Which fit. He’d never had any control when it came to Becky. Only the illusion.
* * * *
In his suit, all ready for the road trip, Scott sat on the edge of Casey’s bed, leaning across the tray set up over her lap and opening his mouth wide for a spoonful of chicken noodle soup. Casey giggled as he made an appreciative sound in the back of his throat. He grinned at her, licking his lips. The soup was freakin’ good. Nothing like the canned kind. The flavor of the spices warmed him from the inside out. And so did Casey laughing even though she didn’t feel well.
Becky sighed as she stepped into the room. “Scott, you’re going to end up catching her cold. If you want some soup, I’ll get you some.”
“Ha! A nasty little cold don’t bother a big tough hockey player.” Scott let Casey feed him another bite of her lunch. Of course, Becky was right, but Casey had been so excited about him trying her mommy’s soup he hadn’t even considered that he might get sick. And hell, even if he did, no big deal. Maybe Stephan would get off his ass about being early for every practice to make up for the ones he missed last season if he got a cold and still played. He really shouldn’t tempt fate though. He gave Becky his most charming look. “I’d love a bowl though, sweet thang.”
Casey giggled again as Becky huffed. “Really, Scott? ‘Sweet thang’?”
“Honey pie? Dearie?” He chuckled, holding up his hands before Becky gave in to her obvious urge to smack him. “I’ve never tasted anything so delicious.” Liar. But he wasn’t going to bring that up in front of her kid. “May I please have a bowl, Becky?”
“Yes, you may.” Becky started for the door, then paused, giving him a look that had his heart doing funny little flips. “Thank you for coming over. Casey wanted to see . . . wanted to see you.”
Now Becky was lying. Casey had probably wanted to see Zach, but the man was in a mood. He hadn’t even answered his phone last night, and this morning he’d just curtly told Scott he’d see him on the plane. Scott had a bad feeling there was something going on between Zach and Becky that hadn’t been worked out. And seeing as they were leaving in an hour, probably wouldn’t be.
While Becky was getting his soup, Casey offered him a few more bites of hers. She was having so much fun feeding him, he decided to throw caution out the window. A cold wasn’t gonna kill him.
His phone buzzed. Stephan, letting him know he’d meet Scott at the airport with some new suits. More suits? Ugh. How many do I need? Scott turned his phone off and shoved it in his pocket. He didn’t have much time left. When Becky returned with his soup, he ate as fast as he could, kissed Casey’s forehead, told her to get better quick, then walked with Becky to the door.
“Hey, you wanna talk about it?” He frowned when Becky refused to look at him and pressed his fingertips under her chin until she did. “It’s none of my business, but I can’t go unless I know you’re okay.”
“You have to go, Scott. It’s not an option.” Becky dropped her stern tone and shook her head. “This is my mess. I don’t how to fix it, but I’ll figure it out. I’m still angry, and I know I have no right to be. So—”
“Don’t give me that.” Scott folded his arms over his chest. “Screw it, I’m gonna be nosy. What happened between you two? Everything seemed cool yesterday.”
“Yes, until we actually spoke to one another, alone. I feel like he’s never going to forgive me—he took something I said the wrong way. Wouldn’t let me clarify. He said he’d give me another chance, but then he doesn’t want to hear a word I have to say and—” Becky groaned. “It’s not all him. I’m just not sure where we go from here.”
“Forward.” Scott closed the distance between them, kissing her before she could counter his very logical answer. Her lips softened under his and her hands flattened against his chest. He whispered, his lips brushing hers as he wrapped his arms around her. “See how easy it is? We’re facing each other. One of us takes the first step—”
“Life doesn’t work that way, Scott. It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You two love each other.” He lifted one hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. “Take it from there. I think you’ve both got some ideas on how it’s supposed to work. Forget all that shit and focus on how it’s gonna work for you.”
“If we could limit it to the lifestyle, that would be simple. We’d have our time when all I’d have to do was submit. That’s not what he wants.”
