Hard Checked: Ice Kings, #4

by Lynn, Stacey

  Shit. I should probably figure this out. Apologize to the woman whose home I’m in and hope like hell she doesn’t expect anything from me for whatever fool I made of myself last night.

  Gingerly, I swing my legs to the floor and find my jeans and sweatshirt tossed in a pile on a small clean area of the floor.

  I have my back to the opening, clothes in hand, and I recognize the sounds of cooking from the kitchen. Pots clanking. Water running. Quiet footsteps…

  I pause at the sound.

  “Oh. You’re awake. How do you feel?”

  Like I got hit by a truck. I vaguely recognize the voice so I turn cautiously, shoving my arms through the sleeves of my sweatshirt.

  “Gigi,” I sigh. “Thank fuck it’s you.”

  She smirks and holds up a glass of water and a bottle of pain medicine. “You were out. I hope you didn’t have to get up for practice or anything today. I was going to leave these for you on the nightstand.”

  I peer down at the piece of furniture she’s talking about and arch a brow when I look back at her.

  She laughs, and there’s something about her voice I like. It’s low. A little husky. Definitely not high-pitched or whiny or refined. It’s nice.

  It’s at least not making my hangover worse.

  “Okay. I’m a lousy housekeeper and I despise cleaning. But do you need them?”

  “Yeah.” I shrug my sweatshirt over my head and yank it down, dodging high-heeled shoes and boots and jeans and sweaters on the floor while Gigi grins at me.

  I take the pills and water from her.

  “Thank you. I think there might be parts of the night that are hazy to me—”

  “No need to freak out. I slept on the couch. Was barely able to get you up here. And before you ask, there was no way I was putting you in an Uber in your condition. As much as I tried to get you to stop drinking, well, it seemed like you needed it.”

  “Good.” I sigh and then cringe. “Not that…”

  “You’re married and a good guy, Sebastian. Nothing happened and you didn’t try, and even if you had, I would have still slept on the couch and tossed you into my bed. No harm, I promise.”

  Something settles in my stomach. Everything she says is a relief. Except for the fact I’m not married. Or won’t be soon. “Thanks, Gigi.”

  “No problem. I’ve made some sausage and eggs and toast. Want anything?”

  My stomach turns at the thought of putting anything into it. “Actually, I could use the restroom. And then I’ll decide.”

  “Right that way.” She flings out her arm and gestures to a door beyond the curved entrance to her bedroom area.

  I step around her, scrubbing my hair and trying to clear my throat. It’s almost as dry as my eyes.

  This isn’t me. I don’t get passed out, blackout drunk with a woman who isn’t my wife. Hell, I don’t with my wife. I have an excuse, but I hate this feeling. Even more, the awkwardness of knowing for the first time since I was fifteen years old I’ve spent the night with another woman… sleeping arrangements aside, I’ve done it.

  That thought alone makes me want to puke more than the alcohol still sloshing in my gut.

  * * *

  I feel slightly better after using the restroom, washing my face with some bright orange face wash bottle on Gigi’s tiny bathroom counter and hijacking her toothpaste so I can give my teeth a quick scrub with my finger. I still taste and smell the bourbon seeping through my pores, and my eyes are still killing me. A quick dig through a basket of products she has on the floor beneath her sink tells me she doesn’t have eyedrops, so I’m out of luck there, but at least when I give myself a quick glance in the mirror I look slightly more human than before.

  All I need to do is get home and spend the day sleeping and I’ll be back and ready for another game tomorrow. Thank God I at least have today off other than a workout I’ll throw in later—puking or not.

  Heading out of the bathroom, I catch sight of her messy, open bedroom again before turning to the other direction and seeing quite possibly the world’s smallest living area that contains a loveseat and a chair.

  A bookshelf is next to the chair, filled with so many books facing every which way the shelves heave from the weight of them. There are several piles of books on the floor. A few litter the small round coffee table in front of the couch and I’m pretty sure next to the loveseat, she’s using another stack of books as a side table.

