by Lynda Aicher
“Yeah.” He’d watched it. And the one two nights before that. He’d watch tonight’s too. “Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge,” he said, motioning toward the kitchen. “I’d get it for you, but navigating a drink with the crutches is a bitch.” His grin was tight on his cheeks. He held it anyway.
“I’ll grab them,” Grenick said from behind Dylan’s chair. Dylan craned his neck to see the man ambling to the kitchen. “What do you have?”
“I have no fucking clue,” he called back. “Samantha’s been keeping it stocked.” Hell, Samantha had been doing just about everything. She’d settled right in like she belonged here, and he had no problem with that.
The sounds of the sportscaster on the television were suddenly loud in the quiet that followed his statement.
“It’s good that she’s been here to help,” Walters finally said. “She seems pretty cool.”
“Samantha who?” Grenick asked. He handed out a round of bottled water to everyone. Dylan took his, wishing it was a beer. Too bad it was a game night for everyone else. Grenick frowned at Dylan, his square features scrunched in confusion. “When did you get a girlfriend, Pretty Boy?”
The term girlfriend had Dylan smiling. He liked that word on Samantha. “If you ever came out from under Leslie’s hold, you’d know the answer to that.” There was no way he was letting the big man give him shit about a woman.
“It’s Jill now,” Hauke said, smirk in place. “Leslie was three girlfriends back.”
Dylan laughed. He couldn’t help it. He laid his head back and clutched his side to try and keep his jerking breaths contained to the upper half of his body. Shit. He had no idea why he found that so funny.
“Fuck you.” Grenick scowled at them all and dropped into the other recliner. “So I don’t like to fuck ’em and leave ‘em. Big deal.”
Hauke and Walters hid their grins behind their water bottles, and Feeney took an avid interest in the game on the TV. Dylan wiped the moisture from his eyes and fought to control his lingering chuckles.
“Damn.” Feeney looked him over. “What drugs do they have you on?”
Dylan shook his head and took a gulp of his water. “Just ibuprofen now. The other stuff fucked me up too much.” After two days of nausea and dizziness, he’d decided the pain was easier to deal with.
“What’d they give you?” Walters asked.
“Vicodin.”
Walters tipped his chin and studied the game, knee bouncing beneath his hand.
“Any idea when you’ll be back?” Hauke asked.
“I’m done for this season most likely.”
“That sucks.”
Dylan inclined his head in agreement. “Better than the alternative though.” Being out for good was the fate he didn’t need to voice.
“Oh. Before I forget.” Feeney dug in his pocket and tossed a set of keys onto the coffee table. “Your truck’s in the driveway.”
“Thanks for driving it out.” Getting in and out of Samantha’s coupe had been a test of endurance at first. Hopefully he’d be back to driving himself next week.
“When are you going to get rid of that old heap?”
He turned to Grenick. “When are you going to date a woman who doesn’t treat you like shit?”
“What the fuck?” Grenick thrust to a stand. “For that, I’m eating your food.” He stomped off to the kitchen, cupboards banging a second later.
Dylan exchanged glances with the other guys. Hauke shrugged, and Feeney rolled his eyes. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled.
“You don’t have to,” Hauke said.
“None of our business,” Walters added.
And that was the end of that subject. Dylan had no problem deferring to the veterans. They’d endured more than their share of knocks during their time in the pros, and he wasn’t beyond learning from them.
“Can I ask you guys something?” he ventured, glancing at Walters and Hauke. He’d had a lot of time to think and plan over the last few days. He’d done more sitting around than was mentally healthy for anyone. Both men nodded, and he plowed on before he changed his mind. “What do y’all think of my image?” A hint of his southern accent dropped in without him thinking about it. It’d been happening frequently over the last week around Samantha.
Grenick’s gruff scoff from the kitchen twisted the nerves in his stomach. Shit. He opened his mouth to retract the question when Scott held up his hand. Dylan snapped his jaw closed, picked at the label on his bottle and prepared to hear the truth. One he pretty much knew.
“None of us have a say in what you do off the ice,” Walters said. His team captain voice held a politically correct tone with a hint of big-brother confidant that made him excellent in his role. “Unless it impacts what you do on the ice.”
“Are you saying it has?”
“No.” Walters pressed his lips tight. “Not at all. What I’m saying is you have to decide how you want to live your life. You’re what? Twenty-three?”
“Four,” Dylan corrected.
“Fuck.” Walters scrubbed his hands over his face. “You make me feel like an old man.”
“You fucking are,” Grenick called out. “You’re practically a grandpa in this sport.”
Walters flipped him off and ignored Feeney’s muffled laugh. He focused back on Dylan. “I look at it like it’s your freshman year.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s an amount of leeway everyone can get away with when you’re a freshman. No matter how stupid you are or how much you fuck up, there’s always the fallback excuse of ‘I’m a freshman.’ People will forgive a lot because you’re young and new.” Walters glanced at Hauke, who nodded. “After that, you’re expected to be smarter. To have learned from your first year of mistakes. It gets harder for people to overlook things or to make excuses for actions they don’t agree with. Your free pass is gone, and you either mature or get labeled.”
