End Game

by Samantha Wayland

  Too bad every word coming out his mouth tonight was making her want to spit nails.

  “Then Savage hit that guy so hard, I thought for sure he’d go down. Did you see that? Man, my teeth hurt just watching it. I didn’t know Rhian had it in him. He’s living up to his last name.”

  Savannah grunted. An undignified response, but the best she could manage.

  “Aren’t you friends with him from up north somewhere? I thought you two came from the same team or something.”

  “Yes, we were both with the Moncton Ice Cats before coming to Boston,” she said calmly through her gritted teeth.

  “Cool. He’s a good guy. Hell of a fighter. Hope to see him again next year.”

  It was good news that Rhian, who she had brought to the attention of the Bruin’s scouts, was winning over teammates and management alike. For that reason, if no other, she kept a smile plastered on her face and shut up.

  No one else needed to know she was going to hunt him down and rip him a new one as soon as she had a chance.

  Craig kept chatting away, as if the blood pouring down his face and into his eye was of little consequence, and Savannah kept working, her jaw locked and her smile in place. A few minutes ago, she’d sent Rhian back to the team doctor, not liking the way his eyes responded to her flashlight or that his jaw didn’t seem to be working properly. The other guy was in worse shape, but he’d landed some solid punches to Rhian’s lovely face before the officials had jumped in.

  In over a year of watching Rhian play professional hockey, she’d never seen him start a fight like that. What the fuck was the matter with him?

  She still had no idea, and neither did Garrick. She’d seen Rhian a few times since her call with Garrick last week. The first time she cornered him, he’d barely listened to her lecture about his responsibility to the team and himself. She’d made her points, but before she could bring up the personal shit, Rhian had called out to several of his teammates, garnering them an audience and effectively shutting her down.

  Through all of it, he hadn’t made eye contact with her once. She’d sworn in a furious whisper, as the others approached, that if he went out on the ice again without seeing her, she’d blow the whistle. That part, at least, he must have heard. He’d dutifully shown up at the required times and places, always with at least two other players with him.

  The rest of the time, he was a fucking ghost. She’d looked for him on the flight, the bus to the hotel, even knocked on his hotel room door—at huge personal risk, as that would be viewed as pretty fucking inappropriate in the eyes of management. The jerk hadn’t answered, leaving her out in the hallway, banging on his door like a stood-up date.

  If anyone from the team had seen her, she might have kicked the damn door down and beat him over the head with it. She wasn’t usually given to violence, but for Rhian, she was willing to make an exception.

  And as if being ignored, avoided and dismissed weren’t bad enough, her calls with Garrick were the absolute worst. Each time she had nothing to report, Garrick got more distraught. And she got more steamed.

  She’d gone way the hell out on a fucking limb and not just accepted, but actually supported her boyfriend having a boyfriend, and the stupid fucker was throwing it all away without so much as a goodbye, let alone an explanation?

  Well, fuck him. She and Garrick deserved answers. If she had to spend her entire post-season week off running Rhian to ground, she’d damn well do it.

  Too late, she realized Craig had stopped speaking and was staring up at her as she applied a butterfly bandage to his head with rather more force than necessary.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, gentling her hands and wiping his face clean to see if she’d missed anything. His eye was going to blacken, but that was nothing new.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Craig said kindly. “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she lied.

  This season couldn’t be over soon enough. Two days. She’d hoped the B’s would make it into the post-season, but given the extraordinary number of injuries they’d suffered in the first half of the season, it wasn’t a surprise they weren’t a part of the play-offs this year. And secretly, she was relieved. She had a busy summer ahead, with her first full season with the Bruins to plan.

  The last thing she should be doing was chasing her boyfriend’s erstwhile lover around the city of Boston. But she would.

  For Garrick.

  And because her pride damn well demanded it.

