Benched

by Elise Faber

  It took Stefan’s groin tightening for him to cut off the image. For fuck’s sake. He needed to get his shit together.

  Brit had been solid in practice, so a casual observer might think her shoulder was fully recovered. But they were professional athletes.

  Playing through the pain was nothing new.

  “Let’s hope I’m a little bit better,” she said, soft enough that Stefan thought he might have been the only one who heard it. Especially since Max and Blane had moved on to laughing about some video on YouTube.

  The words, laced with a hint of sadness, made his heart squeeze tight.

  “You’ve gotta see this,” Max said, leaning diagonally across the table to thrust his phone in Blane’s face.

  “I can’t—” Blane got out of the booth, came around the table, and shoved Stefan’s shoulder. “Move.”

  Normally, Stefan would have snapped at his teammate—ever heard of the word please?—but since the end result was him sitting next to Brit, he got up and crossed to the other side.

  “You good?” he asked softly. Her eyes flew to his, questioning. “After that—” He shrugged, searching for the right words and failing miserably. “The fall didn’t hurt you, right?” It was the first time he’d brought anything to do with that morning up, but Stefan found that he needed to reassure himself. Brit had been beyond frightened—of him—and though he knew it wasn’t his fault she’d been so scared, being the cause of someone’s fear wasn’t a normal occurrence for him.

  “Fine,” she said, her tone a little tart. His words clearly hadn’t found the right mark and he almost let it go. Probably would have if not for her hand. The one nearest him was clenched into a fist and trembled where she rested it on her thigh.

  Stefan couldn’t stop himself. He reached across the six inches of space separating them, took that shaking hand into his, and carefully separated her fingers. The skin wasn’t smooth like most of the girls he’d been with. There were callouses, scars.

  They were capable fingers, strong, and yet somehow still feminine.

  Perhaps just a different version than many would expect.

  Brit had jumped almost a foot at the contact, her lips parting in surprise. But when he gave her hand a light squeeze, she relaxed.

  Words weren’t necessary in that moment. It was simple. Comfort freely given then received.

  The action was instinctive in the way he consoled a teammate after a bad shift or tapped Julian’s—the Gold’s starting goaltender—pads with his stick after a goal. Small gestures that taken alone meant nothing, but could be pieced together into a larger expression of camaraderie.

  But unlike the others, this comfort was laced with something else. Heat licking up his arm, coiling in his stomach . . . and lower.

  Which was why he forced himself to pull back.

  Even though what he really wanted to do was lace his fingers with hers and tug her close.

  He knew the thought was wrong but it didn’t stop him from wanting. And while normally he might have been able to shrug off his desire as a stupid male thing, this need tempered with tenderness made the situation extra complicated.

  He couldn’t cross the line between teammate and woman and him getting in her space was probably the last thing she needed after what had happened in the arena.

  So he returned his fingers back to his own lap, even laughed when Blane turned the phone to them and played the video of some idiot attempting to use a roof as a diving board.

  Still, when Brit glanced at him, a small smile on her lips, her eyes soft, Stefan couldn’t suppress the notion that he’d just . . . somehow become tied to the woman next to him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Stefan called his mom the moment he was in his car.

  “Hi.” It was perfunctory because the more important thing was “How are you feeling?”

  Diane sighed. “I told you to stay out and have a good time. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  Impossible. But he couldn’t tell her that. Didn’t want to add to her stress.

  “We have practice tomorrow. A late night isn’t in the cards.”

  “Stefan, really?” she said. “You’re worried. I understand that. But you need to live your life.”

  Not surprising that his mom would see through him. She always had. But the excuse had worked with the guys, a finite end to the evening, allowing him to get home without anyone knowing the one person who’d been his steady throughout his life might not survive her battle.

  It was too soon to talk to anyone about what his mom was going through. Too soon to know her prognosis and be able to confide his fears to his friends.

  Besides that, his mom had asked that he not let Max know, the one person he might have actually told. Their mothers were friends, and she’d said, “I don’t want Betty fussing over me for nothing.”

  Nothing being recurrent Stage 2 cancer. Surgery and chemo. Bloodwork and fatigue.

  “Have you heard anything from the lab?” he asked, setting the phone in the cup holder as the Bluetooth kicked on. He put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

  “No.” She paused. “But you know the initial report came back okay. It’s smaller this time and less aggressive. I’m going to be fine.”

  “So why don’t you want Betty to know?”

  “Stefan.” His mom was rolling her eyes; he could practically hear it through the airwaves. “You know she would fly out, and Max’s sister just had her baby. They need Betty’s help more than I do. You’re not going to ruin her first experience as a grandmother, are you?”

  Stefan wasn’t sure he believed that, but he also wasn’t about to verbalize any of his fears. His mom was going through enough without him needing to dump those on her—no matter how much he would have liked to have steady, capable Betty at his mom’s side.