Grenick came back into the room with a sandwich stacked on a plate and reclaimed his spot without a word. Feeney scratched his jaw and looked at his shoes. Hauke folded his arms over his chest but met Dylan’s eyes. The truth of Walters’s words stared back at him from faces of experience.
“Your entry level contract is your freshman year,” Walters went on. “Expectations are raised after that, and you have to step up or accept the consequences.”
“Both on and off the ice,” Hauke added.
None of that was new to Dylan. Outside of the New Year’s Eve party, he’d been focusing on his game, not his image this season. Image. That was the whole key. The partying was all for show now and part of his and Jeff’s plan. Curtailing it would only propel his name higher as everyone talked about how he’d matured.
“What they’re trying to say,” Grenick interjected, “is do whatever the fuck you want. But if you want to be taken seriously, then cut the college party crap and act like the responsible adult the world expects you to be.”
“Says the man who has a glamorous woman draped over his arm at every highbrow party there is.”
“That’s the difference.” Grenick pointed at Dylan. “They’re classy parties thrown by others. We all dress up nice, and the presentation of respectability glosses over the fact that everyone is there to be seen and get smashed.”
“Holy fuck,” Feeney exclaimed. “I had no idea you were that jaded.”
Grenick took a bite of his sandwich and shrugged. “Maybe I did learn something from my parents,” he said around his mouthful of food.
The click of the front door opening and closing cut off the rest of the conversation. Samantha was back from class. She was still staying at his place. A fact he hoped didn’t change anytime soon.
The other guys all turned their heads toward the hall as Dylan tracked the soft pad of feet down the hardwood. There was only a slight hesitation when she cleared the hallway, and he couldn’t stop his smile. He probably should’ve texted her about his visitors.
“Hi, Samantha,” he called out w
ithout turning around.
“Hi, Dylan,” she answered, a smile in her voice. “Hi, guys.”
“Hey, Sam,” Walters said. “How’re you doing?”
Dylan caught Hauke’s eye, and the man winked. There really wasn’t a chance of him hiding whatever he and Samantha had going on. That had flown the coop the first night she’d spent sleeping next to his hospital bed.
“Good,” she answered Walters as she came into the great room. She ran her hand down Dylan’s arm as she passed, shooting a wave of contentment over him. He clasped her fingers and squeezed, getting a smile from her. She stepped around Hauke, smacked Feeney’s leg out of the way then sat on the couch between the two men. “How are you guys?”
The conversation shifted to hockey after the initial greetings, and Dylan settled back, enjoying the ebb and flow of the debates and analysis. Samantha fit in with the guys like she’d always belonged and she did. The other men treated her like the equal she was. It was easy to see her as one of the guys, holding her own among the digs and customary smack-talk. Yet he also saw the beautiful woman who challenged him while changing her entire schedule to help him.
He was exiting the bathroom, swinging around the doorway on his crutches when Walters caught him in the hallway.
“Hey,” Walters said. “We need to take off soon.”
“I figured that.” Dylan balanced on his foot to keep his weight off his sore underarms. He couldn’t wait to be off the damn crutches. “Thanks again for stopping by.”
“About our earlier discussion. Is everything good?”
“Yeah,” he reassured the man. “I get it.”
“You’re still young. You have years of play left,” Walters added. “I’d hate to see it ruined by dumb shit that has nothing to do with your game.”
“I would never do that.” This little injury had only reinforced his appreciation for what he’d worked for.
“You need to stay focused.” Walters shifted to Dylan’s side to stare toward the great room. The back of the couch was visible, Samantha’s blond head sticking out between the two darker-haired men. “Get better. Get back on the ice and don’t let anything interfere with that.”
“I know.” Dylan didn’t need another person telling him how critical his recovery was. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Rumors are already flying about your return and your place on the roster,” Scott confided. “You know there are a dozen guys fighting to prove they deserve the spot you left open.”
“I get that,” Dylan gritted out. How in the hell would he not know that? He’d been one of those guys once. Scrambling on the affiliate team to get his chance in the show. Now he was scrambling to stay there. “I fucking plan on being even better when I get back.”
“Don’t we all,” Walters mumbled. He cleared his throat and clasped Dylan’s shoulder. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Contract years suck.”
“That’s the fucking truth.” Dylan wasn’t the only one negotiating a new contract. Walters’s was also up, and as a veteran free agent, the man had different issues to worry about than Dylan. Trades were common, as were shortened lengths and monetary decreases due to lack of performance or underlying injuries.
Walters ducked into the bathroom, leaving Dylan with another block of pressure added to the stack already driving him down. Everything hinged on him getting back on the ice. His life was in limbo until he’d secured his future for a few more years. At least on paper. It was still up to him to perform.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam held the door open and waited for Dylan to shuffle through, his limp slight, gait slow.
“I could’ve carried my bag,” he grumbled. After three weeks, she was used to his crankiness. For all of his bravado, sweat beaded on his brow and she caught every wince he’d tried to hide. Physical therapy took more out of him than he wanted to admit.
