by Luis, Maria
I wish I had a hat of my own to hide behind.
Since I don’t, I avert my gaze and bring my teacup to my mouth. I ignore the scalding of hot liquid on my tongue as I draw the tea into my system and attempt to push the conversation forward. “So, you what? Keep them from having fun with the rest of the guys? Stand outside their guestrooms to make sure they stay locked inside?”
The firm line of his mouth relaxes. “I teach them that hockey will always come first. For as long as they’re in this game, they’ve got to live and breathe it—over going out, over picking up women, over everything.”
12
Jackson
I regret the words immediately, especially when Holly’s pretty blue eyes drop to her lap in clear disappointment.
And no wonder, jackass, you pretty much told her that hockey came before her and your marriage.
Fuck.
“Holls—”
She shakes her head, her usual blond ponytail swinging, and sets her teacup back on the bar. If we were the old us, I’d cup her face, slide my knuckle under her chin and force her to look at me.
To see me.
The man who loved her more than life itself.
The man who’s drowning under an awkward concoction of pride and anxiety, so much so that I can hardly see straight anymore.
“Let’s get this on camera?” she murmurs, jumping off the stool to start pulling at her gear. “Tell me all about what the rookies have to learn, but just”—she unzips her backpack and pulls out a fancy-ass camera that I can’t even begin to name—“hold on a minute while I set everything up.”
After placing my soda next to her tea, I move to where she’s hooked the camera onto the tripod. When she bends over to grab something else, my hand catches on her arm and I pull her back up.
“Holly.”
Blue eyes lift to meet my gaze. “Almost done. One sec.”
Her skin feels hot as fire beneath my palm, smooth as the finely worn rocks I used to skip back home in the small pond that sat on the edge of our family property. Let her go. I ignore reason, just for a moment, and sweep my thumb back and forth over her arm.
Holly Belliveaux Carter has always been my weakness.
I have no interest in speaking to her for the camera, for the public, but it’s the reason why she’s here in this hotel in the first place. Remember that—she chose to help you but not because she was all excited to do so. Or because she’s hoping to get back together with you. This is business, nothing more.
Releasing her, I step back and drag my thumb across my bottom lip. “What can I do to help?”
I’m not even sure she’s aware of glancing down at where I touched her, but then she’s smiling—as genuine as the fake smile she gave to the bartender—and pointing at her gear and instructing me on how to get it all set up.
Five minutes later, my ass is on the barstool again and she’s hovering by the camera, all professional, with her hair bundled on the top of her head and her shirt half-tucked into her pants. She looks a little tired, a little worn out, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that we can do this another day when she doesn’t look half-dead on her feet.
“You ready?” she asks.
No. “Yeah.”
“Perfect!” Flashing me another of those bright-but-not-real smiles, she steps away from the camera to watch me with her hips squared off and her hands by her sides. “Okay, we’re going to jump right in. I’ll edit out all the extras, so let’s ignore the camera—”
“Hard to do that with all that light shining on me.” I slip my fingers through my hair, all too aware that the strands feel flat now that I’ve discarded my hat.
“Just think of it like . . .” Holly’s fingers tap on her thigh. “Ah, I got it. Just think of it like God’s coming down to judge you for all your sins.”
I bark out a laugh. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“I’m rarely in the hot seat, but I figure that if I were, it’d be a bit like confession.” Her voice drops to a playful cadence. “Tell me all of the things, Captain Carter.”
If it were only her I was telling, I’d be a hell of a lot more tempted to open my pie-hole and do some confessing. As it is, I palm a fist over my thigh and then dip my head in acquiescence. “I’ve only been to confession once in my life.”
“Have you? I don’t think I’ve heard this story before.”
She moves into the light, a bright halo surrounding the crown of her head and casting her features in shadows. But I can practically hear her smile—and, this time, I know without doubt that it’s real. Wanting to keep the ease of the conversation going, a first for us in so long, I drag the heel of my palms down the length of my thighs. “And”—I draw in a deep, dramatic breath—“I lied.”
“What?”
I nod sagely. “Crazy, right? I went willingly into confession because my momma demanded it of me. We were one of the only Catholic families in Zachsville, so it’s not like I had much of a choice in the matter.”
“How old were you?”
Scrubbing the day-old scruff on my jawline, I make a show of thinking real hard. “Twelve? Maybe thirteen?”
There’s a small hesitation, and then she murmurs, “And you lied?”
“Oh yeah. See, it was Christmas time, and my dad asked me if I’d help with getting the lights for the tree out of the attic. I said yes—he bribed me with the lure of pizza—and all I had to do was stand at the bottom of the ladder as he slid me down a box to catch.”
Holly steps forward, arms over her chest, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’m already scared on your behalf.”
“You should be, swee—” I break off, clearing my throat, hand moving from my jaw to ease against my mouth. Shut up, man, don’t even go there. I reach blindly behind me, my fingers grasping the cup she abandoned, and I suck down what’s left of the tea. I hate tea to the core of my soul, but God knows it’s better to pretend that I’m afflicted by a random bout of coughing than to confess that I almost called her sweetheart.
