Page 14

Chapter 14

Violet

M y body has been in a state of heightened awareness all day. Ever since Crosby wrapped his arms around me in the ballroom, there’s been this low-frequency humming just below my skin that I can’t shut off. It hummed louder when I invited him to my room. A moment that feels like a fever dream because I panicked immediately after doing so.

I tried to call Bea before remembering it was close to five in the morning in London and that she was likely still sleeping. I gripped my phone before letting a text to Obie fly, begging him to talk me out of the emotional pretzel I was tying myself into.

Obie

Stop overthinking it, Letty. Just “fuck it,” right? Oh, but you know, be responsible, and use protection if it actually becomes a situation in which you fuck.

An entirely unhelpful response. The harder I tried to stop thinking of the limitless implications and possibilities of tonight, the more I thought about them.

My pulse picked up even more at that while I dialed room service and placed an order. As I waited for the food—and the hockey player I had reluctantly admitted my interest in—to arrive, I paced around the room. I checked my reflection three times and brushed my teeth twice. I checked my suitcase to make sure all my underwear was tucked into the furthest corner, insanity temporarily making me believe Crosby would go looking.

But it was ridiculous to be nervous. I hadn’t invited Crosby over to have sex with him. At least my mind hadn’t.

He filled the doorway in his relaxed state: damp curls, bright eyes, flirtatious smile, and the energy of a big road win radiating off him. My traitorous vagina began trying to convince me sleeping with him wouldn’t be a bad way to end the night. She hasn’t seen any action from something other than my own fingers in nearly a year, and the beautiful man who has disarmed me in almost every way over the last few weeks looks like the perfect way to get back in shape.

Now, as I stand between Crosby’s thighs, my heart is pumping so hard I feel it in my toes, and I’m having a hard time figuring out why I didn’t think about having sex with him tonight. But it’s not a good decision. I meant what I said moments ago. I like Crosby. And I’ve learned from my mistakes. I won’t blindly tumble into something again. I’ll be smart, even if just being in the same space with him feels better than anything I’ve experienced.

He’s breathing hard. It’s an almost imperceptible change, but I can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest, his multicolored eyes searching mine. There’s a question in them, the reassuring check-in he so often gives me. It’s sexy as hell that Crosby has moved slowly since we met. He takes his cues from me, watches and learns before acting. He makes me feel safe and secure in the choices I make. That gives me all the confidence I need to lean forward and touch the corner of his mouth.

I swipe my thumb along the curve of his full bottom lip, dragging at the smudge of chocolate left behind by the cookie. Crosby’s pupils dilate, something I can see from being close enough to share a breath. Holding his stare, I bring my thumb to my lips, parting them to suck in the sweet residue.

“Violet.” My name is a broken sound from him. It’s part warning, part plea.

In my peripheral vision, I see Crosby’s fingers curl into fists atop his thighs, holding himself back from touching me.

I don’t overthink it anymore.

Fuck it.

I surge forward, pressing my lips to his, spending the last of my courage. As though he knows what I need, Crosby’s hands race up the back of my thighs, rising as he stands from the chair. His lips move hungrily against my own, their softness a welcome surprise and the sinful taste addictive. It distracts me as he wraps his arms around me, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my head.

The direction he gives our kiss intensifies with a small brush of his tongue along the seam of my mouth, a request. I open for him, letting him explore with gentle strokes, teasing and pulling my tongue to reciprocate. A small sound resembling a groan or a growl escapes him when I press my hands against his chest, twisting my fingers into the well-worn hoodie, pulling him impossibly closer to me.

With our bodies flush against each other, I feel his hardness through our sweatpants against my hip bone. The low-frequency hum from the day has disappeared. Replaced by a raging fire burning through my veins, fueled by every taste of Crosby’s lips and the way he’s swallowing the moans I don’t bother trying to contain. I rock against him once before tipping my head back, gasping for breath.

Crosby follows me, chasing for a moment before he rests his forehead against my own. The hand in my hair relaxes, threading through the strands I didn’t even notice he had gathered there. But he doesn’t release me. He keeps me cocooned with him, a little bubble full of the high of a first kiss.

A kiss that has left me speechless.

“I was not expecting that when I showed up tonight.” Crosby’s voice is hoarse. Endorphins are pumping through my system, heightened by the way he sounds upended from our kiss. I feel floaty and just a little out of control. I try holding onto it, banishing the worry and doubt that threaten like a riptide, a malicious intent to pull me under and away from this moment of happiness. But when Crosby cups my face in the calloused touch of his hands, I realize there’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s the lighthouse. He’s been steadily calling me to shore, lighting my way, and quietly giving me the hope I’ve needed to battle through the waves of old habits and heartbreak.

