Page 56 of Never Dance with the Devils (Never Say Never #6)
MADDOX
T oday has been rough, but I have zero room to complain. All I’ve done is talk to my agent, Coach, and the team’s legal department. Kayla’s been dealing with so much more and we still haven’t heard from her yet.
The urge to hunt her down is weighing heavily on me. I need to make sure she’s okay, that’s all.
Earlier, Kyle called Riggs back, informing him that things went pretty well at the office so Kayla headed home to talk to their parents. But that was hours ago and while the idea of tracking her down there sounded crazy a while ago, it’s starting to sound reasonable and completely sane now.
Thankfully, Riggs is here to stop me. And I’m here to stop him from doing the same thing. So in the meantime, I’ve done about a thousand pushups and bodyweight squats, just to have something to do.
“Hello?” Kayla’s voice calls out as the door of her condo opens.
“She’s home,” we both announce, hopping up from the couch and rushing to greet her as she sets her bag on the foyer table.
“Hey, how’d it go? Is everything okay? What do you need?” The questions tumble from my lips too fast before I can stop them. I have zero chill where this woman is concerned.
Riggs just opens his arms, annoyingly silent, and Kayla falls into his embrace.
With her cheek pressed to his chest, he runs a hand over her hair, soothing her as her eyes flutter closed.
Just seeing her here with us, safe and sound, relaxes the knot that’s been coiled in my gut all day.
And when Riggs presses a kiss to Kayla’s forehead and then turns her to me, letting me wrap her in my arms too, I finally feel at peace.
Much more calmly, I ask, “How’re you doing?”
“Exhausted, but happy,” she says, pulling back to smile weakly at me. I can see the toll the day has had on her in the set of her shoulders and the shadows in her eyes.
“Want to tell us about it?” Riggs has noticed the stress too and runs his hands over her shoulders, massaging the tension away. It’s like we can’t stop touching her, needing to reassure ourselves that she’s come back to us and today hasn’t ruined everything.
“Yes, but I have an idea for that.” Through the exhaustion, a light sparks in her eyes. She doesn’t just have a plan. She has a strategy. One she’s spent a fair amount of time calculating, determining what her best move should be. “Let’s get dressed.”
“Are you sure about this?” I glance at her in the backseat, ready to call this whole thing off if I see the slightest hesitation from her.
She meets my eyes and lays one hand on my shoulder and one on Riggs’s before nodding. “I’m hugging the enemy. Let’s go.”
I have no idea what that means, but she is strength and power personified in the most beautiful package I’ve ever seen, so I’m happy to go along with whatever she wants. I just really hope we’re doing the right thing.
The valet opens my door, his eyes popping out of his head when he sees me and then somehow going even wider when he sees Riggs climbing out of the driver’s seat. Putting on a bit of an act and acting like a bodyguard, I reach for the back door, opening it and helping Kayla out.
Riggs meets us, both of us taking our places on either side of Kayla to offer our elbows.
She lays a graceful hand on our arms, completing the perfect picture of our relationship, and with all of the swagger we, or at least I, can muster, we walk into the restaurant together.
This is as much a performance as any game I’ve ever played in.
“Reservation for Harrington,” I inform the hostess, whose poker face is decidedly better than the valet’s.
“Right this way, please.” We follow her to a table in the middle of the room and take our seats.
This restaurant is nothing like the bougie, businessmen’s steakhouse of last night.
No, this is a place to see and be seen. Where the food is as photographable as the diners.
Especially when the diners are me, Riggs, and Kayla.
I feel eyes on us and force an affable smile, the one I use when I’m dead-ass tired and being forced to do a press conference, even after a loss .
“People are looking at us,” Riggs grumbles. I swear the only reason he’s comfortable on the ice is that he’s wearing a helmet and eye shield that semi-mask his face.
“Let them look,” I quip. “I want them to see how beautiful Kayla looks with us on either side of her.”
Kayla lays her hand on Riggs’s and leans into him.
“That’s the point,” she tells him with a soft smile, her eyes dancing from his eyes to his mouth like she’s going to kiss him any second.
