by Stacey Lynn
I’m different colored hair and tattoos and Evan has always been, and always will be, short, conservatively styled haircuts, perfect posture, and content to drive a simple Ford Escort the rest of his life because it’s practical. Yet somehow, for years we worked together. We partied and had great sex and he helped keep me focused on my studies and I forced him away from Excel spreadsheets. We worked… until we didn’t.
I’m still pretty sure that day came when he came home from work and I’d painted a wall in our small living room in our first townhome a dark, very dark, purple.
He’d dropped his briefcase, ran a hand through his hair that didn’t even move it was so gelled into perfection and sighed. “That’s going to kill our resale value, Georgia.”
I remember turning to him, head tilting to the side. There was still paint on my cheek and my T-shirt, and he’d cringed when he saw the splatters on my white shirt.
It was the cringe, the startling revelation of how vastly opposite we were with what we wanted out of life that made me ask, “Do you really think we should be married?”
It took him approximately two days and I’m still certain a half-dozen spreadsheets before he came home, with flowers—because he’s such a nice guy—and a sad smile and agreed. “It’s possible we made a mistake.”
Months later we were divorced. I’d been the office assistant at an interior design firm at the time, a job I absolutely didn’t want but made decent money.
Once the divorce was final, I was over all of it. I quit my job, looked at my dad and said, “I need to see the world.”
He’d hugged me, cried, and replied, “Then spread your wings, butterfly.”
That was my dad. It’d always been my mom, too. They were full of encouragement and love and laughter and dances in their kitchen and kisses when they knew it skeeved me out.
I’d been back for a year and my apartment still didn’t feel like mine. This life didn’t feel like mine and I had nothing… absolutely nothing I loved inside of it except for the prints I’d started to tell Sebastian about the other day. They were the only important thing in my life outside my dad. He’d cut me off, jumped like I’d electrocuted him while I told my stories and he’d hightailed it out of there so fast that me still enjoying the freaking scent of him on my pillowcases is borderline crazy.
It’s time to clean. And armed with a fresh supply of heaving duty cleaning supplies, I get to work.
I hopped on a plane three years ago to see the world and figure out who I was.
I might not have figured it out in my travels, but the one thing I do know is that I am not the kind of girl who gets hung up on a married guy, gets a crush on him, and then refuses to remove the scent of him from a pillow.
The sheets get tossed off the bed first, thrown on a pile of my clothes and then I head to my kitchen where I fill four garbage bags with all my dirty clothes.
Once those are filled and my floors are relatively clean, the job seems much less daunting.
I spend the next three hours cleaning my room, scrubbing every inch of my floor. I get on Amazon and spend way too much money on bathroom and bedroom organizing shelves and bins and drawers. Any second-guessing myself is thrown to the curb along with the rest of junk I don’t need.
No way am I stopping to consider I’m doing all of this on the off-chance Sebastian Hendrix ever steps foot into my apartment again.
By the time I’m done cleaning, sweat clings to parts of my body where no sweat belongs. My hair is a ratted mess. Cleaning chemicals are my new perfume and my muscles shake so much I can barely start my Jeep Wrangler. The garbage bags filled with my clothes I’ve tossed into the back will take me a day and a half to finish at the laundromat, so I pick up the phone and call my dad while I’m on my way to his place a few miles away.
“Hey Dad… any chance I can swing by and cook you a good meal before you head into the bar?”
He laughs into the phone. “Let the laundry get away from you again?”
He knows me well.
“Something like that.” I can’t even see out my rearview window the bags are piled so high.
“Anytime baby. You know that. Besides, I already have a roast in the oven.”
“Even better.” My dad’s cooking is kick-ass.
My dad is one of the best men I’ve ever met. He’s always seemed to understand what I need in my life before I realized I needed it. When Evan and I told him we were separating and divorcing, that we realized we’d made a mistake, I can still see the way his shoulders slumped with relief. When I decided to pack a large traveling backpack and go see Eastern Europe, those shoulders had tightened, with that fear and worry I assume all awesome fathers have for their little girls. Then he nodded, smiled that scared, small smile of his, and said, “Go then. If that’s what you need to fuel your soul.”
That’s my dad. Always encouraging. Always understanding. When my mom died in a car accident during a brutal rainstorm on her way home from her work at a nearby hospital, my dad never once faltered in his love and support for me. I would hear him crying at night, missing the greatest woman I’ve ever known. His love for her was a palpable thing, as was his grief. Yet during the day, his red, sad eyes would crinkle when he smiled at me. He made the worst period of our lives only slightly bearable because of his strength and love.
He took what they always wanted for me—for me to be happy, to find my passion and my drive and live it to the fullest—and he never once tried to hold me back. He’s always the guy I can go to. I can talk to him about anything and everything. Even boys. Somehow, he made that okay and safe for me. He never once balked at anything girly, like buying me tampons or asking if I needed to go on birth control.
He did all the things moms do and as a guy, a man’s man with a slight beer gut and running a rundown bar that was his pride and joy, I always came first.
George Barnes likes the simple things in life, and he wants me to have everything I want and need.