  Chapter Six

  Rhian sat on the hard couch in his cold apartment and stared at the truly hideous seascape painting on the wall. He’d been here a couple months now and it still struck him as the worst painting he’d ever seen. But then, why should he care?

  This wasn’t home. Such a place didn’t exist.

  He ran a finger over the rough, vaguely plastic, industrial-strength upholstery beneath him. The indestructible carpet was cool and unwelcoming against his bare feet. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the heater, though its persistent rattle normally blocked out some of the sounds from the rooms around his.

  No amount of air circulation would rid his apartment of the smells. Cleaning agents barely disguised the stench of mold most days, but today all he could smell was an endless, delicious waft of curry emanating from the apartment across the hall. It smelled fantastic.

  His stomach agreed, protesting loudly.

  He ignored it. Couldn’t eat. He’d tried to choke down breakfast before going to the arena and playing the last game of the season, probably his last game ever for the Boston Bruins. It hadn’t gone well.

  He frowned at his cell phone on the coffee table. He should probably turn it on in case Sergio called with news. His agent was talking to the B’s about keeping Rhian on, while reaching out to others teams about picking him up. Rhian didn’t care where he landed. It didn’t matter.

  It had, for a while. For the week after Garrick’s visit, he’d believed there might be a reason to want to stay in one place. In Boston. But he’d let that go. And he wasn’t going to give anyone a chance to change his mind.

  It would be so easy to change his damn mind.

  His laptop sat on the bar separating the tiny kitchenette from the rest of the room, shut off for days. He couldn’t stand the chime of another incoming Skype call any more than he could tolerate seeing Garrick’s number on his caller ID.

  He wasn’t trying to punish Garrick. But he refused to drag Garrick through the shit his life consistently fell into. He was toxic. He couldn’t bear to put that stain on Garrick, too.

  Rhian had no home. No team. No idea where he’d be next month. Next week. He had nothing to offer anyone and wouldn’t sponge off the happiness and generosity of others, no matter how genuinely they seemed to offer. He’d been here before and learned. Survived. He had focused on the game, his career, and attained the kind of financial and personal security he’d craved his entire life. Finally.

  What he hadn’t realized was that to make it work, he needed something he’d always taken for granted.

  His health.

  He blinked hard, trying to push them back, but the tears fell anyway. He didn’t bother to brush them away. He could recall, quite vividly, the last time he’d cried, over a decade ago. His foster “father” at the time hadn’t believed that was appropriate behavior for a teenage boy. Rhian hadn’t made the mistake again.

  This was different than those pitiful tears over some middle school slight. It felt like a truck was parked on his chest and he fought to breathe through it, his chest heaving to release the sobs he fought like hell to contain.

  He wasn’t going to lose his shit.

  Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he could make it true.

  He cursed Garrick for changing him, thought he knew that wasn’t fair. He’d always been weak this way, incapable of shutting off his emotions. He should have known being with someone like Garrick, who made him feel and want so damn much, was a huge mistake.

&nbs
p; Now he wasn’t just alone. He was lonely.

  The tears came faster.

  He wanted to rage, to punch the wall and howl his frustrations, but a strong self-preservation instinct held him in check. A certain Miami forward had already done enough damage, and Mother Nature seemed determined to do the rest.

  He flinched when someone pounded on his door.

  Whoever it was meant business. They didn’t bother to knock, skipping directly to a slamming fist.

  What if it was Garrick?

  His heart lurched and he muffled his racking breaths, holding on to the couch like an anchor in rough seas.

  It couldn’t be Garrick. He was in New Brunswick.

  “Rhian Savage, open this goddamn door before I kick it in!”

  His mouth fell open and for the first time in hours, grief took a backseat to another emotion. Shock.

  “Rhian! I mean it! Let me in, goddamn it!”

  The door knob jiggled. Then it sounded like Savannah Morrison was, indeed, kicking the door.

  Rhian stood.

  “Lady, you need to leave.” Rhian recognized the hotel manager’s distinct three-pack-a-day voice and hoped that Savannah would give up.

