Page 21 of Cross Check Daddies (Miami Icemen #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Cam

It’s two in the morning when I hear the door open and close, Tanner’s heavy footsteps dragging through the apartment like he’s trying not to wake the ghosts.

I’m already sitting on the edge of the couch, lights off, TV flickering silently in front of me. He walks past the hallway and doesn’t notice me at first, until I speak.

“You were with Brooke.”

He freezes, then turns. His shirt’s half untucked, collar twisted, scratches down his chest and neck like she clung to him hard enough to mark him. He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t explain. Just runs a hand through his hair, jaw set.

“I’m too tired to do this right now.”

I stand. My voice cuts through the dark like a blade. “Why are you doing this?”

Tanner doesn’t flinch. “Because I like her. Because I want her. And I’m not going to feel guilty for that anymore.”

My fists clench. “You live with me. You knew what she meant to me.”

He sighs, not angry, not defensive. Just done. “I’m moving out. By the end of the month.”

He walks away.

I’m left standing in the silence, bitter as fuck and boiling underneath it. I’m not thinking straight. I throw my cap across the room, then kick the corner of the coffee table hard enough to make it tilt. I grab my keys without even knowing where I’m going until I’m already outside.

Summer rain starts to spit against my windshield, and I drive on autopilot, streetlights blurring.

I think about all of it. About the injury that ended my season early, about watching Tanner climb while I limped.

I was always okay with being second when it came to the game.

He had the edge, the skill, the future. I had other things. I had her .

Or I thought I did.

Now it feels like he’s not just the star anymore. Now it feels like he’s taking something else. Something that was mine.

I don’t knock when I get to her apartment. I just slam my fist against the door until the lights come on. When she opens it, she’s in a robe, confusion flashing before it morphs into something guarded.

“Cam?”

“I need the truth.”

Her mouth opens, but I cut her off, stepping inside.

“When I told you I was in love with you, when I asked you to marry me—you said no.”

“That was years ago, we were kids.”

“We were in love. We had discussed our future…planned it all. That’s not a kid.”

“You were about to be drafted,” she says. “You wanted to marry me before your whole life changed.”

“I was all in,” I snap. “I was ready. But I guess you never were.”

She blinks hard, her throat working. “Don’t do this right now.”

“Why not? I already lost you once, and now I’m watching you run into my brother’s arms like what we had never happened.”

She crosses her arms, shaking slightly. “You’re being unfair.”

“I’m being honest . I loved you. I loved you, and you left. No explanation. No looking back.”

Her eyes glisten. “I never stopped thinking about you.”

My chest clenches.

“I still think about you,” she says, voice cracking now. “Do you know why I named my son Jackson?”

I stare at her, confused.

“Because you'd told me the only hockey player you ever looked up to more than your dad was Jackson fucking Parr. You used to wear his number on your gym shorts. You’d watch old tapes and mouth along to the plays.”

That stops me cold. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

“I thought of you every time I said his name,” she says. “Every time someone asked me what Jackson meant to me, and all I could think about was you and how badly I fucked everything up.”

The room goes still.

“And now I’m here,” she continues, wiping her face. “Stuck between you two like some prize.”

“You’re not a trophy,” I say, guilt crawling up my spine.

“Then talk to him ,” she says, voice rising. “Because whatever this is between us? It won’t work unless you two deal with your shit. I don’t want you two to hate each other. I don’t want that. Don’t make me the villain.”

I step forward, softer now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it. I just... this isn’t easy for me.”

“You think it’s easy for me?” she snaps. “I don’t date . I don’t do feelings. I have casual sex with men I never text twice, because I already had complicated. I was married to complicated. And it cost me more than I can ever explain.”

Her voice breaks again. She wipes her face with both hands. “And now you’re here, screaming at me like I broke you on purpose.”

I breathe out, slow. Then I tug my shirt down and pull my waistband lower, just enough to reveal the ink above my hip. A discreet, slanted B.

She stares. “Is that...?”

“I got it six months after you left. After the first time I saw your name mentioned in some stupid indie dev blog. You were gone, but you weren’t. Not really.”

She reaches out, fingers brushing over the ink, soft and hesitant.

“I never stopped thinking of you either,” I say, my voice barely hanging together. “I loved you. I still do.”

She presses her forehead to my chest. I hold her, our breaths jagged, silence thick between us.

This time, she doesn’t pull away.

She pulls back slightly, just enough to look up at me. Her eyes are still wet, but she’s stopped crying. What’s left is something quieter.

“I still like Tanner,” she says, barely louder than the breath between us.

I don’t flinch. I already knew that. I nod once. “I still like you.”

Her mouth parts. There’s a war happening behind her eyes. I don’t ask which part of her is winning. I just lean down and kiss her tenderly. Her lips respond instantly, like the argument doesn’t matter right now.

My hand slides up to the back of her neck, the other gripping her waist tighter, pulling her flush against me. I walk her backward, step by step, until she hits the wall beside the kitchen. Her robe slips open, the edge catching on my forearm as I press against her.

She gasps softly as my lips move to her throat. “Cam?—”

“No talking,” I murmur. “Not yet.”

I drop to my knees before she can say another word.

Her breath stutters as I nudge the robe open wider and lift her leg over my shoulder. I press my mouth to her cunt, tasting her heat, licking deep and slow, then again faster when she cries out and grabs the edge of the counter for balance. She’s wet already. Desperate. Just as fucked up as I am.

I suck her clit, tongue teasing her rhythm, coaxing her toward the edge while she grips my hair like she might come undone from the roots. She’s panting, moaning, whispering my name over and over.

Her thighs start to shake, and I slide two fingers into her, curling until she clamps around me, mouth open in a silent scream. She pulses on my hand, leaking down my wrist, eyes squeezed shut.

I stand before she finishes catching her breath, grab the knot at my sweatpants, and drag them down with a groan.

“Cam,” she says again, uncertain now. Her hand touches my chest.

“I know,” I whisper. “This is fucked up.”

I lift her by the hips and lay her down on the carpet right there, her robe still half-on, her body bare beneath it. I settle between her thighs, kissing her again, letting her taste herself on my tongue. She arches against me, hips rising, and that’s all the permission I need.

I sink into her slowly, and it feels like coming home and losing myself all at once.

She clings to me, her nails dragging down my back.

I fuck her hard and deep on the floor, our bodies slamming into each other like nothing’s ever made sense except this.

I bury my face in her neck, my breath hot and ragged.

She moans my name again, pulling me in tighter like she wants to forget the rest of the world.

We break together—loud, chaotic, wrapped in heat and guilt and the wreckage of everything we never finished.

For a long moment after, there’s only silence. Our breaths. The way her chest rises and falls against mine.

Then she shifts. Her voice is quiet, strained.

“What does this mean?”

I roll to the side but keep my arm over her waist. I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

She nods like she expected that. Then turns her face toward mine. “Cam... I care about you. That’s real. But that’s not the whole story anymore.”

The ache behind those words hits hard. I study her profile in the low light, the way her lashes still cling to the edge of tears, the tension in her jaw. Her honesty is a knife, but she’s not trying to cut.

She brushes her hand through my hair, gentle now. “I don’t want you and Tanner to hate each other because of me.”

I close my eyes, throat tight. “Okay,” I say after a moment. It’s not much, but it’s the best I’ve got.

We lie there a little longer in the mess we made, her hand resting over the ink she found earlier. And for once, neither of us moves to fix what’s broken.

We just lie in it. Together.