Some habits are impossible to break.
“Anyway,” I continue, the cup clasped between my hands, “there I am, ready to catch this box that my dad says will have everything we need—and then it rips in half as he’s lowering it down the ladder toward me.”
She barely covers up a shocked burst of laughter. “Please tell me you didn’t get hurt.”
Warmth spreads in my chest that she would be concerned in the first place, and then I’m shoving it away to keep on with the story. “Depends on the way you look at it,” I murmur with an easy roll of my shoulders. “All I remember is my dad shouting, “oh, hell,” and then the next minute it was raining down old-fashioned glass Christmas lights and Playboy magazines.”
I watch as her blue eyes go wide and her cheeks, even with the glare of the lights we’ve set, turn pink. She’s biting down so hard on her lower lip that I’m surprised she doesn’t draw blood. “Jackson,” she manages to work out in between gusts of laughter, “oh, my God.”
“Trust me,” I mutter, enjoying her joy way too much for my own good, “God wouldn’t have wanted any part of that scene. I don’t know which one of us was more embarrassed—my dad as he stared down at me hopping around, trying to avoid shattered glass and old-as-fuck magazines, or me, when I realized that everywhere I looked were breasts.”
“Looks like Santa came early that year.”
Laughter climbs my throat at her blasé tone, and it takes everything in my power to maintain a straight face. Thumb sweeping across my bottom lip, I feel my lips curve into the first real smile I’ve had in months—despite the light hitting me square in the face and turning my vision splotchy.
I couldn’t look away from Holly if I tried.
“My dad was horrified, naturally, and I was a preteen with sudden access to all these naked women on the pages.”
“You didn’t.”
I lift my arms wide, palms up, tea cup clasped in my right hand. “I did.”
“It gets worse,” I offer happily.
She shakes her head. “Of course it does.”
“I don’t know how many times I jerked off to those magazines. My dad even had the very first issue, and let’s be honest, it would have been a crime not to take advantage of what Santa had given to me as an early present.” I pause, waiting for her to hurry me along, and when she does, I drawl, “Only, my mother caught me one night.”
“Poor Momma Martha,” Holly whispers, a smile barely contained on her face. “I can only imagine how loud she must have shrieked.”
“The neighbors called the cops.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t drop dead of a heart attack right then and there.”
“Oh, she tried, trust me, but nothing a little cold water couldn’t remedy.”
When I wink, Holly only presses her fingers to her lips again to hold back another laugh. “You’re awful.”
And it feels so damn good to be laughing with you again.
“Guilty as charged.” Setting the teacup down, I lean back, elbows on either side of me on the bar. “When she asked where the magazine came from, I wouldn’t answer. Didn’t want to do that to Pops, y’know, even if he had just been deployed, halfway across the world, for his tour of duty. The very next day, she dragged me straight to confession. Told me in that proper Texan drawl of hers that I’d tell the priest exactly what I’d done.”
“So, you told him that you . . . that you . . .” She trails off, uncertainty crossing her face for the first time since she first sat down, and then huffs out, “masturbated” all prim and proper.
“Nah,” I say, “I turned my pops right in. Lied and told him that my dad handed me that Playboy and said, ‘now’s your turn to learn how to be a man.’ The priest laughed, told me to recite some Hail Mary’s for as many times as I’d jerked off, and then sent me on my way.”
“Your mother must have been ready to kill you and your dad.”
“She still doesn’t know.” I let out a low chuckle. “The priest never told her, and I didn’t want her getting mad, so I kept it all to myself . . . until now.”
Our easy back-and-forth slips into a small silence, and then Holly murmurs, “I’m not even sure if I want to know this . . . but how many Hail Mary’s did you have to say?”
I grin, and I know it’s a wicked one just based on the way Holly’s eyes go wide. “I wasn’t done until Lent was over.”
It’s an exaggeration by far but it has the result I want.
Holly’s blond head tips back as peals of laughter strip from her soul and dance in the space between us. “You’re so bad,” she whispers, flicking a tear away from the corner of her eye, “so, so bad.”
Familiar heat settles low in my gut as I climb to my feet, and I catch myself just before I would have swooped in and wrapped my arms around her, binding her to me.
She told you not to cross boundaries.
I want to reject that voice of reason. I want to press my lips to hers and claim her the way I did for all those years that we were married.
But we aren’t married, not anymore.
The reality of our situation crashes down on me like tons—literal tons—being heaped on my shoulders. The reality of our situation is that we tried to meet in the middle and failed. The reality of our situation is that she deserves more than a man who prioritized hockey over everything else in his life.
Funny how, when it comes to hockey, I’m the force no one wants to reckon with, but with my own wife, I broke the second she looked at me from across the table at our favorite restaurant and said, “We need to talk.”
Fact is, I’m that pathetic sack of shit who let Holly slip through my fingers. She didn’t leap for joy when I mentioned divorce, but she sure as hell didn’t deny that maybe it was for the best, that maybe we’d simply grown apart.
