Mr. Hat Trick

by Ainsley Booth

  There's a new layer now. Astringent and bold, a sharp counter to her sweet earthiness.

  My come on her skin.

  My mark.

  My scent.

  I never want her to wash it off. I can't tell her that. She'll make me wear a condom for the rest of my life.

  For the—

  My heart slams against my ribs and I press my mouth into the sweet softness of her inside thigh.

  She's wearing my scent. She's mine. Forever.

  I suck on her flesh. I love you. God, it's the wrong time to realize that.

  I want you forever.

  I need you, too.

  Her fingers lace into my hair, tugging. "I'm messy," she whispers.

  Damn fucking right. My mess. My woman.

  I twist my head and cover her mound with my mouth. I'll clean her up. Every last inch.

  Mine.

  I love you.

  What the fuck am I going to do with that stupidly-obvious brand new information?

  Lick her up and bury my feelings for another day. That’s what I’m going to do.

  I sweep my tongue over her bare skin, and once she’s all clean, I cover her with my body and make her messy all over again.

  I can’t tell her I love her, but I can imprint my scent deep in her body. We have another week together. I’ll do this every day. She can fly home with my mark on her skin.

  And when the season is over, we’ll talk about what comes next.

  She comes to my game the next night, the last before the All Star Break, and she sits closer to the VIP seats this time.

  Afterwards, she meets me in the lounge where we meet our guests after games, and Andrushko makes a beeline for her.

  “Tate’s friend,” he says, holding out his hand.

  Sasha takes it and squeezes tight enough I can see her knuckles turning white. “Tate’s teammate,” she responds.

  “You were just here at Christmas. And now again? Tate is a lucky friend.”

  “I was in Seattle for work. Popped up to see a game.” She stretches the truth so casually, I almost believe it myself. “You made the All Star team, right? When do you leave?”

  I smoothly interject and suggest we get going. “Late dinner,” I say not apologetically at all to Andrushko.

  He winks at me.

  And as we move away, Sasha rolls her eyes. “Why is he so amused by me?”

  “You’re pretty. He thinks it’s funny that you you push back.”

  “It’s none of his business why I’m here.”

  I frown. “I think he’s just making small talk.” For someone who is so smart in so many ways, and can read strangers in crisis like a book, Sasha has a blind spot when it comes to professional athletes. Like she assumes the worst.

  For good reason, I remind myself. She’s been burned before.

  “What do you want to do for dinner?”

  She gives me a brilliant smile that sweeps everything else from my mind. “You’re the local expert now. You pick.”

  We’re in the middle of making breakfast on Saturday when Sasha’s phone rings. She looks at the screen, then excuses herself into my bedroom to take the call.

  I slice the avocado and tomato while I wait for her to come back. The eggs will only take a few minutes, and I don’t know how long this conversation will take, so I’ll wait until she’s done to start poaching.

  We could do with another pot of coffee. I get that started, then pull the eggs out of the fridge.

  I wonder how many she wants. I try to pick up any hint from the other room if she’s wrapping up the conversation. A few words filter through the partially closed door. Honoured and opportunity. West coast. Appeal.

  I frown and move closer to the door.

  “I wasn’t expecting such a direct conversation at this point,” she continues. “Yes, it was a fascinating discussion. I agree. It would be great to work together. Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I’ll give the position some serious consideration.”

  I stand there, in the middle of a living room that didn’t feel lived in until she arrived, in a city that has always felt too damn far from home, but had started to feel like mine when I showed it to her. My thoughts are still reeling when she steps out of the bedroom.

  She starts, like she’s surprised to see me standing there. “All done. Sorry.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Someone I met at the conference in Seattle. A professor at the University of Washington.”

  I wait for her to give me anything else.

  She doesn’t.

  I nod. “Right.”

  She glances past me. “Oh, good, more coffee. Did you start the eggs?”

  “No.”

  “I can do that.”

  “No.” My neck is hot, and my back is tight. My throat feels raw.

  She stops and gives me a curious look.

  Fuck curiosity. Fuck secrets. Fuck love, because this is bullshit. “When were you going to tell me that you could have a job on this side of the continent?”

  Her eyes go wide. “I…I wouldn’t say that—”

  “When. Were. You. Going. To—”

  “Never.” She lifts her chin and gives me a fierce look. “Because I’m not going to take it. Were you eavesdropping?”

  “I was going to ask you how many God damn eggs you wanted.”

  Her jaw flexes as she glares at me. “I don’t think I want any right now.”

  “My appetite’s feeling a bit off, too.” I cross my arms over my body. “It didn’t sound like you weren’t interested.”

  “I was being polite to a professional colleague. And how much did you hear?”

  “Not enough to understand what the hell is going on.”

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “I’m picking that up loud and clear. You don’t trust me in the least, do you?”

  Her eyes narrow. “Are you turning this into a thing?”

  Yeah, I think I am. “You don’t. You haven't trusted me with anything besides your body.”

  “That's not true.”

