by Stacey Lynn
At my drink order, Maggie arches her brow at me. I take the shot without salt or lime and take a large sip of my Long Island. “I said I was getting drunk.”
“Yeah, but there’s drunk and then freshman-sorority-girl ugly drunk.”
“I’ll slow down with this. Promise.” She’s right. I want to get drunk and dull my pain, not end up puking in the rundown bathrooms by eleven.
“All right. Dance time?”
“You got it!”
We weave through the crowds, drinks in hand, sliding single file into the middle of the dance floor. I’m glad I called them back. I might not really want to be here, but there’s no way I could have survived the night so close to Mikah, so far away, spending it by myself and being miserable.
I needed my friends. Good music where we can dance like fools.
We circle together, and shout along with lyrics, laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the people, both women and men, who come dressed for the appropriate decades. Bright colors, bangs so high they never should have existed, scrunchies galore adorn wrists and high ponytails and shirts tied at the waists making them more crop tops.
There are leather gloves on hands and red leather jackets, a la Michael Jackson, acid wash jeans. The best part is from the wedding parties that are dressed in elegant gowns to the ripped jeans and blue eyeshadow, everyone is out to have fun, so the vibe is perfect.
I’m halfway through my Long Island, sweat gathering at the back of my neck when I tell Pippa and Maggie, I need to take a quick break. My thighs might not be able to take any more if I don’t rest so I scoot my way back through toward the bar where it’s a bit quieter and I can wait for another drink when someone steps in front of me, hand on my shoulder.
I immediately jolt back, shaking it off, until I recognize him.
“Paisley. I thought that was you.”
Jason Taylor. The sight of him alone has me panicking, and I quickly scan the area around. No way. There’s no way Mikah broke it off with me and then came out with his teammates.
“Paisley?” he asks, and his head falls, tilted to one side. “You okay? Sawyer said you and Mikah were going to meet us out later, but no one’s heard from him.”
My chin wobbles. Oh God. What is going on?
“I wouldn’t know,” I say, fighting through the pain. Darn it. For one blessed hour, I was faking doing so well. But now there’s a tremor threatening to erupt starting in my gut. “He ended things with me.”
“What? You’re shitting me.”
I wrap my lips around my straw and take a huge sip. Screw it. I toss the straw to the floor and drain the rest of my drink. Sorry environment. I’ll recycle more tomorrow. “Not shitting you and no offense, but I’m here with friends.”
I go to move around him, but he steps in my path. “Are you okay?”
“No, Jason.” I laugh. The Long Island has made me a lunatic. “I am not okay. And worse, Mikah isn’t and totally shut me out. I thought… I thought…” Oh God. He’s turning blurry. Which means I’m crying. In a freaking bar.
Sign me up for freshman-sloppy-drunk girl.
I slam my eyes closed. Maybe he’ll vanish. Maybe my alcohol brain has made him appear and when I open my eyes, he’ll be gone.
Instead, a freakishly large hand wraps around my biceps and he tugs me through the throng of people to the stairs.
“Where are we going?”
“To the team. Where it’s quiet.”
“No.” I try to shove my heels to the floor, but it’s useless. Jason’s way bigger than Mikah and probably stronger. Plus, the floor is slippery from spilled drinks. “I don’t want to see them.”
“Well they’re going to want to hear this. Sawyer talked to Mikah right after practice, said he’d talk to you about meeting us and headed out.”
My heart shouldn’t flutter he said that. But it does.
Then I remember the slammed door in my face and the distance he put between us before that. The tortured way he looked at me.
I give up the fight. If I manage to pull free of Jason, I’ll probably end up with my ass on the floor, soaked with beer and whatever else. So I stay quiet until we’re up the stairs, in the VIP area where it’s quieter and I let him drag me to near the back where it’s even quieter and several faces I recognize all look at me with surprise.
“Paisley!” Katie cries and jumps from her seat. “You made it! We were wondering where you two have been.”
If someone could rip into my chest and pull out my heart, I’m not sure it could hurt worse.
“Mikah broke up with her,” Jason says, dropping the bomb. And God... it sounds so much worse hearing it than saying it. “Jude. Newman. Let’s go.”
“What?” I spin, wobble on my legs a bit. I blame the dancing. It’s probably fifty-fifty that and the drinks.
Maybe seventy-thirty drinks to dancing. My head is swimming a bit and I barely register the other guys moving.
“What? No. No, no, no.” I reach for Jason, but he’s already talking to Sawyer. Next to him is Tessa, who looks as pale-faced as I feel. “You can’t.”
Oh my God. He’ll think I called his friends. Cried my eyes out to Katie or something. How humiliating.
“Jude,” I say, because he’s closest. “Please don’t. It’s a breakup. I’ll be fine.”
Jude glances at Katie before meeting my gaze. “He cares about you. Talks about you all the time. He likes you. A lot. No way he’d do this. Not without something going wrong. We’ll figure it out. You here with someone?”
“Friends.” I point my thumb toward the dance floor and then… Oh shit. I’ve just ditched them. I slap my forehead and groan. “I need to get back to them.”
