Page 30 of Best Kept Secret (The New York Thunder #3)

LOGAN

W e drive across the bridge in silence. But the silence this time isn’t tense or awkward or uncomfortable. It’s easy. Just the two of us. I’m still on a high after learning that Millie lied through her perfect fucking teeth for me tonight. That’s got to mean something, right?

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

Confused by her unexpected words, I turn my head, finding Millie nervously wringing her hands together in her lap, a sheepish look on her face as she glances at me.

“Didn’t believe me?” My brows knit together.

“About… Hannah.” She clamps her bottom lip between her teeth.

My eyes widen. “Hannah told you?”

She nods. “Well, not… everything. But she told me enough.”

I take a moment to process that, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders.

And it’s only then that I realize just how much stress being the only person who knew about Hannah and her affair had on me.

It wasn’t that I wanted to tell anyone, because it’s not my business to tell, and I know how damaging that truth will be if it eventually leaks, but carrying it on my own has been a lot.

I didn’t realize how much until right now .

“I wanted to believe you,” Millie continues. “And, I think deep down, I did believe you. I was just scared.”

I look across at her, offering her a small smile. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“No, I do,” she insists. “And I’m so, so sorry.”

“Apology accepted, Red.” Tentatively, I reach over, wrapping my hand around hers and giving her a reassuring squeeze, and when my gaze flicks back to hers, I’m not sure what comes over me—maybe it’s that I feel like we can’t truly move forward until I tell her, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never felt this comfortable with anyone before in my life—but whatever it is, I find myself taking a big breath and finally opening up in a way I never have before, to anyone.

“I was eighteen when Levi killed himself,” I begin, staring straight ahead at the taillights on the car in front of us.

“I was in high school, and Levi was in college, playing hockey.” I swallow hard again, emotion racking through me, making the skin at the back of my neck prickle in a way that I have to reach back and rub it.

“Sorry.” I scoff. “I don’t… I’ve never talked about this. ”

“It’s okay.” Millie reassures me with a gentle squeeze of my hand still holding hers.

“My dad is, um, he’s an ex-hockey player. He played for New Jersey for a few years, but he was injured pretty bad and forced into early retirement.”

I can feel Millie watching me, waiting for more. She doesn’t pressure me or press me; she just waits. And I find that the pain that usually knots in my chest any time I start to talk about my father eases when I look her in her pretty eyes.

“Growing up, Dad was a hockey dad. God, I don’t even think Levi liked playing, but Dad kept on pushing him.

I always loved hockey. But I was never as good as Levi.

Levi was a natural-born talent. I had to work at it.

” I smile sadly. “My dad was hard on Levi. He used to yell at him through the glass during peewee games. Levi’s coach had to tell Dad that he either needed to calm down or leave.

It was so embarrassing. Poor Levi was so embarrassed.

Whenever I played, my dad never even bothered to look up from his phone.

“When Levi went to BU, he was the one to watch, you know?” I shake my head in wonderment, remembering just how revered my brother was.

“Every team in the NHL had their eyes on him. He used to tell me that whoever he signed with, I’d eventually join him.

He’d make sure of it. Levi was my best friend and my idol. ”

“He sounds like an amazing big brother,” Millie says.

“He was.” I nod, my smile falling. “But I didn’t know how bad things were for him.

And suddenly, one day, he was just… gone.

God, I still remember the sound of my mom screaming.

It woke me up in the middle of the night.

I’ll never forget that sound for as long as I live.

” I shake my head, trying with everything I have to block out the memory of her piercing screams.

“Someone found him inside his car outside the practice facility,” I say after a silent moment. “He’d, um, taken a whole bottle of pain pills and mixed them with a bunch of sleeping pills and… I don’t know.” I shrug. “I guess he just went to sleep.”

“Did he say anything?” Millie asks, and when I look at her, a gleam of unshed tears reflect the lights of the city in her eyes as we drive. “Did he say anything to anyone?”

I shake my head again. “No one had any idea. He was happy and normal. Even at practice that night, he was making jokes, razzing up the guys on the team like he always did.”

