Breakaway

by Elise Faber

It was during the five minutes the test was processing that Anna finally found the courage to tell Blue about her parents.

  She’d always thought it could come later, that she had more time to untangle the mess inside her and tell him everything.

  But they didn’t have any more time.

  And more than that, if they were going to have a future together, Blue deserved the truth.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  He tore his eyes from the pregnancy test, which they were both pretending not to look at, and focused on her. “Is it about your parents?”

  She gaped at him. “How’d you know?”

  A small smile. “Only because every time the topic of your family has come up, you change the subject. You’re so good at it that it took me a long time to notice.” He shrugged. “I just figured you’d tell me when you’re ready.”

  Anna bit her lip. “I think . . . I think I’m ready now.”

  Fingers brushing against hers. “You sure?”

  She swallowed. “Considering that we might be having a baby together?” she asked wryly. “Yeah, I think it’s time you know everything.”

  “Okay,” he said, patting the tile floor beside him. “But you have to come here while you do it. No more walls, baby.”

  She laughed softly but leaned more firmly against him. “My walls never had a chance with you anyway. All that barbed wire and concrete and rebar, and none of it made one bit of difference because you bombarded right through all of my barriers anyway.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. “I prefer to think I sneaked.”

  “Before or after you begged me to buy you off the auction block?”

  He grinned. “After. Definitely after you played the white knight.” A kiss to her nose. “Now stop stalling and tell me the big secret that you think is going to get me to leave you.”

  Anna’s jaw dropped open, and he gently closed it. “I pay attention, sweetheart, and I’m patient.” One half of his mouth tipped up. “I also know what it’s like to feel left behind.”

  Her breath caught. “Blue,” she murmured, staring up into his eyes, seeing the truth there and . . .

  She just stopped thinking.

  “I love you,” she said. “So fucking much, and I’m terrified because I keep thinking that once you get to know the real me, you’ll discover that I’m just this frightened little kid whom nobody wanted or thought would amount to anything, and I’m just—I—I—”

  Her teeth clicked closed, her gaze dropped to the tile.

  “I love you, too,” he said, stroking a hand down her hair. “And so long as the next words out of your mouth aren’t: I want to raise our children as fruitarians, then nothing else you could say will change my mind.” He put his thumb under her chin, tilted her face up so their eyes met again. “I had this vision in my head for so long, sweetheart—”

  “I know,” she said, pulling back. “The sweet and kind and—”

  “No.” A firm denial that made her heart pulse. “No. My vision was that for once, I wouldn’t be alone.”

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  Because God yes, these last months of talking with Blue and spending time together, of having someone she was comfortable enough to text when she was feeling happy or silly or sassy . . . fuck, it had been incredible.

  Except, for the part she’d been holding back.

  Because always in the depths of her mind, she’d been too scared to hope.

  But looking into Blue’s eyes, seeing the openness, remembering how easily he’d bared his wounds so early on to her, gave her the clarity and understanding and strength to finally, finally tear off the Band-Aid.

  “My parents left when I was six.” She released a shaky breath. “Went to the store for milk and never came back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmured.

  “I don’t know if they’re dead or alive or—” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It matters,” he said.

  A nod to acknowledge him . . . and the truth that it still did matter, even though she didn’t want it to. “I moved in with my grandmother,” she said. “I was lucky because she was awesome, but then she got sick, and . . .” Anna continued, telling him how she’d continued living with her grandma for a while, until the hospital visits had lengthened, until the hospital visits had become hospice care and full time nurses, until the hospital bed had been traded for a casket. “. . . they tried,” she whispered. “They really did, but there was no money. My grandmother didn’t have life insurance, and anything from her estate was used for medical bills and funeral costs. I was just another expensive mouth to feed and clothe. And . . . so eventually I ended up in the system.”

  His hands had clenched into fists, but his hold was gentle. “Fuck, baby. I—” His voice broke. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. D-did”—he coughed—“were you hurt?”

  “Not sexually,” she said, understanding what he was getting at, even without him asking the question outright. “But emotionally, yes, and physically I was assaulted a few times.”

  “Assaulted.” One terse word released between clenched teeth. “A few times.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe,” she said, “but I was lucky in a lot of ways to have been older, to know what love felt like.” She shook her head. “I just . . . always wondered if I’d only been a little better or nicer or sweeter . . . if maybe they would have found a way to allow me to stay.”

  Blue’s touch was gentle as he cupped her cheek. “A little like a boy who was trying to be better so his parents would love him.”

  Her eyes burned because—

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Just like that.”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I am really sorry, love.”

  Her hand covered his. “Me, too.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment, but just as she opened her mouth to say, who knew what, the timer on her phone dinged.

  Her heart started pounding. Her palms went sweaty.

  Blue swallowed, reached for the stick. “You ready?”

  Anna buried her head into his chest. “No!” A deep breath. “Okay, yes.”

  “One. Two. Three.”

  They flipped over the stick.

