by Kate Meader
“Healthy, free, the world before you,” Kennedy finished, looking more than a little surprised. “That’s one of my favorite poems.”
Reid’s as well. Walt Whitman had always spoken to him, especially those lines, even though he’d never gone anywhere or done much of anything. He finished the verse in his head. The long brown path before you, leading wherever you choose.
For a moment, he imagined she was doing the same before she shifted her gaze to take in Bast. “I’m guessing you guys travel a lot, too. In the off-season.”
“Saint Reid here heads back to Canada to coach a youth group in the summers,” his brother said. “I take some time for myself at a place I have on Vancouver Island. But we’re going to be taking a big trip soon. Heading to Beijing in February for Team Canada.”
“The Olympics? Both of you? Wow!” She shot a look a chiding look at Reid. Back to their dynamic of him, the closed-off curmudgeon and her, the free-spirited wanderer. He was actually an alternate for Team Canada, so it wasn’t as big a deal as she thought.
“Giving back to the kids. Skating for your country. Well, I hope you get a chance to let off some steam, see the sights. Makes me wonder …”
“Wonder what?” Reid asked.
“After the season is over and you’re a free agent, so to speak …”
His heart thundered in his chest. Was she suggesting they might take a trip together after the season? This talk of travel and favorite places had him yearning for something … more. It would be amazing to see new lands with Kennedy.
She studied him through the veil of her lashes. “So how many people do you bang?”
He almost spit out his coffee. After he’d swallowed, he was still speechless.
She patted his arm. “If you’re not partaking during the season, I’d imagine that’s the first thing you’d do. I’m just curious if it’s a one-week fling with one person or do you spread the Reid around.”
Reid could feel his brother’s hot stare as he put two and two together and came up with bang-a-thon.
“Not partaking. What the fuck am I hearing?”
“Oh, dear,” Kennedy covered her mouth. “Was that a secret?”
Bast was shaking his head, his dumb mouth agape. “Are you kidding? You don’t fuck anyone … all season?”
“It helps me focus.”
Except since Kennedy had come to stay, focus was a thing of the past.
Kennedy squeezed his bicep. “I’m sorry. I thought it was common knowledge, like your diet or your exercise regimen. Reid Durand, Hockey Monk!”
Bast looked shocked. It was nice that Reid still had the capacity to surprise him.
“So bro, answer the question.”
“What question?”
Bast exchanged a look with Kennedy. “How many people do you bang in the post-season?”
“A couple. I don’t want anyone to think it’s …”
“Special,” Kennedy finished.
He nodded. “It’s biological. A release. But sometimes the first time is over quickly …”
“How disappointing …” Kennedy pointed at him. “For the first person who encounters a post-season Reid Durand on the prowl!”
“Oh, shut up,” he said, unable to stop the laugh building in his throat. This woman was trouble. “No one is shortchanged. It’s just not always as satisfying as I hope. After a few months without sex, you tend to build things up and then that first time might be a letdown. So I usually try again.”
“And again?” Bast said, then added a bow-chicka-chick-bow.
Reid shook his head, trying to hide his smile. Sex, or discussions of it, didn’t make him uncomfortable. He was just surprised that Kennedy was so forward about it. Admirably so.
Reid had grown up with a father who insisted that nothing should get in the way of his ambition to be the best, including women. For Henri, sex was a biological function rather than an opportunity for intimacy. Until you proved yourself, connection wasn’t an option. It only led to weakness. Work first, play later.
Henri had married Reid’s mom on the downside of his career when he realized he needed to do more to extend his legacy. Creating a family was one way to do that. Reid had often wondered why he’d chosen a woman who already had a toddler, the result of a one-night stand. Perhaps he wanted to be sure she could produce a child. Not a charitable viewpoint, but Reid understood his stepfather’s psyche better than most. The man wouldn’t want to risk an infertile wife.
His parents had divorced when Bast went to college, which meant his mother had held on through years of Henri being gruff, brusque, and emotionally constipated. She was happily remarried to a chef who adored her while his father was on his third wife. Conclusion: men like Henri didn’t make women happy.
Men like Reid, either.
“You know Henri’s gonna freak about this,” Bast said, reading Reid’s mind.
“Not if you don’t tell him.” Reid held his brother’s gaze until he shook his head and addressed his roommate.
“So what about you, Kennedy?” Bast asked. “Have you left broken hearts in all these places you’ve visited?”
“Oh yeah. That’s me,” she said with a laugh he might have considered strained if he examined it closely. “Love ’em and leave ’em Kennedy.”
Reid wondered, especially when her eyes turned a little sad. “That was too personal. Bast is very sorry.” He glared at his brother who merely shrugged.