It’s what makes me feel like dirt for hiding the fact Sebastian spent the night in my apartment when he asks if Sebastian got in a cab all right that night.
“I should have known Steve would call you.”
“You know he doesn’t like you being alone at the bar with customers.”
“Yeah. I know.” I slide my fork through my dad’s pot roast. Somehow, he makes a simple meal so tender and juicy, the meat melts in your mouth. “But Steve should also know I’m comfortable with it, and I’m a pretty good shot with the gun. He is the one who taught me how to use it.”
We keep a nine-millimeter handgun behind the bar, loaded. My dad hates the reminder I might need to use it someday. But in all honesty, I’ve never been frightened when I’m there late. Our bar is south of Charlotte, skimming the suburbs. It’s off the beaten path, but not an unsafe path, and most of the men who come in are guys like my dad. Many of whom I’ve known since birth. Also, the Ice Kings. Obviously, we have other customers, but while we turn a decent profit now, I know that if Dad hadn’t paid off the mortgage on the building right around the time I graduated college, we’d be struggling to stay afloat.
I like the slowness of it. The family feel of it since I know most everyone. Charlotte’s one of the top fifteen largest cities in the country, and yet our bar has a small-town, know everyone who enters, feel to it.
“You give any more thought to what you want to do now?”
Not this again. He’s been asking me for the last few months if I’m looking for other jobs. I haven’t once had the urge to try to find something.
I duck my head. “Not really. I’m happy where I’m at. You trying to get rid of me?”
“Never, Georgia. You know that. But that don’t mean your old man likes the idea of you tendin’ bar the rest of your life. Not sure it’s gonna give you the passion you need.”
See? Such a good dad. I get his concern. I’m the girl who always needs the next greatest adventure. I get bored sitting still and even while we’re eating dinner my knee
is bouncing. I need to be moving, reading, dreaming and then going. Spreading my wings.
Helping him run the bar is the exact opposite of me.
There’s also no way I’m leaving. Not with my dad’s health issues in the last year.
But he doesn’t want me to stay for him. He doesn’t want me having those regrets. What he hasn’t yet realized is that I’ll never, ever regret a single moment where I stay and help him with something he loves and spending this time with him.
“I’m staying busy. Taking pictures. Doing what I love, but mostly, I’m loving being home for a spell.”
“Don’t ever hold yourself back on my account.”
“I won’t. I promise. And I’m not.”
Dad doesn’t know I’ve started a photography account on social media. It’s mostly me, walking around Charlotte. The trails. Day trips to Kings Mountain and other places I can get to and back easily. He’d hate to know I’m off on trails alone, even if I stay armed with pepper spray.
He also wouldn’t understand, but in the few months since I’ve started, I already have over forty-thousand followers and every time I post I get hundreds of comments from people with their excitement of where I’ve been, what I’ve eaten.
For now at least, if I can inspire others to travel and pursue new sights, that’s good enough for me.
“So what was wrong with Hendrix, anyway?” Dad asks.
Dad’s come to care about the guys, though. He’s a huge fan, although I know he’s never let on. He once told me it’s because he was afraid they wouldn’t come back if he freaked out with excitement. After a while, he got so used to acting like he didn’t care who they were, it actually became not a big deal.
It helped that when they started coming, they weren’t dicks with big egos. They drink a lot. Tip even better. And they’re nice to everyone.
“Had a bad day, I guess.” It’s not my story to tell, but I hate lying to my dad. It’s not like he’ll say anything.
“Odd. He’s playing well. Team is doing good, too.”
“Yeah.” I shove a bite of potatoes into my mouth.
“Careful with him, butterfly.”
“He’s married.”
I haven’t hidden my crush on him that well if my own father can tell.
“Exactly. That’s why I’m telling you to be careful.”
Yeah. It’s good advice. If only my hormones would get the notice and react accordingly.
“I was there for him during a bad night, Dad. That’s all. I swear.”
Dad’s eyes narrow on me and I feel like a teenager who broke curfew all over again. Luckily, the buzzer on the dryer goes off on my last load and I’m saved from further inspection with the lame excuse of gathering my things before they get wrinkled.
Later, when I’m back in my apartment, and I’m putting the freshly cleaned sheets back on my bed, I hate that I miss the smell of Sebastian on the pillow next to me.
Which definitely means he’s trouble.
And I need to stay far away.
Chapter Five
Sebastian
“Come on, Ben. I just want to talk to her.”
“You know I love you like a son. You know that deep in my soul, but unfortunately, this time, I’ve gotta take my girl’s back.”
My jaw aches from holding back a curse. Ben Ritter has been my second father since the moment I took Madison to homecoming our freshman year of high school. Our lives are so damn entwined they can’t be untangled. He’s always been there, rooting me on. Hell, he was always louder than my own parents when he sat in the stands, freezing his ass off, years on end.
It’s been over a month since Madison told me she was leaving to spend the holidays with her family in Minnesota. Three weeks since I was served divorce papers, papers I still haven’t returned even though the deadline is coming up. I have at least called a lawyer and have a meeting with him later this week.