“Is that all you want? Really, Becky?” He put a finger to her lips and made a hushing sound. “Don’t answer yet. Don’t tell me what I want to hear, or what you think is the right choice.” He took her hand and placed it over her heart, holding it there under his. “Answer from here.”
Becky’s bottom lip trembled. “From here? From here is where the brilliant idea of marrying Patrick came from. I thought I loved him too. Hell, I did love him. Which made me miserable and left my daughter without a father. I can’t do that again.”
“You know, I kinda get how the whole trust in BDSM thing works.” Scott cocked his head. “Would you ever have let Patrick tie you up?”
She gave him a horrified look. “No!”
“Those other Doms—you ever play with them alone? Bring them home or go to their place?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you do that with Zach? What made him different?”
“I knew him as a man. I felt . . . I felt like I could trust him.” Becky sighed and leaned her forehead on his chest. “I do trust him, but—”
“Becky, I think you need to learn to trust you a little more. You’re older and wiser than you were when you were with Patrick, right? It was, like, a learning thing.” He hugged her tight, one last time, before moving toward the door. “Use this week to think about that. About what you want to say to Zach.” He glanced up the stairs as Casey coughed and cried out for her mother. “When you’re not working or doing the mommy thing I mean.”
Becky laughed, quickly wiping away the sheen of tears under her eyes. “When did you get to be so smart?”
“’Bout five minutes ago.” He cuffed her chin lightly. “Now it is my sorry task to go have this chat with Zach. Not about what you said; that’s all on you.” He sucked his teeth and stepped out on to the porch. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t have been able to tell him all this. It’s all good that he wants you to talk to him. But that man’s got to learn to listen.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sun bore down, blinding as it reflected off the bus windows straight into Zach’s eyes. He squinted, inconspicuously peeling the front of his white dress shirt from where it had plastered itself to his skin. He had to get out of this suit.
Taking his luggage from one of the assistant coaches, he mumbled his thanks before trudging toward the hotel. The atmosphere of a five-game losing streak hung heavy on the team. He’d only played three of the games, but sitting back to watch their young prospects being hammered by the equally young opposition was another kind of hell. These games didn’t count for anything, but if it was even a hint at what the season would look like, their chances of getting anywhere near the playoffs were grim.
Nothing’s set in stone. The men will adjust.
Only, he wasn’t so sure they would. The rookies weren’t the problem. There was no leadership on the ice. Mason was out with a bad stomach flu—the doctor and Coach refused to let him play no matter how much he argued. Which left Ramos and Zach to pick up the slack. And there was plenty of that.
Every game started the same. Tim had a way of pumping up the men so they hit the ice with a winning attitude. The last loss didn’t matter. Play this game, one shift at a time.
A bad penalty, a soft goal, and everything fell apart. They weren’t a team anymore. They were nineteen men suited up, and the way they played, they might as well have been skating in nineteen different rinks. Zach managed not to make things worse by letting his personal drama affect his play, but the result was he and Scott were just as distant as every o
ther man out there.
Three or four players managed to bounce back, managed to leave the arenas after a loss talking about how different the next game would be. Carter and Scott often hung around for a bit to speak to the coaches about what had gone wrong. White seemed to be taking down names for each insult he’d let pass after Tim’s threat to bench him if he racked up any more penalty minutes. The other team’s goalies loved how he made the posts sing for them, but it didn’t stop him from hitting the rink early every morning to practice his deadly hard shot. And Vanek . . .
Vanek needed Chicklet here to put his collar back around his neck. Zach paused in the hotel lobby, glancing over at the entrance as Vanek ran in behind the team’s newest acquisition, eighteen-year-old Braxton Richards. He slammed into the boy hard enough to knock his phone—which he’d been texting on—out of his hand.
“See, Braxie, that’s how you take a check.” Vanek laughed as Richards bent down to pick up his phone, slapping the kid’s bare shoulder. The loud Crack! made the receptionist gasp. “Try taking them instead of avoiding them and maybe you won’t lose the puck every time the big guys come at you.”
A blush stained Richards’ smooth cheek. He hunched his shoulders and hurried to the elevator.
