Page 63

Javier

The next morning, I sit on the edge of the bed beside Tobie, fully dressed in newly bought clothes I had the butler order for me after soaking my clothes the day before.

“Tobie?” I don’t want to wake her, but I’m already running late, and I need to get to the arena for Caleb’s first day back on the ice.

It’s technically still spring break, but most of the team and coaches agreed to come back a couple of days early to help Caleb prepare for the game.

She yawns wide, stretching, her beautiful curves so tempting that for the first time, I consider calling in sick. “Yeah?”

“I have to go to practice,” I explain.

She starts to get up.

I rest my palm on her chest and gently nudge her back. “ You are going to enjoy this suite. Sleep. Order room service. It comes with a butler, so if there’s anything else you need, he will get it for you. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

She’s staring at me. “A butler ? Like with a bowtie?”

I sweep the hair from her face. “A black tie. He can wear a bowtie if you request it.”

She blinks at me. “Oh, okay. But you only booked this room for a night.”

“I booked another night.” This stay was for Tobie to rest, and what we did most of last night did not involve resting.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? I need to go back to my dorm to get my meds.”

“No.” I kiss her. “I want you to rest. And I can bring your meds after practice?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. Just let me know where they are, and I can grab whatever else you need for another night here.”

She loops her arms around my neck and draws me down for a kiss. “Will you wake me when you come back?”

My cock stirs at the husky note in her voice. “How would you like me to wake you, Gatinha ?”

“Like this,” she breathes out.

“Done,” I say with a smile.

After she tells me where her meds are and gives me the key to her dorm, I promise to grab her meds along with her cell phone and return around two. I don’t know how long practice is going to run. Depending on how Caleb does with his knee on the ice, I could be back much sooner than that.

But I won’t be alone. I intend to bring Reid and Caleb back with me so they can enjoy the suite too. And the hotel has a masseuse. I can’t see Caleb turning down a massage after practice.

I kiss her again and grab the keys for her dorm, turning to leave.

“Javier?”

There’s a flush on her cheeks that makes me instantly curious. The only time I see that particular deep red blush is when I’ve just said something filthy. “What is it?”

“Are you coming back alone?”

I shake my head. “I was going to grab Reid and Caleb. Why?”

“I was just thinking…” Her voice trails off.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket.

Ignoring it, I cross back to her and sink into a crouch beside her. “You were thinking what?”

“You’re going to be late,” she warns.

“Then I’m late.”

A hint of a smile briefly warms her hazel gaze. “What’s going to happen after? Soon, we’ll have graduated, and you won’t always be so busy, right?”

“Right,” I confirm.

We still don’t know what’s happening with the draft, but the dream is that we play for the same team and get a place together.

“So maybe there will be times we’ll all be together.” She darts a rapid glance my way.

When my phone vibrates again, I’m ready to toss it out of the window. “You’re asking about all of us…”

She clears her throat. “I’m curious. I mean, I thought one of you would bring it up first, but none of you are, and I thought, well, is this going to be the way it always is? Or will… other things happen?”

I stare at her without speaking.

I’m not sure what she’s hinting at, but I think I can guess.

“Javier?”

“This practice is going to be terrible,” I mutter.

She blinks. “What?”

I shake my head. “This is new for all of us, so we wanted to go slow. If something more happens, then it happens.”

She peeks up at me through her lashes. “Would something more mean all of you and me together?”

Ten minutes late, I climb out of my car in the arena parking lot, rock hard, and my mind still back in the hotel with Tobie.

I stuttered something that probably didn’t make much sense and told her I’d be back later. Then I left before I could get deeper into a conversation that would have seen me miss practice altogether.

Feet from the arena entrance, a car door flies open, and Nessa scrambles out, flinging herself at me and rocking me back a step. “ Surprise !”

I wrap my arms around my seventeen-year-old sister, happy to see her.

“Nessa? What are you doing here? You didn’t run away from home, did you?

” She did. I can totally see my little sister doing something like that.

I start pulling her toward my car. “Come on, I need to get you back to Boston before Mom calls the cops thinking?—”

“I didn’t run away from home,” she says, struggling.

“I don’t believe you. You?—”

“She’s telling the truth. We brought her,” my mom says, climbing out of the same black Mercedes.

“ Mom ?”

Dad joins her outside the car. “I think it’s time we had a conversation that needed to happen a long time ago, Javier.”

After the talk I just had with Tobie, I’m not ready to deal with this. Not now.

But if my parents are here with Nessa, then something has changed.

“Come inside.” I fish my keycard from my pocket. “We can talk in the arena.”