“It wasn’t what I was expecting when I invited you,” I confess. I lean in as his thumb traces along the curve of my cheek, turning to press a kiss against his palm. I like the hum of response he gives me. “But it doesn’t make me mad it happened.”

“Agreed.” Crosby dips and kisses me again. It isn’t the heated intensity of the first, but it lingers too long to be chaste. I sigh happily when he pulls back, his eyes sweeping over my face as though he’s cataloging everything about this moment. With the smallest nudge, he guides me to lean into his broad chest. The vanilla, citrus, and sandalwood of his cologne swirls around me, sinking in like the warmth of his lips. I love how he smells, how strong he is, but there is a distinct softness about him that’s different from his teammates.

On the table, my phone screen flashes with my dad’s name. It’s a reminder this isn’t a conclusion to a date night. We’re in a hotel room on a work trip.

“I should probably go.”

“Okay,” I agree. Cockblocked by a text from my dad is the worst. He turns me out of his embrace but weaves his fingers through mine as he walks across the room to the door.

“When we get back, we have a few days of training, a home game, and then we have two days off,” Crosby says once I open the door. He’s leaning against the frame, fingers still entwined with mine. He swings them gently between us. There’s a distinctly boyish charm to the way he plays with them before pulling his hand away to cup the back of my neck and hold me. “Please come to the game?”

“I’d like that.” I mean it.

As the daughter of the head coach, I’ve always had the option to attend home games in the suite reserved for families of the staff. My school schedule and internship commitments in London have kept me away from seeing The Midnight on the ice under my dad’s leadership. Since returning this summer and starting in the front office, I still haven’t gone to a game except for work obligations. It hasn’t become a sore spot between Dad and me yet, but I know I can’t keep putting it off. Especially with Obie not-so-subtly making sure I know my continued absence isn’t winning me “best friend of the year” points. Now, with Crosby? I don’t have any more excuses to stay home.

“Yeah? That’s great.” Crosby’s smile lights up the dull hallway. It’s infectious, and I find myself grinning back at him. He kisses my smile with short, silly pecks. My laughter breaks out in between before he silences me with a long pull from my lips. It’s softer, slower than our heated exchange, but the promises in his languid movements have me wrapping my arms around his waist. With a final groan, he pulls away, taking two steps back from the entrance to my room. “Goodnight, Sparks. This might officially be my new favorite way to celebrate a win.”

Then he turns down the hall toward the elevator. I keep the door propped open with my foot to lean out and watch him go. He swipes his thumb across his bottom lip before he looks over his shoulder at me and winks. Thank God the doorframe is at my back because I could melt from another look like that from him. Luckily, he rounds the corner, out of sight, and I’m saved from turning into a literal puddle that maintenance would be called to mop up.

I lock the door behind me, wandering back across the room to pick up the crème br?lée and my phone, opening it to see what was urgent enough for Dad to text in the middle of the night.

Dad

We need to talk when we get home.

“Dad?” I call as soon as I come through the front door. After a restless night’s sleep, a flight filled with messages from Crosby setting up an official date for after the Portland game, and a day at work listening to Ethan push for more content with the starting six, I’m back at my childhood home to address the text that has darkened my good mood.

“In the office!” Dad answers back. I ditch my shoes, detour to the kitchen for a bottle of water, and head down the hall. Despite the butterflies that have been beating relentlessly in my stomach following Crosby’s kisses, Dad’s summons without context has made me uneasy.

While waiting for takeoff this morning, I scoured my contract double-checking that Crosby and I won’t be breaking any rules by dating. The verbiage stipulates I can’t date anyone I work with directly in my department. I replay my conversation with Ava from my first day of work. She emphasized coworkers could not fraternize with each other, and the players were bound by the NHL Code of Conduct. Neither explicitly says a player and front office employee are not allowed to date, but I’m sure there is a responsible way of dealing with this. Then I felt silly, like I was getting ahead of myself.

As far as Dad’s opinion, I’m sure this won’t sit well with him. He might even have something to say about it, but ultimately, it’s my choice, and Dad won’t get to tell me who I can or can’t date. If that was the case, I wouldn’t have been allowed to go to any high school dances. Still, I’ve never dated someone Dad has coached. It’s an entirely new dynamic we’ll—hopefully—learn to navigate together.