Riggs thinks so too, quickly licking his lips in preparation, and Kayla’s sultry smile says she knows exactly what he’s thinking, but she leans back, sitting properly in her chair.
“Proud is one thing, but I am a lady,” she teases. “At the moment.”
“You were no lady last night,” he growls, a teasing smirk of his own twisting his lips.
They’re flirting hard, and quite obviously. Not for show, but because it’s real between us. There’s no doubt about what this is—a date between three people.
By the time our food arrives, four brave souls have stopped by the table to ask for autographs or photos with me and Riggs.
I sign a couple of things, Riggs politely refuses as per his personal policy, and we pose for a couple of pictures.
Everyone has been kind, talking up last season and wishing us well for next, while casting knowing glances at Kayla.
But once we have food, they leave us alone, watching from afar.
“Is it always like this when you go out?” Kayla asks. “Autographs and photos and adoration?”
Riggs grunts. “Annoyingly so.”
“Are you okay with that?” I search her face for any sign of discomfort, but if she’s uncomfortable, she’s trained too well to let it show. Still, I offer, “We can leave if this isn’t what you wanted.”
Kayla’s idea to make a very public appearance surprised me, but I understood her reasoning…
once she explained it to me. Hiding away in shame only amplifies that there is something weird or wrong about us, when there’s not.
People who are in love go on dates, so that’s what we’re doing, which in turn, lets us control the narrative.
But I won’t mind when we can go back to quiet nights at home alone, just the three of us.
I think that’s what we all truly prefer.
Or at least, I do. For a guy who has spent most of his life as the lively center of any circle, I find that my favorite moments are when we’ve had dinner and moved to the couch where we snuggle up with Kayla between us while Riggs and I watch a replay of a game and Kayla reads investment proposals or a book, and we talk about everything and nothing.
All with the knowledge that the little touches throughout the evening will end with us fucking for hours before collapsing into bed together.
No, clearly, now, it’s more than fucking.
It’s making love for hours. That’s become the best night I can imagine, so I could be easily swayed to bail on this dinner if she wants.
“I’m fine. And I think Dad was right,” she says, taking a bite of her salmon. “As usual.”
Okay, I can’t hold back my curiosity on that any longer. “How’d your conversation with them go?”
“Shockingly well.” She laughs. “I truly thought Mom was going to be the progressive one who accepted it at face value, and Dad would pull some sort of ‘not my daughter’ act, but it was the complete opposite.” She gives us the rundown of how her afternoon went, informing us that we have a family dinner this weekend to meet everyone, which sounds much less terrifying and a lot more amazing now.
What feels best, though, is that after that, she asks about our day.
“I called my parents too,” Riggs tells her. “They’re happy for us.”
A laugh bursts past my lips. “That’s what you’re calling it? Happy for us ?” I echo mockingly. Kayla looks at me in confusion. “Tell her what they really said.”
He growls in annoyance but admits, “They were surprised… about you.” He takes a big breath before explaining, “They follow my career closely, which means they know about my reputation with this guy.” He cringes again, the same way he did today when his mother revealed she already knew about the ‘Mad-Trick thing’, as she called it.
“Apparently, they thought we were going to figure out that we didn’t need a third person.
They were fine with that already, so the three of us being together is just ‘more love to go around’, according to my mom. ”
It must be a trick of the candles’ flickering light because there is no way in hell Riggs Patrick is blushing, but I swear his cheeks are going red, and not in anger.
Kayla presses her lips together, trying unsuccessfully to hide her grin. “They sound great.”
“They are,” he admits, somehow sounding grumpy about that fact.
“I talked to my parents too. They want to meet you, but they’re hiking in Utah right now. They asked if you’ll be at the season opener, though?” I want her to say yes. More than anything, I want to hit the ice knowing that the woman we love is up in the crowd, watching us play the game we love .
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She slips her hand into mine and then reaches over to take Riggs’s too, smiling at each of us in turn. It’s not for show, for the people watching and gossiping. It’s for us. “We’re doing this, aren’t we?”
“Seems like it,” I agree.
“Fuck yeah, we are,” Riggs growls with a cocky smirk.
“Last night, you sort of said something—” she starts, but then her eyes drop to the table uncertainly.
“I love you.”