Mary’s hand patted his shoulder. “You mean you’re bi, dear.”
Kieran’s shoulders convulsed and milk shot out his nose.
Duncan dropped his fork onto his plate with a clatter. “Ma!”
“What?” Mary asked innocently. “That’s what it’s called.”
Rhian was now, without a doubt, beet-fucking-red.
Not that anyone would notice. Most of the brothers had their heads in their hands or down on the table, having dissolved into hysterics. Kieran coughed, repeatedly, trying to clear his sinus cavity while his husband pounded on his back and roared with laughter.
Savannah’s father slammed his fist on the table so hard their dishes jumped. “Enough! You’re embarrassing our guest.” Rhian could tell he was trying to look stern, but it was obvious how hard he fought not to laugh.
Rhian tried to smile gratefully, but it ended up more like a wince and a grimace. Swallowing, he smiled weakly at Savannah. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you thought that until…well, until recently. I thought you knew. I mean, hell, I asked you out once, or did you forget?”
She didn’t look as pissed off. That had to be some kind of miracle.
“Of course I remember, but when I heard about you and Gahhhh…” She barely stopped herself in time. She swallowed. “When I found out you were gay, I figured you were just looking for me to be your beard.”
Rhian shook his head. “I’ll ask you all to keep this to yourselves,” he said, raising his voice enough to be heard over the lingering chuckles. Everyone nodded immediately. “But it’s cool. I wouldn’t fabricate some elaborate lie just to fool people.”
In the span of one breath, everyone went dead silent.
Savannah’s eyes bulged, and Rhian was pretty sure she mouthed oh shit. Her gaze flickered between him and Callum. As did everyone else’s. Rhian’s stomach plummeted to his feet.
What have I done?
Thirty seconds too late, he pictured countless photographs of Callum and celebrity model Michaela Price. They’d been dating for years, and the media speculated constantly on when they would marry.
But she wasn’t here. And Callum hadn’t mentioned her once.
Rhian tried to stand. Lachlan’s hand clamped on his arm and kept him where he was.
God, he was an idiot. Why didn’t he keep his mouth shut? He didn’t know how to be with these people. Now he’d insulted one of them. A man he’d admired for years and whose kindness he’d cherished.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why wouldn’t Lachlan let him leave?
The excruciating silence stretched.
Savannah bit her lip and looked at him with such pity, he wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Then she narrowed her eyes. “I cannot believe you let me walk around in my underwear in front of you!”
As distractions went, she’d picked a winner. The room exploded, half the men leaping to their feet, everyone shouting their outrage. Brothers, father, brother-in-law all skewered him with death-ray glares.
Rhian had never in his life been so fucking happy to be thrown to the wolves.
He just wished Callum would do something other than sit in his chair, silent.
Rhian laughed when Bruce leaped to his defense only when someone threatened parts of Rhian’s body Bruce considered necessary to play hockey. The list of sacred parts was a lot shorter than Rhian liked. There was one in particular that seemed to be under constant threat that he’d really like to keep.
God help the man who ever truly hurt Savannah. Her family would squash that son of a bitch like a bug.
With my help.
But then again, Savannah could take care of herself. She grinned at him, one eyebrow lifted, while her brothers devolved into ever-more creative insults and threats.
Rhian would apologize to her again, in private. In the meantime, she’d had her revenge.
He smiled at her. She winked back.
His stupid heart did a flip.
Chapter Sixteen
After helping clear up breakfast, Savannah and Rhian took a short jog around town. Savannah had needed to get out of the house, particularly after that breakfast. She kept their route to three miles in deference to his healing body. He swore he no longer felt any effects, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
As they ran out of the village and into a quieter neighborhood, he apologized for misleading her about his sexuality. She was glad he couldn’t see her face. She didn’t need him to know how much turmoil his revelation had caused her. She assured him she wasn’t angry and did some apologizing of her own. No one in the family talked about Callum’s choices, or of his sexuality, by Callum’s request. She wished now she’d broken that rule.