“Not at all! After all I’ve done poking at you? Turnabout’s fair play, boys. Okay, pancakes are up and Reid, you will eat at least one!”
He ate five—because it was one more than Bast.
18
Kennedy couldn’t tell if Reid liked his brother. There was definitely love there, but it was mixed up with a ton of other emotions she tried to label throughout breakfast.
Bastian was Reid’s opposite: lightness, charm, a chatterbox, and easy with his smiles. They shared the same mother and even though Bastian (call me Bast, Kennedy!) referred to Henri Durand as “our dad,” Kennedy sensed her roomie’s unease with the dynamics. With both Bastian and his stepfather.
About ten minutes after the last pancake slid down Bastian’s gullet, he left with a slap on the back for his brother, a (double) cheek-kiss for Kennedy, and a friendly rub of Bucky. Quite the glad-hander.
As Reid started on the dishes—and he just jumped right in without prompting, what a good roommate—she got straight to the point. “So are you close with your brother? I couldn’t really tell.”
“We are. It’s complicated.”
She would do anything to have even the chance of a complicated relationship with her family. Sometimes the pain in missing her parents was almost unbearable. “In what way?”
“Henri would prefer we didn’t get along. He’s always wanted us to be competitive. He thought it would make us stronger players, but Bast doesn’t need that kind of push. He’s already too good.”
“And you? Are you good?”
“I’m a grinder. I work hard to be good. Henri used to think that toughening us up, putting us in contention for his approval, would push us to greatness. He’s a stick-not-a-carrot kind of coach.”
“But as a father, doesn’t he want you to get along?”
Reid’s cynical smile broke her heart a little. “If we get along too well, it means we might not strive to better each other. Henri is a coach first, a father second.”
“Not digging Henri much.”
His expression was mildly amused. No doubt he’d heard this criticism before. “He just has high standards. It’s okay, I want to be the best. I’ve always trusted him to be tough on me for the right reasons.”
“Sounds like you’re tougher on yourself than your stepfather is. I’m sorry about my blabbing, by the way. I really thought your brother knew.”
“It’s not something I talk about. And Bastian wouldn’t understand. Most pro athletes are fucking anything on two legs.”
That’s what she thought, so Reid’s
approach fascinated her. He really shouldn’t be so hard on himself.
When he could be hard on her. Zing!
“Maybe you shouldn’t expect such perfection all the time.”
Plates stowed in the dishwasher, he flipped and leaned against the counter with his arms folded. The move made his guns bulge even more indecently. She had touched one bicep earlier, in a roommate-friendly kind of way.
Big mistake. Huge.
“Isn’t yoga all about achieving some sort of perfect state?”
“Not quite. It’s more about fostering harmony in mind and body. One of the reasons I love it is that it helps me to eliminate all those negative thoughts, even if it’s just for an hour. For that hour, I only wallow in peace instead of self-pity.” And then for the other hours in the day she found more ways to keep the negativity at bay. A busy little bee had no time for navel-gazing.
“You should try it.” It had to be better than the strategy he was employing now.
Thoughts chased each other across his face for a second. Rivers ran deep with this man, and she loved watching him think. “Peace is … I don’t think I’ve ever known it. And I don’t think it’s attainable on a yoga mat.”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. It has to be better than shredding the skin off your dick on a daily basis.”
He gave an eye roll but then two seconds later, the oddest thing happened: Reid’s climb-aboard-me shoulders started to shake.
“Oh my God, Reid!” She grasped his arm. The bicep was calling and this was the perfect excuse. “Are you actually laughing at something I said? Let me capture this moment.” She closed her eyes, and though ostensibly she was joking, she found herself snapping a mental image and storing it away.
“It wasn’t even that funny,” he muttered.
“Is this one of those can’t cry for laughing situations?”
“Sure it is, Coffee Shop Girl.”
“Really? Two can play at that game, Hot Jerk.”
“You said that in the lake! I thought I was hearing things.” He cocked his head, which was so damn sexy. “You think I’m hot?”
“It’s a modifying word, a what do you call it? Adjective!” She squeezed his arm, not wanting to let go of all that heat and because, yes, the man was smokin’. “Meaning that it modifies, and in this case, emphasizes the primary word in the compound phrase which is jerk. Did you hear that part?”
“Just heard hot.” He bent down, bringing him close enough to kiss again.
Could she push him? Should she? “I don’t mind admitting it. In fact, I think you’re really hot and when we kissed yesterday, you knew that. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’ll continue to think you’re hot, you’ll continue to be mildly attracted to me, and you’ll also continue be a self-denying-can’t-have-sex-gotta-jerk-off-in-my-room-now idiot.”