“Aww, come on!” Vanek shouted after him, ignoring the dirty looks he was getting from the other players. “Just trying to help you out, kid!”
“That is enough, hombrecito.” Ramos stepped up to Vanek’s side, his tone hard and cold. “It is not on you to teach him.”
“Hey, at least I’m scoring. It’s not my fault our goalie can’t—”
“Enough!” Zach moved closer to Vanek, trapping the arrogant little shit between him and Ramos. He managed to lower his voice even though he wanted to deck the kid as Hunt strode by them, his face tense and white. “I suggest you cool it.”
“Or what?” Vanek glared at him, challenge in his eyes. “What are you going to do about it, Pearce? We need that kid. With Callahan and Perron gone, we’re short on forwards. If he can’t make it as a pro, we better find now.”
The players that remained in the lounge didn’t even bother pretending not to listen in. And surprisingly, despite how obnoxious Vanek had been since his return, most looked like they agreed with him.
Zach’s lips thinned. He gestured at the elevators. “We’ll discuss this privately.”
“No, we won’t.” Vanek adjusted the strap of his duffle bag on his shoulder. His chin jutted up. “You’re not a Dom here, Pearce. You’re just an alternate.”
Aw, fuck. Zach sucked in air through his teeth. All around him, men were nodding. Vanek had turned this into him being unwilling to submit. Every player who wasn’t in the lifestyle probably understood why he’d have an issue with that.
Except, Zach hadn’t been trying to get him to submit. He wanted the kid to stop being a prick.
“Guys, I happen to like this hotel. We’ve been coming here for five years.” Tim ambled around the players clogging up most of the lounge, the assistant coaches close behind him. “You’re making the other guests uncomfortable. We can have this conversation during the team meeting tomorrow.” Tim shook his head when Zach opened his mouth, then turned to Vanek. “I think your mom’s waiting for you to call, tiger.” He grinned when the guys snickered. “No teasing him about it, boys. You don’t want to see how he plays when he doesn’t call.”
Vanek ducked his head to hide his beet-red face before darting off to take the stairs. Carter came to stand behind Ramos as the men cleared out, scowling after Vanek.
“I used to like him.”
Tim laughed and reached out to squeeze Carter’s shoulder. “Hey, give him a break, kid. He’s been working his ass off for a year to get back in the game. He’ll calm down once he realizes he still has a place here.” He lowered his voice. “He’s also been pretty much 24/7 for a while. I think part of the posturing is him proving to himself that he can manage without Chicklet. Let me work on that with him.”
“I’ve never had that problem.” Carter stuffed his hands in his pockets, his jaw tense.
“Yeah, well, you’re a switch, sport.” Tim grinned at the younger man. “That gives us a special perspective.” He shifted his focus to Zach and Ramos. “As Doms, you both trigger something in him he’s fighting. It won’t help.”
“I understand.” Ramos inclined his head to Tim and Zach, then spoke quietly to Carter, saying something that made the kid’s lips twitch and his eyes sparkle with mischief.
Carter strolled up to the elevator, taking out his phone, his tone light as whoever was on the other end answered. “Hope you’re free tonight, boo.”
He and Ramos disappeared into the elevator. Zach looked around the lounge as all the coaches but Tim headed up to their rooms.
“Scott’s stuck outside with some adoring fans.” Tim motioned for Zach to walk with him to the elevator. “Leave him. He’s handling it well. His interviews have been textbook lately, and it’s not only puck bunnies and tabloids hounding him now. I meant to ask . . . is everything all right with you? You seem off lately. It’s not your sister, is it?”
“Tracy’s doing good. So is Mathew. They both loved coming down for Casey’s party.” Zach gave Tim a stiff smile. “Everything else is private.”
“Got it.” Tim pressed the button to call the elevator. After the doors opened, he hustled his luggage and briefcase inside. “But I’ve spoken to my brother, and Becky looks just as miserable as you do.” He didn’t speak again until the elevator stopped on their floor and they both stepped into the hall. “I have a feeling you’re both having the same issue Vanek is, in your own ways.”
