Page 22 of Desperate Pucker (Denver Bashers #6)

Maddy

When I wake up, it’s dark in the living room.

My bladder is screaming at me, so I stand up and shuffle to the bathroom. When I come back out into the living room, I notice the sound of the dryer running in the hallway. Did Ryker do a load of laundry for me?

I walk over to check it out and stop in front of my open bedroom doorway. The bed has been stripped. Even the mattress pad is gone. He must have washed all of my bedding while I was passed out on the couch. I grip the door frame, blown away by how thoughtful it was for him to do that.

When I walk back into the living room, my eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I notice Ryker sleeping on the armchair. His head rests back against the top, and his long legs are sprawled out in front of him. Bruce hops up onto his stomach, and I laugh, covering my mouth so I don’t wake him.

Bruce starts to knead his paws along the fabric of Ryker’s shirt. I’m about to walk over and grab him, but Ryker opens his eyes. He leans up and looks down at Bruce.

“What the hell are you doing?” he mutters.

“He’s making biscuits,” I say.

Ryker looks up at me. “He’s what?”

“Making biscuits.” I laugh. “Cats do that when they’re very comfortable in a spot.”

Ryker’s frown deepens. “Your cat is deeply weird.”

I laugh again, then walk over, scoop up Bruce, kiss his fuzzy head, and set him down on the couch.

Ryker sits up on the chair and stretches out his neck. “What are you doing up?” he asks.

“Bathroom.” I pause for a second. “Thanks for washing my bedsheets.”

“My pleasure.” He stands up. “You hungry?”

I nod. He heads for the kitchen and flips the light on. And that’s when I see all the food on my counter. Bananas, potatoes, a bag of rice, oatmeal, ginger tea, peanut butter, and cans of chicken broth and vegetable broth.

“What’s all this?”

“You had no food in your kitchen,” he says, pulling out a loaf of bread from the fridge. I look inside and see that it’s stocked too. There’s ginger ale, electrolyte drinks, coconut water, applesauce, eggs, carrots, herbs, and what looks like a giant pot of more soup.

“You cooked?” I say, stunned.

He nods and grabs a banana from the counter along with the jar of peanut butter.

“You still want something sweet?” he asks.

I nod. He pops a slice of wheat bread into the toaster on my counter and grabs a small cutting board from the drawer next to him. He peels the banana and slices it.

He opens the refrigerator again, grabs a container of coconut water, and hands it to me.

“How did you know I like coconut water?”

The bread pops up from the toaster, and he grabs it, then spreads peanut butter on it.

“I heard you and Ingrid talking about how much you like it one of the nights we were all hanging out at Spanky’s.”

He layers banana slices on top of the peanut butter bread slice and plates it up.

“Let’s go sit down,” he says.

I walk back to the couch and sit next to Bruce. Ryker hands me the peanut butter banana toast, and I take a bite.

I close my eyes and hum at the sweet taste. “This is so good.”

“That should be gentle enough on your stomach.”

I take another bite. He sits next to me on the couch and frowns at Bruce, who’s sitting between us, cleaning himself.

I stare at Ryker as I chew.

“What?” he says when he notices me looking at him.

“You’re such a caretaker. It’s really sweet. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to say that I don’t look like the kind of guy who would take care of someone when they’re sick?”

“No. I just…I’m not used to being taken care of like this.”

The look in his eyes softens. “Your ex wouldn’t take care of you when you were sick?”

I shake my head. “He was pretty grossed out by germs. He wouldn’t even come visit me in the hospital when I had surgery on my ankle.”

Ryker’s jaw bulges. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish. Sergei wasn’t the most caring person in the world.”

“Then why were you with him?”

I’m taken aback by the bluntness of Ryker’s question.

“Because he was my first love. My first everything. I was with him since I was nineteen, and I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know I deserved better.”

I pick at the crust of my toast and expect Ryker to shake his head in disappointment. But he just nods.

“Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

“You do?”

“I felt like that with my ex-girlfriend.”

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. He looks down at Bruce, who’s curled into a ball and sleeping. Gently, he pets his head.

“She was a figure skater like you,” he says after a quiet moment. “She came from a really rich family.”

Oh.

It makes sense now why he didn’t like me when he met me. I’m a figure skater, and my dad’s a billionaire.

“How long were you together?”

He stretches out his leg and rolls out his ankle. “Seven years.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Too long. I should have called it off way before we broke up.” He tugs a hand through his thick hair. “It ended the day before I was going to propose to her.”

“What happened?” I shake my head, feeling like I’m prying. “I shouldn’t be so nosy.”

“It’s fine.” He lets out a heavy breath. “She found the ring I was going to propose to her with. She hated it and refused to get married to me unless I got her the ring she wanted.”

My jaw falls open. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” He looks down at his lap, a shy look in his eyes. “That was the last straw. I knew it would never work between us, so I ended it right then.”

“Wait, Ryker, you’re a professional athlete. You make a ton of money. I bet the ring you got her was amazing. What the hell kind of ring did she want?”

His throat works. “This insane, gigantic diamond that would have cost a year’s worth of my salary.”

My head spins. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Technically, I could have gotten it for her. I had the money, but it just felt wrong.” He huffs out a breath.

“I should have broken up with her years before then. She was always making comments about how I needed to live up to her lifestyle. She was always criticizing my clothes, calling them cheap. She thought my car was trashy.”

I look at him. “You drive a Range Rover.”

“Her family was loaded. She was used to stuff that was a lot nicer.”

I shake my head in disbelief.

He clears his throat. “She didn’t like that I came from a working-class background. Every time she was around my family, I could tell she was uncomfortable. Even though they went out of their way to welcome her.”

