Page 11 of Puck Struck (Dirty Puck #3)

NINE

logan

I can’t stop replaying Cam’s words from the event last night. The way his voice dropped when he spoke…low and laced with challenge. The whole scene loops through my mind like a broken record.

“If you kiss me, I’m going to let you.”

And fuck me, I almost did.

His tie was undone. His heart was racing. I felt it under my fingertips when I fixed it. That stupid tux hugged him like a glove, and he wore it like he owned the place. He looked like trouble wrapped in Armani, and for those few fleeting seconds, he almost owned me.

And I almost gave in to the temptation gripping me.

Almost.

But I didn’t.

Because I knew if I kissed him, it wouldn’t stop at one kiss. It wouldn’t stop at all.

I fought harder against the need to kiss him than I ever fought for any goal in my fucking career. His face, cocky as hell and so sure of himself, has wallpapered my brain ever since he walked away from me. Like he knows I want him, like he believes I’ll be the one who breaks first.

It pisses me off to no end that he’s got me so obsessed and on edge.

I tossed and turned for hours last night in the hotel room, waiting for him to show up, wondering where he was, why he didn’t come looking for me.

When I finally heard the door lock click, my blood bubbled with some crazy mix of desire and fury and it took everything in me to swallow it all down and stew quietly under the covers because all of the emotions swarming my mind scared the shit out of me.

I kept my breathing steady, like I was dead to the world. His footsteps got closer, close enough that my mind shifted into all the ways I could get up and fuck him senseless against the wall.

But instead, I just lay there, listening to the dull pound of blood between my ears as he dropped onto his bed with a quiet, tired sigh.

And it made me wonder about what he wanted to say on that balcony, what stopped him from saying it, what that phone notification had to do with it.

It’s the worst part of wanting him this much, that every flicker of curiosity about his past and what he might be hiding doesn’t do shit to kill the urge I have to make him happy.

But wanting him isn’t enough, not for me, not when it feels like he’s holding something back. I want his story, his truth, everything he won’t say. Maybe he feels out of control of parts of his own life, too. Maybe I just want to know we’re more alike than I thought.

We got back to Oakland the next day, the stress about Ethan’s upcoming appointment hanging over me like a dark cloud. I drop my bag in the hallway at home, barely having time to stretch my shoulder before Tessa walks in with Ethan.

I pull him in for a big hug and he wraps his arms around me, squeezing tight. Taking in a deep breath, I say a silent prayer that the appointment doesn’t reveal anything concerning. I pray for status quo, always.

“You guys played a great game against the Scorpions, Uncle Lo,” Ethan says once we get into the truck. “And you scored the game-winning shot. It was awesome. All my friends saw and texted me about it. There are tons of edits online of you, too. I’ll show you later.”

Tessa smiles, glancing at Ethan in the backseat. “It sure was awesome.”

“What’s an edit?” I ask.

Ethan chuckles. “You’re so old. An edit is like a spliced video set to music. The ones I saw were really cool. You looked like a beast on those skates, going for that goal.”

“He was so proud of you,” Tessa murmurs.

I nod. “It was a good night.”

All because of Cam. But I don’t say that.

We walk into the pediatric wing of the hospital about twenty minutes later and I’m instantly overcome by the strong scent of antiseptic cleaner.

It’s so powerful, it burns my nasal passages.

Hospitals always smell like something sterile and over-sanitized, like they’re trying to scrub out bad news and even worse memories.

But you can’t disinfect fear. You can’t Lysol away the image of your nephew seizing in the back seat of your car while you scream his name and your hands won’t stop shaking because you don’t know if he’ll make it through the episode alive.

I pace the length of the exam room while Tessa sits in a chair next to Ethan and reviews her notes about his condition since the last appointment. A nurse comes in and draws his blood. The kid barely winces, he’s so used to being a pin cushion.

After she leaves, Ethan swings his legs off the edge of the exam table, tablet propped on his knees, dinosaur cartoons playing on the screen.

