Benched

by Elise Faber

  Dread tied his intestines in knots. What—

  “Ladders. Twenty. Each side. Go.”

  Stefan’s relief was strong. The skating drill sucked, but it was better than being benched, than losing his captaincy. He skated toward the far side of the ice, ready to get it over with.

  “Why?” Mike asked.

  Stefan gave an inward groan halfway to the goal line. For fuck’s sake, that man could not keep his goddamned mouth closed.

  A sharp trill of Bernard’s whistle. “Thirty.”

  “But—”

  “Forty.”

  Finally, Mike shut the hell up and skated over to where Stefan waited.

  “Together,” Bernard said as he stood over the Gold’s logo at center ice. “Go.” He blew his whistle.

  Stewart burst forward from the goal line in a show of speed that was both unnecessary and excessive. They’d need all of their strength to finish, especially post-practice.

  The drill was deceptively simple, just skating and stopping at every line from one side of the ice to the other. But there were a lot of lines.

  Blue line. Stop. Red line at center ice. Stop. Far blue line. Stop. Far goal line. Stop.

  And they only had to do it forty times . . . per side.

  Not to mention, Mike had basically set them up to fail with the pace he’d started.

  Still, Stefan wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge. It had taken everything in him earlier to cease his pushing Brit for her confidence, and then he’d only succeeded because he figured he’d win her over eventually.

  But he wasn’t going to yield to Stewart. Not when he trained harder and longer than every other damn person on the team. Not when he could still draw breath and move his legs.

  No fucking way.

  Sprint. Stop. Sprint. Stop. Rinse. Repeat.

  By ten, Stewart was sucking wind.

  By twenty, Mike’s pace had slowed to a snail’s pace.

  By thirty, even Stefan’s legs were burning. But Mike was in worse shape. He was green, looked ready to blow chunks, and they still had ten more to go.

  It was on the second half of thirty-three that Stewart stumbled and fell. He scrambled to get up, only to fall again.

  Stefan didn’t think, just reacted. Closing the ten feet of distance between him and Stewart, he shoved his shoulder under Stewart’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

  “Keep moving,” he gritted.

  “Fuck off,” Stewart growled.

  “I want to get the hell off this ice. So shut the fuck up and skate.”

  The last seven were torture—with him all but carrying Stewart—but finally they finished.

  Bernard had been passively standing at center ice as they struggled. Now he blew his whistle. “Cool down then hit the showers. I expect you both to be on time tomorrow.”

  He skated off the ice without a backward glance.

  The silence was deafening.

  Or it was until Stewart unloaded. “Do you want a fucking medal or something? Always got to be the hero?” he screamed, shoving at Stefan’s chest. A feather would have had more impact at Stewart’s level of fatigue, but that didn’t stop him from unleashing a few more choice words.

  Stefan had enough. “Dude,” he said and shoved Mike back, not bothering to help the other man up when he hit the ice for the second time. “I couldn’t give two shits about you as a person. You’re lazy, just barely talented enough, and a first-class asshole. I do what I do for the good of the team. Not you. Not ever.”

  “Who do you think—”

  Stefan cut him off. “Let me guess. You’re going to give me some version of ‘Who do I think I am?’ or ‘Do I know who you are?’“ He rolled his eyes. “I know exactly who you are. You’re a self-entitled bastard who has no sense of team. Do what you want. Just stay out of my way.”

  He turned and skated off the ice.

  Brit was standing in the hallway leading back toward the locker room, still in her gear, her face serious.

  “Hey,” she said when he stopped in front of her.

  His hands were clenched inside his gloves, and his blood pressure must have been off the charts, but his voice was calm enough. “Hey.”

  Brilliant conversationalists, they were.

  And great, now he sounded like Yoda.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Good.” She bent and picked up her helmet from where it sat on a chair then turned to walk down the hall.

  Stefan followed her in silence. Until he couldn’t.

  “Why’d you stay?” he asked.

  “Why did you help Stewart?” she countered.

  He paused, both mentally and physically. They were next to the wall of pictures, game shots of each of the former captains. Just four of them, since the Gold were a new team.

  They’d had a similar wall in Calgary when he’d played with the Flames. But as an older team, the Flames had history, rows and rows of history.

  His shot was on this wall, a picture of him skating in full black and gold.

  It was weird seeing himself there, imagining that his photograph would in the beginning of a long line of captains, that he would be part of the history of the team—

  If the Gold didn’t fold.

  The possibility sat like a rock in his gut.

  “I helped him because I had to,” he said, not looking away from the pictures.

  “Exactly,” Brit said. “Which is why you’re the best person on this team to be captain and”—her voice faded as she slung her helmet on her head—“why I hope we’ll manage to stay friends when this is all over.”

  Her first statement made his mind spin, her confidence in him intoxicating.

  She was already pushing into the locker room before the second half of her sentence hit home.

  “ . . .stay friends when this is all over?”

  Letting Brit keep her secrets had just gotten a lot harder.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Stefan walked into the house to the scent of lasagna and . . . the sound of his mom being sick.

