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Chapter Sixteen

“Clyde’s with the Pendleton Princess again. What gives?” Penni’s Puckleberry Tea

Novy

“You’re heading out to pick up your friend?”

Boh’s voice stopped me in the hall, Honda keys in hand. “Yep.”

He held the blueberry smoothie I’d left for him on the counter. He took a long pull from the straw as he waited for my reply. The sight of him enjoying my recipe gave my belly a happy little flip. “You like the drink?”

He tipped the tall glass away as though inspecting the contents. “It’ll do.”

I smirked at the half-hearted response. “You can toss it if you don’t like it. I was experimenting with recipes—”

“Using me as your, how do you say? Pig?”

That garnered a full laugh. “Guinea pig, you mean? No. I tasted it first.”

The corners of his lips ticked up. The little flip in my belly turned into a swoosh and I fluttered my hand through my hair, shoving the unruly lanks out of my face. Buying myself time. Un-grumpy, borderline charming Boh wreaked as much havoc on my senses as hot-off-the-charts, naked-in-bed Boh.

“It’s good.”

My lips parted with a wide smile. Satisfaction curled through me. “Awesome.”

“Your friend still in a cast?”

When he’d seen Scout last, she’d had a cylinder cast from her ankle to mid thigh. “They switched her out to a brace. She’s allowed to bend it some now.”

“Will still be tough in your clunker. Take mine.” He nodded toward the dish holding his fancy key.

I froze, hand hovering over the key, temptation tingling in my fingertips. “Scout doesn’t have a vendetta against my car. You’re the only one hating on my poor Honda.”

He snorted and I darted a look to where he leaned against the end of the island, a bottle of water in his hand. He’d taken to hopping more and more around the apartment instead of using the crutches. Looking past him, I could see the crutches angled against the arm of the couch.

“You want your friend to be comfortable, don’t you?”

I exhaled, letting the air escape in a whoosh and snatched up the key. “You’re the best, Boh. Thank you! I promise to vacuum any crumbs before I come back.”

The door closed on his bellowed “Crumbs!”

Scout met me in the Brightside lobby. The little hit of deja vu took me off guard, but then my best friend was shoving luggage at me while attempting to dismiss the staff that seemed determined to assist her whether she wanted their help or not.

“I think it’s a rule, Scout.” The gray-haired woman I remembered from my first clash with Boh stood just behind my friend, her expression stern and unbudging. “Like leaving a hospital. You have to exit in a wheelchair for liability reasons or something.”

“They can tattle on me to my granddad, then. I’ve been out of this place exactly once in the last month, and that was with crutches. Now that I’m free, I may not sit still for a week. I’m so ready to sleep in my own bed and veg out on my own couch, I can barely stand it!”

The woman directed two uniformed staff to take the luggage and I followed Scout under the awning.

Scout stopped in the middle of the sliding glass doors. “Where’d you park? I know I said I’m eager, but I don’t think I’m up to walking a mile yet, Novaline Dalton.”

“Shush. Head to the gray Range Rover.”

“Whoa,” she hooted, drawing the “oa” into several syllables. “What’s this?”

I beeped the key and the rear hatch raised as the tailgate lowered. The Brightside staff loaded up Scout’s luggage while I opened the passenger side door for her.

“Are you taking me home in Boh Zacha’s fancy Range Rover?” She flapped a hand over her chest, eyes wide. “I feel so special!”

“Get over yourself and get in.”

My friend moved in her awkward, shuffling gait to the door I held open and backed into the seat with a little hop. Thank goodness I didn’t have the Honda. No matter how far back I pushed the seat, I’d never have the legroom to accommodate her braced leg. “When do you start rehab on the knee?”

She lifted her leg inside the vehicle, huffing with exertion as she pulled on her seatbelt. “Already started. It looks worse than it is. Just a couple of weeks, the doctor says. Every few days they’re opening up the braces during rehab, letting me bend it more. It’s practically healed, Nov. Swear. Get that worried look off your face.”

“Are you going to be able to manage Clyde like that?”

“Clyde is going to help me. We’ll be going on more walks. I need to build my stamina back up and walks with that little beast are perfect.”

I nodded as I closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. My friend had a habit of always seeing the brighter side, the happy possibilities instead of the reasonable worries, but I trusted her to let me know if she needed help.

From the driver’s seat, I smashed the multimedia panel for music but ended up opening the map. “Gah! Scout, make it play music. It’s too fancy for me.”

“You’re fancy! Who’s the tech savvy influencer in the vehicle? Not me!”

As she fiddled with the screen and brought up a station playing a Jung Kook song, I got us on the road. I double checked approximately thirteen times before turning left out of the parking lot onto the main road and heading toward Scout’s townhouse in Richland.

“So,” she said as she settled back into the leather seats. “How’s life with the famous hockey player?”

I snorted, clapped a hand over my mouth. Boh snorted, not me. “Probably about the same as with an unknown hockey player.”