You can’t “grow apart” from somebody when they’ve got your heart in a vice. At least, that’s how it’s always felt for me, even now.
I rake my fingers through my hair, turning my body slightly, so that the glare of the light isn’t shining directly on my face and in my eyes.
“Oh, crap.”
My gaze leaps to her heart-shaped face. “What?”
She edges past me to reach for the camera, then flashes me a sheepish grin. “Accidentally got all that on camera. I totally forgot that we were filming once you got into your story.”
Well, damn.
She presses a button, bottom lip sucked behind her front teeth, and then pumps a fist in the air. “All right, we’re good.”
“We are?” And damn me if my brain doesn’t automatically transcribe her words to mean that we’re good, as in us, our relationship, what little we have of it left.
“Yep!” She grins, then reaches up to tug on her ponytail. “You, Captain, have been deleted from my memory card.”
Deleted.
So fucking final—how incredibly ironic.
I force a grin to match the one she’s sporting. “Thanks for looking out.”
“Pshhh.” Winking at me, she begins to disassemble her setup. “I did it for Momma Martha, Jackson. Can you imagine if she saw all that on TV next week with the season’s pilot episode? She’d have a conniption. We’ll get a more . . . professional interview another day.”
If my mom witnessed that confession on TV, she’d fly to Boston, thwack me with her slipper, and then drag my ass back to Texas, kicking and screaming the whole way. If there is any luck in the world, she’d bring her best friend Honey, and Honey would at least laugh about it with me on the flight—even while my dear mother prayed for my soul.
Holly bends over, tucking the camera back into her backpack, flashing me her round ass—and I cut my gaze to the ceiling.
Don’t look. She’s not yours. Don’t you dare—
I look, like a starved man who’s been hooked on the same diet for over a decade.
A diet that I’ve refused to give up even though my sex life with Holly dried up years ago.
Before I’m aware of speaking, I hear the rasp in my voice when I say, “Can I ask you something?”
Still bent over, still testing the limits of my control, Holly glances back at me, her ponytail swinging down to point at the floor. “Sure?”
I clear my throat. Swipe my clammy hands against my sweats. “You were done for the evenin’ and you still came over to me. Why?”
She drops to her haunches, knees cracking the way they’ve always done after an early career in gymnastics and dance, before meeting my gaze head-on.
Hell, her eyes are so blue. It seems incredible that it feels like I’m seeing them now for the very first time, noting their exact hue: a dark navy rim, a brighter, more cerulean center. My dick stiffens in my pants, and I ignore the bastard like he’s a traitor on the verge of mutiny.
“Holls?”
She doesn’t smile this time, as sober as I’ve quite literally been for almost a year, and then tears my heart in two with only four words: “You looked so alone.”
13
Holly
“Who made the jalapeño poppers?”
At Carmen’s question, I lift my glass of merlot in salutation. “You’re looking at her,” I say with a grin, plucking one off the tray on the table before us. Cheesy goodness oozes from the hot pepper (sans seeds, of course), and with a toast to Carmen, I pop it into my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut in culinary bliss. “Oh, man, perfect amount of cream—”
“You think that’s her O face?” Shelby, my assistant, asks the room.
My eyes fly open. “Shelby.”
She blinks back at me. “What? Like we weren’t all already thinking it with you moaning like that over there.”
By we, she means all ten staffers of Carter Photography. In honor of Getting Pucked’s two-hour season premiere tonight, I decided to host a watch-party in our
office. And I’ve brought all of the necessary supplies to keep us entertained: appetizers, pizza, wine and beer, dessert.
And, apparently, the O face.
Cue: instant mortification.
In my defense, I’m a total foodie. I’d eat my way through a city if given the opportunity. If it weren’t for finding my calling with photography, I’d have dug straight into the cooking world.
Cooking—not baking—feeds my soul. Literally.
Downing a gulp of wine, I mutter, “How about we act like we’re professionals? No talking about orgasms.”
Shelby trades a glance with Carmen. “We’re off the clock, which means that orgasms can be on the table.”
God, not this conversation again. Since my divorce, Shelby has made it her mission—in between auditions for whatever latest show she wants a role in—to get me a man. A new man. Really, any man that isn’t Jackson Carter. The fact that I’m not interested in dating? Not a problem, the way she sees it. In her mind, I’m sure, I’m just ready to be plucked up by the next eligible Boston bachelor.
I glance up at the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, wishing that the show would start so I can avoid this conversation once again. When the commercial cuts to yet another commercial, I accept temporary defeat with another pull of my wine. “I don’t think Adam wants to listen to us talk about orgasms.”
Naturally, my sound guy only offers a shrug that’s both bashful and ambivalent. “You could talk about whatever you wanted—I’m still riding on the high of my wife giving birth.”
“Perfect!” Shelby exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Orgasms it is!” She leans forward in her chair, then drops her elbows on the oak table that stretches nearly the length of the conference room. Brown hair hanging in wavy curls, she tucks the strands behind her ears and resumes her position.
God help me.
I nudge Carmen in the side. “More wine,” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth, handing her my glass. “Better yet, pass over the bottle instead.”