  Twenty-Two

  Blue

  “One line is negative, right?” he asked.

  Anna nodded.

  His gut twisted, and it wasn’t disappointment. It couldn’t be. Not when having an unplanned baby while they were still getting to know each other was a horrible idea.

  But, dammit, it was disappointment.

  Because Blue loved Anna and the idea of having a baby with her wasn’t frightening or freak-out inducing.

  It had been exciting.

  He wanted that with Anna.

  “Why am I sad?” she murmured.

  “I don’t know.” He set the test on the counter. “But I am, too. Come here,” he said, even though technically she already was there.

  Anna didn’t argue though, and he just held her tightly against him, his back propped against the tub, his fingers working through the tangled ends of her ponytail for long minutes. Eventually they moved to the couch, ordering food to be delivered from DoorDash and watching a reality show about glass blowing on Netflix.

  They didn’t talk about anything important or bring up heavy childhood memories. In fact, they didn’t discuss anything more serious than whether the egg that had been crafted out of glass actually looked like an egg or if it resembled more of an eggplant.

  Upon which the conversation turned to emojis and all their various sexual meanings, and he learned that his sexting skills were seriously lacking.

  And when she finally fell asleep in his arms, Blue knew they would be okay.

  Eight Months Later

  * * *

  He skated down the ice, the puck on his stick, Kevin rushing up on his left side. They were up on the Capitals, two goals to one in game six of the finals. A
nd if they won this game, they’d win it all.

  Kevin darted toward the inside and Blue floated a pass over the defenseman’s stick, holding his breath until . . .

  It landed, right on Kevin’s tape.

  A couple of rapid dekes, a flurry of small movements that faked out the goalie, and—

  The goalie saved the puck.

  “Fuck.” More a thought than an actual word, but Blue had already been moving, sliding in to trail Kevin and provide backup. He got off a shot and . . . shit. Somehow, the goalie made another save.

  But this time the rebound bounced out a little farther, Blue saw a flash of black, had played with Kevin long enough to know that his winger was there, and so instead of trying to stuff it home again—the goalie already moving over to cut off his angle—he used a soft touch to bump it over to Kevin.

  His breath caught.

  His heart seemed to stop beating and—

  The puck went across the goal line.

  The home crowd erupted, boisterous enough that the roar penetrated Blue’s bubble of excitement.

  He didn’t think, just launched himself at Kevin, and they crashed into the boards, Stefan, Max, and Stevie, the third of their trio of forwards, mere heartbeats behind him. A chorus of “Fuck yeahs” and “That’s rights” and well, more “Fuck yeahs,” exploded around him.

  But there were—he risked a glance at the Jumbotron—still two more minutes left, and so they needed to focus.

  With a steadying breath, they broke apart and headed for the bench.

  Blue and his linemates got a short break, just long enough to catch their breath, before Bernard sent them back out. It was brutal, his legs like lead this deep into a game and the season in general. But after all these years, they were so fucking close.

  So he sucked it up and left it all on the ice.

  Skate like hell. Check like a motherfucker. Never give up on the play.

  Then get the fuck off the ice, quickly suck in some oxygen, and get the fuck back out there to do it all over again.

  And all the while, the seconds counted down. A minute left.

  Thirty seconds.

  Twenty-two.

  Fourteen.

  Seven.

  Three point six.

  Two.

  One.

  !!!

  Blue found himself surrounded by his teammates, knew words were being spoken, and congratulations were being exchanged and yet, he couldn’t hear a damned thing.

  Because they’d done it.

  Somehow they’d done it.

  Then the noise roared back to life, and his mind began to focus.

  It only took seconds to find her. Just left of the bench, sporting the jersey with his name on it, a Gold-emblazoned beanie with a fluffy black puff on top encasing her head.

  Anna.

  The fucking love of his life.

  He skated over to the glass, tearing off his glove to place his palm against it.

  She lifted her palm, matched it to his through the glass. She had tears in those pretty blue eyes, but they were the happy variety.

  “I love you,” he mouthed, knowing a camera had found him, knowing the guys would give him shit later for this public display of affection, but not giving a damn.

  Brit and Stefan were kissing at center ice.

  That would be the bigger story by far.

  “We love you,” she mouthed back, her free hand lifting to cup her very large stomach.

  It wasn’t fat as she liked to joke, but their son, who was due to be born in just a few weeks.

  Turned out they’d taken the test too early.

  He wanted to take her in his arms, to hug her tight, but the fucking glass was in the way.

  “Go,” she mouthed. “I’ll see you later.”

  With one more, “I love you,” Blue skated back to center ice.

  The Gold had a big ol' cup to receive.

  Fuck. Yeah.

  Epilogue

  PR-Rebecca

  Now that was a fucking photo op.

  Blue and Anna, hands pressed together, only a layer of glass separating them, her big burly player telling his fiancée he loved her.

  The hockey blogs were going to eat this shit up.