  He’d dropped his messenger bag on the floor and was hauling ass before the front door slammed shut behind him.

  His mom was in the small bathroom, kneeling on the ground, retching into the toilet.

  “Mom—” he began.

  She waved him off, shoved the door closed in his face.

  Her cough was violent, and he tried the knob. Locked. “Mom—”

  “Don’t make me send you out of the house for another night. I’m fine—” She retched again.

  Stefan stood for a minute outside the door, listening to her suffer and wishing for the millionth time since he’d found out about her illness that he could shoulder the burden for her.

  Anger, violent and intoxicating, rushed through him. He wanted to destroy something, punch the wall, bust through like a tornado—

  Which would help absolutely nothing.

  Of course, he might feel a hell of a lot better if the object he was busting through was Mike Stewart’s face.

  With a muttered curse, he turned, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water. The freezer held some damp, cold cloths, so he grabbed one for his mom.

  By the time he’d set both on the counter, the toilet flushed, and Diane staggered out, her face blanched and her brow sweaty.

  “Sit down,” Stefan murmured and grabbed her arm to help her do just that. He pressed the cloth to her forehead and put the bottle of water in front of her just as the timer went off.

  “The lasagna—”

  “I’ll get it,” he said.

  But as he pulled the pan out of the oven, his mom slapped a hand over her mouth and bolted for the bathroom again.

  It was barely a decision. He took the pan and was out the back door before the thought had processed.

  Pan and all went into the garbage before he went back inside and opened ever
y window in the vicinity. Next, he cranked the vent over the cooktop to high.

  Stefan allowed himself one moment to let the anger rage. Then he tucked it away, saved it for motivation for later.

  Cancer was a Class-A asshole.

  But that wasn’t a new fact, and his mom needed him more.

  By the time Diane came out from the bathroom a second time, Stefan had opened a can of chicken noodle soup and was heating it up on the stove.

  He moved to help her, wanting to make sure she didn’t fall, but she glared at him and shook her head, pulling out the chair, before sitting down in the careful movements of someone who felt like shit.

  God, she is ridiculously pale.

  It took every bit of discipline at his disposal to stay at the stovetop and stir the fucking soup. When it was warm, he poured it into a mug—his mom preferred to sip it rather than use a spoon—and got some saltines out of the pantry.

  “So,” he said as he brought both over to her, “well done on the whole christening the porcelain-goddess thing.”

  His mom almost dropped the mug she’d brought to her lips. “Stefan, that so isn’t funny.”

  He’d been intending to force a smile, to push the joke forward, to inject some fucking levity into the situation. But his mom’s reaction was so typical, so mom-like that he didn’t have to force anything.

  Lips twitching, he said, “It’s pretty funny.”

  “Stefan Benjamin Barie. Me puking my guts out is not funny.” But her lips were curving too. Blue eyes so similar to his own narrowed even as amusement clouded their depths.

  She sighed, crossed her arms. The smile grew.

  “Okay. Fine. It’s a little funny. But . . . know that next time you’re sick or throwing up because you’re hungover, I’m laughing in your face.”

  He laughed. “I thought you were the parent. Aren’t you supposed to be all saint-like?”

  Her snort was loud. “If you think that about me, then I’ve failed as a mother.”

  Happiness filled him, buoyed his mood. His mother had always had enough personality for three people. She was spicy, high-spirited . . . and every other damn adjective he could think of for firecracker.

  Cancer had drained that away. To see her like this—even for a moment—gave him hope that things might actually be okay.

  “Ha,” he said. “As if you could believe that with a son like me.”

  “A son with an ego the size of a planet?”

  “A son who is—” He faltered for a moment. Normally he would have said something about being a successful captain for an NHL team or the leading defensemen. But after that practice he wasn’t feeling all that successful at anything hockey-related. Shit. Now she was looking at him, and he blurted the first thing he could think of. “—going to sit down with you and watch Dancing with the Stars.”

  The strangled gasp of air that followed came from his mouth, not his mother’s. Had he really just locked himself into watching a crappy show? Into several hours of hell interspersed with interrogations during the commercial breaks?

  On the smooth meter, it was about a minus five.

  His mom gave a little laugh before picking up her soup. “That expression. Since when have I ever pushed you to talk?” When Stefan snorted, she shook her head. “Okay, when in the last couple of years have I pushed you?”

  He snorted again. Really, sometimes she was delusional.

  “Oh my God. Seriously, kid. You’re pissing me off.” She fixed him with a glare “I. Don’t. Push. Now eat some lasagna. I’ll give you couple of hours before I start pestering.”

  He sighed, and any dredges of hope that throwing her favorite show at her would knock her off the scent disappeared.

  His mother was nothing if not a lesson in perseverance.

  He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too. But don’t think that’s going to get you out of Dancing with the Stars.”

  For fuck’s sake.

  And he still had to tell her—

  “About the lasagna . . .”

  ****

  Stefan’s mom had snapped at him about wasting the cooking she’d slaved over, made even worse because he’d thrown away her favorite pan.

