Page 89 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Eighteen

Jules

Sunshine was stabbing at my brain through my eyelids.

Too early.

Not enough sleep.

Not enough?—

Wait.

Sunshine was stabbing at my brain through my eyelids.

Sunshine shouldn’t be shining into my eyes, not until I was making Ethan breakfast and running around like a chicken, trying to get all the last-minute things together.

That it was stabbing in through my eyelids now meant that…

“I’m late!”

Shit.

Pulse pounding in my veins, my stomach immediately in a tight clench, I sat up, tossing the comforter to the side and scrambling out of bed.

My bare feet hit the cold floor and then I was running down the hall toward Ethan’s room, my feet pounding on the floor instead of my kiddo’s for a change. “Eth, buddy! We have to?—”

I skidded to a halt in front of his bedroom, pushed the door open, and?—

It was empty.

“Ethan?” I called. There was no way he’d gotten out of bed without me nagging him fifteen times. To Get. Up!

A clatter from down the hall.

Had miracles happened, and he’d gotten ready?

I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Rushing into my bedroom, I threw my hair up into a ponytail, yanked socks onto my feet, then snagged my phone from the side table. Thirty seconds later, I was hustling down the hall, skidding into the kitchen, and?—

Screeching to a stop.

What.

The.

Fuck?

“Hi, Mom,” Ethan said, his little legs swinging back and forth as he sat on a stool pulled up to the counter. Next to Cas.

What. The. Fuck?

Cas flipped the spatula—and that was a mind fuck right there, Cas standing in my kitchen, next to Ethan, holding a fucking spatula —and a pancake appeared on the plate that was positioned in front of Ethan.

It was already coated with syrup and I immediately saw why when my son picked up the bottle, doused the pancake on his plate with copious amounts of the sweet, sticky liquid and jabbed the soaked pancake with his fork.

It disappeared into the black hole that was Ethan’s stomach.

Hell, I wasn’t even sure my kid chewed.

Cas turned to face me, and the balls on the man to not even have one ounce of guilt on his face when he extended my own plate full of steaming pancakes.

Huge balls.

Huge.

“Eat, gorgeous,” he said quietly.

There were dark circles under his eyes. Hell, there were dark circles beneath the dark circles.

Had he even slept?

I was pissed that he was in my house, with my kid, worried about the exhaustion drawn so deeply into the lines of his face, and— hell —my heart was squeezing over the fact that he was in my kitchen cooking pancakes for my son.

It was a scene…

Well, hell, it was fatherly.

And that wasn’t something Ethan or I had ever experienced.

Cas bent a little, meeting my eyes. “I’ll explain later,” he murmured. “Just eat now.”

Explain.

Right. He needed to explain why he was in my house.

And yeah, maybe I needed to explain why I wasn’t freaking out about him being in my house, cooking pancakes, loading my kid up with sugar, and in my house.

But instead of freaking out, I grabbed a fork, cut off an edge of the pancake, shoved it into my mouth…and holy sweet baby Jesus, that was absolutely divine. “Mmm,” I groaned, immediately scooping up more of the pancake and scarfing it down. Ethan was doing the same…because I didn’t raise a fool.

Carbs.

Sweet, glorious carbs.

Okay, that was why I didn’t kick Cas out—and kick his ass for the intrusion.

The carbs.

Not because my heart was pounding against my ribs and warmth was in my belly and?—

Cas dropped another pancake onto my plate.

Right.

I should eat the pancakes.

Or…school—I should focus on being a mother and getting Ethan to school, not on my stomach, no matter how delicious the pancakes were.

“I made his lunch,” Cas said quietly, opening Ethan’s train-themed lunchbox and showing me the contents. A sandwich, a plastic container with cut-up veggies, a banana, and a pack of gummies. What I’d pack.

“Ethan helped me,” Cas said, zipping it back up. He winked and embers flared in my belly. “Even with the veggies.”

“I cut up the carrots, Mom,” Ethan said through yet another pancake. “And I got dressed on my own.”

Which explained the raucous riot of colors that formed his outfit that morning.

“That’s really good, buddy. Did your alarm wake you up?”

“Nope.” More pancake into his mouth. “Cas did.”

“I heard it going off,” Cas said quietly. “Just poked my head in to make sure he was up and moving.”

“Heard it because you were in my house?” I asked dryly.

Pink on his cheeks, his eyes darting away. “Something like that.”

“Right.”

His brows lifted. “More pancakes?”

I wanted to refuse, solely on principle. But my stomach rumbled, stealing that from me. The bitch. Except, even as I thought that, my lips twitched and I nodded. “Did you get any?”

He shook his head. “I’m good.”

There was something a little edgy about that statement, but I didn’t get a chance to push it because then he asked, “I have a couple extra tickets to tonight’s game. Do you guys want to come?”

I nearly dropped my plate.

Because that was not fucking fair. Because that explained the edgy.

Because Cas had to know that Ethan’s reaction would be?—

“Yes!”