He looks fine, sharp-eyed and talkative as always, but I’ve learned not to trust that.

Looks can be deceiving. It’s the bloodwork that tells the truth, however bad it may be.

The longer it takes for someone to come in, the harder my heart thumps and the faster I pace. I can’t stop myself.

“They said it’s just a routine appointment,” she says, glancing up at me.

“Yeah,” I murmur. “Routine. I know.”

Ethan doesn’t look up from his tablet. “Uncle Lo?”

“Yeah, bud?”

“Did you ever want to be a paleontologist?”

I stop mid-step. “A what?”

“You know. A dinosaur scientist.”

I laugh. “No, I was always more into slapshots than stegosauruses.”

He grins. “You’d be a cool dinosaur. Maybe a Logan-osaurus.”

“Ferocious, like a beast, right?” I say, smiling even though my heart feels like it’s being crushed in a vise.

“Definitely,” he says.

I sit down across from him, elbows on my knees, and let out a deep sigh. The silence stretches just like the minutes that feel like hours.

When the doctor finally walks in, my stomach free falls.

“Vitals look steady,” she says after doing his exam. She makes some updates to her iPad and then looks up with a smile. “We’ll send out his bloodwork and call with results in a few days.”

A few days.

That’s code for keep holding your breath .

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Tessa asks the right questions.

She always does. The doctor says she has a valid concern about Ethan’s fatigue, but until the bloodwork comes back, they won’t know for sure if there’s an underlying issue.

I stand against the wall and listen, knuckles white, shoulder screaming, heart somewhere between hope and a panic attack.

“Are you helping Mom at home? Cleaning your room? Doing your homework?” the doctor asks.

Ethan nods solemnly. “I do it all.”

We all share a chuckle over that. He might have gotten a little bit of the OCD thing from his uncle.

“Great job. I’m happy to hear that. You keep being good, okay?” The doctor tousles Ethan’s hair before stepping out. The door clicks shut and for a second, it’s just me and the sound of raptors screeching from a tablet.

On the way home, my phone pings with a text. I pull it out, furrow my brow at the message from Jack.

Couple of us heading to Play It Forward to do a coaching event for the kids. Come join us?

I stare at the message for a long minute as Tessa slows for a red light.

I don’t want to go.

I want to hole up in my room and ice my shoulder. I want to research rare liver disorders and pretend the knot in my gut isn’t growing. I want quiet.

But Tessa glances over and sees the screen.

“Go,” she says.

I frown. “I don’t need to?—”

“Yes, you do.” Her tone sharpens. “You need to let people in, Logan. This team isn’t just your job. You need them. You need people.”

“I have you and Ethan.”

“And we adore you, but you need to expand your horizons a little. Have some sort of a life.” Tessa gives me a poke in the arm.

“You’re not the only one worried about him,” she adds gently.

“I know how hard this all has been on you. Losing Tyler, having us move in, dealing with E’s condition.

But you staying frozen in place isn’t helping him. Or you.”

She’s right. I hate that she’s right.

I always worry about Tessa and Ethan. They’re my real family. And if that means giving up on my own life, so be it. I’m all they have now.

But dammit, can she blame me for wanting to hold on so tight?

Tyler was my best friend and Tessa’s husband.

And a deadly car crash took him away from us, a crash that I walked away from without a scratch.

Guilt eats at me every single day for being alive when my best friend, a father, a husband, lost his life.

“Say you’ll go,” she says, accelerating now that the light turns green.

“Fine.” I shoot off a quick text to Jack.

I’ll be there.

I pull into the parking lot at Play It Forward an hour later. The place is utter chaos, but the good kind.

Kids dart everywhere, slipping on the ice and convulsing with laughter. Coaches shout drills. Pucks fly. Water bottles spill. A swarm of kids fly down the ice with their sticks in hand.

And right in the center of it all is Cam.

I freeze the second I see him.

He’s got a kid on each side, helping them adjust their gloves and position their feet. One’s laughing so hard he nearly falls over, and Cam catches him by the armpits, grinning.

