Page 35 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

One

Raph

I pushed my drink away, knowing that if I finished it, I would get sloppy.

I didn’t get sloppy.

Nope.

I abided by a careful recipe of drinking at CeCe’s, consuming enough food, and stopping at just the right time to prevent me from getting sloppy .

A pinch of this. A dash of that. Two stirs. And ta-da!

The patented Raphael Gomez recipe to pretend my life wasn’t a shit-show.

Drown out the voices in my head.

But do it in a way that didn’t bring any intervention from my teammates—who would definitely have my back and take it upon themselves to clear up my shit, or worse, Hazel might take notice.

Or take more notice. Already, sometimes the team psychologist looked at me as though she could see through the shield I’d erected.

And I couldn’t have that.

I was too busy shoring up that shield, barricading myself behind it, too busy letting the hurt and betrayal eat through every inch of me, to gnaw at my very bones.

Sighing, I threw some bills on the bar top, started to push away from the bar, ready to go home to my empty house, with the empty rooms, the doors perpetually closed.

“Raph!”

A shiver down my spine.

Fucking hell.

Not her .

Anyone but her.

Except, even as I turned, I knew it was going to be her. Going to be…Beth.

Fucking.

Hell.

My hands shook, fingers clenching into fists, lungs seizing.

I’d been avoiding her like the goddamned plague. Mostly because she was beautiful and loud and pushy, and I didn’t want her in my business, didn’t want any woman in my business. I’d been there, done that, got the fucking souvenir broken heart from Hurricane Monica.

Or maybe Hurricane Lying Bitch was more accurate.

Monica had lied about something so fucking big that I didn’t know how I was ever going to trust another woman.

Ever.

Especially one as beautiful as Beth.

Monica had been gorgeous, impeccably dressed, her makeup always done—high maintenance at its best, and maybe that made me a dick who’d deserved what was coming to me, but I’d always liked my women a little high-maintenance.

Beth was just as gorgeous, just as put together, and she was a total ballbuster (something else that used to make me hard).

But I hadn’t been avoiding her because of the way she looked or her personality or how she wore her makeup or did her hair or dressed.

Or at least, not only those reasons.

The biggest one…the one that my eyes dropped to, so obvious it was impossible to keep my gaze on her face, was leading her charge my way.

The soft rounded curve of her belly.

The babies inside.

Fuck.

That sliced fucking deep .

Because I hadn’t seen that with Monica. Because she’d lied about carrying my baby. Because…she’d never been pregnant at all. I hadn’t seen her belly grow, hadn’t felt our baby move, hadn’t held my son or daughter in my arms.

How in the fuck was I grieving for a baby that had never even existed?

It didn’t make any sense.

But I was.

And it was slicing me deep inside, fucking killing me that Pru and Marcel were going to have two. Two babies that Beth was carrying for Pru because she couldn’t and?—

I was a fucking asshole.

Everyone on the Breakers knew the story, knew that Pru had been attacked traumatically as a child, that she’d lost her parents and parts of her body. We all knew she had barely survived and that it was lucky she was here so we could know her.

And I… I knew that Beth was doing something wonderful by carrying Pru and Marcel’s babies.

But every time I looked at her, I felt sick to my stomach.

Unfortunately, that evening, there was nowhere to escape—not without looking like a douche, anyway. I might have douchebag thoughts and be a total asshole behind the shield, but I tried not to let that bleed out onto the people around me.

So…I waited for her to come near, and when she smiled and started to hop onto the stool next to me, I helped her up, ignoring the zing the contact brought to my fingertips.

It had been more than a year since I’d touched—yeah touched —a woman.

A fucking year .

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to touch one—not as a friend, not as a woman I wanted to have beneath me in bed. Not since Monica had fucking destroyed me with some internet-bought ultrasounds and a determination to go the long run with her lies.

But…I’d touched Beth. No. Was touching her, holding her steady as I waited until I was certain her body had made it safely up onto that stool and wasn’t going to tumble down.

She was carrying precious cargo, and I might be a dick on the inside because that fact killed me, but I at least tried to look out for the people in my life, especially those with short legs and who might have an impaired sense of balance because they were carrying twins.

But the feel of Beth’s silky skin beneath my fingertips, how she smelled—floral and fruity—how she cradled her little bump, as though protecting the babies inside her womb from the outside world…reminded me.

Some of Monica and how she’d been.

Some of how she hadn’t.

Plenty of fruit and flowers and silk. No protective cradling.

