Page 8 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Eight

Kailey

I was walking down the hall, heading for my office, when I heard it.

Muttering .

Angry muttering.

Considering I was party to my own muttering—and it wasn’t a little amount, especially when I was trying to troubleshoot a project—I’d been prepared to walk by.

Silently.

Without making eye contact and disappearing directly into my office, closing the door, and breathing easy because I hadn’t had to people.

But as I got closer, I recognized the rumbling.

Or rather, who was rumbling.

And my pulse began tap-dancing in my veins.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t ? —

I looked.

Right into the lounge area, the kitchen deserted behind Smitty, the lights on, but dimly because he was the only one in the space.

And he was muttering and cursing and tearing his hands through his hair.

God, he was big.

I shouldn’t have forgotten that, not with how he’d knocked me down the day before (hell, my hip was still sore and reminding me that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own against him on the ice, or off it).

I shouldn’t have forgotten how big he was, not with how he towered over me at the party or in the hall.

But what really drove his size home?—

And yes, my eyes went to a certain location, and that location was something that I assumed was equally as large as the rest of him.

Not that I could see it.

Oh, what a girl wouldn’t give for X-ray vision.

Was that too much to ask for?

Just one little peek to satisfy my curiosity and then moving on .

He shifted and I jumped, realized I was staring at his crotch, and jerked my gaze back up to what had caught my focus after the muttering and before the dick considering—Smitty was big .

Thankfully, he was too distracted by the computer in his lap to have noticed me stopping and doing all that dick considering, too distracted now to see me staring over at him.

But…I’d sat in those chairs.

They weren’t the normal family room variety.

They were made for big guys.

And he practically overflowed the pale brown leather armchair.

How?

Which so didn’t matter, I knew. Definitely didn’t have any bearing on my current life. Shouldn’t even be in my thoughts, considering I was trying to erect plenty of distance between us.

Shaking my head, I started to move on.

Would have moved on.

If I hadn’t heard…

“Come on, you fucking idiot, this shouldn’t be this hard.”

Quiet. Hissed words.

Directed at himself.

But they might as well have been directed at me. God knew, I’d heard similar ones often enough, had felt the barbed words slice through me.

Had probably worn the same expression he now wore more times than I could count.

Because what was on his face was what I’d felt in my gut so often.

So fucking often that I stopped.

So fucking often that I stepped into that empty—save one Conner Smith—room and sucked in a breath.

“Just fucking do it,” he gritted.

My heart began to pound, clunking against my rib cage, palms going sweaty, knees practically knocking together.

But…somehow the words came.

“Can I help you?”

“Just fucking—” The sentence skidded to a halt, his mouth dropping open, eyes flying up to mine. “Kailey?” he whispered.

Oh boy, what was I doing?

It was a lot harder to actually look into his deep brown eyes, to be in front of him offering help, knowing that was counterintuitive to everything I’d been preaching to myself in my head since he’d first approached me.

But…I couldn’t just walk by.

Couldn’t leave him with frustration etched on his face, mixing with sad, with fury, with…old pain.

“I—”

My throat closed up. That ball of anxiety began expanding in my gut, clawing its way up my torso, digging its talons into my lungs, my neck, my tongue.

It took everything in me to remain in place and just breathe.

And as everything else inside of me spun like a tornado, I was just standing there. Staring at him.

If I’d seen one glimpse of impatience, I would have shut down, would have lost it and run. But there wasn’t any impatience. Just deep brown eyes on mine, searching my gaze for answers, waiting for me to speak.

My heart skipped a beat, but this time it wasn’t anxiety-induced.

It was…

Smitty.

Chocolate eyes. Thick beard. A scar through his right eyebrow. Gentle all over his face.

I tried again. “I…”

And still he waited.

And…somehow, that made it okay. “I’m sorry to intrude,” I said softly. “I just…did you need any help—” Something warm entered his eyes, and I found myself unable to hold them, my gaze dropping to his lap (and not to the shadows concealing what I hoped was a monster dick this time).

Monster dick?

Christ, I was losing my mind.

Swallowing hard, I managed to press on. “I just”—another breath—“I’m good with computers and can help if…”

That was the end of my words. I just ran out of steam. Eyes flicking up, I braced.

But Smitty didn’t snap at me.

Instead, he studied my like I was a puzzle he didn’t get. For a long time, his gaze stayed on my face.

Then he said, “No. You can’t help me.”

It was like he’d taken a pin and popped a balloon inside me, all the air just streaming out of me, deflating me in a slow, steady outflow.

“Right,” I whispered then started to turn. “I’ll just go?—”

“I’m dyslexic.”

My feet slid to a stop, I turned back. “What?” I whispered.

“I’m a dyslexic,” he murmured.

“I’m…” A breath, that knot in my stomach slowly loosening.

