Deep Check (Station Seventeen)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “What about when Asher died in that house fire? You and Finn didn’t even talk then?” Disbelief colored Kennedy’s voice, her forehead creasing to match, but the answer to this one was sadly just as straightforward as the rest.

  “Nope. He came back to Remington for the funeral, but he avoided me like a virus outbreak and left directly afterward.”

  Leaning a jeans-clad hip against the counter, Kennedy sent a furtive glance toward Station Seventeen’s usual pair of tables, her expression growing thoughtful. “So now he’s just back out of the blue?”

  “For a few days, I guess,” January said, turning to grab a double order of nachos from the kitchen pass and get on with her night, once and for all. “But I’m sure he’ll blaze a fast path out of town as soon as he’s able. He’s pretty good at leaving.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a lot of history, though. You’re sure you don’t want to air things out with him before he goes?”

  The question alone took January by surprise. The “no” burning in her mouth, just begging to be said in reply?

  Shocked her enough to make her hands shake.

  Don’t be stupid, she chided, squaring her shoulders beneath the dark blue cotton of her tank top. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  She might’ve had feelings for Finn once, and God knew there had been moments—especially after Asher had died—when she’d have given damn near anything for the chance to talk to him again. But those moments were behind her. Finn was behind her.

  The best thing January could do now was to leave him there and keep moving on.

  Finn stared at the ceiling, trying like fuck to reconcile the irony of being surrounded by the priciest bed sheets in all of Remington and not being able to sleep so much as a wink. But between the gut-twisting thought of going to the cemetery later today and his unexpected run-in with January last night, being able to restfully close his eyes was a definite no-go.

  Especially since every time he’d tried, all he could see were the subtle yet sexy changes January had grown into over the last seven years. The flawless press of her ass against those jeans that surrendered to her curves in all the best places. The slide of her ponytail over one slim shoulder when she leaned in to place a drink on the bar. The way her heart-shaped lips gave way to a surprisingly throaty laugh every time one of her friends from Station Seventeen went over to say hello and grab another drink.

  Christ, those lips. How anything that looked so sweet could feel so sinful, Finn had no idea. But in seven goddamn years, he’d never been as turned on by a kiss as he’d been by January’s, so brash and yet so full of need. He’d wanted a month with her mouth alone, to coax filthy words past those pretty lips, to feel them wrapped around his cock as she did the same to him…

  Heat flared to life between his legs, making his dick stir beneath the thin material of his basketball shorts, but oh no. Hell no. He didn’t care how hot her laugh (or her mouth…or that sweet spot where her leg met the curve of her ass…or even that adorable little furrow that built between her eyebrows whenever she looked over a drink ticket) was.

  January wasn’t for him. She never had been, no matter how much he’d secretly wished otherwise. Which meant he needed to start thinking with his upstairs head and stop thinking about January’s ass.

  Damn, he was a terrible friend.

  Grating out a curse, Finn looked at the clock on his bedside table. He wasn’t a total stranger to four thirty a.m., what with his whole mantra of I-practice-while-everyone-else-sleeps. But he hadn’t scratched his way through the minors on his good looks, and he sure as shit hadn’t made the Rage on anything less than a mountain of ass-busting work.

  Reaching for the iPad he’d left next to the alarm clock, he tapped the screen to life, diving headfirst into game film. The highlights kept Finn mostly occupied until the sun made an appearance at the edges of the electronic blinds covering the windows of his suite, at which point he threw back the four-inch thick bed covers and headed for the shower. He’d come back to Remington to take the Cup to Asher’s grave, to finally make the amends that would let him move on for good. Waiting now seemed stupid.

  Or at least, it did until he got to Remington Cemetery, at which point waiting seemed like a spectacular fucking plan.

  Finn stared at the manicured grass and the neatly ordered headstones, unease forming a hard ball in his gut. He’d burned so much blood, sweat, and energy trying to get to this moment that he hadn’t really thought about what he’d say once he’d actually arrived. He did, however, know who he wasn’t going to say any of it in front of, so he knotted his arms over the center of his T-shirt and slid a glance at the roadside spot where Edwin stood next to him.

