Page 58 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Twenty-Four

Beth

I was determined to let him go.

Determined that what was best for him was not hanging around me and my mess, but since he’d clearly done some self-reflection and was moving in the right direction, he didn’t need me to fix him.

He’d fixed himself.

So, I should let him go.

Because I definitely couldn’t be real with him.

But he was staring at me with gorgeous blue eyes and talking to me with a soft voice and his expression was earnest and…

I’d wanted him for so long.

And…it was just one date.

“Shopping and water bottles didn’t count as a date?” I asked lightly, trying to contain the hope and joy beginning to bubble in my heart.

“No, sugarpie.”

“But we even had pretzels.”

His gaze had returned to the road, but I saw the side of his mouth closest to me tip up.

And God, making him smile was…a fucking gift sent from above. It made everything inside me warm and thaw and not even think about that basement I’d filled with concrete.

“I see I got my work cut out for me,” he said softly.

That sliced deep, and I couldn’t stop myself from inhaling sharply.

Which he noticed.

I knew he did.

Because he seemed to notice everything.

But he didn’t comment on it, didn’t harp on it and demand answers. He just…let me have that, and I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved or some strange combination of both.

“One date, sugarpie?” he pressed. “Just dinner and a movie or something equally as innocuous?”

There went that same combination of both disappointment and relief again.

He was Raph. He wasn’t innocuous. He was…something bigger.

I wanted something bigger with him.

Which was probably why I stopped fighting it, decided that he’d been giving plenty, and just said, “Yes.”

Raph drove himself to his house and, no surprise since it seemed impossible for me to deny him anything, he’d tempted me inside for a tour.

One smile, a gentle question, and suddenly he’d been pulling my car into an empty spot in his garage, and I was walking into his kitchen.

Which was absolutely gorgeous.

Top-of-the-line appliances, loads of cabinets, a huge island with a slab of striking granite.

Now, I had a trust fund and plenty of money to buy my home, but his was nicer.

Bar none.

I caught a glimpse of a pool and hot tub in the back yard, lush greenery surrounding the pavers and making the pretty blue tile dipping into the top of the water really pop.

“That’s all Lexi’s doing,” he murmured, catching sight of my gaze.

The GM’s wife had a collection of green thumbs…and okay, that didn’t sound right. I just meant that Lexi was really good with plants, loved landscaping as a hobby, and she’d advised more than a few of the men and women close to the Breakers on their yards. But then I wasn’t thinking about plants.

I was thinking about Raph.

Mostly because he came close and dropped a hand on either side of me, resting them on the counter near my hips and making my breath catch.

Because he was close and big and yummy and smelled good and?—

“Beth?”

“Mmm?”

“You good?”

I blinked. “I’m good. So Lexi picked out plants for you?”

Raph tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, smiled. “She straightened out my landscaper when I moved in. Got him sorted with the right plants for the climate and still texts him when it’s time to fertilize or move the plants to different pots.”

I laughed.

That sounded like Lexi.

She wasn’t just the GM’s wife and lawyer for the team, she was also well-known for her yearly gardening challenges with the team.

They involved her hubby’s big, bad hockey players keeping a plant alive for the season.

The most successful one received a prize.

Which was considered a prize only in the loosest sense of the word. The winner—chosen by Lexi, who looked at each of the plants’ growth and health (and truthfully, for some, that meant sadly dumping the pot’s contents into the compost bin)—received a Fuggler.

Some combination of cute and ugly—but mostly ugly—it was fuzzy blue, wore tighty whities, and had maniacal eyes and life-sized plastic human teeth.

I’d seen it on Marcel’s shelf one time, and that was enough to imprint the frightening image on my mind.

Forever.

“How do you do in the plant competitions?”

He nodded to the corner of his counter…and I laughed at the stringy and slightly dry-looking flower shoved to the side.

“Not a winner this year.”

