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34

Alana

T here was a shift on the bed that jogged me awake and as I blinked my eyes open, I saw Liam settling on the edge, two plates in hand.

“Morning,” he said.

“You sound like you’ve been awake a while,” I replied, my voice cracking as it tried to find its way back to consciousness.

“Awake enough to have run 2k and bought you a pastry. Pistachio or hazelnut?”

“If I say hazelnut, are you just going to smile your way through eating the other one?”

“No, Rob’s downstairs. Aaron and Stassie might want to fight for it when they are back from their walk. Just figured you would want options.”

“Stand down, you can eat your hazelnut croissant,” I said as I sat up and reached for the pistachio pastry. “Why did you only run 2k?”

“I could not be bothered, and it took me that long to accept it. I talked to Teddy on the way back, so that was nice.”

“And how is the Teddy bear?” I asked just before I let out a moan at my first bite of pastry. I saw Liam’s eyes darken.

He cleared his throat. “They’re in Boston. He spent Christmas there with his family, so he is well and truly settled before their game later today. Is while you’re having a moment with your breakfast a good time to tell you that there are photos of us out there?”

I couldn’t say I was surprised; it had occurred to me that this would happen. I thought I would care more, but I actually felt indifferent to it. I wasn’t hiding being with Liam and in some ways, I accepted that it came with the territory.

“Photos of us doing what?” I did still need to know for sure that someone hadn’t managed to catch our dressing room tryst on camera.

“Teddy mentioned something about us frolicking in front of Macy’s and the ice rink.”

I sighed in relief. “Oh, well that’s fine. For a second, I worried that we got caught in the dressing room.”

“I think Teddy would have been a lot more scandalised if that was the case, but he seemed pretty chill. Plus, he couldn’t tell that it was you in the pictures.”

“So he thought you had a mystery girl?”

“Yeah, he did. Was kind of surprised when I said it was you. Then a little bit annoyed that I hadn’t told him directly. You know Teddy.” Liam was peeling flakes off the top of his pastry and very intentionally not looking at me anymore.

He was right, I did know Teddy. Well. We had never stopped being friends. All week, Liam and I had been skirting around the reason we hadn’t seen each other for years. Liam knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t going to start talking about my feelings unprompted, and so while we found our bearings around each other, he had let it go.

But I knew he could only let it go unspoken for so long and we couldn’t exactly move forward as a couple with it still hanging between us.

“Why did you go to Michigan?” His voice was quiet. Tentative.

And there it was. I took a deep breath, knowing I couldn’t deny him the truth anymore, and jumped straight in.

“I had exactly zero intention of falling in love with my best friend. The same best friend that everyone told me I would end up marrying one day. One, because I thought you were a stupid boy, even if you were my stupid boy, and two, because it’s just too fucking basic. How many films have been made about that? So, imagine my surprise when I’m listening to Lacey talk about how she loves her boyfriend so much she’s going to have sex with him and when I ask her how she knows she loves him she says all these things that sound familiar to me. Then a couple of days later, you walk into my kitchen at three in the morning and sleepily hang out with me while I bake, and I realise you are the reason the things sounded familiar.

“And then I just felt very stupid, because at no point did you give any indication that you saw me as anything more than a pseudo-sister. But I couldn’t turn it off once that switch had flipped. Then I remembered that we were going to college together. And I knew you would know that something was wrong because I couldn’t keep it in anymore. These feelings that were blooming for you. So, I knew there would come a point where I would start to feel irrationally jealous or sad or angry at you if you started having casual encounters with people, like I wasn’t dying inside to have you. I convinced myself that if you knew how I felt, you’d give me this speech about how you did love me, but it was like a sister. Or you’d give some spiel about how you couldn’t commit to a relationship because of hockey or college or because you liked having casual sex and didn’t want to be stuck with one person. With me. And because I made it weird by confessing all these feelings, you would slowly pull away. In my head, I was losing you anyway and I figured there was no need to drag it out any longer. And I got into Michigan. So, I broke my own heart and ran away.”

Liam was silent for what felt like forever, and I tried to distract myself with the pistachio topping of my pastry. I felt him move up the bed until he was sitting next to me. I waited for him to get me to look at him, but he just started talking.

“It is really basic to fall in love with your best friend, but if you’d told me, I wouldn’t have told you that I loved you like a sister. I would have told you that I loved you too. Because here’s the thing Alana, I juggled hockey and school and you throughout high school with great ease. I didn’t go to every party or always hang out with the guys because I wanted to hang out with you. Coming out of the rink on a day when we lost was fine because I would walk into that parking lot and see you leaning against the side of my car with the bottom of your face buried underneath your scarf and your hands in your coat pockets. And that became the best part of my day.”