It was almost a shriek, paired with the plate clattering to the counter and his little body jumping up and down on the stool. “Yes! I want to go. Can we go, Mom? Can we?—”

“That was mean,” I mouthed to Cas.

Who just lifted his brows again and steadied Ethan, so my son didn’t tumble off the stool as he expressed his excitement.

“I can leave the tickets at the box office so you guys can come when it’s convenient.

” He poured batter into the pan before tugging his wallet out of his pocket and slipping a card out from the inside, extending it toward me.

“Here’s a parking pass for the private lot.

That way, if you need to leave early for bedtime, you can avoid the traffic. ”

“We won’t have to leave early, right Mom?” Ethan asked, still bouncing, though it was now in between even more pancake consumption. “You always say that good stuff happens at the end.”

That had the result of drawing Cas’s gaze back to mine.

And damn, did the man see—and hear —too fucking much.

“We can go,” I said, tearing my gaze from Cas’s, moving to my son, and ruffling his hair. “ And stay till the end.”

“Promise?”

Damn.

My kid knew me, knew I wouldn’t go back on my word.

“Promise,” I repeated.

“And promises are meant for keeping,” Ethan said, finishing the statement I’d taught him over the years.

Thankfully, I wasn’t working that night.

Something that Cas probably knew, given that he was sneaky and in my house making pancakes and had made the offer in the first place.

“And get snacks?” Ethan asked me innocently.

Sweet Christ, arena prices. That was going to kill me, if the big, sexy player making pancakes in my kitchen didn’t first.

But I stifled that thought—or thoughts , rather—and embraced that I was going to get to give my kid something he wanted desperately and something I couldn’t give him by myself.

Free tickets from big, dark, and sexy meant I could swing arena prices for snacks.

“Yes,” I told Ethan as I snagged his syrup-covered plate.

“And a souvenir, too. Now, you’ve got to get your shoes and jacket on, and we need to hustle so we’re not late for school, yeah? ”

No hesitation. Just, “Okay, Mom!” Then he zoomed out of the room, his pounding feet echoing all the way through the hall.

The plate disappeared from my hand, was replaced with my own. “Eat, gorgeous.”

“You play mean,” I murmured, scowling up at Cas.

A shrug. A nudge with the porcelain disc. Another order.

“ Eat .”

Since the pancakes were delicious and my stomach told me that I hadn’t had enough carbs—thank you very much—I obeyed the order, no matter how pernicious, and ate. “You’re not off the hook,” I grumbled, forking bites in at a rapid clip. “You know that, right?”

“You can take it out on my ass later,” he said lightly, picking up the pan and bowl and taking both to the sink. The water came on, sizzling in the pan, and he turned back to face me, voice going serious “I can pay for the food?—”

“No,” I said quickly.

His expression said he wanted to argue.

But, as I’d established, he was smart and presumably saw that I wasn’t going to budge on him paying for our food and Ethan’s souvenir.

“You weren’t planning on it,” he pointed out. “I know it’s hard when expenses pop up out of nowhere.”

He was right. I hadn’t planned on taking Ethan to a Breakers game.

But I was going to buy my kid expensive chicken strips and popcorn and cotton candy and one of those maniacal wave-shaped stuffed mascots as well, anyway.

Because Ethan didn’t get opportunities like this very often.

So, I was going for it—even though it came from a man who had broken into my apartment…and made pancakes.

“You know I’m going to change the code, right?” I told him archly.

A grin that should have melted my clothes right off me before he turned back and began scrubbing the pan, the bowl, Ethan’s plate and fork. “You’ll tell me the new one.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And you know I don’t date hockey players.”

That grin didn’t fade as he set the dishes on the drying rack. “Who said I want to date you?”

Ouch.

But I didn’t let that hurt show, just went to my purse, words more than a little terse when I said, “I’ll remind you that you asked me out.”

He shut off the water, dried his hands on a towel.

“Yeah,” he said. “I did.” He closed the distance between us, the warmth of his body searing me through our clothes, the spicy scent of him in my nose.

“I don’t want to date you, gorgeous,” he murmured, trailing his knuckles over my cheek, even as his words sliced through me.

Ouch again.

“I want to keep you.”

Those words weren’t a slice.

They were warmth, no heat, no…an inferno .

I shuddered, my body leaning against his. “Cas?—”

His lips brushed mine.

That inferno exploded, a sudden gust of oxygen, gasoline on flames, fuel for the fire burning in me.

I rose on tiptoe, pressed my mouth to his, got a taste of tongue and teeth and need .

But when I went for more, he pulled back, brushed his knuckles over my cheek. “You need to get Ethan to school, gorgeous.”

No.

I needed to kiss him again.

My fingers gripped his T-shirt. “Cas?—”

A press of his lips to my forehead and then he was gone, the front door closing behind him a moment later.

“Shit,” I whispered, trying to get myself together by smoothing my hand over my hair, my shirt, the front of my sweats.

I felt something crinkle.

Reached into my pocket.

And pulled out that damned hundred-dollar bill.