeared, but Brady rarely understood what in the world they meant. He’d kill for a simple bowl of fruit or something hanging in the dining room.

  “You know I’ve always thought Henry could use a fancy wardrobe. Are shoes included in some way? If they aren’t, I’m going to make a suggestion the next time I see her.”

  Brady shook off one of his gloves and tossed it at his friend. Sadly, Curtis was paying attention, so he caught it instead of letting it hit him upside the head.

  “He’s got rain boots and sneakers. Believe me, I don’t need help adding to the already unnecessary dog attire. He hates it, and I hate that I can’t tell her no.”

  “Really? You can’t tell her no?”

  Curtis’ skepticism wasn’t uncalled for. The other man halfheartedly pushed the remaining pucks they had towards the net and skated over to Brady.

  “When have you ever had trouble telling a woman no? I know Nina is different, but I can’t believe her being a bitch makes it impossible for the simple word to come out of your mouth.”

  “Hey, now. That woman is an honored guest i
n my house. You can’t call her a bitch while that’s the case.”

  It was impossible to get the words out without laughing. Technically, Nina hadn’t been as big of a bitch as Brady had expected. Taking over the house was annoying, but he could see her logic in most of the improvements. He’d never understand the whole dressing up the dog thing.

  “Buddy, I don’t care if you marry the woman, she will always be a bitch.”

  The idea caused a shiver to crawl up Brady’s spine. Curtis knew better than to say the M word in his presence.

  “And you’re married to her best friend. What does that say about you.”

  They started skating towards the bench. They were free to call it quits any time, but with all the new kids trying out, the locker room was a little crowded. Twenty minutes spent pretending to practice should’ve given time for things to clear out. It was slightly disappointing that more of the rookies didn’t stay out longer to practice. At the same time, they’d really gone through the ringer of drills. Brady noticed a few of them struggling to stay upright.

  “Are you trying to imply that my pregnant wife is a bitch?

  Brady smiled and shook his head. He thought better about trying to kid around that line of thinking. Honestly, Hannah was the furthest thing from a bitch, so it wasn’t hard to backtrack.

  “We both know she’s not. I just can’t understand how in the world those two are best friends. Hannah is just so adorable, in a geeky kind of way. On the other hand, Nina,” Brady paused.

  He tried to think of the right words to describe the woman, but living with her had muddled the obvious response. They’d only been doing the whole cohabitating thing for days, but it was enough to see aspects that most people didn’t get to see.

  Nina had to be in charge of every aspect of her life. It easily came off as her being a bitch, and she didn’t care. Other people saw that part of her. What they didn’t see was her curled up on his couch with Henry cuddled in her lap and some sappy movie on the television.