by Cate Ashwood
More than that, I needed to get Logan Baker out of my head. Thoughts of seeing him again had taken up a huge chunk of my night, and if I was being honest, thoughts of fucking him had taken up the majority of my time since the last time I’d seen him.
I didn’t know if I’d ever met anyone who’d gotten into my head like he had. It was both intensely arousing and frustrating at the same time, and not just because I couldn’t put my hands on him whenever I wanted.
And I wanted.
Fuck, did I.
Which was precisely the reason that the whole getting involved with the doctor thing was such a fucking problem.
What the hell was I doing?
I was the king of casual hookups. I’d been honing my skills since I was a teenager. Thinking back, I couldn’t actually remember a time when I’d done repeats. It wasn’t who I was. Life was simpler if the guys I fucked didn’t reappear in my life, not for anything.
But I’d gone after him. I’d been the one to track him down in Sawyer’s Ferry. And now he was messaging me like we were boyfriends—or friends at least—and I fucking liked it. I rolled over, stretching out beneath the heavy blankets, and closed my eyes. Nothing was going to get solved tonight, and the longer I stressed about it, the less time I was going to spend actually sleeping.
I was going to be hurting in the morning, and it was all Logan’s fault.
Logan
All I’d been able to think about for weeks was Jackson.
He’d invaded every damn thought, including my sleeping ones, since I’d first met him back at the clinic, and I’d broken so many of my own rules already, but I kept doing it. It was as though everything about him turned my resolve to gelatin. I couldn’t control myself around him, which was freeing and so goddamn infuriating all at once.
I pulled into the parking lot of the arena, recognizing most of the vehicles already there. Excitement raced through me as I climbed out and hurried into the rink, my hockey bag slung over my shoulder.
My skates were sharpened, my jersey cleaned and patched. I needed this. An evening of sweat and strain—a chance to forget about everything else for a little while and leave it all out on the ice—was just what the doctor ordered, so to speak. I’d used Jackson as a temporary escape from my life, and now I was going to use this as a temporary escape from Jackson.
“You ready to get your ass beat?” Barrett Anderson was lacing up his skates as I walked in through the door. I dumped my bag on the bench next to him and slid open the zipper.
I laughed. “Considering you’ve been on the losing team the last three games in a row, I’m not exactly running scared.”
“Maybe you should,” he taunted, but there was no heat to his threat. Barrett could have made the cover of a shirtless lumberjack charity calendar, no problem. He was terrifyingly big, but the looks were deceiving. He was the softest teddy bear I’d ever met, and if he were gay, I’d have climbed him like a fucking tree years ago.
For someone who looked so intimidating, his smack talk sucked. “I’d rather just decimate your team again. Seems like it’d be less work.”
“Who’s getting decimated?” Mason asked, walking in midconversation.
“Your team,” I told him.
Barrett shook his head. “Logan’s dreaming. He thinks because he and his boys pulled out a win by the skin of their teeth last time that tonight’s gonna be the same.”
“The last three times,” I corrected. “And if you want to count three goals as being by the skin of our teeth, then maybe you need someone to explain the basics of hockey to you again.”
Mason clapped Barrett on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. From nine to five, Barrett was Mason’s boss at Copper Creek Brewing, but after work hours, Mason was the team captain for the other side, and Barrett had to do what he said. “That happened months ago. They have no idea how bad we’re about to destroy them, but let them be overly confident. They won’t see us coming.”
“Not sure anyone could miss seeing Barrett. He’s like a fucking grizzly bear on the ice.”
We all finished lacing up, and then it was time to play.
There was something about the smell of the ice that always succeeded in clearing my head. Maybe it was because I’d been playing hockey since I was old enough to walk, but the rink was the place I came to space out from my life and forget about everything else for a while.
It came second to sex in that domain, but with a serious lack of opportunity in town, hockey filled a very wide gap. It gave me something else to concentrate on, and there was something about breaking a sweat and smashing a guy twice my size into the boards that really worked to erase stress.
Craig stood in the center of the ice, staring at the ceiling. “We’re sure this place is sound, yeah?”
“Dave Olson led the team that reconstructed it,” Mason said, as though the name alone should erase any doubt.
It clearly didn’t.
With his eyes still trained on the ceiling, Craig skated toward us. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Dave’s competent.” Mason stepped out onto the ice and glided forward. “Mostly anyway.”
“Yeah, it’s that ‘mostly’ that sketches me out, man. I got holidays coming up, and I’d rather not spend them impaled.”
Ross grunted. “If you’re so worried, go home. Take a bubble bath. Watch Pretty Woman. Paint your toenails.”
He almost ate ice when Leslie skated by, hip checking him as she did. “Could you be more of an asshole?”
“Can we just fucking play?” Ross barked, ignoring her, though judging by the annoyance that flashed across his face, the fact that he’d almost been taken out, and by a woman no less, had irked him. “I didn’t come here to chitchat all night.”
“You’d probably play a lot better if you got your panties outta that twist,” Leslie teased as she skated by him again, close enough to make him scowl.