Tate claps me on the shoulder and tosses me a whistle. “Thought you were gonna bail.”

I shake my head. “Got caught up in some home stuff.” But I leave it at that.

Nobody on the team knows about Ethan’s condition.

I don’t want the pity stares and whispers behind my back.

And I definitely don’t want to rehash the reason why they live with me, the reason why I will always take care of them.

It’s too deep, too personal, and I don’t let people in that far.

Tate nods toward the group of kids Cam is wrangling. “Foster’s good with them. He’s a natural coach.”

I bite back the comment that almost comes out. That Cam’s good at a lot of things he doesn’t let people see.

Instead, I take my place at the shooting station, helping kids line up their shots. We rotate through drills. Jack runs stick-handling. Carter works on skating posture. Even Masterson’s here, teaching a pair of twins how to hip-check a cone.

But Cam…he’s everywhere. And I can’t keep my eyes from following him and tracking every one of his movements.

He kneels beside a kid trying to figure out how to hold a stick properly and guides his hands. His sleeves are pushed up, exposing forearms covered in ink. He’s encouraging, patient, louder than he needs to be, but the kids eat it up.

He spews praise like he means it, like he really and truly believes in them.

Tate nudges me and nods in Cam’s direction. “You staring because you’re jealous of his stick tape skills, or…?”

“Don’t start.”

“Right. Totally not interested. Just observing intently.”

I roll my eyes and skate off, trying to push the image of Cam out of my head. I can’t help but watch out of the corner of my eye when I start working with a different group of kids. His presence is that magnetic, it finds me and pulls me close like a moth to a flame.

Cam grins when a little girl scores her first goal on the opposite side of the rink. He throws his hands up and says, “Heck yeah, sniper!”

I stand frozen near the benches and watch him like I’ve never seen him before.

Because I haven’t.

Not really.

And then he does something during a break that makes my heart damn near burst.

He lowers himself to the ice next to a kid who just burst into tears after missing a shot. Everyone’s watching. The room’s too loud and the kid’s panicking.

But Cam crouches low and whispers something to him. The tears stop flowing. And the corners of the kid’s lips curl upward.

Cam grins, taps his helmet, and says, “Let’s try again. You’ve got this, buddy. You own that puck. Now rip it, okay? Take the shot.”

The kid nods and skates back to the line, shoulders straighter.

The words hit me like a cinderblock to the chest because the look on Cam’s face tells me he’s said that to himself before. Like he’s had to give himself that very pep talk.

Or that someone once told him the same thing.

After running some more drills with my group, I head to the water table, trying to shake the weird emotions curling in my throat. My shoulder throbs and I wish I had some Advil on me.

Cam walks by and nods at me, his expression completely unreadable.

I almost stop him to say something…about last night, about the balcony, about how I can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t pulled away.

But I don’t .

Because there’s something in his eyes that says not now.

Maybe not ever.

When we’re done, the kids gather near the bleachers for a group picture. Cam flops down on the floor next to them, arms thrown over two of the bigger boys like he belongs there.

Jack comes up behind me and hands me a clipboard. He follows my gaze. “He’s not what I expected either.”

“He’s a good player.”

“He’s a good guy,” Jack corrects.

I don’t say anything because I already knew that. But it would be so much easier if he really was the cocky asshole I chalked him up to be when he signed. I could ignore him and his bullshit and not worry about him throwing my life into upheaval.

Ethan’s asleep when I get home, curled up under his Raptors blanket, one arm clutching his favorite stuffed dinosaur, named after me, of course. I stand in the doorway for a long time, just watching him breathe.

Christ, I’d do anything for him.

Because I know I’d give anything…everything…for Ethan. No question. No hesitation.

He’s part of my plan and always will be. Just like Tessa.

But the way Cam’s starting to matter to me, the way he gets past my walls without even trying, that’s the part that threatens everything I’ve kept locked down.

I’m not sure I know how to stop it. Not sure if I even want to try.

And that is most definitely not part of my plan.