“Has he had any girls over?”

“No!” I would die if he did. No matter what I told myself, how much distance I tried to keep between us, I would die. “He’s not really been up for anything like that.”

I said the words, but heat crept up my neck. We pulled up to a red light. The car in front of me had a Renegades decal on the corner of their rear window. A number glowed in white at the center. Not nineteen, but number seven. Hampus “The Hammer” Breining. The driver of the car the night Boh broke his leg and earned his concussion.

“Staring awful hard at that decal, Novy, with your blushing cheeks and desperate hold on the steering wheel. What do you think I’m going to say? You look positively panicked.”

“I’m not panicked,” I said in a rush as the light changed. “Just concentrating on driving. Not my car and all that, right?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“When is Etienne dropping Clyde off?”

“Today. If I timed it right, they should be at the house when we get there.” She tapped her fingers along the wood grain of the door panel. “So how many times have you kissed him?”

I yelped her name. We’d been best friends since childhood, closer than sisters, and my yelp? As good as a confession.

“Ohhh. More than kisses, then?”

“I have not slept with Bohdan Zacha. Give me some credit.” I flipped my hand in the air as if my heart wasn’t about to stampede out of my chest. “We’ve both seen the videos plenty of times. No way am I adding my name to that lengthy resume.” I didn’t mention the last one, the video of Boh with his teammate’s girlfriend. That image had taken up residence in my brain like an frustrating splinter just out of reach.

“Big words.”

I turned the Range Rover into the driveway to Scout’s place. Parking on the street was a big black Jeep. Leaning against the back was the head coach of the Renegades. He’d opened the rear window and a big dog stood with his head poking out the opening, his gaze fastened on Scout.

“Looks like you timed it right,” I said as I pressed the button to shut off the ignition. “Maybe Etienne will help with your luggage.”

“We can manage my stuff. He just needs to leave Clyde and go.”

At the tremble in my friend’s voice, I pulled my hand away from the door and reached across the console to grab her hand. “Scout?”

She’d closed her eyes but opened them at my voice, her fingers clutching mine like a lifeline. The heartbreak in her gaze skewered me. “One of these days,” I told my bestie, “you’re gonna tell me what happened at that picnic.”

Her body sagged back into the leather seat. “But not today.”

I’d get more out of her later, I thought, as I shoved out of the Range Rover. Etienne appeared on Scout’s side, opening the passenger side door with a grim expression.

“You should have told me you were in a splint.” His Quebecois accent deepened, lending a gruffness to the coach’s voice that I’d never heard before.

Scout batted away his hands as he attempted to help her down from the vehicle. “Because you would have done something stupid like not bring Clyde over.”

“The last thing you need is a 200 pound dog underfoot when you can barely walk.”

She slid to her feet and nearly toppled forward. She had no balance between the brace and weeks in a cast. Etienne planted his hands on her waist and held her steady as she regained her equilibrium. The instant she did, she barreled past him toward the back of his Jeep. “Underestimating me again. Color me surprised.”

Etienne bit off a growled curse. What was happening right now? I’d never seen Scout be anything less than friendly with Etienne, but I’d known something weird was going on. Their shared custody of Clyde, for one. She’d taken care of the mastiff off and on since Etienne showed up with the puppy, but this formal exchange of caretaking, even during the off-season, seemed odd and just a little over the top.

But the way the coach’s gaze smoldered after my friend was the biggest surprise. The way his hands clenched at his sides, as though he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to wring her neck or pull her into his side was another.

Scout reached the back of the Jeep where Clyde greeted her with a single, deep woof. I trusted my girl to know what she could and couldn’t handle. If she wanted the dog and said she could handle taking care of him, then she could. We’d both grown up in families that liked to make decisions for us. Parents who dictated what we would or wouldn’t do at any given time. I’d broken free of mine before college. Scout had, too, though she’d taken longer to figure out what independence looked like in her world. She was my girl and I’d respect her decisions.

Scout managed Clyde while Etienne and I hauled her luggage inside. I winced as the heavy suitcase hit my foot. “How did you accumulate so much stuff at a rehab facility?”

“Mom kept sending clothes. Most of the things in the bigger suitcase still have their tags. According to my delusional mother, a woman must be properly dressed, even while convalescing at Brightside. She probably pictured handsome doctors in and out of my room.”

Etienne grunted as he slammed the suitcase at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor. “How are you going to get up and down these stairs? This is ridiculous. Is your handsome doctor aware you live in a two-story building?”

I slipped past the pair at the foot of the steps and made my way to the living room. Somehow, I felt like an interloper in a lover’s quarrel. Clyde shuffled in behind me, making a beeline to the mastiff-sized bed in front of the empty fireplace. He laid down, his eyes on the hallway and the pair still arguing at the foot of the stairs. When he plopped his head between his feet with a gusty sigh, I couldn’t stop the smile from lips. “Silly humans, eh, Clyde?”