  “Then tell me about the job.”

  “No.”

  In the back of my mind, a little voice reminds me she’s being stubborn because I’m pushing her.

  I don’t listen to it. “You love the west coast.”

  She throws her hands in the air. “There’s more to a career move than liking the local sushi.”

  “Like what?”

  “My life is in Ottawa.” She says it like it’s just the most obvious thing in the world.

  Except it’s not. I tap my chest, hard. “I’m here. University of Washington is what, three hours away? That’s a day trip. We could be together every single weekend.”

  There’s a long stretch of silence. So long it turns sharp. Painful.

  Her answer doesn't change. And that's all I need to know. So much for just her and me. Turns out, it was always just her. I was disposable the whole time.

  All I can hear is my own ragged breathing. She’s frozen, staring at me in disbelief, like I’m asking her to go to prison for me or something.

  I have to try again. I have to fix this. “Sasha, I love—”

  “No.” She snaps it out, cutting me off.

  “I do.”

  “Stop.” She stares at me, and I finally get it. This isn't what we agreed to. This isn't what she wanted.

  She only wanted a single afternoon.

  She wanted to keep our affair private.

  She wanted to be a friend with benefits, not a girlfriend, no matter how intense our feelings.

  I fell in love with a woman who never had any intention of loving me back.

  “I should…” She trails off and twists around, looking around my apartment.

  “Sash—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I can’t. We always knew we had an end-date.”

  “No. That was…” A lifetime ago. “Things have changed between us.”

  “Maybe that was where
we went wrong.”

  “I don’t—”

  She holds up her hand, and I fall silent.

  I can only protest so much. “Fine. You want to put us on ice? Live on opposite sides of the country and just fuck occasionally? That’s the worst plan ever, Sasha. I can’t—” I can’t think straight. I can’t trust myself to say anything else, either. “I need some air.”

  I grab my keys and head out the door.

  When I get back an hour later with two lattes, because I’m a dumb stupid fuck who doesn’t know when to shut up, she’s gone.

  37

  Sasha

  I wait for Tate to come back. For him to hit the lobby and realize this is stupid. But when five minutes turn into ten, and he’s still gone, other thoughts start to crowd into my head.

  Like maybe we should reconsider what we’re doing here.

  He’s right. We’re not in the same place—not geographically, or emotionally. And he doesn’t need my baggage.

  I don’t need the guilt for that, either.

  I call him, but there’s no answer. And really, there’s nothing else to say right now. We both need some space.

  I don’t like the idea of going to a hotel to be melancholy, so I call the airline and see if I can change my flight home. I’m in luck, apparently.

  It doesn’t feel lucky.

  It feels like I need a stiff drink from the first flight attendant I see.

  When I land in Ottawa, I’m drunk. I turn on my phone, ignore the half-dozen texts from Tate—because he can go fuck himself and his stupid opinions about what I should do with my life—and manage to book an Uber.

  I’ll come back and get my car tomorrow. Right now, I need my bed and a hot shower. I’m not picky about the order, which is good, because as soon as I hit the mattress, I’m zonked out.

  In the morning, I have a brutal hangover headache. I roll over and go back to sleep.

  That afternoon, I finally shower, then retrieve my car from the airport and go to the university, where I pour myself into work that doesn’t require speaking to anyone.

  Then I go back to bed.

  The next day, I wake up with a panicked start because someone is entering my apartment. The door creaks open, and there are footsteps. I cast about my room for a weapon.

  “Sasha?”

  “Ellie?” I crawl out of bed and wrap my robe around my body. I poke my head out of my room. “What’s wrong?”

  She frowns at me. “I think that’s my line. I called and texted a bunch of times.”

  Oh. “I turned the ringer off on my phone.” Because Tate wouldn’t stop calling.

  I didn’t use to take his calls. I can learn not to again, as much as it hurts right now.

  “I’m sorry for the intrusion, but I have a shoe emergency.” She blushes. “My feet have gotten bigger. We have a state dinner tonight, and I really didn’t want to go to a store and be like, ‘please, tell the world that the prime minister’s wife’s feet are getting fat’. Which I know is ridiculous, but—”

  “Say no more. I’m on it. Okay, so I’m a full size bigger than you. How much of a size change are we talking? Can I measure you and maybe go and buy something? Let’s start in my closet.”

  She follows me into my room as I shove my hair back into a bun and try to get my brain unscrambled.

  “Do you have an outfit picked out? What colour shoe are you looking for?”

  She scans my room, settling her gaze on my open suitcase. I haven’t unpacked, and everything is spilling out of it. “Are you on your way out to Vancouver?”

  No. We can talk about shoes. We can’t talk about Tate. I shake my head. “Outfit?”

  “Sasha?” Ellie waddles around me, getting between me and the floor-to-ceiling shelf of shoes that I desperately want to save me from this conversation. No such luck. Hot tears prick my eyelids as she gives me a concerned look. “You’re a mess. Your apartment is a disaster. What’s wrong?”