I wiped under my eyes, and I realised I was crying. Liam took my chin in his hand and tilted my head to look at him. He swiped his thumbs over my cheekbones and something else clicked into place.

“The day I met Kai was the same day I got this tattoo.” I gestured to my right arm. “I got it as my final hurrah to you—”

“What flower is it, by the way?” Liam cut me off.

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Queen of the Night. A flower that only blooms at nighttime and then dies at sunrise. Liam discovered its existence when we were thirteen and told me about it because it reminded him of me.

“Fine, how many Queen of the Night flowers are tattooed on you?”

“I think you know the answer to that too,” I said quietly.

“Seventeen?”

The number on the back of every hockey jersey he’s ever worn.

I nodded. He blew out a slow breath.

“What were you going to say?”

“The day I met Kai was also the day I decided I was going to put my unrequited love for you in a locker as soon as my tattoo was finished. Then, with my arm still wrapped, I literally bumped into Kai and away we went. It’s funny because I never actually got to fully put you in that locker in my mind. I ended up with this man who had been very invested in your collegiate career and where you were going professionally. But that’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve just realised why I didn’t say yes when Kai proposed. The moment Kai started to get down on one knee, I closed my eyes because if I couldn’t see him do it then maybe it wasn’t happening. But when I closed my eyes, the only thought I had was that if he really loved me, hell if he really knew me, then he wouldn’t be asking me to marry him in front of all those people, the fact that we knew them was kind of redundant. And as soon as I had that thought, it was immediately chased by the thought that there was someone who knew me well enough to not do something like that so publicly, and I couldn’t ignore that.”

Liam wiped under my eyes again and pressed a kiss to the space between my eyebrows.

“I asked you once if you would still be my friend if I didn’t play hockey and you said, ‘The fact you play hockey is the least interesting thing about you’. I don’t think you ever told me what you thought was more interesting about me, but I do know that you said it with the utmost sincerity. When I floated the idea about retiring while I was rehabbing my shoulder, I jokingly asked Mel if she would still love me if I didn’t play hockey and she hesitated to say yes. Suddenly, all I could think about was how you didn’t hesitate. You never hesitated.”

“We are having this conversation in our thirties because I hesitated,” I pointed out.

“Hey, everything happens for a reason, right?” He kissed my forehead.

“You’re very pretty. That is more interesting than the hockey. Tall. Everyone loves tall. You were one of those people who liked ice time and conditioning in equal amounts, so you would have always been cut. That’s interesting. It shows complete dedication. Dedication is interesting, right? You know obscure flowers, which while niche, is interesting.” One of his hands moved to cup the back of my neck and his thumb swiped along my jaw, making my skin erupt in goosebumps. “You like books, and you understand the importance of the hand flex. On that, you have very interesting hands that are capable of very interesting things, like stick handling, although I guess that is hockey-related.”

He smiled before pressing a kiss just below my ear, making me shudder.

“Len, I am about to show you something and the answer to your inevitable question is going to be eighteen.”

He brushed his lips against my cheek and then stood up, his fingers finding the waistband of his shorts.

“Muller, I’ve seen your dick before, you didn’t need to announce that,” I said, not that I was complaining. I was always down to see it now that I had.

“It occurred to me about five minutes ago that you haven’t seen me completely naked because if you had, we would have already had this particular conversation.”

“That’s ridiculous, I’ve definitely seen you—” Except I hadn’t. Shirtless, yes. He’d had his dick out enough that he could fuck me with it, but fully nude? Yeah, that hadn’t happened yet.

“Yeah, wild right? Almost as wild as the fact that I learned just how good you taste before I kissed your mouth,” he said as he pulled his shorts down and let them puddle on the floor. He was half hard as he pulled his top off as well.

“What am I looking at? Because while I have not seen you like this, I have definitely seen all the components.”

He had his hands on his hips. He oozed confidence and it was turning me on.

“Just give it a moment, you’ll see it.”

What I was seeing was that he was getting harder the longer I stared at him, and that was pulling my focus as I studied his naked form. Then my gaze snagged on it.

Nestled deep in the crease of his hip bone.

“Is that the Sweet Nothing bakery sign?”