  “Fine.” He sighed, though having his mom manipulate him was much better than the pallid, civilized version of herself she’d been since the surgery. “I won’t destroy the sacred bond between grandchild and grandmother. But you’re going to have to tell her eventually.”

  “I know.”

  There was a moment of quiet, a pause where it seemed as though they were both thinking of the possibilities of what could happen but were unwilling to say them aloud. Then he shoved that garbage away.

  “Milkshake?”

  His mom laughed. “When have I ever said no to milkshakes?”

  “Never.” Which was why he’d asked. Empty calories at this stage weren’t a bad thing. “And done. I’ll be home in twenty.”

  Stefan drove to the all-night dairy, got out, and ordered his mom’s milkshake—a vanilla malt with chocolate sandwich cookies mixed in. A few fans came up to him as he waited for the shake, but no one got out of hand.

  That was the thing about the Bay Area.

  People were huge sports fans and, though hockey’s popularity was on the rise, Stefan wasn’t so recognizable that he couldn’t just go hang out somewhere.

  For the most part.

  Just as the worker handed over his mom’s milkshake, Jessica approached him.

  He mentally groaned.

  She was a puck bunny—which was a not-so-nice term for hockey groupies—who also happened to be a local reporter who’d been around the locker room so many times that he actually remembered her name. He’d yet to ride her particular bicycle and had no foreseeable plans too. His taste had evolved past easy lays.

  Hell, that was when he’d even had a sexual appetite—which hadn’t been often over the last season and a half. He’d poured every last bit of his energy into the team and helping the Gold recover from last season’s scandal.

  Not to mention, since Brit’s appearance, his fantasies had been less about buxom brunettes with a pound of makeup on their face and more about lithe, unmarred femininity.

  Which was very, very dangerous for the team he’d been working so hard to rebuild.

  “A pic
ture with my favorite hockey star?” Jessica all but purred.

  Fake breasts pushed into his side, and lips, obviously injected with something that made them look as though they would explode, pursed in the idiotic fishy pout that was so popular nowadays.

  Stefan figured the best course was to take the stupid picture and get the hell out.

  “Sure.” He grabbed the phone, used his long arms to his advantage, and took the photograph. It a quick move he’d learned over the last couple of seasons: ignore the advances, mitigate any potential unhappiness, then get as far away as possible.

  “Gotta go,” he said and started toward his car.

  She followed him.

  Shit.

  Unlocking the driver’s door—and only the driver’s door, a lesson learned after another fan had jumped into the passenger’s seat when he’d been trying to make a quick getaway very similar to this one—Stefan stowed the shake inside and started to fold his body into the very narrow frame of his Mercedes.

  The hand on his arm stopped him, at least for a moment. Then he brushed it off and started to close the door.

  “I can—” she began.

  “Thank you, but I’m not interested.” Had never been. Would never be.

  Jessica’s beady blue eyes narrowed . . . or maybe it was just the result of all the black crap outlining them. “You don’t even know what I’m offering.”

  He actually did know what she was offering, had heard about it five times over.

  She gives the best head, dude. And then when you actually hit it . . .

  Yeah. Sloppy ninths or tenths didn’t appeal to him.

  “Goodnight, Jessica.”

  “Who’s the milkshake for?” she asked, a hardness coating her expression. It gave Stefan a moment of pause. She was a reporter after all. “I know you wouldn’t drink that crap during the season.”

  The lie was easy. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a cheat day?”

  With that, he shut the door and drove away, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was common knowledge that, aside from Jessica’s bedroom antics, she could spin a story into a tangle of half-truths and sensationalism like no one’s business.

  Damn. He was probably screwed. They’d have him paired off with some visiting actress just because she’d been in the city.

  But he also couldn’t worry about that now. There was a milkshake to be delivered, tapes to be studied, and drills to memorize.

  His mom practically snatched the shake from his hand the moment he walked through the door then oohed and moaned about how good it tasted. So far, the treat was the single guaranteed thing she could keep down.

  Hopefully that lasted.

  It wasn’t until he’d finished his prep for tomorrow’s practice and lay down to go to sleep several hours later that he remembered Jessica’s cold look.

  Stefan had clearly overreacted, his worry was unfounded. He’d been getting a damn milkshake after all. There was nothing there. Nothing to spin.

  What could she possibly say?

  It wasn’t until he woke early the next morning and turned on the news that he realized Jessica could say a whole, whole lot.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Brit

  Shoes tied. Phone tucked in her pocket. Earbuds in. Or one this time. After her freak-out with Stefan, Brit wasn’t about to make the same mistake of not being totally aware of her surroundings.

  Therapy had helped after the incident.

  But it hadn’t cured all. She still hadn’t been able to tell anyone else what happened. Not her brother, not her parents.

  Of course, one had to actually talk to their parents in order for that to occur.

  And that wasn’t her reality.

  The best that someone could have said was that her parents were detached.

  Her father had been so wrapped up in his career as an orthopedic surgeon, until he’d died eighteen months before, that, as an adult, she had only spoken to him on Father’s Day, his birthday, and Christmas.