No baby.

I clenched my free hand into a fist again, waited for Beth to settle so I could pull back.

But before I could, she turned to face me.

“Thank God, you’re here,” she exclaimed.

“It’s not Cheese Night Extravaganza, but I’m starving and losing my mind because I need mozzarella sticks.

” She smiled, glanced down. “Okay, these babies are growing, so they need them, but since they’re going in my mouth, I need them and?—”

She broke off, cheeks flushing prettily.

Probably able to see how much her mentioning babies hurt me.

Because Beth was smart—pretty and funny and loud and high maintenance and fucking smart.

That made her dangerous, and her next words proved it.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her hand lifting, resting on mine. “I didn’t think. That was really…” She nibbled on her red-painted lip, but her eyes held mine. “Inconsiderate,” she finished, pulling back, forcing me to drop my hand. Which was a good thing.

The smart and safe thing.

Her gaze hit on the money on the bar, and her teeth nibbled that red-painted lip again, eyes filling with something I didn’t want to examine too closely. “I should let you go. I’ll wait for a table?—”

“What do you want to eat?” I asked gruffly. “Besides the mozzarella sticks,” I added when she lifted her brows, probably to tell me that she wanted fried cheese and she wanted it right then. “Something with at least a bit of nutritional value.”

“Umm…” Her nose wrinkled. “Nachos?”

A curl of amusement in my chest.

And hell, it had been so long since I’d felt that emotion that it took me a minute to recognize what it was.

I rubbed the ache there, smothered a smile.

God. When was the last time I’d smiled?

“They have vegetables on them,” she added a bit mulishly. Probably because I hadn’t responded, given that it had taken me a long fucking time to recognize the emotion of amusement, that I was still recovering from the onslaught of feeling like myself for a moment.

“Salsa’s not a vegetable,” I said once I’d gotten it together.

Her blue eyes narrowed, her long red hair twitched when she spun slightly to face me. “Peppers are. Olives are. And guacamole is just a mushed up one.”

“Olives are technically fruit.”

Those eyes narrowed further.

“Same goes for peppers.”

A deeper glare.

“And avocados, too.”

She tossed up her hands.

And that amusement in me grew.

But I didn’t do anything about it, just bit back my grin and waved down the bartender, put in an order for a club soda, nachos, mozzarella sticks, and a side of fruit.

When the bartender went to plug that into the register, I turned back to Beth.

Who was staring at me with wide eyes. “You know what I drink?”

I knew a lot about her—too much considering I’d spent the better part of a year building my shield against her.

I knew what she drank. I knew that she was a good friend, that her ass was incredible and frequently featured in tight skirts.

I knew that she ate too much junk food and that if I’d ordered a salad, she wouldn’t touch it, but that she would deign to eat the fruit in the name of something healthy.

But I couldn’t reveal any of that, could I?

So, I just said, “I’ve hung out with you, Hazel, Pru, and company enough. I know what you all drink.”

That dropped her brows, though a thoughtful expression took the place of her surprise. “Right,” she whispered.

We sat in silence—or rather, I sat in silence—as we waited for her food to come.

She prattled on about some TV show the girls were trying to get the guys to watch (but had so far been unsuccessful) and when I didn’t bite, she moved on to discussing the team.

That was a more interesting conversation—hockey was easy.

Hockey made sense. But I couldn’t bring myself to do more than sit silently next to her.

That was all I had in me.

Thankfully, her food eventually came and because I was sitting next to her and couldn’t resist the crispy golden brown deliciousness, I stole a mozzarella stick with the lightning-fast reflexes of a professional hockey player, earning a glare in return for my antics, though she didn’t comment.

And eventually, she wore me down.

I found myself joining in her conversation, not just listening to her talk at me, biting back my chuckles at her funny quips and stories and antics, but actually talking.

Somehow, actually enjoying myself.

And paying for her meal before she could, even though that sent her back to glaring.

For a few moments anyway.

Because then she murmured a “thank you” that I felt deep behind my shield and went back to regaling me with her stories and quick one-liners.

Then the plates were empty, and she was yawning, telling me she should head home.

I stood, put out an arm to help her down from her stool.

Touching. Again.

My fingers tingling. My nerves prickling. My dick?—

“And I?—”

She broke off, her face going pale the moment her feet hit the floor.

“Beth?” I asked, reaching out with my other arm, wrapping it around her when she wavered.

“What’s—”

She took a step.

Her eyes rolled back.

And…she collapsed.