  Then as abruptly as she’d yelled, she’d stopped, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and murmured, “You’re a good boy, Stefan. The best a mother could ask for.”

  Such a small thing, those words, the affection. His mom was hard to predict sometimes, tough and strong as nails. But he’d never once doubted that she loved him.

  Always, she’d been free with her affection, unwavering in her support.

  It was because of her he’d gotten so far.

  Even when things hadn’t worked out with his father, when she’d been abandoned and newly pregnant, when his dad copped out on child support, his mom had been there.

  Early morning practices. Long drives to tournaments. Skimping money for new equipment—

  “I like you with Brit.”

  “What? How—” He broke off because, really, those pictures had been everywhere, and his mother was all over any news story involving him.

  He should pay her instead of his publicist.

  “She seems like a nice girl.”

  “She is.”

  His mom gave him a penetrating look. “Baggage?”

  Stefan shrugged, but because his mom would understand, he told her what had happened.

  “She’s skittish around men. Freaked when I came up behind her. That’s why we . . . in the pictures . . .”

  Why they had ended up in Classic Bedroom Position #1.

  “Do you think she’s been sexually harassed?” his mom asked then added, after a pause that said way more than the words, “Or maybe more?”

  He started to say no.

  How could Brit have possibly been hurt? She was tough, strong, and vibrant. Could kick ass with the best of them.

  That couldn’t be ignored.

  But it also couldn’t be ignored that she was still smaller than every member of the team, that if she was taken by surprise—from behind—or outnumbered . . .

  Something could have happened.

  He could imagine how easily it might have happened.

  “I—”

  Good God. A memory swept over him. He’d cornered her in the locker room, pushed into her space, trapped her against the wall.

  It was scary to think how easy it would have been for him—for anyone—to take advantage.

  But there hadn’t been fear in Brit’s eyes. Not that time. When he’d pressed his body to hers, her russet irises had been on fire, had scorched him with fury and desire.

  She wasn’t scared of him. That much he was sure.

  Still, she’d all but admitted to having a multitude of secrets and if his mom’s inkling about the nature of Brit’s secret was correct, if she’d been hurt or violated, she would need to the chance to tell him on her own terms.

  It wasn’t something she should be ashamed of—not that feelings often followed logic and reason.

  Shit. He didn’t like this—

  “Okay, seriously, how is he still here?” his mom said, pulling Stefan from his thoughts and pointing to the celebrity chef that was fumbling his way through a terrible rendition of a tango. “He’s the worst.”

  “He is pretty bad,” Stefan agreed. And the costume—glittery and with more fake feathers than a peacock—was horrendous.

  “Ba-ad?” Her question was punctuated by a yawn. “He’s absolutely terrible.”

  “Here.” Stefan tucked a blanket around her shoulders then winced as he stretched his aching legs in front of him. All he wanted to do was lie down. “How long is this show anyway?”

  He’d spent a full hour cooling down after the practice from hell. Thirty minutes on the stationary bike, followed by stretching, and then hitting the PT suite for some targeted massage. Not that any of that h
ad helped.

  His quads were on fire, and the burn would only be worse in the morning.

  “Two”—his mom yawned again—“hours.”

  There was no way he’d make it. After staying up the previous night with Brit and now the sleep-inducing, so-called entertainment of the show . . . well, he’d be lucky to make it through another dance.

  Turned out he didn’t have to.

  His mom was snoring even before the chef got his scores.

  He waited a few minutes, made sure the DVR was recording, then gently lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bedroom.

  As Stefan tucked his mom in, he couldn’t help but remember all of the times he’d woken up in his bed after falling asleep on the couch, couldn’t help but wonder how many times she must have done the same thing when he’d been little enough to carry.

  It made his heart ache.

  Because the fragility in her expression, her innocence as she slept, raised a wave of fierce protectiveness in him, stronger than he ever thought possible.

  He would do anything to protect her.

  Even fish her favorite pan out of the trashcan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Brit

  Game day.

  Two words that incited excitement and anxiety in most hockey players. There was always the odd athlete who managed to stay calm, or worse, who was good enough to play professionally but hated the sport itself.

  That wasn’t Brit.

  Even if she wasn’t starting in tonight’s game, she would be on the bench with the rest of the team, ready to step in at a moment’s notice.

  There was absolutely nothing like being in an arena filled with screaming fans, listening to chants encouraging the team, chased soundly by the slightly tipsy segment of the crowd yelling that opposing players sucked.

  It was familiar. It was an epi pen to her heart without the assistance of drugs.

  “Ready?” Frankie stood next Richie, who had opened the door of the car for her. They appeared to just have arrived at the arena, their coats still on and bags slung over one shoulder.

  “Heck yeah.” She thanked Josh for driving her and stepped out. “Is the extra security necessary?” She pointed to the fenced lot, the gate now patrolled by a half-dozen guards. And that wasn’t counting Richie and two others closer to the entrance. “There are hardly any journalists out today.”