  “I’m not leaving until I see Rhian.” She struck his door again, making it shudder. Had she hurled her entire body against it?

  “I’m calling the cops!” the manager bellowed.

  This didn’t slow Savannah’s assault on his door in the slightest.

  Rhian waivered.

  He imagined Savannah explaining her behavior to the cops. The Bruins. Crap. She’d worked as hard as Rhian had to get where she was—the only female athletic trainer in the NHL.

  Rhian yanked his door open.

  Savannah stood directly in front of him, fist raised, her face twisted in a furious scowl. Funny how that didn’t make her any less beautiful.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Rhian asked.

  Savannah’s jaw dropped and too late it occurred to Rhian he must look like hell. Covered in bruises, his eyes scratchy and swollen, cheeks wet.

  Way to make a spectacle of yourself, Savage.

  With an apologetic smile for the manager and his neighbors, he hauled Savannah into his room and slammed the door behind her.

  “Are you out of your damn mind?” he snapped.

  She stood her ground, her nose just inches from his. “You have the nerve to ask me that question?”

  She planted her hands on her hips and he noticed she still wore her game clothes. Her tight ponytail and black yoga pants were a futile attempt to disguise her long legs and innate beauty. Total fail, Savannah, I still see you.

  He dragged his eyes back to her fierce green gaze. “I’m not the one beating down doors. What the hell do you want?” He hated how high his voice had become, betraying his emotions. Now, of all times, he needed to be a goddamn hard-ass.

  She’d obviously come to deliver an epic tongue lashing and Rhian prepared to forcefully eject her from his apartment. Her eyes searched his face and the blaze of fury faded.

  He felt as if she looked right through him. Saw it all.

  “Good god, Rhian, what the fuck have you done to yourself?”

  Rhian’s shoulders sagged. Savannah grabbed his arm before he could storm away or shove her back out into the hallway.

  She’d made it through the door on a full head of steam and a mountain of outrage, intending to beat the truth out of him. Now, instead of the asshole she’d put up with for the past few weeks, she was faced with this quiet mess. It dug at her heart.

  Goddamn it. She could never stay mad when men cried. Six goddamn brothers and any one of them could reduce her to a puddle of goo with a single tear.

  A hint of ire resurged. She was going to have to revise her beat-it-out-of-him strategy, damn it. She didn’t want to let go of the towering and entirely righteous anger that had fueled her trip across the city and delivered her to his door. For Christ’s sake, this guy was breaking her boyfriend’s damn heart. Why should she be nice?

  Because I’m a sucker, that’s why. Tear tracks stained his cheeks, his not-already-blackened eye red and puffy. Some evil part of her took comfort that even someone as gorgeous as Rhian Savage looked like shit when he cried.

  The question remained, though, why was he crying? Something told her this wasn’t about a break-up that he’d instigated in the first place.

  “What’s going on, Rhian?”

  His jaw worked side to side and he focused on something over her shoulder. “Please go.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t want to deal with this. With me.”

  He was right. She almost nodded, but stopped herself. There was something about the way he said with me.

  “I’m not leaving. Not until you tell me what’s going on. And, while you’re at it, you can explain why you’ve hurt Garrick.”

  He swallowed hard and screwed his eyes shut. A tear squeezed out of the corner of one eye and she fought the urge to wipe it away. Not her job. It killed her to watch it track down his cheek. She wanted to screech at him to tell her the truth so she could fix it. And leave.

  She took some deep breaths.

  “Look at me,” she demanded.

  He did, his dark blue eyes swimming. Her heart lurched, and empathy kicked into overdrive.

  Sucker.

  He waivered on his feet and she caught his arm.

  “Come on, you idiot. Let’s sit down.”

  He grunted at the insult, but let her tow him to his couch.

  She took in the room for the first time and grimaced. Freezing, dark, and butt-ugly. What a lovely combination.