  “I’m going to need some privacy,” Finn said, unyielding, and to his surprise, the keeper nodded.

  “Right, right. I mean, as you know, I have to be able to see the Cup at all times, and of course I do prefer to be as close as possible to ensure its utmost safety, but…” He trailed off, pushing his thickly framed glasses higher on the bridge of his nose as he cleared his throat. “Since this is clearly a personal matter, I’ll just wait right over there on that bench. Would you, ah, like any help moving the Cup to a specific plot? It’s deceptively heavy, and—”

  “I’m good.” Finn hated cutting the guy off. Hell, he hated everything about his current situation. But he couldn’t have what he really wanted, and this was as close as he was going to get.

  This was the only way he could talk to his best friend.

  His muscles tightened and squeezed as he bent down and lifted the Cup from its case in the back of the SUV he’d broken down and had the car rental place drop off at the hotel so he could do his own driving. Hefting the thing to one hip, Finn walked a path toward Asher’s grave, his work boots shushing over the dew-damp grass and his pulse knocking faster with every step.

  Oh shit. He arrived at the tidily kept plot with his heart wedged in his throat. Forcing himself to focus, Finn looked down at the marker with Asher’s name, birth date, and the day he’d died inscribed in the stone, letting go of a shaky breath.

  “Hey, Ash.” He shifted his weight beneath the heft of the Cup, sweat forming between his shoulder blades even though the morning sunlight hadn’t yet jacked the temperature past the low seventies. “It’s me. Finn. I’m sure you’re, uh, probably surprised to see me here. And still a little pissed off, too.”

  He paused, the memory of the last words they’d ever spoken to each other spearing through his memory, and screw this. Finn had come here to make amends. He owed the guy this conversation, no matter how weird it felt that the talk was one-sided.

  “Listen, I know I acted like a jackass seven years ago. I didn’t mean for any of what happened to shake out the way it did. Which isn’t an excuse,” he said, because even though Asher had taken that first swing after he’d seen Finn and January kissing, Finn had swung back, and swung hard. “I just…I handled everything really badly. I didn’t see that at the time, but after you died, I realized what a total shit I’d been, only then it was too late.”

  He looked down, fighting the emotion welling in his chest. “Anyway, you always believed in me, and you were a good friend, even when I wasn’t. So I just came to say I’m sorry, and to, you know. Thank you for pushing me to never give up on my dreams. I know it doesn’t make what happened between us any better, but I brought you this.” Finn took a breath. Let it out along with three years’ worth of want and hard work. “I finally won the Cup, like you always said I would.”

  Quiet settled in around him, punctuated by the occasional chirp of a bird and the low, steady drone of a lawn mower somewhere in the distance. He tried like hell to rummage up something else to say, but the harder he tried, the more awkward it felt to be standing here, yap-yapping to himself.

  His stomach pitched, his shoulders beginning to ache from holding up thirty-five pounds of silver and nickel. He thought he’d feel closure—or at the very least, a budge in the heaviness that had been sitting so squ
arely on his shoulders ever since Asher had died. Somehow, though, this whole thing just felt clumsy and wrong, as if he’d managed to fuck things up even worse by coming here.

  Jesus, he’d been an idiot to return to Remington. Asher was gone. January hated him. Bringing the Cup to Asher’s grave wouldn’t change that. Nothing would.

  Finn turned on one heel with every intention of getting the hell out of this cemetery and the entire state of North Carolina. But a flash of bright yellow caught his eye from behind Asher’s gravestone, his feet carrying him closer before his brain even registered the command to move. For a second that might have been a minute or a week or a goddamn eternity for all Finn knew, he stared at the bundle of flowers that had fallen behind the heavy gray slab. The surrounding plots were unmarked, signaling their emptiness, but even if they hadn’t been, Finn would’ve known the flowers belonged to Asher.

