Page 39 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Five

Raph

I’d stood in the hall until Pru and Marcel showed up, watching from a distance, slipping out when Marcel had texted, saying they were in the waiting room.

I’d gotten them in, then left, walking out the sliding glass doors and into the night air.

All while ignoring the look that the nurse who’d eyed me while I’d carried Beth in gave me. Probably thinking I was a total asshole because I’d said I was her boyfriend but had promptly left Beth to her own devices in that patient room, and now I was leaving.

I already knew I was an asshole.

I’d made a pregnant woman cry—or at the very least, I’d added to her stress with all my yelling.

After she’d passed out, and when she was carrying my close friends’ twins.

Not getting paid for it. Not doing it for any other reason except that her friend and her friend’s man dreamed of having babies.

Giving up her body.

Her life.

Her fun.

And I’d made her cry.

Because I’d yelled.

Christ. I fucking hated that. My dad had been a yeller. I’d had plenty of coaches over the years who’d seemingly made it their life’s work to scream at their players.

I didn’t like it.

I took it because most of the time that was the way of my world.

I’d found a way to use that screaming and yelling, to internalize it and find the motivation in it.

But I didn’t yell.

I didn’t yell because the volume, the tone, the screaming always sent ice through my spine, froze every nerve. An instant—and thankfully, because I’d worked on it—short reaction. I bounced back, could focus it, could find that motivation…but I always always had that first reaction.

And I’d promised myself I would never ever be that guy.

Tonight…I’d been that guy.

“Fuck,” I hissed, fingers clenching the door handle of my car so fucking tight that it was a goddamned miracle I didn’t dent it or rip it clear off as I yanked it open.

But my car stayed in one piece as I dropped into the driver’s seat, jabbed at the button to start the ignition.

I should have hit the gas, got the fuck back to my empty house.

Forget the night.

Forget all the shit about spending time with Beth, how her smiles and conversation had made me feel, all the shit that just being with her and my subsequent acting like an asshole had dredged up.

Instead, I sat in my car, my gaze locked on the sliding glass doors, and waited.

For Marcel to come out.

For Marcel to pull the car around.

For Beth to be wheeled out in a chair, right up to the passenger’s side door. For Pru to help her into the seat, something that ended up with me clenching something else—the steering wheel this time so I didn’t go over and help her get Beth safely into the car.

For the door to shut.

For Marcel to pull away.

And stupidly, I put my car into gear and followed Marcel. All the way to Beth’s house.

The trio had gone inside.

A long time later, Pru and Marcel came out, moving to their car, Marcel’s arm around Pru’s shoulders, keeping her close to my body.

They both looked exhausted and worried.

“Fuck,” I muttered, their expressions not helping to ease that knot in my stomach.

But they were leaving, so I knew that Beth must be okay.

Otherwise they would still be inside that house.

Logically, I understood that.

Inside, that knot hadn’t gone away.

So I sat in my dark car, waited until they’d walked away, and then I went up to the hide-a-key—the location of which I knew because I’d gone with Marcel to feed Beth’s cat when she, Pru, and Hazel had gone on a girl’s weekend.

I didn’t think about the fact that Monica had never been interested in spending time with Pru, Hazel, or the other guys’ girls, even though she’d been invited.

Nor did I think about the bitching she’d given me when I’d encouraged her to go and she hadn’t had fun.

I didn’t think about any of that, or Monica, even, or the other women close to the team and their various activities as I extracted the key.

I was focused on that knot in my gut.

I was thinking about Beth’s reflection in the window and the tears on her cheeks.

I was locked on how scared she’d looked in that hospital bed, her expression completely unguarded because she’d thought she’d been alone. I was fixed on how her expression had then become guarded, exuding faux calm went the nurse and doctor had bustled in.

Then became vulnerable again after they’d left.

Beth didn’t do vulnerable.

She was big old brass balls and red lipstick. Tall ass heels and tight skirts.

She was…sleeping on her side on her big purple suede couch, a blanket over her, hands tucked up under her face.

Soft.

So fucking beautiful she was nearly angelic.

Her breathing was slow and steady. I saw that Pru and Marcel had put everything within arm’s reach—water, snacks, e-reader, TV remote, laptop, and all their respective chargers.

They’d even cleared a path to the bathroom, rearranging the furniture so Beth could always have a hand on something if she needed to make her way while no one was with her.

I should have gone then.

She was asleep and settled, made safe by her friends.

But…no one was with her.

I got that it was probably her own doing, that she was stubborn and wouldn’t want her friends to worry.

But… no one was with her.

So instead of moving quietly out her front door, replacing the key in that dumb fake rock outside, I moved to the big purple armchair and sank down.

And then I watched Beth sleep.

With one eye open, on full alert for any bit of movement, of distress on her part.

And then, eventually, with both eyes closed as exhaustion overtook me.

A groan.

A gasp.

A moan.

I frowned, started to roll over in bed, and then realized I wasn’t lying down. I was sitting up, my neck stiff and aching.

And I was in Beth’s house.

Early morning light was filtering in through the windows.

Minus sleeping upright, the ugly-ass purple chair was comfortable, and it actually fit me, which was a rarity. Usually, I set my ass on a chair and hoped the spindly fucker didn’t collapse. So I certainly hadn’t expected a suede purple chair to be anything but a lesson in feminine discomfort.

Bitter?

Fuck yeah, I was.

But when I had a mom like I’d had, when I’d been with the women I had…

Feminine discomfort was a common experience.

My eyes flew open when I heard another moan.

Only this time it was a moaned-out word. A moaned-out, “ No. ”

Spine going stiff, I shot up to my feet.

Beth’s brows were drawn sharply together, her eyes still closed, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, head digging into her pillow. Dreaming.

A bad one.

“No!”

Not a moan this time, but a yell, and not the kind that had me finding the motivation on the ice or in the weight room. This yell had every single one of my nerves freezing as I shoved out of the chair.

“No.” Quieter now, her head shifting from side to side. “No, don’t hurt her. Don’t touch her. No!”

The last was ear-piercing, making me jump.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

Nightmare or memory, I didn’t know.

What I did know?

That I wasn’t going to stand there like an idiot and watch the fear in her mind etch itself onto her face, wasn’t going to listen to her groaning and gasping and telling some fucking monster in her brain no .

So I moved to her side, knelt on the carpet, and reached for her.