“Did he leave a note?”

My jaw clenches tight at Millie’s question, and my heart lurches as guilt flares in my gut. “He didn’t leave a note,” I say finally. “But… and I’ve never told a single soul this. No one knows. A few weeks later, I got a letter at home.”

A soft gasp slips from Millie’s lips, her eyes widening at my confession. “What did it say?” She holds a hand up quickly, shaking her head. “Sorry. That was—don’t answer that. It’s so none of my business.”

I lick my bottom lip, contemplating my words.

The letter is in a locked box, in a drawer in the back of my closet.

No one has ever seen it. No one even knows of its existence.

But it’s there. And it holds all the answers to the one question people have been asking every day since Levi’s sudden and totally unexpected suicide. Why?

“My dad killed Levi.”

“What?” Millie gasps again.

“He may not have given him the pills or shoved them down his throat,” I continue. “But my dad was the reason Levi couldn’t take it anymore”

Millie stares at me for a long moment as I continue navigating the streets. And I know what she’s thinking. I can almost hear her thoughts, even without her saying a thing.

“My father isn’t a nice man,” I explain eventually. “My mom said he changed after his injury. And he took it out Levi and me, forced us into the life he lost.

“After Levi died, my mom suffered a breakdown. She was never the same. I was a freshman in college when Dad her sent off to an assisted living facility without even talking to me about it first. He doesn’t even bother visiting her anymore.

” My stomach twists at the thought of my mom.

“He tries so hard to control me, like he controlled Levi, but what he doesn’t realize is that I know the truth.

” I shrug. “And as much as he gets to me sometimes, as much as he pushes me and pushes me and fucking pushes me—” I grit, gripping the steering wheel so damn tight my knuckles crack.

“As much as he tries to get under my skin, I won’t let him.

I’m living for me now, and for my brother. ”

I release a shaky breath, turning to see Millie watching me, a glistening tear track trailing down her cheek.

“So, that’s what happened last night,” I say with a small smile. “I let him get to me, and when he gets to me, the darkness pulls me under.”

Millie reaches for my hand again, weaving her fingers through mine and squeezing hard.

“I’m so sorry that happened, Logan. All of it.

To you. To Levi. To your mom. It isn’t fair,” she whispers, her own voice trembling with obvious emotion.

“And I hate that you’ve never been able to tell anyone.

But I need you to know, you can always count on me to be there to help bring you out of that darkness, no matter what.

” She squeezes my hand again, smiling through her tears. “Always remember that I’ve got you.”

I squeeze her hand back, and despite the heaviness, we settle into another companionable silence, and I hold her hand the entire way home.

Mille and I haven’t spoken much after what we shared in the car, and as I open the door to the apartment, standing aside to let her enter first, the air between us is thick in a way that makes me nervous, but in a good way, like the anticipation and excitement that brews deep in my stomach as I walk through the tunnel and skate out onto the ice every night before a game.

Now that I know she knows the truth, things definitely feel different.

I toss my keys and my wallet on the table by the front door, feeling her closeness as she removes her jacket, causing her intoxicating scent to unfurl and weave through the air.

And I swear to God, I’ve never wanted to spin around and grab a woman, kiss her with such ferocity as I want to right now.

But I don’t. I stand here, like a fucking imbecile, staring down at her goddamn tube of cherry lip gloss lying in the bowl on the console table.

“I’m going to have a shower and go to bed,” Millie says behind me. “I’m really wiped after today.”

“Yeah,” I say with a forced chuckle. “Being a tourist is really… tiring.” I roll my eyes at myself because what? Nice one, loser .

“Well, goodnight.”

I close my eyes on an exhale. “Night. ”

When I hear the gentle click of her bedroom door, I shake my head at myself. Idiot .

I’m in the kitchen, stirring my Moon Milk, about to go to bed, when I hear footsteps pad against the tile behind me.

Turning, I’m a little caught off-guard at the vision of Millie standing there wearing her UM sweatshirt and those goddamn tube socks that come all the way up to her knees.