Thank God I wouldn’t be coming across Mac, the Fuggler, in his house.

“Wasn’t feeling like doing much except focusing on the bad shit and making myself feel miserable.”

And shit, now I felt guilty.

I stilled. “Raph,” I murmured.

His fingers drifted across my cheek. “Took me a while to stop feeling sorry for myself.”

“Monica was?—”

“It wasn’t her, honey. Like I said, or not all her anyway. It was me, too. Losing faith in myself, hating that I hadn’t seen her for what she was.”

My heart squeezed tight. “Raph,” I whispered again. “I think it’s normal to feel that way. It was a big lie and the death of a future you’d imagined.”

“Yeah.” A breath then a deliberate change in subject. “Want to see the rest of the house?”

He’d given me space in the car. He’d noticed that my pain lay deeper than what I wanted to share, but he hadn’t pushed, hadn’t prodded at the weak spot. He’d given me space, allowed me to regroup.

So, I gave him that change, that space, that time to regroup and come to terms.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I do.”

A step back, his hand taking mine.

And then he led me into a large great room with cozy furniture, a huge TV, and shelves filled with gaming systems. I’d been around enough, had spent enough time at Oliver and Hazel’s and Marcel and Pru’s places to see how the boys could be with their video games (hell, they’d nearly had a brawl during a round-robin Fruit Ninja competition one night over pizza, beer, and margaritas), so Raph having a full setup didn’t surprise me either.

It did make me smile, just like the furniture—nice and expensive, but not fancy, definitely sturdy enough to hold a bevy of hockey players—made my heart warm.

This was a home.

A place for friends and family to be at home .

He led me on, through bathrooms that were the height of luxury, a master bedroom twice the size of mine, a huge gym with a treadmill, a Peloton, and lots of free weights. He walked me through an office with full bookshelves and bright windows and a big desk that I could imagine Raph sitting behind.

All of it was beautiful and positively sumptuous.

But it wasn’t stuffy.

It was comfortable.

And…as he led me back down the hall toward the staircase, I saw there was a door closed in the hall.

Raph noticed my hesitation.

And I watched him battle, expecting him to lead me on, back downstairs, back into the kitchen and the garage and to my car so that I could drive home.

But then he used his free hand to grip the knob, to turn it.

And…my heart squeezed tight, so tight that I actually went dizzy for a moment. But just a moment because then I was able to pull myself together and study the nursery as he flicked on the lights.

Wide wooden letters spelling the name Luca.

Fuck.

“I haven’t been in here, not since I found out,” he said softly.

“Luca is a beautiful name,” I whispered.

“My grandfather’s name.”

Fuck, I wished again that I could kill that bitch.

“It’s beautiful.”

He nodded, taking a step inside, as though proving to himself that he could, and when that was accomplished, he nodded again, just slightly.

Like he’d just ticked off an item on his to-do list.

Or maybe, he was just trying to survive doing something that was difficult, something that he hadn’t been able to do up until that point.

Definitely that.

I squeezed his fingers, and he tore his gaze from the room—from the crib, bookcases, rocking chair, changing table, from the copious stuffed animals and blankets and clothes, the cozy rug—to me.

“Fancy a hot chocolate?”

I blinked.

“I make a mean hot cocoa,” he said, sliding his fingers up my arm, coming close and tucking me under his shoulder. “Do you want one?”

His tone was soft, the pain in his eyes was dimmer than I’d ever seen, as if by opening that door and stepping inside had brought everything up, but that bringing hadn’t flayed him open.

Hadn’t exposed him to all that hurt again.

Grief still present, a grief that would always be there, I knew, because he’d lost a dream, future, a deeply woven hope.

But it was tempered, as time often allowed, as looking forward to new dreams, new futures, new hopes did the same.

Another layer of concrete.

Looking forward not back, not down.

Looking into the beautiful blue eyes of a man I liked so, so much.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I’d like that hot chocolate.”