  They were lilies. January’s favorite. Identical to the ones she’d placed on Asher’s casket right after the firefighters from Station Seventeen had lowered him into the ground.

  Finn’s palms went slick against the base of the Cup, and he knelt down to place it in the grass before reaching for the flowers, the paper crinkling as he scooped them up for a closer inspection. The blooms were double-wrapped in tissue paper for added protection, the stems stuck into those plastic tubes of water that made the flowers last longer, and Finn’s heart kicked hard against his ribs.

  No one else would take such care with a simple bunch of flowers. But January had, just as she’d taken the time to care about Finn in high school even though he’d been an epic fuck-up, and oh hell.

  Asher wasn’t the only person he owed an apology to.

  Placing the lilies carefully at the foot of the gravestone in front of him, Finn steadied both his hands and his resolve. Finding his feet, he lifted the Cup, and by the time he reached the SUV, his plan was one hundred percent solid.

  “Where to now?” Edwin asked, arriving at Finn’s side.

  “Actually, I’d like to take the Cup someplace a little unconventional.” At Edwin’s look of sheer panic, Finn added, “Don’t worry, I promise not to do anything crazy.”

  At least, he wouldn’t do anything crazy with the Cup. As for the rest of his plan?

  That had surpassed crazy before he’d even pushed up from the grass.

  Three

  January looked at the stacks of paperwork covering every last inch of her desk and wondered if it was too early to drink. But since the time stamp on her computer monitor read ten forty-six a.m. and the piles were only bound to get bigger as the day went on, drowning her sorrows (or in this case, her planning for the annual Remington Fire Department fundraiser) wasn’t really an option.

  Anyway, if she was going to raise a glass to try and forget something, it would be the sinful, sexy smile of a certain hockey player she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind for the last fourteen hours.

  Straight.

  “Oh, get to work,” January muttered, swiping an overstuffed folder off the tower of paperwork closest to her and propping it open. In a stroke of pure dumb luck, the thing held a week’s worth of incident reports that Captain Bridges, a.k.a. her boss and the man in charge of Station Seventeen’s entire A-shift, had just signed off on. Delivering the copies to Lieutenant Gamble on engine would take about thirty seconds, and more importantly, it would free up some exceedingly valuable real estate on her desk.

  Pushing out of her chair, January tucked the folder in the crook of her arm and headed down the corridor toward the bunk room and lieutenants’ offices, but the steady rhythm of her black patent leather heels clattered to a halt on the linoleum as she got halfway past the open entryway to the firehouse’s common room.

  And found herself staring at the most desired item in all of hockeydom.

  “Is that…?” January struggled to get a coherent thought past all the whaaaa? winging around in her gray matter. But truly, she was just as likely to breeze past a herd of purple spotted elephants as she was the freaking Cup. No way was she seeing properly.

  “Affirmative!” Kellan called out, waving her all the way past the threshold and into the crowded common room. “I know that filing system of yours keeps us all in line, but you’ve got to take a break to come see this. We have the Cup, right here in our firehouse! Isn’t it cool?”

  He flashed her a grin that spanned from ear to ear as he gestured to the spot where the Cup stood proudly on the dining table in the center of the room, surrounded by a throng of highly enthusiastic firefighters and paramedics and—good gravy, even Captain Bridges was standing beside the thing with a big ol’ smile on his face. Just as it occurred to January that Finn must certainly be somewhere in the horde of people, the piercing sound of the all-call sounded off on the overhead speakers, sending a hush over the room.

  “Engine Seventeen, Squad Six, Ambulance Twenty-Two, Battalion Seventeen, structure fire, forty-nine twelve Patterson Avenue, no reported entrapment. Requesting immediate response.”

  Instantly, the excitement vanished from the room, replaced by serious faces and clipped movements.

  “Alright, people. Let’s go.” Captain Bridges jerked his chin toward the set of double doors leading out to the engine bay. “January,” he said, his eyes landing on hers even though he was already in motion toward the exit. “Can you take care of our guests while we’re out on this call, please?”