Those motherfucking thighs.... I swear to God, she’s trying to kill me.

“Oh, sorry.” She hesitates, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t realize you were still up. I was just coming out to get some—” She points to nothing in particular, and then, with a sheepish smile, her cheeks flame adorably. “I was coming to get some Nutella.”

I smirk, leaning back against the countertop, folding my arms across my chest. “Don’t let me stand in your way.”

Walking around the island, she tugs at the hem of her sweater as she brushes past me, reaching up and grabbing her Nutella jar from the overhead cabinet, the movement causing the sweatshirt to ride up high enough that I catch a glimpse of the delicious curve of the bottom of her ass cheek.

She turns to me then, her gaze traveling down my body, eyebrows bunching together.

And when her eyes meet mine, she quirks a brow.

“I think we need a rule that shirts are mandatory in all communal living areas?”

“Well, if I’m expected to wear a shirt, then you’ve gotta wear pants, Red,” I grit, dragging a hand down my face with a stifled groan.

Ignoring me, and taunting me even more it seems, Millie grins, pulling herself up to sit on the island counter opposite me, crossing one tantalizing leg over the other.

I’m forced to turn away, biting down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from doing something I know we’d both probably love more than anything.

Since when did I become such a chicken shit ?

“I didn’t know you wear glasses?”

I pick up my mug and turn back to look at her, pushing my glasses up my nose. “Only at night, when I read in bed.”

“You read in bed?” she asks, opening her Nutella jar.

“I do.”

“What are you reading at the moment?”

I watch as she dips the spoon into the jar, and I’m forced to avert my gaze from where she wraps her lips around it, slowly sucking the chocolate off. And, with a thick swallow, I silently plead the blood rushing to my dick to calm the fuck down. “Stephen King’s The Shining .”

Millie’s tongue darts out to lick the corner of her mouth, and I feel it all the way down in my balls.

“Do you want, um”—I clear my suddenly dry throat—“some, um, some Moon Milk?”

Her face scrunches up. “No. Hannah told me it’s disgusting.”

I chuckle then, remembering the night I made Hannah a mug of Moon Milk to try help calm her down. She choked, ran to the sink, and spat it out. “Of course, she did.”

Millie smiles, dipping her spoon into the Nutella again. She glances at me through her lashes, a playful smile tugging at her mouth. “Do you like Nutella?”

“Never tried it.”

Her jaw drops like I’ve just told her I worship the devil. But then her smile reappears, only this time it’s almost mischievous, and as she pulls the spoon out, she holds it up in the air.

“Nah…” I laugh. “The team nutritionist would kick my ass.”

She deadpans. “You already ate a giant pretzel, a hot dog, two scoops of pistachio gelato, and a slice of pizza. What’s one tiny little spoon of chocolatey, hazelnutty goodness to finish out the day?” she teases, waving the spoon in the air in front of me.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a brat, Red?” I quirk a brow.

“Yeah, you,” she sasses. “A thousand times, at least.”

Rolling my eyes, I place my mug down onto the counter and take a step toward her, closing the distance between us.

When I’m right there, pressed up against her knees, I lean in closer, placing my hands on the countertop, one on either side of her, effectively caging her in.

As I loom over her, staring deep into her eyes, the air between us shifts in an instant, and I nudge her knees apart with my hip, moving between her thighs, so fucking close.

And as much as she tries to act unaffected, the sharp breath and the hitch in her chest tells me otherwise.

Tamping down my shit-eating smirk, I open my mouth and wait.

Millie’s throat works with a hard swallow, and there’s an obvious tremor in her hand, the spoon shaking as it edges closer to me.

But then, before it reaches me, the dollop of Nutella falls as if in slow motion, and we both track its movement, watching as it lands on the inside of Millie’s thigh with soft splat.

I lift my gaze, meeting Millie’s eyes, the pull between us so strong, it’s like a rubber band about ready to snap at any second.

Millie arches a brow, her smile lingering as she asks, “You gonna taste it, or what?”