  “Instagram,” she murmured, fingers flying across the screen of her iPad, cropping and trimming the video into a short and snappy GIF.

  Blue would hate it.

  But Rebecca didn’t give a damn.

  This was—no pun intended—solid Gold shit.

  She slapped on a filter, one that emphasized the Gold’s logo on Anna’s beanie, then posted the video.

  “Fucking. Perfect,” she said, eyes glued to her screen as she began scrolling through the rest of the camera angles and making her way to the ice. Her DSLR hung around her neck, ready to capture any high quality stills the press might miss in their effort to document hockey, rather than what was really important, at least from her perspective.

  The story.

  What made people care.

  What turned them into lifelong fans.

  What went viral.

  And Blue and Anna would go viral.

  Maybe Brit and Stefan, too, helmets tossed to the ice, arms around one another as they kissed full on the lips.

  And all of that at center ice, music blaring, lights flashing. It was—

  A fucking perfect hockey fairy tale.

  Shaking her head, because she knew firsthand that fairy tales didn’t exist outside of rom-coms and occasionally between alpha sports heroes and their chosen mates, Rebecca slipped through the corridor and stepped onto the Gold’s bench.

  Lots of dudes in suits—of both the boardroom and the hockey variety—were hugging.

  On the ice. Near the goals. On the bench.

  It was a proverbial hug-fest.

  And she was the cynical bitch who couldn’t enjoy the fact that the team she was with had just won the biggest hockey prize of them all.

  “I knew you’d be like this.”

  Rebecca turned her focus from Brit, who was skating with the huge silver cup, to the man—no, to the boy because no matter how pretty and yummy he was, Kevin was still a decade younger than her—leaning oh so casually against the boards.

  “Nice goal,” she told him.

  A shrug. “Blue made a nice pass.”

  And dammit, the fact that he wasn’t an arrogant son of a bitch made her like him more.

  She nodded at the cup. “You should go have your turn.”

  “I’ll get mine,” he said with another shrug.

  She frowned, honestly confused. “You don’t want—”

  Suddenly he was in front of her on the bench, towering over her even though she was wearing her four-inch power heels. “You know what I want?”

  Rebecca couldn’t speak. Her breath had whooshed out of her in the presence of all that sweaty, hockey god-ness. Fuck he was pretty and gorgeous and . . . so fucking masculine that her thighs actually clenched together.

  She wanted to climb him like a stripper pole.

  “Do you?” he asked again when her words wouldn’t come. “Want to know what I want?”

  She nodded.

  He bent, lips to her ear. “You, babe,” he whispered. “I. Want. You.”

  Then he straightened and jumped back onto the ice, leaving her gaping after him like she had less than two brain cells in her skull.

  The worst part?

  She wanted him, too.

  Had wanted him since the moment she’d laid eyes on the sexy as sin hockey god.

  “Trouble,” she murmured. “I’m in so much fucking trouble.”

  —Breakout, December 15th, 2019

  * * *

  Did you miss any of the Gold Hockey books?

  Find information about the full series here.

  Or keep reading for a sneak peek into each of the books below!

  Blocked

  Gold Hockey Book #1

  Get your copy at books2read.com/Blocked

  * * *r />
  The first question Brit always got when people found out she played ice hockey was “Do you have all of your teeth?”

  The second was “Do you, you know, look at the guys in the locker room?”

  The first she could deal with easily—flash a smile of her full set of chompers, no gaps in sight. The second was more problematic. Especially since it was typically accompanied by a smug smile or a coy wink.

  Of course she looked. Everybody looked once. Everyone snuck a glance, made a judgment that was quickly filed away and shoved deep down into the recesses of their mind.

  And she meant way down.

  Because, dammit, she was there to play hockey, not assess her teammates’ six packs. If she wanted to get her man candy fix, she could just go on social media. There were shirtless guys for days filling her feed.

  But that wasn’t the answer the media wanted.

  Who cared about locker room dynamics? Who gave a damn whether or not she, as a typical heterosexual woman, found her fellow players attractive?

  Yet for some inane reason, it did matter to people.

  Brit wasn’t stupid. The press wanted a story. A scandal. They were desperate for her to fall for one of her teammates—or better yet the captain from their rival team—and have an affair that was worthy of a romantic comedy.

  She’d just gotten very good at keeping her love life—as nonexistent as it was—to herself, gotten very good at not reacting in any perceptible way to the insinuations.

  So when the reporter asked her the same set of questions for the thousandth time in her twenty-six years, she grinned—showing off those teeth—and commented with a sweetly innocent “Could’ve sworn you were going to ask me about the coed showers.” She waited for the room-at-large to laugh then said, “Next question, please.”

  –Get your copy at books2read.com/Blocked

  * * *

  Backhand

  Gold Hockey Book #2

  Get your copy at books2read.com/Backhand

  “Sorry I messed up your sketch,” he rumbled.

  She nibbled on the side of her mouth, biting back a smile. “Sorry I stole your hand for so long.”