  There are more bright colors, something that surprises me about Gigi. She’s always dressed in black. The only color she wears on her is in her hair and a tattoo on her upper arm.

  With her penchant for traveling frequently, I would expect her apartment to be bare-bones, ready to empty at a moment’s notice, not packed to the gills with knick-knacks and posters and artwork and photos all over her walls… and books. So many books.

  Not that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Gigi and where she would live, but I’ve come to know her some over the last year since she showed up at George’s Bar and pole vaulted herself over it to hug her dad who was giving her shit, squinting at her in a teasing way and asking, “Do I know you?”

  At first, the guys on the team who were there that night braced to peel some crazy girl off him until she told him to shut up. He’d given us a round of drinks on the house, plopped his daughter on the bar, introduced her to everyone and kissed her cheek, saying, “Tell me everything.”

  She regaled us for hours that night with the Red-Light District in Amsterdam. The beaches in Denmark which brought Mikah Lutzgo, our Center who’s from there, into the conversation. They’d talked and laughed for hours, bonding over her trips through Europe. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she made a pit stop in Africa or went to Asia by herself.

  She’s interesting, to say the least, and apparently, she’s nice as hell to help a drunk jackass like myself.

  It’s quiet in her living room, and while there is a small kitchen, blocked by a row of upper cabinets, I catch sight of her small frame and head that way where I find her, plating up eggs, buttering toast, and lip-syncing to whatever music is coming from the white earbuds stuck in her ears.

  Gigi notices me, tugs out an earbud, and smiles. She’s always smiling. So damn happy it’s almost offensive given my current state.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Almost.” I scrub my eyes and cringe. “Any chance you have some eye drops? My eyes are killing me.”

  Her head tilts to the side, and she says nothing for a second before dropping the knife she was using to butter the toast. I swear I see a pink fade across her cheeks before she shakes her head.

  “Sure. I probably have some in my purse.”

  I step back to give her room to get around me while she heads toward a small eating table for two with chairs that look like they could collapse under my weight. I grab the plates and silverware she already has set out and follow her there.

  To my complete non-surprise at this point, she’s digging through a purse the size of Massachusetts.

  “They’re somewhere in here,” she says, face down, purple hair hiding her face from me. I watch as papers and receipts and pens go flying. There are hairclips and sticks of gum and Chapsticks and lotions. There are other knick-knacks I can’t decipher. Business cards. I’m anticipating her pulling out a floor lamp like Mary Poppins when a condom wrapper gets tossed to the floor.

  My gaze spears that thing with eagle-eye precision. Hard to miss the bright red, square piece of foil that plops down inches in front of my feet.

  Cherry-flavored.

  The hell? There’s only one reason for a flavored condom and it’s been so long since I’ve had that done to me, my dick, I swear, against my will also notices.

  Shit. I turn and head back to the kitchen. Thank freaking hell she has a coffee maker with boxes of pods stacked next to it. Her upper cabinets aren’t cabinets but shelves, so I grab a coffee mug and hiss in a breath through my teeth.

  Do not dare think of Gigi on he
r knees with a dick in her mouth. Don’t even fucking think…

  “Aha! Here they are!”

  “Shit,” I whisper. Once my mug is filled, I take a healthy sip so quick it burns my throat. Which I need. The pain helps clear the completely insane and asshole-ish visual still lingering in my brain.

  I head back to the dining area, coffee in hand, keeping my eyes up so I don’t spy anything else that might be on the floor. In her small hand with dark purple fingernails are two bottles. She examines both again and holds them out to me. “I don’t think they’re expired.”

  I’m too hungover to care if they are. “Thanks.”

  She surveys the mess. “Looks like cleaning out this purse got added to my list today.” She swoops it all up and dumps it back inside.

  It’s none of my business. I definitely shouldn’t ask. My mouth moves before my brain sends the memo.

  “What else are you doing today?”

  “Ordering for the bar. Maybe a hike if I feel like it. That’s usually all I do on Sundays.”

