Page 2 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Two

Kailey

This was my own personal form of hell.

Peopling.

Twinkling lights hung overhead on the warm September evening, woven through the lush greenery of Luc and Lexi (neé Hallbright) Masterson’s house.

It was the annual Breakers Team Bonding Extravaganza.

Which, I was learning, was really an excuse for a team competition .

Team being a group of people that apparently included me.

Not because I played hockey. Hell, I was allergic to sports.

I didn’t watch them, didn’t play them. The closest I’d gotten to them before my friend Oliver had convinced me to uproot my life (which, admittedly, wasn’t much of one, but moving to Baltimore had still been the biggest, scariest thing I’d ever done) was in P.E.

And if this was my personal hell now, P.E. was a special brand of hell from my past.

Soccer. Shudder. Track. Double that. Kickball. Basketball. Dodge ball?—

Okay, anything with balls was bad.

Bad for me.

Bad for my glasses.

Bad for?—

My gaze drifted to the right, to the big broad man who’d come into my office a week before, interest in his eyes.

Interest I’d shut down with a sharp statement.

And since then, I hadn’t given him a second look.

Which was what I’d wanted. I knew men like him. I knew what men like him did with girls like me.

That being…nothing.

Maybe I looked okay on the outside.

But my inside was a mess.

A. Mess .

And when people got a glimpse of that mess, they ran.

Not that I could blame them.

So. Balls. Bad for me.

Moving on…to the Team Competition/Bonding Extravaganza, and the moment I’d found out that the bonding wasn’t supposed to just involve the players, as I’d thought when I’d let former player (and maybe former friend) and my current boss, Oliver, strong-arm me into coming.

Nope.

It involved all the team.

Including the support staff.

Including me.

And if I were allergic to balls of all types, I was allergic to competition even more.

Which was why I was currently sidling toward the bushes, intending to use them as a shield before I got the hell out of there, drove home, and spent the next three hours in a bath reading my thriller and turning into a prune.

“And then”—Lexi declared, pulling out a small flower from amongst a large flat of them, a la Madame Sprout in the good ol’ HP —“you’ll pick your plant, stick it in a pot, and the person with the healthiest flower at the end of the…”

Now .

I darted, intending to slip around, escape out the open side gate?—

“ Oof.”

I bounced off something hard and big, some one hard and big and who smelled nice and who I was really trying to avoid because he was hot, no doubt, but he also had balls.

Unfortunately, he was also currently blocking my escape route.

“Kailey.”

His voice rumbled through the air, slid down my nape, vibrated along my spine, hands coming out to steady me.

Conner Smith, defenseman for the Breakers.

My mouth opened, preparing another sharp sentiment, another barb that would keep him from getting too close.

Attack.

Run.

Safe.

My motto.

But then it happened.

It.

The most frustrating it in the world because I understood my triggers and tried to move past them and worked fucking hard at it to be—or at least appear like I was—a functional human being.

Yeah, sometimes I wanted to sneak out of events and drown myself in my books (not the bathtub—it hadn’t gotten that bad in years), but I could put on the facade of the quiet, introverted friend.

But sometimes it just happened.

A new or unforeseen trigger jumped up and latched its teeth into me, gripping me tight, shaking me roughly from side to side like a dog with a stuffed toy.

And my facade threatened to drop.

The mess threatened to escape.

Today, it was because of his thumb.

He’d steadied me, hands gripping lightly to the outsides of my arms, sitting on the sleeves of my blouse.

But his thumb…his thumb drifted down and caught my skin, the calloused fingertip making me shiver.

A strong sensation when I needed nothingness, when I needed quiet and less stimulation and for my heart that had already begun to race to chill the fuck out, for the restless energy that had been coiling inside me from the moment I’d agreed to come that night to calm.

Instead, that touch of his skin to mine pulled me right into the moment, dumped me right back into the heaviness of what I’d been trying to escape.

The people. The noise. The obligations. The fragility of my facade.

It all tore through me.

And I couldn’t snap at him. I couldn’t shove him away or declare sharply that I wasn’t interested in him.

I couldn’t do anything.

“You okay?”

Couldn’t speak to answer that question, couldn’t step away to get away from that thumb, couldn’t look away when he crouched low enough to meet my eyes, his own filled with concern.

“Kailey?” he asked again.

I barely held back my shudder.

“Come on, everyone,” Lexi called. “Grab your pots and don’t forget that there will be a prize for best name.”

That time I couldn’t hold the shudder back.

More competition. More pressure. Over a freaking name.

His brows furrowed. “Are you o?—?”

“Smitty!” someone yelled, making me jump despite my spiraling efforts to hold myself together. “Come help us move this table!”

That thumb on my skin moved, and then the rest of his fingers did, tightening slightly. “Stay,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back.”

But he didn’t immediately let me go, and it took my spinning mind a moment to realize what he was waiting for.

A reply , I heard my father snap. He’s waiting for a reply, dumb shit.

Right.

Normal people replied .

But I didn’t have it in me for words. So instead, I just nodded.

Luckily, it was response enough for him to go away.

He released me, and my lungs loosened slightly. I turned, gaze following him as he moved toward the mass of bodies, toward the men who apparently weren’t happy with the provided space for the competition and needed more space to properly plant and name their flowers.

He looked back once, eyes hitting mine, that coil in my belly tightening.

But then his lips turned up just a bit at the corners and the coil relaxed enough so that when he turned back again, grabbed one half of the table and hefted it like it weighed nothing, I took my opportunity.

I dashed out the side yard.

I made it to my car, unlocking the driver’s side with shaking hands.

And then I did what I should have done the moment Oliver issued the invitation?—

I ran.

Or…drove.

Escaped.