“Yeah? How do you figure?” Zach really didn’t want to have this discussion with his coach, but he was curious.
“The structure of a scene can make things seem very clean-cut. You have the Top and the bottom. Or the Dom and the sub. In any case, what comes after can be messy. Becky knows she can’t be a sub all the time. Managing her life and her job and her submissive urges is a juggling act, and I have a feeling I know which ball she’ll let drop first.” He gave Zach a shrewd look. “You’ve got two balls, Pearce—you know what I mean. I’m not talking about the ones hanging under your junk. I think you can handle three or four, but you keep tossing up the same two, keeping the rhythm going, all nice and neat.” Tim dropped his bags in front of his door, then took out his phone and his wallet. He started juggling them. “Player. Dom. Player. Dom.”
This is ridiculous. Zach laughed, shaking his head. “Coach—”
“Player. Dom—” The perfect circles became uneven as Tim fought to keep the rhythm going. “You’re not overconfident about either, which means you’re always trying to improve. Which is great.” Tim caught both the phone and the wallet. “But you’re more. You know to push a sub’s limits. Learn to push your own.”
Zach chuckled. “If you were a sub . . . but you’re my coach. So I’ll take the odd lecture with a thank you and a have a good night.”
“Sometimes I am a sub. Sometimes a coach. Sometimes a husband.” Tim shrugged. “I can see you’re not getting the point. But you will.” His lips slanted. “Just like you’ll eventually hit the net. You got pretty close at the last game in Jersey.”
“Ha-ha.” Zach’s brow furrowed. He hadn’t missed the point. But he disagreed. If they were talking about his relationship with Becky, Tim was wrong. He’d been more than a Dom to her. She refused to see that. Fuck, I miss her. He swallowed, speaking up as Tim opened the door to his room. “She’s miserable?”
“She hides it about as well as you do.” Tim shrugged, hand on the door. “So you tell me.”
“Right.” Zach stared at Tim’s closed door for a long time, then bowed his head and pressed his eyes shut. Maybe he should call her. They’d exchanged a few texts over the past week, mostly consisting of him vaguely telling her about his day and her doing the same. There was a distance between them that couldn’t seem to be crossed, and the coldness of short-typed sentences wasn
’t helping.
He went to his room, dropped his bags on his bed, and called her cell.
“Zach?”
“Hey. I . . .” He took a deep breath and rested his hip against the large black dresser. “I needed to hear your voice.”
“Really?” Becky sounded so unsure it made him feel like a complete dick. How could he have let this go on for so long? She continued before he could answer her. “The last time I asked if I could call you, you said you were busy.”
“We had a team meeting.”
“All night?”
“Late enough. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep when I saw the time,” His brow furrowed at the length of silence. “Can we just talk for a bit? I want to know how you’re doing. Is Casey feeling better?”
“Zach, I can’t talk now. The phones been ringing off the hook at the office, and I have a lot of paperwork to do. Casey’s all better. How do I say this . . .” She let out a bitter laugh. “I’m busy too. Maybe we can schedule a meeting when you get back.”
“Becky—”
“You know, when I took off for three weeks, I knew you wouldn’t be happy, but I didn’t realize how much it hurts to be treated like that.” Her tone was the sharp edge of a razor blade. “Thank you for showing me exactly how much it does.”
The dial tone came as a shock, even though it shouldn’t have. Part of the reason he loved Becky so much was her strength. Her independence. And how much it took for her to depend on anyone, even a little. He pulled off his suit jacket and shirt, tossing both onto the bed before making his way into the bathroom to take a shower. Shave.
Something.
I want her to be able to depend on me.
She might have considered it if things hadn’t gone so far off track. He wanted to do things for her, to be there when she needed someone, provide for her so she didn’t have to work so much.
But she loved her job. And she could provide for herself and her daughter all on her own. All he could give her was that taste of giving up control at the club. Without that . . . maybe she was right. Maybe they had nothing else.
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