They returned to the house and Rhian jumped in the shower. She paced her room, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, and waited for her turn in the bathroom. She’d just brushed out her hair when Rhian appeared in her mirror, a towel slung low across his hips.
She tried not to stare at all that bare, damp skin. Really. But then she caught him peeking beneath the knotted cotton at his waist.
She smiled uncertainly. “Everything okay under there?”
Red spots appeared on his cheeks. “Um, yeah. Just a rather disconcerting bruise.”
She considered asking if he wanted her to take a look. Bad idea, Savannah. Not because she didn’t want to. Nooo, that wasn’t the issue at all.
“Do you want to call the doctor?” she asked.
“No. I’m okay. They told me it would happen. It’s just…”
“Weird?”
One side of his mouth curled up. “Yeah.”
Nodding, she spared him any further embarrassment and ducked into the bathroom.
Standing under the cool spray, she closed her eyes and tried to still her mind. Instead, her traitorous brain conjured the image of Rhian standing in her girly room wearing only a towel. It was amazing the cold water didn’t sizzle when it hit her skin.
What was the matter with her? She’d seen him in less on her table in the trainer’s office. She examined barely dressed men all the damn time. It was her damn job.
But this was Rhian.
And he was bi.
Which, she scolded herself soundly, changes nothing.
She lingered in the shower, trying to get her head screwed on straight. Rhian would be all right with her family for a while without her. It was hard not to hover when he could look so lost in all the noise and activity.
Then she recalled the fiasco at breakfast this morning. She shut off the shower, bolted for her room, and threw on some clothes.
She found Rhian in the corner of the kitchen with Callum and Duncan. She used the excuse of helping her mom put away groceries and get things organized for lunch so she could listen to her brothers give Rhian a frank run down of how it really worked in the NHL. They didn’t spare him anything, telling him everything they’d wished someone had told them. She worried they’d scare him with tales of politics and crazy fans, but he sat and listened carefully. Always so serious when it came to hockey.
Eventually, Duncan wandered off and Rhian and Callum were left alone. She was prepared to plunk her butt down and make sure her stubborn and often abrasive brother didn’t make Rhian feel any worse than he already did. Rhian shook his head gently when she caught his eye. She hesitated, then turned away to give them privacy. She barely overheard Rhian’s murmured apology. Callum’s admission that the problem was his, not Rhian’s, broke her heart.
Rhian’s sincere offer to help Callum any way he could, without a hint of judgment or criticism, made her want to kiss him.
Which changes nothing.
She threw herself into organizing the pantry. Her mother came into the kitchen and watched her, eyebrows raised. Savannah ignored her. She could organize the damn pantry if she wanted to.
Callum excused himself and Kieran and Chance wandered in a few minutes later. They sat with Rhian and offered to help him find a place to live in Boston when he got his co
ntract from the Bruins. She loved their confidence that Rhian would be staying and was grateful for their suggestions, even if the idea of Rhian getting his own apartment irked her. She wanted to blame the potentially shitty logistics for her annoyance, but then she pictured Grace’s happy smile the other night.
Which changes nothing!
She started cleaning the oven. Her mother leaned one hip against the counter, folded her arms across her chest and stared at her like she had two heads.
Next up was Murdoch—Doc to everyone but their mother. He slapped a hand on Rhian’s back and asked if he wanted to talk in their father’s office.
Rhian looked at her. “Do you want to come with us?”
It didn’t matter if she did or didn’t. He obviously wanted her to, and that made her happy, for some damn reason.
Leaving the oven cleaner than it had been in twenty years, Savannah peeled off her rubber gloves and held out a hand to Rhian. He took it and she led the way down the hall.
Rhian took the big chair her father liked to read in and she perched on the arm, holding Rhian’s hand while Doc answered every single question Rhian had about testicular lumps and cancers. Savannah learned all she could, only leaving when her father called her name. A few minutes later, Doc slipped out of the office without Rhian and she went to check on him.