I get to the door of Dad’s office, watching quietly as he looks back and forth between a legal pad in his hands and the screen of his laptop on the desk. Halfway down the bridge of his nose sits a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. When he first started wearing them, they looked a little old-fashioned, but now they are perfectly in style in the post-hipster era, even if Dad hasn’t changed more than the prescription inside them.

His shaggy black hair has some streaks of silver rising from his temples, playing peek-a-boo through the layers he keeps brushed back from his face. It isn’t too long, but definitely a hangover from his playing days. In any other industry, someone his age would probably feel out of place with the haircut. But Dad makes it work. I’ve joked with him for years about how it gives him a roguish quality women would find impossible to resist, a gentle prodding to get any insight into my father’s severely lacking dating life. Like most daughters, I don’t want details, but I hate the idea of hockey being the only thing in his life he loves more than me.

I’ve missed him for the last few years. Being so far from home was difficult. I know how much it hurt for him to leave the game as a member of the team. His injuries forced something he wasn’t ready to give up. He struggled with the shift his life took, even if he relished being at home with me more. I was in high school, a peak time of naturally limiting parental involvement, but that awkwardness was soothed by our shared love of hockey. Watching NHL games and highlights with Dad in this room, just the two of us, went a long way to bridge the usual teenage angst.

I think sometimes it should bother me more that he traveled so much when I was growing up. But it really doesn’t. I had the best secondary set of adults to help me and care for me, and Dad was around for almost every important moment. As a divorced father, his coach was understanding of the milestones my dad couldn’t get back if he didn’t take me to my first day of kindergarten or take a few personal days when I had chickenpox. He couldn’t be there for every bump or bruise, but Dad was never more than a phone call away, and he would stop everything to pick up when my name was on the caller ID.

There were the occasional nannies for school breaks, and they would travel on a road game stretch with me so I could stay close to Dad, but they’re all blurred together in childhood memories. When I got older, Dad respected my wishes to stay with the James family instead. The biggest benefit of having a professional hockey player for a father was our summers together. Even when the team made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, Dad was home for my summer break, something most kids didn’t get.

Callum Andrews ended up being everything I could have possibly dreamed of when it came to a father. He was patient and kind. A disciplinarian and a doofus in equal measure. He loved me unfailingly. There was never anyone else who mattered to him the way I did.

“Hey, old man,” I greet, coming in and sitting on the loveseat he has under the windows.

His head whips to me, the familiar smile I’ve seen my whole life on his face, making the corners of his blue-gray eyes crinkle and the glasses lift a little. The same warmth that always comes from being with Dad fills me, and despite all the horrible reasons that played a part in returning home, I’m so glad I’m here.

“Thanks for coming, kid.” Dad takes his glasses off, depositing them atop his pine desk before circling around to me. He sits down, a small grunt escaping as he settles. He turns enough to prop his elbow on the back of the sofa, leaning his head on his hand. “How was the road game? Did you have fun?”

“It was fine.” I shrug nonchalantly. It dawns on me, despite my pep talk in the hallway, I don’t really know how I’m going to tell my father I’m going on a date with his new starting center. That I like his new starting center. That I’ve kissed his new starting center. Okay, maybe I don’t need to share that last one. My heart rate kicks up a little at the innocent questions my dad’s asking.

“You didn’t want to come to the arena?” Dad asks.

“No. That’s not what I was there for. I had a job to do, but I watched from my room,” I tell him. I try not to stare too hard at the little stain on the edge of the cushion. The one I accidentally put there when I was twenty by dropping a spoonful of chocolate ice cream one summer. I’m trying not to come across as nervous, even if I feel a little unsettled. “I’m coming to the Portland game, though. Obie’s been on me since the season started, and I’m not sure I can put it off much longer. Being there for work isn’t the same thing.”

If I thought the news of my attendance at a home game would get my dad to lighten up and ease off the concerned vibes he’s been throwing out since he texted me, it doesn’t. In fact, it seems to have the opposite reaction.

Dad drops his arm from the back of the couch and leans forward a little. His face is serious, as serious as it was when he informed me my county fair goldfish had died a week after I won it. We hadn’t ever had a pet, and I think he believed my world was going to end. But at six, I remember saying, “Okay” and asking when we could get a new one.

“About Portland,” Dad begins slowly. With unflinching certainty, I know whatever comes out of his mouth next is going to hurt. This is the feeling he was trying to protect me from with the goldfish. I was just too young to recognize it. “They’ve signed Olivier Ahlman.”