  I shrug helplessly.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Sure,” I mumble. “Maybe I need soup.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” I jerk back. I can see how she would wonder that and I need to head that craziness off at the pass. “No. God, no. I protect against that like six different ways.”

  Well, only one way that last time… But the water everyone else is drinking is not tasty to me. Not tasty at all, but good for her and the prime minister. They’ll have fabulously attractive and smart mini-people.

  “Did you have a fight?”

  I nod.

  “Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry. What did he do?”

  He made me fall in love with him. “It wasn’t him. We just reached a breaking point.”

  “I don’t know what to say. That’s really sad. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m miserable,” I hug my knees to my chest. “And I don’t know what to do about that.”

  “You should call Tate.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  Because he’s right. When it came down to it, I couldn’t trust him with my secrets. With my fear. “I hurt his feelings.”

  “Did you try apologizing?”

  “It wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because nothing has changed. I’m not going to let my life be subsumed by a man’s life.”

  “Did he ask you to do that?”

  I wince. “No.”

  “Oh.”

  “But that’s what would happen. I could see it happening. The urge to be closer to him. There’s a faculty position opening up at a university in Seattle next year. It would be perfect for me.”

  “What a nefarious trap he’s laid for you.”

  I ignore her sarcastic retort, because that’s not the point. Of course Tate had nothing to do with it. The problem is that I wouldn’t have been interested a year ago. “That was never in my plan. I’ve established myself here.”

  “You have more frequent flier miles than Gavin. Since when do you care about where your geographical base is?”

  “I live my life on my own terms.”

  “And your terms are to be, in our own words, miserable?”

  “I didn’t want it to get complicated.”

  “That’s love.”

  “I never said I loved him.” My chest squeezes tight.

  “You didn’t need to.”

  I never said it. I never admitted it to myself, and I never told him.

  I love you so much it scares me. Hot tears prick my eyelids and I squeeze them shut, refusing to let the fat, wet drops expose me as the fraud I am.

  I want to live my life on my own terms, but I’m a weeping mess over the consequences of that choice.

  And I still miss him.

  “You should call Tate,” Ellie says. “Right after you find me some shoes.”

  I can’t call him. He has a game tomorrow. The last thing he needs is drama. “Shoes…black flats, maybe?”

  She gives me a long, concerned look before nodding. “Sure.”

  I step around her and take a pair of silk slides off the shelf. “These have always been a touch tight on me. Try them.”

  “And then you’ll call?”

  I ignore the question. I don’t have a good answer for her. Or for myself.

  38

  Tate

  I spend three days wallowing in self-pity. I wear the same clothes to sleep in, work out in, even to blindly watch game tape that I don’t absorb. When the break is over and I need to show up at The Pulpmill and do my job, I do it with a pissed-off, black cloud over my head that my teammates can clearly see a mile away.

  Nobody talks to me unless it’s about the game we’re about to play.

  I’m just fine with that.

  I’d rather be left alone, to sink into the numbness and just do what I need to do. But I’m not alone. My thoughts make sure of that.

  I don't want to think of Sasha as I step out onto the ice for the first time after our
fight.

  I’m minutes from face-off and I need to get my heart out of my head. We’re coming off a three-game losing streak and two of those losses were on home ice. I can’t afford to have my focus anywhere but here and now.

  But she used to watch all my games. Would she be watching tonight?

  Andrushko taps my ass, same as always, and that reminds me of our flight back from Ottawa at Christmas. How she paid attention to the tiny details, but she couldn’t fucking see that I was falling in love with her. Fuck.

  I bite against my mouth guard and promise myself if we win tonight, I can open the last bottle of that expensive bourbon I ordered.

  I win the face-off and score within the first seven minutes. My entire game is fuelled by anger. I skate for the puck like I’m chasing the devil, and every shot on goal is an attack against a faceless enemy. Love and its sucker punches. I’ll punch right back. And part of me hopes Sasha’s watching. Notice this, woman. Notice how angry I am, and how I’m rising above it to conquer the world.

  Two goals and an assist later, we’ve got the win and I’m stripping off my gear in the locker room. One down, thirty-two to go.

  If I can’t have the girl, I can fucking have the play-offs.

  As soon as the press is gone from the dressing room—having gotten zero chances to ask me questions, because I wasn’t making eye contact with any of them—Moore pulls me aside. “Are you okay, man?” he asks, his voice low.

  No. “Sure.”

  “You just scored the game-winning goal.”

  “So?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “So I’d expect you to be grinning from ear to ear with your head buried in your phone while you text with that friend of yours in Ottawa. But you’re not. Something wrong on the home front?”

  I want to lash out at him. Tell him to fuck off and mind his own business. He’s too observant. I don’t need to be reminded that there’s no text from Sasha waiting for me on my phone. Yeah, I want to unload on him, but think better of it. Instead, I square my jaw and stare straight ahead. “It’s complicated.”

  “It always is. I’ll leave it for now,” he says. “Just don’t let shit bottle up too long.”