A part of me wants to give her so much more than she asked for. The other part of me wants to shake some damn sense into her and beg her to come home.
Which is pretty damn impossible considering she won’t answer a single phone call. Hence why I’ve called her dad as soon as our plane landed back from a ten-day-long stretch of away games.
I figured calling in the big guns and talking to her dad would get me somewhere.
“Ben—”
“I can’t do it, Sebastian. And it kills me. Kills me seeing you two going through this hell, hiding it, not telling us what’s going on, but Maddie, she’s a mess.”
“Because she’s not with me.” My eyes burn and fuck. I can’t stand this. “If she’s in pain, it’s because she knows she’s doing wrong, here, Ben. Come on.” I don’t give two shits at how I’m begging. The quiet pain in Ben’s voice is worse. He’s torn up, torn between the two of us.
I’d feel bad about that if this wasn’t my last shot.
“Yeah, but right now, she just wants her mom and dad and as much I think what she’s doing isn’t right, I also want to do right by her and give her what she thinks she needs.”
I scan the hangar to make sure no one can hear me, but fortunately, everyone else on the team is still getting their bags.
“She’s my wife,” I grit out.
For the first time, that word seems to mean a whole hell of a lot less than it once did. We’re supposed to lean on each other during hard times. She’s supposed to let me give her strength. She’s supposed to love me, damn it. Better or worse. All of that shit. Marriages survive worse than the hand we’ve been dealt. Quite possibly, it’s talking to Ben, finally getting able to take out my anger on someone other than my punching bag in my workout room that I realize how absolutely, completely fucked up this all is.
Tears burn my eyes and piss me off even more. My wife ran back home to mom and dad instead of turning to me.
Through the phone, Ben coughs and clears his throat. “Son…”
Not really. Not anymore. I’m too pissed off, too emotional, to call him on it. None of this is Ben’s fault.
“Yeah.” I sniff away my tears and pinch the bridge of my nose before someone sees. Jason’s been giving me pretty consistent strange looks considering I’ve been in a piss poor mood off the ice and more aggressive than usual on the ice. I don’t need to hear questions I’m not prepared to answer. “Tell her I called at least, would you? Tell her I just want to talk to her.”
And that I love her. It burns, claws at my throat to say but they get stuck, lodged somewhere deep. Because damn it. I do love her. But is what she’s doing loving me? It’s so screwed up I don’t know what’s right side up anymore.
“I’ll tell her. Encourage her to call you back, but I can’t make promises. She’s in a state.”
“Yeah. Aren’t we fuckin’ all? Bye Ben. Take care.”
“You too, Sebastian.”
I end the call. I’m not sure I’ve ever sworn while talking to Ben Ritter and I don’t quite care now, either. Before I can take a second to think about what I’m doing, I pull back my arm and let loose as hard as I can.
My phone goes flying through the hangar, slams against the cement wall at the far end and falls to the floor. Damn case I have on it is so good the thing doesn’t even look broken. At least there’s that.
Saves me a trip to the store.
“George’s.”
I jump at the demand and glare at my teammate over my shoulder. “Not now, Klaus.”
“Oh, yeah, fuck now. We’re all going. Blow off steam tonight before heading home. We’ve earned this night and by the looks of that phone you just sent sailing, you need it more than most.”
“I’m good.” I go to take off, but his hand lands on my shoulder and clamps down.
“No, you’re not. And even if we all have to carry you out of here and throw you in the back of Jude’s truck, you’re coming.”
Klaus Newman and I are the same age, although he was only traded to our team a few years ago. Originally from Sweden, he’s usually a pretty q
uiet guy. Looks like he’s been working on his bossiness.
I keep glaring at him. There’s a fire burning so hot in my chest it’s amazing I don’t self-combust.
Movement behind him catches my attention.
Shit. Jason and Jude and Sawyer and Byron are all standing there, arms crossed over their chests. Slow growing beards taking shape and hiding their pursed lips. They’re scowling at me, all but Jason who looks more worried.
“I said I’m fine.” I shake off his grip and go to grab my phone and when I get back, Jason has my bag.
“You’re coming. Not kidding around. And you’re not fine.”
“Playing fine, aren’t I?”
In reality, my game is better than ever. All the frustration and anger I’ve had the last month is getting taken out on the ice, in my speed, and abusing my body working out. I’ve scored more goals in the last away stretch than I did the first two months of the season. I’m also spending more time than ever in the sin bin but even Coach can’t get too pissed when I helped the team to four wins out of the last five games. We’re still up in the league by three games. I could not show up for a week and we’d still be in first.
“For now. You keep going balls to the wall like you’ve been doing though and you’re setting yourself up for an injury, and that pisses me off. Hell, you even eating?”
My hands curl into fists. I might not be able to take Jason, but we could go a few rounds before we wear ourselves out. Although that would risk the injury he’s pissed about. I’m also not sure I care much about that, either.
“Back down, Taylor.” He might be one of my best friends. He also might be the only guy on the team who has a hint of why I’m in such a shitty mood off the ice.