  A quiet life. A simple one. Without traveling and hassles and constant go, go, go. I might envy her if I didn’t love my job so much.

  I put my back to her and flood my eyes with eye drops until they finally feel like they have a minuscule amount of moisture in them. Then I wipe my eyes and turn back, where Gigi is already sitting, digging into her food, acting way too interested in her toast on her plate which makes something perk up inside of me.

  Was she checking me out?

  It doesn’t matter.

  I wobble the chair across from her, testing the weight of it which makes her giggle.

  “It won’t break. Dad comes over and eats here all the time. They look more breakable than they are.”

  “Sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right.” I take a seat, not surprised at all when it creaks beneath me. “If I fall flat on my ass and bust something though, I’m telling the team trainers it’s all your fault.”

  She shoves a bite of toast into her mouth and chews. “I’ll accept that. You feeling okay?”

  “Like I got ran over by a truck.”

  “I don’t mean to pry and you can tell me to mind my own business, but last night really didn’t seem like you. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Madison left me.” It’s out before I can suck it back in and it takes me a minute to realize what I’ve said, and to register the look of surprise on Gigi’s face. “So no. I’m not really okay. And yeah, last night wasn’t me. Any of it.”

  I’m pretty low-key. Mads and I grew up in a relatively small town in Minnesota where we went to high school together. Our families went to, and still attend, the same large Lutheran Church. I’ve known her since we went to Sunday school together. The first fight I ever got in was because I beat up a kid in middle school for yanking on her bra strap. One of my oldest sisters was best friends with one of her older sisters all through high school and even roomed together their freshman year at the University of Minnesota shortly after Madison and I started dating.

  We spent our weekends fishing and swimming at our families’ lake houses, because that’s what you do in Minnesota in the summer. We spent our winters skating on the ice rink my parents built for me in the back yard every year.

  We drank some, tried pot, but mostly, ever since I was fifteen, I was focused on three things: school, hockey, and Madison. And definitely not in that order.

  “I’m sorry, Sebastian. Is it…”

  Over? She doesn’t ask. I shrug and swallow a large bite of eggs. “We’ve had problems for a while and the divorce papers made it seem pretty final.”

  Admitting it to someone else makes me feel worse and I focus on my eggs, which are really damn good, so I don’t have to see her expression. Why I’m confessing this to Gigi and not one of my friends is befuddling. What’d she say last night? A bartender is like a therapist? Maybe there’s truth in that.

  “Again, I’m—”

  “Sorry. I get it.” I really don’t want to hear apologies for things that aren’t anyone else’s fault. Or see pity in their eyes.

  “Sebastian.”

  I act like I don’t hear her and when she says nothing else, silence descends. It’s thick and it’s heavy and I have to change this subject. I gesture to the wall where she has one huge area covered with neatly arranged canvas photos. It’s vastly different from the chaos with the rest of her apartment. I can’t help but notice how precisely arranged they all are. And how vastly different all the photos are.

  “What are those from?”

  “Oh.” She smiles softly, and even her blue eyes seem to sparkle. “Dad gave those to me as a gift when I returned. They’re pictures I texted and emailed him when I was gone.”

  I stare at her for a moment. Then two. Then I realize I’m still fucking staring at her mouth and God damn it.

  I focus on my sausage and my breakfast while she babbles on about Turkey and Hungary, pointing out where some of the photos were taken and I’m glad she gives me that play, knowing I was getting the attention off myself. But truthfully, Gigi is easy to listen to. That husky voice of hers is calming, melodic with softness and it’s all things I should definitely not be noticing about the bartender who helped me to her apartment and let me sleep in her bed but it can’t be helped.

  Gigi might be the most interesting woman I’ve ever met in my life. That she’s beautiful and I’m noticing shouldn’t make me feel like such an asshole, and yet I can’t stop it.

  I finish my meal with gusto, shoving down how it threatens to revolt in my stomach and when I’m done, I stand abruptly. “I should get going.”

  For a brief moment, she looks stunned. I swear her face turns sad before she nods.

  “Sure. Okay.”