  She dropped her bag on the floor and nudged him onto the couch. “Sit. Stay.”

  One brow popped up at her imperious tone, but he did as she asked. Had it been one of her brothers, they would have panted like a dog and offered her a paw.

  At least Rhian didn’t look like he was going to cry anymore.

  She turned on a lamp, dialed up the heat, and sat on the coffee table in front of him, her knees tucked between his. He was a damn mess. His blond curls stuck up in all directions. Face blotchy. Silent, sullen. Depressed.

  A little of the anger seeped back in.

  How in the name of all that is holy has it become my job to fix this shit?

  Then she pictured Garrick’s face each time he’d admitted he hadn’t heard a word.

  Fucked up as it was, they both needed to know if this thing with Rhian was over and this jerk was going to break Garrick’s heart.

  The growing silence was interrupted by a loud and fairly rude noise from Rhian’s stomach.

  She gave him an exasperated look. “When was the last time you ate?”

  He shrugged. “Not hungry.”

  Of course not. She rolled her eyes.

  She had no desire to stay here any longer than necessary, but it was late and he hadn’t told her jack shit yet, so it wasn’t like she was going anywhere.

  “Well, I am,” she said. “I haven’t eaten since before the game. Do you have any food?”

  He shook his head.

  Comfort food was clearly in order. If he didn’t need it, she did. “Chinese okay?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  She frowned. “You going to shake yourself out of your funk long enough to pick something, or should I guess?”

  “Steamed chicken and vegetables, please.”

  She smirked. “And men complain about women ordering salads.”

  His brows drew down and he looked completely confused.

  She almost laughed. Duh, Savannah, he’s gay. He doesn’t take girls on dates. “It’s the end of the season. Why don’t you splurge a little?”

  The ghost of a smile passed over his lips. “Only if you promise not to tell my trainer. She’s a real hard ass.”

  She smiled a genuine smile. It hardly hurt at all. “I promise your hard-ass trainer won’t give you any shit about this.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, I’ll have egg rolls, G
eneral Tso’s chicken, pork fried rice and extra fortune cookies, please.”

  She chuckled. “Coming right up.”

  Once he listed all his favorite Chinese food dishes, Rhian felt like eating for the first time all day, despite knowing he’d feel like dog crap if he ate it all.

  He watched Savannah wander around his tiny apartment while she ordered them dinner. Bizarre didn’t begin to describe it. He considered trying to boot her out, but had no illusions that she would go willingly. He didn’t need or want another scene in the hallway.

  So what the hell was he supposed to do with her?

  She wanted explanations he wasn’t interested in giving. Maybe she and Garrick should have taken the hint about that when he’d been ignoring them.

  Savannah tossed her cell phone on the counter, opened the fridge and bent to check its contents.

  Geez, make yourself right at home.

  She stood and reached for the freezer door.

  Rhian nearly shot out of his seat. There was no way in hell she could miss the butt plug Garrick had left in there. That and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s were the sum total of the freezer’s contents.

  Holy hell, this was awkward. Never in his life had there been something more awkward than this. He had the hysterical urge to laugh.

  Man, this was ridiculous.

  Savannah shut the freezer door and returned to the living room with two bottled waters and two beers. She sat on the coffee table and gave him a considering look.

  The desire to laugh fled. He slumped back into the couch.

  She pointed at him. “You have until the food arrives to explain what the hell is going on, then we’re going to eat. After that, we’ll see. Got it?”

  Still picturing the toy in the freezer, he nodded. Mute.

  Dinner with Savannah. Right.

  “Great.” She nodded, the logistics settled. Then she cocked her head. “Does it feel good? Frozen?”

  Rhian was sure he hadn’t turned this particular shade of red since leaving puberty happily behind. “Jesus.”

  “Is that a good Jesus or a bad Jesus?” she asked in a throaty, suggestive voice.

  “Guh—”