  “Of course, Captain Bridges,” she said, her heart clenching the same way it did every single time the all-call went off. “Be safe.”

  “Copy that,” Bridges replied over his shoulder before disappearing briskly through the doors.

  January pulled in a breath, bracing herself to face the only person who could be left in the room. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who threw on jeans and a T-shirt every day, how come Finn had to be the freaking sexiest one in the batch?

  She didn’t even want to get started on what he’d look like throwing off those clothes. Corded shoulders. Hard, flat pecs. Muscle-packed abs leading down to lean hips leading even lower to—

  “That was a little intense,” he said, tilting his head in the firefighters’ wake, and the words brought January back to reality with a snap. Was she crazy? She’d promised Captain Bridges she’d be hospitable, not horny.

  She put on her most polite expression and paired it with a crisp nod, even though a twinge of residual heat still lingered between her legs. “Getting out the door on the fire calls always is. That’s what they’re trained for, though, and they’re very good at their jobs. They’ll be okay.” She had to believe that, because if she didn’t… “So what are you doing here, anyway?”

  One corner of Finn’s mouth lifted with the suggestion of a smile. “That’s the second time you’ve asked me that question in the last twenty-four hours, you know.”

  “This is the second time you’ve turned up in my path unexpectedly,” she pointed out, and his laughter in response rumbled a path up her spine.

  “Fair enough. Every player on the Cup-winning team gets to spend a day with it, and today’s my day. After hanging out with these guys last night, I thought maybe they’d get a kick out of me bringing the Cup here so they could see it up close.”

  Surprise mingled with something else January couldn’t quite pin with a name. “You didn’t want to stay in New Orleans with it?”

  “No, I…” Finn paused, but only for a breath before shaking his head. “No.”

  A throat cleared from behind her, and January whipped around, her pulse popping in her veins.

  “This is Edwin,” Finn said, gesturing to the bespectacled man belonging to the not-quite-subtle interruption. “He’s the keeper of the Cup. Here to make sure I don’t lose it in a poker game or let it get run over by a semi or stolen by a band of bitter Spartans fans. That sort of thing.”

  Her lips parted. “People have tried to bet the Cup in poker games?”

  Edwin answered before Finn could. “No. Of course not. Well, not since I’v
e been the keeper, anyway. The Cup’s safety and integrity is my utmost priority.”

  “I see.” January shifted the folder she’d forgotten she was holding to the crook of her left arm in order to offer Edwin a handshake. “I’m January Sinclair, and I run the administrative side of the firehouse. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” he said, although his stiff nod didn’t quite match the sentiment.

  Annnnd cue her exit. “Well, you’re both welcome to make yourselves at home here in the common room while you wait for the firefighters and paramedics to get back. There’s fresh coffee, and we’ve got a handful of photo albums on the bookshelf here of some of our more memorable calls. If I catch an ETA over the radio, I’ll be sure to update you.”

  But rather than stepping back to let her pass, Finn moved closer. “What about a tour?”

  Surprise pushed her brows all the way up. “You want to haul the Cup on a tour of the firehouse?”

  “No. I mean, not exactly. I’d like a tour of the firehouse, but Edwin can keep an eye on the Cup in here.”

  “Let me get this straight,” she said slowly. “You’ve got the Cup for one day and one day only, and you want to leave it here in the common room while I take you on a look-see through the station?”

  Edwin mirrored the doubtful frown January had worked up for the occasion, but Finn met both expressions with an unfaltering nod.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Why?”

  Finn’s whiskey-brown eyes flickered with emotion for a split second before he turned to look at Edwin in a clear bid for privacy. The other man scowled slightly, although he obliged with a muttered, “Fine. I’ll just do a bit of reading, then,” taking one of the house scrapbooks off the bookshelf and moving across the room.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Finn said, “I want a tour because I didn’t just come here to see the firefighters and paramedics. I came here to see you. I was hoping we could talk.”