Page 15

Nothing was normal. Everything was wrong.

All last week it had gone that way, even more so than before, if that was possible. Only this time, Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. Okay, not nothing, but at least he couldn’t claim the lion’s share of the past seven shitty days, as that honor undoubtedly belonged to Lucy.

Dax felt like he had negotiated a truce with her but hadn’t read the exact terms properly. Point one seemed to be that they maintain a safe physical distance. He wasn’t sure if Lucy was doing it consciously, but she never came within six feet of him.

Point two was that they no longer swore in front of each other. Dax couldn’t explain how that had happened, either. It probably had something to do with the fact that they both felt they had to watch their words as soon as the other was in the same room.

Point three was that they didn’t talk about what had happened. That evening at the Snow Hut had been deleted from their history. Then there were a number of other unvoiced points that Dax couldn’t name, but they had everything to do with the fact that he and Lucy were behaving like wooden puppets before a fire pit, wary, constantly aware that one wrong move could result in their destruction. It was damn exhausting: every conversation stilted, every meeting an ordeal.

He wanted the old Lucy back, the one who unnerved him but was honest with him. The one who didn’t treat him with kid gloves because she knew he didn’t need that and certainly didn’t deserve it. The only consolation was that his teammates didn’t know anything about it.

“Hey, did something happen?” Matt asked, frowning. “Between you and Lucy?”

Dax’s head shot up so quickly he hit his chin on the beer bottle. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

His friend shrugged, leaned back on the couch, and put his feet on the table in front of him while giving Dax a worried look. “I don’t know… You two are acting very strangely lately. Saying please and thank you, not insulting each other.”

“Put your feet down, Payne,” Fox snapped as he walked past them, throwing a bottle cap at his teammate. “When I said make yourself at home, I meant like in your mothers’ house. Where nobody puts their feet up.” Matt rolled his eyes, but did as he was told, and then looked expectantly at Dax.

“We’re just being polite,” he replied quietly, annoyed. Lucy wasn’t a topic he wanted to discuss with his teammates.

“Yeah, like I said,” Matt affirmed, “strange.”

He was right. It was strange. As if the last few days hadn’t been stressful enough, now he also had to tiptoe around Lucy. After two more defeats—which had been only maybe 30 percent Dax’s fault!—the press had attacked him and Jack so brutally that he’d even reluctantly agreed to a damn photo session with Jack, Maybe it would halt the media circus, not to mention the hate mail from fans, all of which were damaging the team. It was all interfering with their game, their dynamic, their interactions with each other.

Dax felt like it was okay if he stood in the way of his own happiness, but not that of his teammates, regardless of whether Jack was part of it or not.

All the media hype was also the reason their captain, Austin Fox, had announced another evening of team-building activities . Although no one was saying it outright, everyone knew that the purpose was to integrate Jack into the team. Over the last few days, he’d seemed as unfocused on the ice as Dax, and Fox believed it was because he didn’t feel comfortable with the team.

Dax knew better than to contradict the captain when it came to the spiritual well-being of his flock—um, teammates—so he had merely nodded. As a result, he was now sitting with Matt on Fox’s gigantic couch, drinking non-alcoholic beer while the rest of the team frolicked around the huge house playing billiards and taking advantage of the heated pool or whatever.

He didn’t care, as long as they left him and Matt alone, since Dax had a strange need to be open about his feelings, and he preferred that only Matt witness this rare moment.

“We had a little…argument,” he muttered.

Matt narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, little?”

“As little as your problem with doing laundry.”

“My hands always stink like urine afterward!” Matt complained. “And shit.”

“You’re not supposed to wash your shirts in the toilet; you know that, right?” Dax replied, snorting before adding, “And yes. It was probably more of a big argument. But it doesn’t matter. Since then, everything between us has been…”

“Strange?” Matt said, helping him out.

“Yep.”

“Hm.” Matt turned his beer bottle thoughtfully between his hands. “But that’s nothing new between you two.”

“Oh, it’s something new this time.”

“Yeah? What was the argument about?”

“None of your business,” he snapped. Even if someone held a gun to his head, Dax wouldn’t be able to summarize what it was about.

Matt put his hand to his chest, pretending to be hurt. “Since when are you withholding your most intimate thoughts from me? I thought you only acted mysterious to pick up women, not to piss me off.”

Dax rolled his eyes. “I can multitask,” he explained matter-of-factly. “Besides, you don’t have to know everything. In this case, all that matters is that I was angry at her and she was angry at me and we both behaved…incredibly badly.”

“Incredibly badly,” Matt echoed thoughtfully, tilting his head. Finally, he whispered uneasily, “Tell me, are you two screwing?”

Dax choked on his beer and coughed loudly. “Fuck, no!”

But he would like to be. Very much so.

“I’m just asking,” his buddy said, raising his hands defensively. “Ever since Jack said he thought you were a couple…” He shrugged it off. “It doesn’t matter. Look, if it’s weird, just text her and say you want to go back to normal again.”

He stared at him in disbelief. “I can’t just text that.”

“Of course you can. Lucy absolutely hates it when people aren’t honest.”

Yeah, he knew that.

“Apart from that,” Matt continued, “women like that honest, sincere shit. Two out of three say that honesty in a relationship is more important to them than good sex.”