Her heart hurt at his feeble attempt at a smile.
“You okay?”
He rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. She hesitated, not sure what he needed, then went with her gut and climbed onto his lap, curling her arms around his neck. He went rigid for all of three seconds, then wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her neck.
They stayed like that for a very long time. They didn’t talk. There was nothing that needed to be said. Or done, other than to hold him. Her mind settled and, for the first time since breakfast, she could think. Garrick was a lot of things, all of them wonderful because they made him who he was, but he didn’t often sit still. She smiled fondly thinking of him. Hoped Rhian could take similar comfort from knowing he was out there with all that crazy love.
Rhian was a different man than Garrick, but in a good way. She discovered she liked to be held like this. Liked holding him. In Rhian’s solid presence, there was a peaceful calm to be found. Her brain wasn’t bouncing between countless anxieties. She could focus.
She kissed the top of his head and his arms squeezed harder.
Changes. Nothing.
By the time they emerged from the office, Rhian was pale but steady. She almost suggested he take a nap, but her mother swooped in and commandeered him into helping her make lunch. His protestations that he didn’t know how to cook were brushed aside. Before he knew what hit him, he was chopping the ingredients for potato salad, rallying under her mom’s attention.
Ryan appeared quite taken with her mom, his usual reserve replaced by a quick smile. It tickled Savannah even as it made her sad. He should have had a mom like hers.
They ate lunch and Savannah helped her mother clean up while everyone else, including Rhian, wandered off to do various chores or goof off. When finished, she went to stand in the doorway to the family room and watch her brothers play Wii. They were boxing and, as usual, getting rowdier by the second. All hockey-themed games had been banished from the house years ago, after Angus had to get twelve stitches in his forehead.
As if on cue—Angus was never one to miss a Wii match—her baby brother came in from the front porch with Rhian in his wake. Angus had been half-joking during lunch when he’d asked if anyone wanted to help him chop firewood. Rhian had surprised everyone by saying yes.
He’d apparently never done it before, so he agreed to help if Angus taught him how. Based on their grins, the lesson had been a success.
Rhian touched the small of her back on their way past her into the family room. She smiled to cover up her shiver.
Angus asked to play the Wii winner and a debate sprang up between him and Kieran, who had been waiting. Rhian went to the couch and sat next to Lachlan, watching the escalating argument warily. He was getting used to them, Savannah thought with a smile, but he wasn’t there yet.
Lachlan distracted Rhian from the idiots bickering in the middle of the room, until Kieran’s loud shout bounced off the walls. In the span of two seconds, heated debate devolved into a wrestling match on the floor, centered around Angus and Kieran’s battle for one of the four remotes, with the other four players all refusing to relinquish.
Savannah laughed at their typical antics. Until she saw Rhian. He recoiled, his eyes wide as he stared at the chaos at his feet. He was sheet-white.
Lachlan put a hand on Rhian’s shoulder. “It’s okay, they’re just messing around.”
Rhian didn’t respond, just continued to stare in horror.
Lachlan stood and waded into the knot of flailing arms and legs. With a few yanks and some quiet whispers, her idiot brothers—and one idiot brother-in-law—stopped horsing around and returned to the game peacefully. Savannah smirked at her dad. He hadn’t even put down his newspaper when the fight had rolled right over his feet.
Lachlan returned to the couch and Rhian, who still looked horrified. And confused.
How did he not know that boys wrestled for their video game remotes? Fought for fun? Even she, who was generally exempt from the roughhousing, jumped in sometimes. Left a few bruises, too.
But then, Rhian had no idea what it was like to have a family. To have brothers who played rough and wrestled for the pure joy of it. He had never even mentioned a close friend, let alone someone close enough to tussle with him over something stupid and still fight to the death to protect his back.
He had no one.