I still wasn’t entirely sure why Ross came to our games. He was Kenny’s brother, and since Kenny was the one who ran the league, there wasn’t much any of the rest of us could say about it. I got the distinct impression that Kenny didn’t like him much better than the rest of us did, though.
“If the roof collapses again,” Mason said, circling back around to the original topic, “at least we have half the staff from the hospital on the ice. Someone’ll be able to patch you up.”
“Doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence, Mase,” Craig replied.
“All I’m saying is you need to shit or get off the ice.”
“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes…”
Mason shrugged, grinning. “Whatever, man. You know what I mean.”
Everyone, with the exception of Craig, seemed to be itching to get started. Maybe it was because we hadn’t played in weeks—the roof repair was done in record time, possibly due to some shortcuts taken by Dave Olson. But while the arena had been under construction, all ice-based activities in town had been suspended.
But now that we were back on the rink, everything sort of clicked into place. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until the scent of ice and locker room had curled around me two steps into the building.
I did a quick skate around the perimeter of the ice to warm up, and a few minutes later, the puck was dropped. For a brief snippet of time, the entire universe centered on that small rubber disk. As quick as Craig was, the other team won the faceoff, and for the first half of the first period, we were trailing, always seeming to be one step behind them.
Scott, our goalie, picked up the slack where our defensemen faltered, managing to stop all but one of the shots. It was clear that someone had lit a fire under the other team since we’d last played them—they were full-on kicking our asses. Barrett hadn’t been shitting me.
The longer we played, the more fiercely my competitive streak surfaced, and the more we pulled stupid maneuvers, the angrier I became, until at last the buzzer sounded, signifying the end of the first period.
I skated off the ice and chugged half my bottle of water without a word to anyone. It was childish, and I was being ridiculously immature, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to refocus, to forget about what had happened and concentrate on the next two periods. With a few minutes left until the next one started, I headed to the locker room and grabbed my bag from the bench, rifling through it until I found my phone.
There was a missed call from Holden and a text from my mother with a couple of pictures from her cruise. That was it. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting.
That was a flat-out lie.
I knew exactly what I’d been hoping for. The problem was, I shouldn’t have been expecting a message from Jackson. I didn’t want a message from Jackson. Continuing to see him would only end up complicating things, and that was the last thing I needed.
I chastised myself for being such a colossal idiot, then stashed my phone back in my bag and returned to the ice, my head even less clear than when I’d arrived. But what I lacked in clarity, I made up for with a fire in my chest and a desire to win that pretty much eclipsed everything else.
By the time the puck dropped for the second time, I felt like a bull ready to gore the matador who taunted him.
We were halfway through the second period when a flash from the stands had me skidding to a stop, snow spraying against the boards. I squinted into the lights and saw a figure standing near the top.
It was so familiar… but it couldn’t be…
I pulled my helmet off to get a better look. Same height, same dark hair… I just couldn’t—
The man turned, stepping into the light, and suddenly I saw clearly it wasn’t him at all. It didn’t even remotely look like him. Ricky, the seventeen-year-old kid who ran the concession stand at the rink, crossed the stands and trotted down the stairs.
Man, Jackson was really fucking with my—
With a crash, Mason smoked me from the side into the boards, my head ricocheting off the glass and into Ross’s elbow. There was a piercing stab of pain, followed by a splitting ache radiating through my skull.
I went down hard, watching my helmet skittering across the ice for a split second before my eyes shut, wetness covering my face. I tried to open them again but couldn’t see through the blood.
“Shit, Logan, are you okay?” Mason’s voice sounded from somewhere close by.
Someone grabbed me and lowered me onto my back.
“Fuck, man, I’m sorry.” Mason stood over me, but I could barely make out his features. “I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. I didn’t realize you didn’t have… Jesus, dude, where’s your fucking helmet?”
Fingers prodded at me, and I realized Shaun was giving me a once-over.
“He’ll be okay,” Shaun said from above me, his hands probing at my eyebrow. “Can someone hold this against his head? I’ve got my kit in the car—I’ll be right back.”
I tried to get up, but strong hands held me in place. “Hold tight,” Barrett said. “Shaun will be right back.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted.
“Yeah, probably, but stay put anyway.”
A minute later, Shaun returned. “You split your eyebrow pretty good, but it doesn’t look deep enough to need stitches.”
He handed me a mirror, and I took a look, probing the spot. “Nope. Just a scratch.”
“That’s what Mercutio said,” Craig laughed.
“Was that… a Shakespeare reference?” I rolled my eyes, a wave of dizziness passing over me as I did. “I’ll be fine. You got some steri-strips?”
“Of course. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Mason and Barrett helped me up, and I skated off the ice with one on each side. I made it to the bathroom in one piece and managed to get myself cleaned up pretty well, then placed the steri-strips to keep the wound closed before bandaging it.
“Good as new,” I said, emerging from the locker room ready to hit the ice.