“No need,” Katie says, and she’s laughing. “I think they found you.” She points behind me toward the stairs that lead to the upper floor. I spin slowly so I don’t get dizzy, but it still doesn’t help.
I should sit. I don’t drink much. Long Islands might not have been a great choice. I make a mental note to listen to Maggie in the future and then see them both, waving their hands in my direction, behind the roped-off area. A bouncer the size of New Jersey prevents them from entering.
“I’ll go get them,” Katie says and gives me a quick hug. “The guys will figure things out and I’ll call you when I know more. Okay? Jude’s right. This doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“Oh wow. The Ice Kings.” Maggie says it as she reaches me, collapsing into my shoulder. I throw my arm around her waist before we both topple over. “They’re so pretty.”
Katie laughs and I introduce my friends to them. Jude, Jason, and Newman are gone before I realize it and Katie scoots down, making room for us all.
I finish my drink and switch to water.
This night didn’t turn out the way I’d planned at all, and yet with Jason and Jude so pissed, the smallest flicker of hope grows.
They agree with me.
Something happened.
And before another song kicks in and Maggie starts shimmying in her seat next to me, one word—one person comes to mind.
Angela.
It has to be about Angela.
Chapter Thirty
Mikah
* * *
My house is quiet. Too quiet. It’s torture. Everything from the moment I stepped outside the arena earlier to now is an ugly blur of worst-case scenarios and the fear I’ve had about Angela coming back. How in the hell can she leave our son with me with a note saying she promises she doesn’t want him back and then show up, demanding to see him, demanding that she’ll go to the police for kidnapping if I don’t allow her to see him?
That was the exact threat she gave Luke when he called her. She didn’t even say hello and I know because he had her on speakerphone from my living room.
Let me see him or the golden boy of hockey will be arrested.
What else was I supposed to do?
Every second I spent waiting for her to arrive, Luke and I planned. Gi
ve her what she wants. Keep her happy and calm. This will give Luke time to figure out what her real plan is so we can determine how to proceed and not only ensure she doesn’t get custody if that’s what she wants, but that she has absolutely nothing to do with Angelo.
It killed me. I have never felt a pain so fierce as I did the moment I told Paisley it is over. But Angela was inside my home with Luke, fawning over Angelo. She’d already mentioned Paisley once and as soon as she did, realization struck.
She’d been watching me. But for what end?
That was when I decided. Paisley would have nothing to do with this, not until Luke knows what’s going on.
His theory? She wants money.
My theory? She’s a vile, evil witch. I’m beginning to suspect she planned this all along. Especially when I think back and realize many of the condoms we used that weekend were hers. What if she did something to them to get pregnant on purpose? What if that’s why she was always hanging around the team?
My mind is racing, and has been, for the entire evening and Angelo must sense my anxiousness because he’s been grouchier than normal, taking longer to get down.
Luke left several hours ago. He’s going to have his investigator widen his net to see what else we can discover about Angela. Earlier, she refused to sign away her rights. She didn’t even ask for money. Acted offended when Luke offered.
“I’ve realized my mistake. I want him.” She said it like she expected me to believe it.
I don’t and we need to figure out what she wants because I’m already dying inside with what I’ve done to Paisley. As soon as Angela left, I ran to Paisley’s. I can’t bear the look of pain on her face when I think about what I said to her earlier. But she either took off or refused to answer her door. Not that I blame her. I’ve run different scenarios in my head, but none are good. There’s a chance we can stay together, but only indoors and then that makes her feel like my dirty secret. I do not want her feeling that, either.
It’s now going on eleven. I am exhausted. My brain will not slow and my heart will not stop racing.
A knock hits my door and I hurry to it.
Paisley. I will fall at her feet. Explain everything. Apologize forever for hurting her so deeply earlier it’s possible it hurt me more.
I open the door without thinking and immediately a hand hits my chest and I’m shoved backward.
Jason.
“What are you doing here?”
“I think the better question is what the hell is wrong with you?”
“What?” Behind him are Jude and Newman. This has the makings of a beat down even if they won’t raise fists and I’m confused, because the expressions on their faces are all the same. Furious. I focus on Jude. “What have you heard? Did she call Katie?”
“No. Saw her getting trashed at Roxbury with her friends where you were supposed to bring her.”
“Trashed? Is she okay?”
“I think we’re all more concerned with what happened to you tonight.”
They step in and fan out. Newman is smart enough to not let the door slam, though. He catches it at the last second and asks, “Angelo?”
“Sleeping. But I just got him down so don’t yell at me too loud.”
“What happened?” Jude asks. “And don’t say you fucked up. All men do that.”
“I fucked up.”
“I just said—”
“I know. But Angela is back. She wants Angelo. Or she wants us, I think. Her motives aren’t clear yet.”
“And you’ll give her that?” Jude’s teeth grind together. “After she abandoned him?”
“I will let her think whatever she needs so she doesn’t steal my son back from me. Yes.”
“Have you called Luke?” Jason asks.