Anger simmers inside of me. What a materialistic jerk she sounds like.

“She didn’t like that I played hockey either,” he says after a moment.

I stare at him, utterly confused. “What? That makes no sense. You’re a professional athlete who makes a ton of money.”

He rubs the back of his neck and looks down. “Yeah, but I’m not a superstar. I’m a solid player for sure. I earn my spot on the teams I’ve played for. But I’m not famous. My paycheck isn’t as big as it would be for someone who’s at the very top in the league.”

“Most players aren’t superstars. That doesn’t mean you’re trash. Ryker, I’ve seen you play. You’re an incredible athlete.”

“But I’m not a superstar, which is what she wanted. And if I couldn’t be that, then she wanted me to move on. She wanted me to quit playing hockey so I could work for her family’s company.”

“Are you serious?”

He nods. “They own some huge real estate empire. I would have made more money doing that than playing hockey. My schedule would have been easier too. No more traveling. No more dealing with injuries and beating up my body.” He goes quiet, his mouth a straight line.

“But no way was I going to give up hockey to do that.”

A protective feeling courses through me. “Because you love it. It’s your passion, and you can’t imagine doing anything else.”

His gaze focuses and sharpens when he looks at me.

“Exactly.” He’s quiet for a second. “I don’t know how many years I have left in the league.

I’m thirty-five. I’m not the oldest guy playing, but I’m up there.

Playing hockey is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.

I’m not ready to quit. When the time comes for me to leave, I only want to do it because I have to.

Because I gave my all and couldn’t give anymore. ”

My chest aches hearing him speak. I know exactly how he feels.

“I get it,” I say softly. “That’s how I was with figure skating. I didn’t want to quit until I had given it everything. And even though the outcome at the Olympics wasn’t what I wanted, I knew I had given it my all. I knew it was time to move on.”

He nods. “I get a lot of shit for how old I am, but I’ve still got more left in me. I know I do. I want to see how far I can go. I want to play in a Stanley Cup final, if I can.”

Determination sparks up inside of me. This is why Ryker gets so pissed when people give him a hard time about his age.

This is why he was so adamant about training with me as soon as possible.

He knows he doesn’t have a lot of time left in the league, so he wants to play as much as he can.

He wants to make every game, every minute he’s on the ice, count.

And as his skating coach, I’m going to do everything I can to help him do that.

“I’m sorry your ex didn’t support you in your career, Ryker. That’s messed up,” I say. “When did things end between you two?”

“Four years ago.”

I reach over and gently squeeze his hand in mine. “I’m sorry.”

He gazes down at our joined hands, then looks at me. “It’s okay. I’m glad we’re not together anymore. We weren’t right for each other.”

He gives my hand a soft squeeze. I close my eyes, savoring how big and warm his hand feels.

“When did you and your ex break up?” he asks.

I tense up. “Right before the Winter Olympics.”

He looks up at me, his eyes big.

“Great timing, huh?”

He scrubs his free hand along his face. “Jesus.”

The urge to clam up and shrink into myself zooms through me, but I fight it. Ryker opened up to me about his ex. I want to be honest with him now too.

“I found out he was cheating on me for most of our relationship,” I say. “I was heartbroken. I threw myself into training for the Olympics to distract myself, and that worked for a while. But then everything came to a head.”

I’m quiet for a second as I remember it all. Ryker gives my hand another soft squeeze. My skin tingles. I swallow at how good it feels, how his massive hand swallows up mine. How warm and comforting his touch is.

“I was reeling from my breakup. I was starving myself because my coach at the time was really critical of my body. She wanted me to be as tiny as possible when I competed at the Olympics. I had surgery on my injured ankle a few months earlier, and I rushed my rehab so that I could compete. I was running on painkillers and maybe a thousand calories a day.”

When I look up at Ryker, his eyes are wide. “Shit, Maddy. That’s awful.”

I huff out a breath. “And then my dad showed up out of the blue to watch me skate.”

His brow furrows like he’s confused.

“I wasn’t expecting him to be there,” I say.

“Your dad never watched you skate before?”

“Nope. That was the first time ever. He called me the night before my short program and said he was coming to watch me. I was a bundle of anxiety and nerves.”

“But you’re his daughter,” Ryker says.

“Yeah, but it’s not that simple.” I swallow back the emotion in my throat. “He was married with kids when he met my mom. He lied to her and said he was separated to get her to go out with him.”

Ryker’s eyes go wide. “He had an affair?”

“Yup. Typical billionaire behavior. Fucking around on his wife and getting another woman pregnant.”

Recognition flashes in his eyes.

“I’m an affair baby. My mom raised me as a single mom.

She got child support, and he paid for all my schooling and figure skating growing up.

I was fortunate in that way. Money was never an issue for me.

I always had everything I needed. But he never spent much time with me.

He had his older kids to focus on. He never really felt like my dad. ”

For a long second, Ryker just stares at me, a mystified look on his face.

“You were his family too, Maddy.”

“I never felt like it.”

“That’s fucked up.” He reaches over and tucks my hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.” There’s a bite in his gentle tone. My chest aches at how much he feels for me, how much he cares about my pain.

“He’s tried to make up for it over the years,” I say. “He bought me this apartment when I turned twenty-one. He got me my job with the Bashers.”

Ryker shakes his head. “You got that job because you’re an incredible skater and teacher. Look how you’re helping me. I wouldn’t be able to play like I do without you.”

Warmth swoops through me, hearing him give me credit for his ability as a hockey player.

He pulls me onto his lap, careful not to bump Bruce. I rest my hands on his shoulders, and he cups my face in his hands.

“I was wrong about you, Maddy,” he rasps. “I’m sorry.”