And now he’d found this goddamn lump. Alone, living in a new city, with no contract to tell him where he was going next. She’d cluelessly wondered why he didn’t put down roots. She doubted he knew how. And why would he? He was in complete and utter limbo.
How had she never realized how lonely he must be?
She wished like hell he’d told her, but it wasn’t his style. She’d watched him play hockey, and now she understood that was precisely how he lived his life. He didn’t complain, he worked harder. He didn’t blame others, he improved himself. He didn’t talk about his feelings, he just kept moving forward.
A knot of something tight and hot lodged in her chest.
She’d blithely forced him into a situation with which he had no experience, into the heart of her family. And they’d already circled the wagons to offer him their support, their protection. She could not, for one moment, regret bringing him here, but she hated that she’d been so blind.
Crossing to the couch, she curled up next to Rhian and laced her fingers through his. He sent her a quick smile.
Lachlan’s eyes dropped to their clasped hands but she didn’t let go. She wanted Rhian’s thumb to keep rubbing over hers. It gave her strength. Hope. And she needed it, because god help her, she was falling in love with Rhian Savage.
And that changes…everything.
Chapter Seventeen
As usual, the Morrison kitchen was in chaos. Rhian tried to find a space as the entire family pulled on hats and gloves and shrugged into their jackets. Everyone, including Rhian, had already changed into their hockey pants and socks. Bags full of pads and skates were piled high on the floor. Sticks leaned against the walls and doors. It was like an undersized locker room holding an oversized team.
Rhian anchored himself against a wall, unsure of what he was supposed to do. It was times like these that he wanted to drag Savannah back into her father’s office and haul her onto his lap. He hadn’t felt that kind of peace since the last time Garrick had laid down on top of him.
He honestly didn’t know what to do with that realization, so he focused on the insanity that was the Morrison family instead.
He’d brought his hockey gear from Boston, per Savannah’s instructions. He’d wondered why they were lugging it across the state, but he
was so used to lugging it everywhere that he hadn’t questioned it.
It wasn’t until dinner tonight that they’d all begun talking about the hockey game, the energy building as they recounted past victories and defeats. It seemed they all played. Together.
He blinked when Mary came into the room wearing ref’s stripes, her skates over her shoulder.
Savannah leaned against the wall next to him and fixed a twisted sock, then retied her hockey pants like she’d done it a thousand times before. Rhian’s heart clenched in his chest. Holy shit, she was fucking adorable.
His surprise must have shown because Callum cuffed him on the shoulder, laughing. “She’s been playing longer than you, my friend. Watch out for her.”
She grinned.
“You have?” Rhian said.
Everyone turned to look at them.
Savannah’s cheeks warmed to pink. “Yeah, I play.”
“Someone write this date down!” Kieran hooted with laughter. “Savannah is being modest.”
Chance threw an arm around his husband’s shoulders. “One of our first dates was to watch her lead Harvard to the Women’s Division One championship. Captain and MVP, if memory serves.”
Savannah smiled at her brother-in-law. “Your memory does serve. I remember meeting you and thinking I’d have to beat my teammates off with my stick to get the two of you out of the arena in one piece.”
Chance grinned, totally unabashed.
“Wow,” Rhian murmured. “Look who has secrets.”
Savannah’s eyes lit with amusement. “I don’t advertise it to the team because I don’t care to hear their opinions on women’s hockey. I’ve heard enough of that crap to last me a lifetime.” There was a hint of warning in her voice, and it wasn’t just for him, judging by the hairy eyeball she cast around the room.
Rhian grinned. “You mean, like how it’s not a real sport because you actually have to skate and shoot and not rely on violence to get it done?”
She’d opened her mouth to tell him to shut up, he was sure, but ended up smiling at him. “Exactly.”
Rhian bumped his shoulder against hers, trying to wrap his head around the curl of pleasure in his gut her smile brought. He was distracted from his growing alarm when she threw two jerseys into her bag. Looking around, he saw everyone had two jerseys, either in hand or in their bags. One green, one white.
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