  He’d never taken time off when she went home to visit, never turned down a surgery.

  Brit’s mother wasn’t a bad person, but she’d made an art out of creating excuses for Brit’s dad not being, well . . . a dad. Worse was that she had never supported Brit playing a man’s sport like hockey.

  Needless to say, it made things tense at home.

  Luckily, she had her brother. And when he was in the country, however infrequently that ended up being, they always got together.

  He didn’t know about the incident either. There was nothing Dan could have done, and it would have only made him feel guilty.

  Brit hadn’t wanted that, so she’d talked to a therapist who’d agreed with her assessment. The incident three years ago hadn’t been assault or rape—though, deep down, it still felt like both of those things.

  No, what had happened to her had been hazing.

  Which was a word she had barely known before the incident, and something she’d never spent more than ten seconds thinking about until after she’d seen a random news story about it occurring at a college fraternity and realized that was what had happened to her. The news story had been her catalyst for therapy.

  Of course, Brit hadn’t gone to college, hadn’t known hazing was fairly common. She knew now that it was banned on college campuses and understood it could cause psychological scarring—hell, she could testify to that. She also got that it wasn’t her fault, that her reactions were a normal part of the healing process.

  A totally shitty part, but not abnormal.

  Which didn’t necessarily make it easy to get over.

  Especially when she was by herself in a strange city or quiet arena.

  Being in a new place wasn’t a unique experience for her; she was used to the moving and upheaval. Especially early on, it had been exciting to see so much of the world, to be in a different place every night.

  It was unfortunate that one of those nights had managed to cast so large a shadow on her life.

  * * *

  Three years ago

  The hand on her shoulder made her jump.

  She turned and saw it was Sergei, her captain. He wore his trademark grey sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head like some idiotic version of Rocky.

  “Hey,” she said, gripping her towel tight to her breasts. She’d been about to jump in the shower. “What’s up?”

  “Strip.”

  Brit blinked. “What? No,” she said, not liking the gleam in Sergei’s eyes. Two of the biggest players on the team stood behind him. The rest of the guys looked on. “Back off. Now, Sergei.”

  The room went suddenly and utterly quiet. Brit could have heard a pin drop, let alone the collective sucking in a breath.

  “You don’t get to make that call.”

  The air frosted with malice, and shivering, Brit took a step back.

  Sergei and the two players behind him moved as a unit.

  Fingers manacled her wrists, strong arms immobilized her kicking legs. And faster than she would have thought possible, the towel was torn away.

  She fought. Struggled.

  It was only when Sergei bent over her that real fear settled in.

  “I knew your body would be fucking hot,” he said once she was pinned. He trailed a finger down her throat, between her breasts. Then he gripped her nipple, twisted it hard enough to make her cry out in pain.

  Bile burned her throat when his hand slid lower.

  This was actually going to happen. She was going to be a statistic, one of the twenty-five percent of woman who were sexually assaulted in their lifetimes.

  But she wasn’t.

  Just as the hand reached the apex of her thighs and her eyes slid closed, her mind desperately attempting to grasp onto some sort of numbness, to find a dark, empty place in her mind, Brit was tossed through the air.

  She collided with a slick, tiled surface. Hit her face hard against the floor. Blood
exploded in her mouth, and icy cold water hit like bullets against her back.

  There was laughter. The sound of skin against skin as palms met for high fives all around.

  Then the locker room went silent.

  Brit didn’t know how long she stayed in the shower, the cold water pounding against her back before she managed to shove to her feet and stumble into the adjoining locker room.

  Her clothes were nowhere to be found. But her equipment was in its normal spot. She grabbed the shorts she always wore under her gear, wrestled them on, and threw her jersey over her head.

  Shivers wracked her body. She had never been colder in her entire life.

  Somehow, she made it to her apartment without wrecking her car and stumbled into her bedroom. She didn’t bother to change, just huddled under a mass of blankets until morning light had begun filtering in through her windows.

  It took everything she possessed to get up and walk into the locker room the next morning.

  “Sorry about the fat lip,” was the first thing Sergei said when she walked through the door. “You were fighting us so hard that you slipped from my hands.”

  One of the defensemen who’d held her in place laughed. “You’re fucking strong, Brit. I almost got dunked.”

  “Dude,” someone called, whose face Brit was way too shocked to register, “the water is the worst part.”

  “At least you got cold,” another player had chimed in. “My ass got roasted.”

  ****

  Brit struggled to grasp the invasive memories, wanting to shove them back into the recesses of her mind, but it didn’t matter she was three years in the future and playing for a different team in a different city. The dark thoughts didn’t want to be shut away.

  She rested her head against the smooth wood of her hotel room’s door and, run temporarily forgotten, she breathed. Just breathed.

  That discussion about water temperature was the moment Brit realized the events hadn’t been about her at all. It had been some insane form of team bonding.