“I did.” I explain everything from the moment Angela surprised me outside the rink. The men curse. Repeatedly. More questions with What the fucks? And That bitch than I ever heard us say. “I can’t… the night he came, we should have called the cops, but I didn’t want a public record. Luke said we’d handle it privately and it all seemed so easy. She said she promised she didn’t want him, so…” I screwed up. I’ve been doing it since the beginning.
We should have suspected she had something in the works when she was so elusive after stating she was easy to find.
“Let me figure out what I can.” All of us turn to Jason.
“How?”
“Angela. She has friends. She’s not the only puck bunny around and she used to come to the clubs with a few I spent time with.” By spend time with, he means screwed. Probably more than once.
“And they’ll tell you something?”
“Please,” he scoffs. “A promise of a night with me and they’ll be singing like canaries.”
“Until then?” Jude asks. “You really going to stay away from Paisley? I thought you loved her.”
“Perhaps because I love her is why I should stay away.” We haven’t even been together long. Is it possible we have moved too fast anyway? What twenty-two-year-old graduate student wants to be raising another man’s baby?
She has never said these things.
It’s Angela’s voice in my head, casting doubts from earlier.
It still worked, even if I’m eighty-five percent sure she can speak nothing but lies.
“You’re an idiot,” Jude says, and he points at my door. “Even I know that, and I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. But that girl loves you. She’d do anything for you. All you have to do is tell her.”
“I will. When I can.” When I have my head on straight and know what I am doing with Angela. “Paisley. Is she okay?”
“She cried in my arms if that tells you anything,” Jason says, still frowning at me like I am an idiot. I might be. “But Katie’s there and she’s with friends. She’ll be fine. I’m sure someone will take care of her.”
I don’t like the implication that it’s not me, but I caused this. If he expects me to shove past them to go get her, I will not. I don’t want to use her and pull her back and forth, and I definitely do not want her to have to deal with Angela.
Jason shakes his head like he can’t believe me.
Newman rolls his eyes.
I look back at Jude. “You all three came all the way here to yell at me?”
Jude shrugs. “We’re brothers. It’s what we do.”
Days have felt like weeks. For a month I looked forward to the first home game of the regular season, looking into the stands and finding Paisley. Right where she was supposed to be. Instead, her seats stayed empty. Jude had skates filled with nerves and it took him until the third period to shake them off. Who can blame him considering we were playing the team who busted his knee last season. Selkin, the guy who took him out, took to the ice like he was out for blood all over again.
Me? I had a head filled with a beautiful blonde who should have been the woman sitting in the seats in front of Katie, holding my son. Instead it was Viola. And even though I really like her, like she treats Angelo like her own son or grandson and yet does not mother me, she is not the woman I wanted cheering for me.
I wanted my family. The one I threw away. Every day we wait for news on Angela, for Jason to find out what he can from his former lovers and for Luke’s private investigator to get back to us.
It’s been seven days. One week. Seven weeks.
It does not matter. Every day I spend without Paisley, playing along with Angela’s games so I don’t end up arrested is killing me.
All I want is Paisley. And now, I am packing to leave for California for three days and two games. One in Los Angeles and then San Diego. It’s not the first time I’ve had to leave Angelo. It’s the first time I haven’t known Paisley will be watching and cheering for me even if she doesn’t understand the simplest rules like the difference between icing or off-sides.
I grin, shake my head, and go back to packing. I’m already in my suit I wear on the airplane. The coat is off to the side of my bag. I only need a fe
w casual clothes, toiletries, so it’s not difficult and I’ve traveled enough it usually take me minutes.
I’m stalling.
I don’t want to be an entire country away from my son, and I want Paisley to give me a goodbye kiss.
I want all the things I cannot have with her and it’s eating away at me, ruining my focus on the ice.
Perhaps my father was right after all. All hockey. Nothing else. It’s the only way to stay on top.
My phone rings with the tone for the concierge desk downstairs. Viola has permission and her own key to come up and she should be arriving any minute. But it could be Luke.
Maybe.
Hoping I’m right, I answer the phone. “Pierre?”
“Mr. Lutzgo, yes, this is Monsieur Pierre. I have someone for you, someone demanding to be sent up—”
“Lutzgo. Jaxon Hayes. Tell him to send me up.”
I’m thrown by the voice and the abrupt change. “Who?”
He sighs, as if annoyed. “Jaxon Hayes. Security Specialist. I got news for you, and Luke is in Georgia. You’ll want this. Send me up.”
“The investigator?” My heart races.
I receive another sigh as a reply. “I’ll wait for you to call Luke if you want. Or call Beaux Hale. Hell, call Gage Bryant, he’s married to my sister. I’m legit. I’m also in a hurry ‘cuz I just drove my ass down here from Raleigh and I’m tellin’ you, you want to hear this. And not down here.”
Beaux Hale. Quarterback for the Raleigh Rough Riders.
And Luke is in Georgia. He let me know this week he had to leave town for a few days for his niece’s wedding. Plus, he also told me Jaxon’s office in Raleigh came recommended from the team.
“No need. Tell Pierre to send you up. And thank you.”
I get no response except the click of the phone hanging up on me, but I pick up Angelo from where he’s in a bouncy chair by my bed, kiss the top of his head and hurry to my door.
