Page 11 of Nash (Hockey Royalty #4)

Chapter 10

Nash

W hen I get back from yoga she’s sitting at my kitchen island with a coffee mug in her hand. Fully clothed, thankfully. She’s in loose jeans and a frilly tank top. She’s wearing a bunch of bracelets and some dangly earrings are peeking out from her hair, which is loose and straight. “Hey.”

"Hey," I say and immediately clear my throat. I move my eyes to everything but her. The kitchen counter, the wall, the couch as I tuck my rolled-up yoga mat under it.

“You finally knock one out and get some sleep?”

In typical Tenley fashion, she refuses to keep her mouth shut or be subtle. I try to act like I'm not embarrassed as all hell about everything that went on last night. "Yep. Although it took me a minute to fall asleep after. There was this weird noise in the house."

“Really?”

I steal a glance at her and she’s blinking in fake innocence but there’s a devious smile on her lips, which she’s trying to hide with the coffee cup. “Yeah, sounded like someone was strangling a goat.”

She jumps off her seat, horrified, and I turn my back to her and focus on starting my own coffee. It also means she can’t see the shit-eating grin on my face. “What the hell! I did not sound like a goat!”

"I grew up near a farm in Nova Scotia," I say as I press some ground coffee into the portafilter. It's hazelnut Tim Hortons blend. I bring a full suitcase back with me from Canada every summer. "When goats mate they make that exact same sound you did. Did you have someone sneak in because that's not allowed? Rule number six."

“No one was here. I was… never mind. Jerk.” She slams down her coffee mug and stomps off into my office-slash-her room.

“Make sure it doesn’t look like you’re sleeping… or making goat sounds in there.”

“Shut! Up!” she barks and I finally let my laughter loose.

I’m still laughing when she stomps back in, carrying an almost see-through nightie and a fistful of bras and panties. That gets my laughter to taper off. “What are you doing?”

“Putting this upstairs. So it looks like we share a room,” she announces like it’s no big deal.

And then she walks across the living room and starts up the stairs. “Wait! You can’t just put your crap with mine! I told you no touching my shit!”

I take a step to follow but the gentle hum of the espresso pouring into my cup halts me. If I chase after her, this will overflow. I turn it off and bolt for the stairs. But I'm too late. She's in my bedroom and has the top drawer of my only dresser opened. I skid to a halt, almost falling on my ass as my socks fight for a grip on the wood. She has her head tipped down into the drawer and I know she sees it.

“Get out of my drawers.”

My voice is hard and deep. She immediately shuts the drawer with a slam, turns around, and dumps her undies and bra on the bed.

“You pick where these go.”

She isn't making eye contact as she walks around my king-platform bed and drops her see-through nightie on the pillow. Without another word, she goes back downstairs. I close my eyes wishing this was a bad dream I could wake up from. I’m not going to last the entire playoffs with her. I just won’t.

An hour and a half later, I’ve buzzed in the documentary crew and am holding the apartment door open for them. Tenley is leaning on the concrete wall in the hall with a bright smile on her face. “Hey everyone!”

One of the women in the crew hugs her. “I’m so glad to have you in charge again.”

“Happy to do it obviously.” Tenley smiles at her. “You can store stuff in the office when you don’t need it.”

The woman hooks a left into the office. Tenley’s put the couch back to a couch and the sheets and pillows I gave her are nowhere to be found. It looks like my office and nothing more. The small crew of four people start unloading their gear. I grit my teeth and say a silent prayer nobody bumps a trophy or knocks something over. Tenley turns to me.

“Hubster, this is Lizzie, the sound engineer,” she says, and Lizzie waves at me. “That is Jorge. He’s our cameraman, and that is Frank, the lighting guru, and Rhett, our jack of all trades.”

“Otherwise known as the PA,” Rhett says and smiles broadly. He knocks Tenley’s shoulder with his own. “Girlfriend you did good. Congrats on the wedding, by the way. Wish you’d told us yourself.”

“It was all so sudden.” Tenley laughs. “Nash just couldn’t wait. He’s very impatient. When he wants something he just goes for it. Never thinks anything through. I love that about him.”

I want to glare at her so badly but I mange not to. Instead I just smile and nod. “I’ll let you guys set up. But word of warning, careful in here. Tenley is really uptight about our place. She hates clutter and would die if something got knocked over or broken. She’s obsessed with my accomplishments as much as she is with me.”

“Oh yeah. I care the exact same about both!” Tenley winks and blows me a kiss.

I pretend to catch it but as I leave the room I also pretend to drop it and kick it. In the kitchen, I glance at the clock on the microwave. My pre-game nap needs to start in two hours and I don’t want them filming that. They won’t film me sleeping, will they? I am suddenly slightly panicked. I hate this so much. I should be in my office looking at old videos of Seattle’s power plays this season. Trying to figure out how to make them less of a threat. They beat us on a power play goal last game and I really want to win this one, the third game in the series and the first at home in our arena.

Before I can worry too much, the crew and Tenley are in the living room and kitchen setting up. I watch them work as I sip a Body Armor. Tenley is in charge and shooting out directions with the confidence of a seasoned pro. Everyone is happily following her orders. They like working for her. "So this is going to be tricky for me," she admits, her eyes on the team. "I've never directed myself. But with your help, I know we can get this done and done well."

“We’ve got you, boss,” Rhett says with a smile.

Tenley says we’ll start with kitchen footage. She tells me to sit at the island while she makes my lunch and I immediately open my mouth to object. “I got this.”

Her blue eyes are narrowed on me and so I just nod and try not to look as frustrated as I am. I have to make my own lunch. I know what I want and how I want it. Tenley, as far as I know, doesn't cook. Whenever we do events or team get-togethers that she's tagged along on with Tate she's brought something prepared and store-bought. She looks at her cameraman. "Okay. Quiet on set… and rolling!"