I had spent a lot of time doodling what I wanted my bakery sign to look like. I thought if I had the logo, then it would make everything more real, and I would work harder to make it a reality. One day, I drew a large cookie with cupcakes for chunks and I knew that I had found it. When Liam had finished his hockey practice that day, he had met me by the car, and I’d shoved it in his face. I told him to get used to the design because he was gonna see it in Westchester one day. He told me he didn’t doubt it and then drove us to get dinner.

And he had that very logo tattooed on him. Six years before it would have any importance.

“Why is the Sweet Nothing bakery sign tattooed that close to your dick?” I watched his now fully hard dick twitch.

“I did it on a whim but put enough thought into it to remember that I still knew Teddy. If it was somewhere that he could see it, he would never let me hear the end of it. You just don’t look in the general direction of people’s junk in the locker room, so it felt like the safest bet.”

“And no one you had sex with questioned why there was a cookie that close to it? Didn’t make a weird joke? Mel didn’t clock that the sign for the bakery she visited quite often was also tattooed in an intimate place on your body?”

“Yes, some girls questioned it. Yes, a couple made a cookie joke. Mel commented on it, but she never asked if it had anything to do with you. I’m not saying she didn’t think it, but she never asked. Which was probably for the best because I have no idea how I would have explained without making it sound like I was half in love with you. Any more questions?”

“Did you get hard while it was being done?”

“Seriously, that is your question?” He leant down and pulled his shorts back up, trapping his erection in the waistband, before he sat back on the bed.

“I just think pain might turn you on a little bit, so yeah, I am more interested to know if having a cookie tattooed in that particular area caused the same situation you’re rocking right now. Rather than talking about all the other women who have seen it.” I ran a finger up his length. He moaned softly.

“Yeah, I got a little hard. The guy doing it told me that it wasn’t an abnormal reaction.”

“You busy today?” I asked, aware that I was changing the subject, but a thought had just occurred to me.

As always, Liam didn’t bat an eyelid at the change of direction. “Not unless you’re busy today.”

“You wanna find out what perks come with being the Coach’s daughter?”

“What perks are we talking here?”

“It’s a game day, right?”

“For some people, yeah. I don’t know if you remember, but I retired this year.”

“And you don’t miss the arena at all?” I would always think he made the right choice, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate that the right choice was sometimes the hardest.

“I don’t miss this particular game of the season; it was always a bit rough. If we’re talking big picture then yeah, I miss it sometimes, but mostly I miss the energy of the arena the moment my skates hit the ice for the first time.”

“I can give you clean ice. No crowds, but clean ice, I think.” I had to talk to my dad first, but I was pretty sure he would say yes. I was his favourite daughter, after all.

Liam was oddly silent.

“We don’t have to go. I just thought—”

He reached out his hand and laced his fingers through mine, squeezing them gently.

“No, I do want to. If Rob says yes, then I want to go. Just…” I waited. “How much like game day do you want this to be?”

“This a superstition thing?” I knew Liam had a few. I never knew all of them, but I knew that his game day mornings had to go a certain way, or he was convinced the world was going to end.

He nodded.

“I used to have to jerk off pre-game, and then before the first game of my professional career, your wonderful father called me in the middle of it. I shouldn’t have answered it, but it was your dad, and he was instrumental in me even thinking I could get on the ice professionally, so I didn’t want to ignore him.”

I laughed. “Was he aware you had your hand around your dick just before you answered that call?”

“I doubt it. Anyway, that phone call took up the rest of my time before I had to leave. So, I went without release. We won that game. The next game I carried out my ritual as usual; we lost.”

Heat was settling low in my core.

“Therefore, you had to start edging yourself before every game?”

“Correct.”

“So, what does this have to do with today?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,” he said, his voice was huskier now. I squeezed my thighs together.

“Okay, when did you let yourself come then?”

“Whenever I got back into my own bed.”

“Wait your own bed? What about away games?”

“I mean, it went soft eventually, so it was fine. Made coming back home a little bit sweeter, though.”

“What would be the rules here then?” We were in New York for a few more days.

“The main thing about it is that I needed to feel at home. There is nowhere I feel more at home than when I’m around you, Alana.”

Oh.

“Right, well.” This was going to be fun. “Go have a shower and get close. It’s game day, baby!” I pressed a kiss to his cheek and got out of bed.

“I love you. You know that, right?” Liam said just as I got to the door. I turned back to look at him, the words on the tip of my tongue.

“I know,” I said instead. He smiled and I went to ask my dad a favour.