“I’m not sure what that means,” I whispered, shifting slowly from foot to foot.

“I mean, I’ve heard of being dyslexic and I had a friend in high school who told me that the letters moved on the page sometimes.

Is that—?” I glanced up, held his eyes. “Is that what’s making it hard this morning? ”

A nod to his computer.

Tension in the air, balling in his shoulders, in the heavy weight of his frame. “Yes,” he said. “Reading isn’t the easiest for me in general.”

“Why?”

My teeth hit my bottom lip.

That was a shitty question.

It wasn’t any of my business. It would be like someone asking me why I got anxious sometimes. Who the fuck knew? My body was just my body, and my brain worked the way it worked and…sigh…it was kind of douchey to just expect that there was an easier explanation.

Smitty shifted, closing his laptop and setting it in the chair next to him.

“I have surface dyslexia,” he said. “So, it’s a lot like what your friend described—the letters shifting and moving and twisting in on themselves.

And then what I see for a letter sometimes isn’t the same as what everyone else sees. ”

“What do you mean?”

He tapped at a sticker on the back of his laptop, a large black and blue rendering of the Breakers logo. “You probably see all of the letters as whole, yeah?”

I nodded.

A finger to the B. “This sometimes looks like a three to me. I know there’s supposed to be a line here. Sometimes I see it, but sometimes I don’t. And then sometimes those letters, even when they are whole, move and twist in on themselves like I’m high.”

He sighed.

“That’s what’s been happening this morning.” A beat. “And last night.”

“But sometimes it doesn’t?”

Smitty was quiet. “I’ve done a lot of work to get to a point where I can read effectively”—a self-deprecating smile—“and some days it’s easier than others.”

“What makes it easier?” I asked, knowing I was pushing boundaries, but genuinely curious about this man who was so big and loud and yet sitting alone in a room at seven in the morning, yelling at himself about reading something on his laptop, twin tracks in his hair, mussed from frustrated swipes.

He patted the chair next to him.

And…I sat.

And listened.

“Usually, shorter bursts of reading are better,” he said softly. “And the font and background color both matter.” A sigh. “And not getting irritated or frustrated at myself.”

I giggled. “I’m not so sure that has been working.” A nod to his hair. “Considering you’ve been trying to pull your hair out.”

Silence.

Brown eyes on mine.

A curl in my gut slowly tightening.

Fuck. I’d overstepped again.

Then he smiled, chuckled in a low, rasping way that had goose bumps prickling on my nape, heat replacing the tightness in my stomach.

“Yeah, Kay. You’ve got that right, and add in the fact that I haven’t been sleeping well and that I need to finish this before my meeting with Hazel, and… it’s a disaster for my luscious locks.”

Self-deprecating again.

Paired with a disarming smile.

Hmm.

I’d been smiling about the luscious locks comment, but that clue into his behavior, the self-effacing remarks, had an awareness trickling through me.

It also had my lips parting.

“I have anxiety.”

“What, honey?” he asked.

“I have anxiety,” I said. “Sometimes I’m fine, but most of the time I’m not.

It like…gets me in its grip and clamps down so tightly that sometimes I can’t breathe or talk.

People will look at me, expecting an answer, waiting impatiently, and I can’t—” Air shuddered out of my lungs.

“I want to reply or say something witty and I can’t . ”

I froze.

That wasn’t what I’d been expecting to say, wasn’t something I often admitted to anyone . It was my shameful, pathetic secret, something I’d worked to hide for so long, something I’d been pressured to hide.

And now it was just out there.

Kind of like Smitty had put himself out there.

“Baby,” he whispered.

The endearment slid through me, roughened fingertips on my cheek, along my throat, dipping between my breasts.

My anxiety ramped.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered back.

His brows drew together.

“I know you think, like, you and me and”—I broke off, gestured between the two of us, eyes dipping to my hands—“b-but I can’t do that.”

“Hey.” His voice was gentle.

“I try,” I said softly. “I’ve worked so hard to get better and to not be like this, but…I am. There’s something wrong with me inside.”

He inhaled sharply.

And then he was on his knees in front of me, his big hands wrapping around mine. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”

It was said in his big, fierce way, the expression on his face so intense that I could do nothing but sit there and listen to him, to let his words wash over me.

“Nothing,” he repeated.

“If there’s nothing wrong with me,” I said, my voice wobbling at first before it stabilized, before it got strong, like I was trying to be, “then there’s nothing wrong with you.”

He went still.

Hands tightening, just slightly, around mine.

And then he leaned forward—just forward and not up because he was so much bigger than me, so that when I was sitting and he was kneeling, our faces were aligned.

Our mouths were aligned.

Hot breath on my lips.

His nose brushing mine.

Closer .

Then his head tilted, his mouth hit my cheek.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”