  I pat my pockets and come up empty.

  Gigi points to a spot on her kitchen counter. “Your keys and everything else are over there.”

  I remember the shit she gave me when she took them from me. Along with the question I’d asked her.

  Does it ever get lonely?

  If I want company, I have no problems finding it.

  Yeah. It’s definitely time to go.

  I’m now remembering that response with her holding that cherry-flavored condom in her hand, and I’m pretty damn certain that’s not how it actually happened. I also remember her saying something wise about needing to be happy with yourself but I was already too drunk to appreciate it.

  “Thanks for everything,” I say once I’ve slid my keys into my pocket and tugged my hat down low. I don’t look at my phone screen. I don’t want to know yet if Madison ever called me back after the dozens of messages and texts I sent last night before getting blackout drunk seemed like the perfectly reasonable solution for my problems. “Honestly Gigi. I appreciate your help last night. And this morning.”

  She grins up at me, pink lips in a tight smile. “Anytime.”

  “I’ll just…” Be awkward and make this suddenly ten thousand times worse. “Wait outside for the Uber.”

  She points to a door beyond her kitchen. There are two that are facing in an L-shape before the short hallway that leads to her bathroom. “Door on the right will take you down to the alley. Take care, Sebastian.”

  Right. Somehow, I like hotshot instead of my first name coming from her. Especially with the strange look she’s giving me. Like I’ve upset her somehow. Or disappointed her. I know the look well from the last few years of my turmoil with Madison.

  “See you around?”

  “Whenever you guys stop in, I’ll probably be here.”

  “Right. Thanks again.”

  “Like I said before, no problem.”

  She turns back to her food and grabs her phone at the table. I’ve done something wrong. Only I can’t figure out what. Which means when I leave, carefully trudging down the rickety metal steps outside to the alley and out to the street, my mind isn’t on the lack of texts from Madison, it’s on the look Gigi gave me when I told
her I had to leave.

  And that’s not cool.

  Chapter Four

  Gigi

  It’s not the first time in the last week that I’ve walked into my bedroom, such as it is, and my gaze has gone immediately to where Sebastian passed out on Saturday night. It’s not even the first time I’ve scanned the area and been embarrassed for the mess he so politely called me out on— it only took a slowly arching brow.

  It is the first time I’ve walked in, cleaning bucket in one hand, vacuum in the other, determined to clean up my mess.

  I’ve never been great at cleaning or picking up. It’s easier to sweep all my dirty clothes off the floor and dump them in the basket I take to the laundromat. Since that’s all a pain in the butt, I’m more likely to go buy new clothes than shuffle everything down the stairs, through the alley, and across the street to my parking spot in a private lot.

  My mind constantly runs with a hundred things on my to-do list. I’d rather sit and read or go for a walk or spend an afternoon at a museum or strolling through the farmer’s market than I want to be stuck inside, armed with a dusting rag and mop bucket.

  While I know Sebastian’s teasing of me was playful, watching him hop and skip around my mess was mortifying. I shouldn’t even care what he thinks of me. I’ve never cared if people see me as I am before. And truly, his opinion of me shouldn’t matter.

  I’m the girl who helped him out. I’m the girl who serves him drinks with a smile. And I’m the girl who will never, ever be on his radar for a woman.

  Besides, he’s still technically married.

  I’m being stupid. I haven’t yet washed the sheets, mostly because I like the gentle waft of his body wash or cologne when I roll onto the pillow he slept on. And that’s just gross.

  Not at all me.

  I don’t get hung up on men. Or at least I haven’t since Evan and I divorced, and even then I’m not all that sure I was hung up on him.

  We dated in college for a few years and when our friends started getting engaged and married even before graduation, I think we both felt like it was the next step. The problem is Evan’s an accountant and back then I was an art major. I’m art and colors and constantly reinventing things, even if it’s only living spaces. He’s straight lines and black and white and neatly pressed button-down shirts and slacks with the perfect seam ironed into them. Seams. He’s the only guy I know under fifty who still insists on them.