She turns with a smile on her pretty lips I’ve never seen before, at least not directed at me. It’s warm, kind, inviting. “The usual babe?”

“Uh… yeah. Please.”

She pauses a second but then turns to stick her head in the fridge. “You nervous about the game?”

“No. Not really.”

“Why not? I mean it’s the first one at home since you won the Cup. You’re going into it with only one win, not two,” Tenley says as she steps away from the fridge, pushing it closed with her butt cheek because her arms are full of ingredients.

I peer at everything in her arms. Is it right? Is she going to make the right thing? I notice the cucumber and the slices of grilled chicken in her hands and get cautiously hopeful. “Nash?”

“What?”

She sighs. “Cut!”

She drops all the ingredients on the counter near my espresso machine and the next thing I know she’s got my arm and she’s dragging me down the hall. “Be back in a minute,” Tenley calls to the crew. “Hubster needs a pep talk. Cameras aren’t his friend.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen his post-game interviews,” Lizzie replies.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask Tenley.

She pulls me into the office and reaches for the door but there is none. She pokes her head down the hall and turns back to me. In a whisper, she says, "Seriously? You do commercials for crap. How are you this bad at acting?"

“I only endorse things and work with brands I actually like, which isn’t acting,” I reply and self-consciously shove my hands in my pockets. “And Crew does them with me and does most of the talking.”

She runs her hands through her hair and it immediately falls right back in place. But for that second she raked it, the light from the one window hits it and the strands shimmer with a golden glow. She could be a movie star , I think absurdly. But then again, everything right now is absurd. “I need you to pretend I’m someone you like. At the very least someone you want to like. We are not believable right now. You’re awkward as fuck.”

“Sorry.” I feel like shit.

She steps right up in front of me and looks up at me with earnest eyes. “Just talk like you would to Crew or whoever your last bed buddy was. It’s a normal game day.”

"There's a bunch of people and a heap of audio-visual equipment in my loft. It's not normal."

“Jesus. Yeah. Okay. But try to pretend they aren’t there,” Tenley pleads and then she pauses, puts a hand on my forearm, and squeezes. “I dare you.”

"You're a fucking menace," I mutter but I'm almost smiling because, at this point, this whole thing feels like a game. The marriage, the film crew, the mutual masturbation that happened last night. All of it is some big game of Truth and Dare. Or No Truth and All Dares. Whatever. Point is, I'm good at games.

So when she lets go of my arm and trots out of the office and down the hall I follow, catch up to her, and drape an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s do this lil wifey-poo.”

She sucks in her breath but doesn’t balk at the new nickname. She walks back into the kitchen and I take my seat at the island and pick up my drink from earlier. She looks at the crew.

“You all ready? Okay, so let’s get back to it.” She turns to the counter and my lunch. “Rolling!”

I pick at the label on the bottle. “I have to stop comparing this run to the last one.”

She glances over her shoulder at me as she grabs a knife from the butcher block. “You mean the playoff run?”

I nod. “Last year had a different energy. A different…”

“Flow?” she suggests.

“Yeah. And different… doesn’t always feel lucky,” I say.

“It’s hard when you’re superstitious. I get it,” Tenley replies.

She turns to face me and she’s got the salad spinner out. I don’t know how she knows where it is, under the counter by the sink, because she didn’t ask. I guess maybe she poked around the kitchen… like she did my dresser. I blink and mentally shake the embarrassing memory from my brain before it sinks me and I look awkward again.

I stand up and round the island, scooping the cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and block of feta off the counter and moving it to the island. I pull a cutting board out from its spot in the open shelving under the island. Tenley comes towards me with the knife and I almost jump out of the way. My enemy holding a razor-sharp cleaver, and not trying to stab me with it, is not something I thought I'd see in my own kitchen, but here we are. I take the cukes, grab my own knife, and start cutting.

She hip-checks me. “Hey. I said I was making you lunch.”

"You're my wife, not my servant," I remind her and continue cutting.

We’re silent for a few seconds as I cut the cucumber and half the cherry tomatoes and she grabs a bag of sweet potato fries out of the freezer and drops some in the air fryer basket. Once she turns it on she turns to me. “Different doesn’t mean bad. You can win more than one way. Before the Cup last year, what was the last big medal or trophy you won?”

“A gold, for Canada, at the Four Nations tournament.”

She puts a hand to her chest and winces because she was there, cheering on Tate who was playing for Team USA and lost that gold to us. I give her a ‘sorry-not-sorry’ smile and wink. “Okay, well, that win was totally different than your Cup win. You won that gold medal in OT. You won the Cup in regulation. You also lost a game in the Four Nations series and didn’t lose a game in your final Cup series. You swept them four games in a row.”

She is making good—no, great—points. I actually start to feel better. The niggling uneasy feeling that’s plagued me since we lost that last game in Seattle starts to fade. I toss the veggies into a big salad bowl as soon as she pulls it out of my cabinet and places it on the island. She gently shoves me out of the way and places the sliced chicken on top and begins to sprinkle crumbled feta on top of that.

“Thanks,” I say and shockingly mean it.

She looks up at me, hesitates, but them she rocks up on her tip toes and kisses my cheek. I wasn’t expecting it and between the feel of her lips and the scent of her—which is orange blossom and a spicy vanilla—I get a ripple of heat in my gut.

Desire. Again. For Tenley. Jesus. If this keeps up, I’m fucked.

We stare at each other.

“Cut!” she yells, breaking the moment in half.

“That was awesome,” Lizzie announces “You guys have chemistry.”

Tenley nods but turns away from her. Facing the counter and the air fryer she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

And… that desire shrivels up and dies. Phew. Crisis averted.