“With half your face covered up like that, you’re a helluva lot more attractive,” Mason teased.
“So, what you’re saying is you did me a favor?” I tried to joke, but I was still feeling irritable. Getting injured had just made it worse.
“Exactly.”
I tamped down the urge to growl at him and skated forward. I had too much pent-up energy and nowhere to put it. “Are we gonna get this show on the road?”
Kenny scoffed. “I don’t think so. You’re out for tonight.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted again, skating around him to prove it.
“You’re not fine. You’re still bleeding from your head wound.”
“I’m a doctor,” I told him, gripping my stick harder. “I’m fine.”
Leslie shook her head. “Nope. You took your helmet off midgame, and you got slammed into the boards. That makes you the beer bitch for the rest of the night.”
“Gimme a break,” I muttered.
“Mason almost did. A broken fucking skull,” Barrett added.
I rolled my eyes, and the dizziness was back. Maybe they had a point, but I hadn’t come here to sit in the stands and watch. Unfortunately, eleven pairs of eyes were staring at me, and there was no way I was talking my way out of this one. Outranking some of the players at work didn’t mean I outranked them here, and there was no way a nurse and two paramedics were letting me continue.
Giving up, I stashed my stuff and trudged up the stairs, then found a place to sit to watch the rest of the action. But the longer I sat, the further my mind wandered until all I could think about was him.
This was exactly why I had come tonight, to avoid this, but now, there was no stopping it.
I couldn’t decide what annoyed me more, the fact that I wasn’t down there playing or the idea that Jackson had messed with my head so thoroughly that I was hallucinating him on the body of a scrawny high school kid.
I’d tried to so hard to tell myself that this was nothing, that I could sleep with him once—or twice—and be done with it. The problem was, it was impossible to lie to myself forever. No matter how many times I reminded myself I shouldn’t want him, I did. I’d only been with the guy a couple of times, but I craved him—the way his mouth felt on my skin, the euphoric feeling I got with nothing more than his fingertips brushing over me. It was heady and addictive, and I wanted it again.
It shouldn’t happen for so many reasons, not least of all was the fact that neither of us wanted anything serious. He’d been clear about his expectations, though, and so had I.
“What the hell happened to your face?” Holden pinned me in place with his stare, but it looked a lot less intimidating with lettuce hanging from the corner of his mouth. I’d managed to haul my ass into work, but the headache I’d taken as a souvenir from the game the night before was still with me. I felt like shit, and I knew I’d be answering questions all day about why I looked like someone had used me as a punching bag.
“You don’t like it?” I teased. “I think it makes me look sexy and rugged.”
“It makes you look like the victim of a mugging. Seriously. Who did that to you?”
“Mason. But it wasn’t his fault. I was an idiot. I got sidetracked and took my helmet off at hockey last night before I’d gotten off the ice.”
I’d taken the bandages off, but the steri-strips were still in place and the full-color prism of bruising was beginning to show.
“Sidetracked by what?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“A certain tall, dark, and handsome oil rig worker?”
“No.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Only when I wasn’t trying all that hard to lie. There were things Holden had never figured out about me—and never would, if I had anything to do with it. This, though—for some reason, I couldn’t seem to keep my guard up about Jackson.
“He’s… distracting.”
“I’ll say.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Holden laughed. “You’ve been totally off lat
ely.”
“What?” I winced.
“Not in a bad way.”
“How can that not be in a bad way?”
“I just meant you’ve been kind of spacey the last few weeks, but you’ve seemed happier, too. It’s not the end of the world to fall for someone, you know.”
“I’m not falling for him.”
He didn’t look like he believed me at all. “That’s what I said about Gage when we first got together. It was quick, but it was real, too.”
“This isn’t anything like you and Gage. This is a fling—if that. More like an extended one-night stand.”
“Marriage is an extended one-night stand if you want to use that logic.”
“That makes absolutely zero sense. Jackson and I are fucking. Nothing more. And we’re both on the same page with it. He’s leaving soon, and even if he wasn’t, whatever is happening between us isn’t meant to be long-term. It’s a nice way to pass some time until it isn’t anymore.”
“I still think you’re not seeing him as clearly as you could be.”
“We’ve spent a handful of hours together and you wanna start planning the wedding. Maybe that worked for you and Gage, but that’s not how I operate.”
“How do you operate, then, because I’ve never actually seen you with a guy. In fact, I’ve never heard about past boyfriends either.”
“Because there aren’t any.”
Holden feigned shock, his hand going to his chest. “Are you… a virgin?”
I pushed him. “Fuck you. I’m just not interested in anything that lasts beyond a night or two.” At least I hadn’t been with anyone other than Gage for a very long time. Neither of them knew about my past feelings, though, and they never would.
Narrowing his eyes, he stared at me. “I think you’re wrong.”
“And I think it’s none of your business.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. Make yourself miserable. I’ll watch from the sidelines, and when you finally get your head out of your ass, I’ll be there waiting to rub the I-told-you-so in your face so hard it ends up imprinted on your forehead for a week.”