Dax stared at him in disbelief. Honesty was important to him, too. Especially in bed—so that he could have good sex! “Where the hell did you get that? Is it your sisters influencing you, or how are you suddenly so in tune with women?”

A gentle blush crept up Matt’s neck. “Um, I got that insight from Maddie. She runs a dating agency. She said a lot of her clients answer the questionnaire like that.”

“Maddie?”

“Yeah. You know. Lucy’s sister.”

Oh, yes. Right. Matt was friends with her, too. Dax was slowly losing track. He sighed heavily and dropped his head against the backrest. “I don’t know if I can just text Lucy and say that I want things to be normal again. I don’t want to make it worse,” he admitted quietly.

Matt raised his eyebrows, amused. “Worse than now? Shit, Dax! Watching you is like watching two turtles eat Tide Pods. Slow and painful, and everyone knows it will end in death. You two are not designed to be quiet and polite. At some point, someone will explode, probably dragging me into the abyss with them, and I’ll be hanging there by my fingernails. So text her. I’ll go get some vodka in the meantime.”

“Why?” Dax asked, irritated.

“It feels like a vodka night, don’t you think?” Matt replied easily and shrugged before crossing Fox’s living room.

Dax snorted and pulled out his phone. He stared at the blinking cursor for a few seconds and then drafted a long message. At first he explained in full what was bothering him about Lucy’s behavior lately…and then he deleted it all. It was too long-winded. Impatient with himself, he groaned and frowned, and then simply sent three direct sentences. They contained all the important information:

I want you to act normal again. Like before. Before… everything .

Satisfied with himself and his eloquence, he was about to put it away when his phone vibrated with a reply.

Take your own advice, Pinocchio. Act like a real boy before you accuse ME of not being normal!

The corners of his mouth twitched. At least her messages were still normal. That is, normal by her standards. He was about to reply when someone leaned over his shoulder.

“Are you texting Lucy?” Leon asked.

Dax flinched and lowered the phone. “Did you read my private messages?” he retorted harshly.

“No, just her name,” he replied lightly and dropped down next to him. “Why does everyone have her private number except me?”

“I don’t have it either,” Fox said, appearing next to him. “Because I behave and she rarely has to talk to me.”

“You shouldn’t be so proud of being boring,” Matt said, returning to the living room with Jack in tow and placing a bottle of vodka and five shot glasses on the table.

“At least I’m not the Saint ,” Fox remarked, glancing meaningfully at Jack.

Jack chuckled softly and sipped his whiskey. “I didn’t choose the nickname. I blame Dax for it because the press was so desperate to find a counterpart for the Devil .”

“Oh, please,” Dax replied, snorting. It was so much easier to be normal with Jack in the company of others. “People were calling you that before I even joined the NHL.” The irony was never lost on him: For a saint, Jack had a damn long criminal record.

“Right,” Matt confirmed.

“Even I know that, although I should be way too young for it,” Leon said, who was not yet twenty-three. “Is it true you don’t date women during the season? Not at all? So all that Saint nonsense is true?”

Jack shrugged. “It distracts me,” he muttered, giving Dax a determined look. “And since I don’t like losing…I forego a personal life during the season.”

Right. Jack hated losing. Man, the last two weeks must have been hell for him.

“That’s awful,” Matt replied dryly.

Jack grinned. “I bet all women say that after they’re done with you.”

Dax couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you’re looking for the words that was quick .”

Matt looked at him grimly. “It’s nice you two get along when the jokes are at someone else’s expense.”

“Well, you are always saying we should become friends,” Dax replied innocently.

“Speaking of becoming friends,” Leon interjected, “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Lucy lately, haven’t you?” He peered at Dax expectantly.

His stomach churned. Good God. The guy really was thinking way too much about Lucy. He didn’t like that.

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, I was just wondering…what type of guys does she date? I heard somewhere that she’s been to bed with eleven men.”

Dax glanced down, grinding his teeth.

Shit. Leon had heard it from him, because Lucy had told him that when they first met. He’d felt bad back then for using that information to vent his anger at her…but, for some reason, he felt even shittier about it now.

“Eleven is a lot for a woman, isn’t it?” Leon continued. He didn’t notice that his words were causing Dax to clench his jaw. “Then why not me, too? She doesn’t seem that picky.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Dax said abruptly, clenching his hands. “She doesn’t deserve that.”

Surprised, Leon raised his eyebrows, but before he could say anything else stupid, Fox saved him.

“Dax is right,” he agreed. “It’s not okay that we sleep with so many women and pat each other on the back for it, then condemn women for a high number!”

Leon sighed heavily. “You know, Austin, sometimes your diplomatic streak gets on my nerves.”

Their team captain smiled mischievously. “It shouldn’t. You have no idea what I would have done to you if I weren’t so diplomatic .”

“Okay, that’s my signal to hand out vodka,” Matt said, handing out the shot glasses. “Are you drinking, Dax?”

Hesitantly, he peered at the clear liquid in the bottle. Normally he didn't drink during the season. That said, tomorrow he had a damn photo shoot with Jack. He was dreaming about Lucy—naked—almost every night. Not to mention the team had lost three times in a row, despite his abstinence.

Yep, that was reason enough to break his rule and get drunk. Maybe he’d oversleep tomorrow and the photo shoot would have to be canceled— how unfortunate . Yeah, that would be something.

“Bring it on.”