Other than a few parked cars belonging to my teammates and the coaches, the parking lot is empty. The arena is emptier still, though the faint sounds of laughter and conversation spill from the rink into the lobby.

I’m already late, but this is important.

I lead my parents and Nessa to the seats near one concession. It’s closed, and it won’t reopen until the next game.

Only Nessa sits in one of the leather chairs, crossing her denim-clad legs as she peers around with brown eyes identical to mine. “Everyone is saying you guys are going to win this year,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not easy,” Mom says quietly. “Wanting the best for your children. To give them everything you didn’t have, to nurture them, push them, love them, and protect them from the bad decisions you think they’re making.”

“It’s easy to go overboard,” Dad takes over as he wraps his arm around her shoulders. “That’s what your mother is trying to say.”

“If this is what you need to be happy, then this is what you’ll be,” Mom says, crossing over to me. She draws me into a hug. “You would have made a brilliant doctor.”

I open my mouth to deny it.

She beats me to it. “But you’ll be a better hockey player because that’s where your heart is. I’m sorry, Javier, for pushing you to do something that was making you so miserable.”

She gets it.

As I return her hug, I ask myself why I didn’t tell her this years ago. Tobie was right. She loves me. Both my parents do. Everything they’ve done for Nessa and me has been because of love. So why didn’t I tell them how miserable I was at Harvard?

“I should have told you this before,” I say.

“You shouldn’t have needed to.” Dad squeezes my shoulder. “We should have seen you were unhappy, and we missed it. We were so happy that you were at Harvard and were going to be a doctor, that our pride blinded us to what was right in front of us. But we will do better.”

“We will talk more,” Mom says firmly, pulling back to clasp my face between her warm hands. “About the things important to you. To Nessa. And we will listen. All of us.”

“How is your friend?” Dad asks.

I cock my head. “Your mother said something about your friend being hurt.”

“He’s okay. Someone hit him with a car.”

They stare at me.

I shake my head. “It’s a long story, and I’m late for practice. You can sit in the stands and watch if you want. Coach won’t mind.”

Dad hugs me. “I have a meeting that I need to get back to Boston for. Your mother and Nessa will stay to watch and get a later flight. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

“For?”

He claps me on the arm. “The big game. I want to see my son lift a trophy.”

When tears clog my throat, I hadn’t realized how much it meant to me to have them there, not just Nessa. “That would be great, Dad.”

After he leaves, I show Mom and Nessa to the stands and tell them they can sit anywhere, and I run to the locker room to change.

I’m twenty minutes late to practice.

Since Nessa and my mom are staying to watch practice, I’ll take them out for dinner after then to the airport.

I need to let Tobie know that I won’t be coming back to the hotel, but Reid and Caleb will be, along with her meds.

Caleb looks like he’s in pain again. Reid is as happy as he has been since Tobie returned and chats with everyone who will listen as he laces up his skates.

“We have to talk,” I tell Caleb and Reid as I put on my skates.

“About?” Caleb is stretching out his knee, wincing slightly.

“Tobie,” I say.

Reid loses his smile. “Did she change her mind about us? Is she going back to that prick? I don’t know where he’s hiding, but when I find him…”

Coach is glaring at me, so I lace my skates faster. “I think she wants more.”

“More what?” Caleb frowns.

I wait until the rest of the team is on the ice and say quietly, “Of us. Together .”

Caleb sits back in his seat, his face slack.

Reid picks up a towel and puts it on his lap, glaring at me. “And you had to tell us this before practice?”

I snort, flicking my gaze to the seats. “How do you think I feel? That conversation happened right before my parents and little sister ambushed me in the parking lot.”

My mom waves at me from the stands.

She looks proud.

If she knew what we were over here talking about, she would not be proud or waving. She’d have me by the ear, dragging me to the nearest bathroom to wash my mouth out with soap.

No mother doesn’t need to know those things, so I smile and wave back, turning to the others when Caleb says, “We need a game plan.”

“For?” Reid blinks at him, looking dazed. “Right. That .”

“If this happens…” Caleb says slowly, “… and it’s looking like it might, it has to be perfect for Tobie. We can’t fuck it up by not knowing what we’re doing. We need a plan.”

Reid scrubs a hand over his face. “Please tell me you’re not going to draw a diagram like one of our plays?”

Caleb doesn’t respond.

“ Boucher !” We all recoil from Coach’s yell and scramble to get to our feet.

As expected, practice goes terribly for all of us.

“Where the fuck is your head?” Coach screams at me for the fifth time in an hour.

“You don’t want to know, Coach,” I mutter.