That was just one of the reasons why she insisted on driving him there whenever their schedules meshed. She admired his dedication to maintaining his visibility with the team and getting back on the ice, but there were days they only saw each other at night.
To admit she missed him would be pushing for things he couldn’t give her. She knew hockey came first—especially now. And she was still leaving, possibly sooner than fall.
“I’ve got it.” She shut the door and hurried down the hall, flicking on lights as she went. She set his duffel down and paused. “Do you want to settle in here or bed?”
He halted by the kitchen island, weight clearly shifted to his good side. He blew out a breath and tossed his cowboy hat onto the counter. “I’m sick of lying down.”
“And I’m sick of your moaning,” she teased back, flashing a grin when he glared at her. She’d found that was the best approach for dealing with his Grumpy Gus attitude whenever it surfaced. “The chair it is then.”
It took a minute of repositioning and grunting before he stilled in the recliner. She grabbed a bottle of water and gave him time to quiet down. He’d been pushing hard, and she worried it was too much, too fast. The knot in her stomach hadn’t eased much since he’d been released from the hospital.
She blew out a breath, clenched the bottle and moved to his side. The pain was etched into the grooves that spread from the corners of his eyes and the tight clench of his lips. She bit her tongue instead of asking him about it. He’d only deny how bad it was.
She set the TV remote and water on the table next to his chair and retrieved an ice pack. “Can I get you anything else?”
His eyes were closed and he slowly rolled his head from side to side as his answer. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and his cheeks were pale under the layer of beard scruff. Light though it was, it somehow enhanced his cowboy image. It was easy to picture him on a horse, dust covering his jeans, hat pulled low on his brow. She bet he rode like he skated, confident and graceful with a controlled power.
How had she judged him so incorrectly to begin with?
Because she’d only wanted to see the worst. She’d been determined to slot him into a category she’d defined long before she knew him. One that shouldn’t exist anymore.
She escaped back to her car to grab her bag from the trunk. It wasn’t even a question anymore on whether she’d be spending the night. She was getting too used to sleeping next to him, sharing his warmth and kisses, catching his soft snores when she turned over in the middle of the night.
A quick flush of desire tightened in her core at the thought of his lazy smile and naked chest peeking at her from under the sheets. And that would net zero results. Heavy petting was as far as they’d gotten since she’d started sleeping in his bed.
Her mocking snort had her head shaking. They were moving backward in one area while leaping forward in another. The irony didn’t escape her.
The television clicked on and she went to him. “Do you want some meds?”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, eyes closing on a long inhale that sent butterflies fluttering in her chest. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” The tense pull of his expression said differently. “You don’t have to be all macho around me.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, and she let it go. The man could be more stubborn than her when he decided something.
She settled into the couch and let her mind wander while she stared at the hockey game he’d called up from his recorded list. It was a game played last night between two teams in the Glaciers’ division. She already knew who won. He probably did too.
She found her eyelids drooping and gave up on keeping them open. The sounds of the game were familiar and comforting. Her mom had often been too sick to make it to her games, but Sam had spent hours watching the sport on TV with her.
The jingling of a phone ringing had her patting blindly for her pockets as she struggled to wake up.
“Hello.”
Dylan’s deep greeting stilled her hands. Not her phone. She rubbed her eyes, covered a yawn and rolled onto
her side to study him.
“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.”
Her brows winged up. His mom?
“Yes.” Pause. “No.” He rubbed his eyes and left his fingers braced on his brow. “I’m sure. I told you a friend’s been helping.”
The tight pinch in her chest had her rubbing a hand over her heart. Being classified as a friend to his mother was fine. She hadn’t said anything to her parents about him. There was no point when they both knew this was a short-term thing. That didn’t explain why it’d hurt to hear it.
“How’s the ranch?” He shook his head and shot her a tight smile. “Did Granddad go to the doctor yet?”
She got up to leave. She should’ve done it right away. Given him space.
“I’m out for the season most likely.” Dylan’s jaw tightened. “I know.” Pause. “I know.” Another pause and sigh. “I’m still a part of the team.” He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I’ll try to get home this summer.”
He grabbed her wrists when she was almost past his chair, stalling her exit. She frowned, and he simply shook his head.
“I’ve gotta go, Mom. Tell Granddad to go to the doctor or I’ll come down and haul his bony ass there myself.” His hold tightened for a second before he let go. He ended his call, head still propped on the back of the chair. “Sorry about that. I didn’t want you to think you had to leave.”
“I should’ve given you your privacy.”
“It’s all right.” He rubbed his hand through his hair and stared at his black phone screen. “It was just my mom.”
Just my mom. The dismissive statement didn’t hold true to the hurt that darkened his eyes. She’d gotten good at reading the varying shades, at reading him. “Can I do anything?”
He gave her a weak smile. “Can you go pee for me?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Sorry. I could hold it for you if you need me to, though.” She wiggled her brows and dodged away from his jab. “Come on.” She offered a hand up. “You should move anyway.” She could help him think of something besides his mother.