His eyes went wide. “Mildly attracted to you?”
“That’s the part you zeroed in on?”
He stared at her, then after a long, heated beat, straightened and said … nothing. Which was hot in itself and made her rush to fill the pause.
“We’re healthy, reasonably attractive adults who aren’t yet friends so we can’t use that as an excuse. But you’ve got your standards and I don’t want to mess with your game prep.”
“Yet, you throw it out there. The notion that if I wasn’t so hard on myself, we’d be going at it like bunnies.”
Not having hang-ups about sex often meant she was more honest about it than people expected. She wasn’t a nymphomaniac, but she had needs.
She’d seen Reid looking at her. She’d felt his lips, his tongue, his attraction wrapped in a hot, hard package. He had kissed her with both tenderness and abandon, and then threw out some Walt Whitman as if it was nothing.
Walt. Whitman.
In any other situation, with any other guy, this would be a done deal.
Now it was out there—the knowing about how he kissed and tasted and felt. The bullet had been released from the barrel and was hovering midair in slo-mo, waiting to be either slapped from existence like a Wonder Woman move, dodged a la Keanu in the Matrix, or embedded deep into her sensitive, receptive flesh.
She knew which option she’d rather have.
The bullet was waiting. Her body was ready.
“I admire your restraint,” she said with a whole lot of fucking restraint.
“It hasn’t occurred to you I might not be all that into you.”
“Not in the slightest.”
He laughed, a deep boom of a sound that shocked both her and Bucky, who ran around in a tight circle and started barking.
Reid pointed at him. “Quiet, you.”
Bucky stopped immediately. He was definitely improving in his relations with humans.
Reid squatted and petted his friend, getting a face lick in return. Looking up, he snagged Kennedy with another shocker of a grin. Someone else was also improving in his relations with humans.
She could be in big ass trouble here.
“It must be great to go through life with such confidence,” he said. “I’m envious.”
“I’m not confident about everything. Neither am I blind. It’s okay that you can’t act on this but there’s no need to pretend there’s nothing happening here, oui?”
“Oui?”
“What do I have to do make you speak hot, dirty French to me, roomie?”
As he drew up from his crouch, his gaze seemed to coast up her body, incinerating her skin inch by inch. He inclined his head so his eyes were close to hers. All that deep, sink-into-sex blue.
“D'accord, vous gagnez.”
Her breath caught. “What does that mean?”
“It means, you win. When the season ends, I’ll break my fast with you.”
Oh, wow. Break my fast. That was a thigh-clenching statement if ever she’d heard one. The thought of being on the receiving end of Reid’s first time in forever …
Except that would be months away and she wasn’t a slow burn kind of girl. Hit it fast, early and maybe often, then move on. That was her MO. She wouldn’t be waiting around for Reid Durand to grace her with the favor of his penis.
“As attractive as that offer is, I don’t think it’ll work. One, it’s unlikely I’ll be here and two, even if I was, it’d be too weird.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ll either be friends or enemies by then and I never sleep with either, or I’ll probably have slept with someone you know in the meantime, so it would be awkward for you and this other person. I could never do that to you.”
His brow darkened. “What other person?”
“Maybe someone on the team or—”
“My brother?” A thunderous expression set his mouth hard.
It hadn’t occurred to her, but it had obviously occurred to him. Tres interessant.
“Now you mention it, he is pretty cute. Cut-rate Durand but if I can’t have the prime beef, I’ll go for the next best thing.” Evil, Kennedy Clark, so evil. “And then, you and me? Off zee table, miss-your.”
She patted his arm with all the condescension one could put into it and took a little final enjoyment of that hard bicep. “But like I said, probably won’t happen. I’ve got to go to work. See you later!”
19
Reid’s phone buzzed. Right Wing Masshole: You busy?
He couldn’t help the expletive.
“What’s wrong?” Kennedy pressed pause on the serial killer documentary they were watching on Netflix. Well, Kennedy was watching it. Reid was employing his excellent peripheral vision skills, drinking in her pink-varnished toes and slim ankles and forcing his brain to take it no further.
He had tried being rude.
He had tried being distant.
He had tried kissing her hot, sweet mouth.
Now he was going with the age-old let’s-pretend-this-is-normal strategy. So far, it was working.
Just kidding. It was so not working. Two weeks of Kennedy in his space and he was a wreck. Bast h
ad been sending texts every ten minutes asking after his dick, usually followed by gifs of eggplant explosions. Someone had gone to the trouble of creating that shit. Now this fresh hell.
“Foreman is texting me.” Reid had been in Chicago for three months. Had practiced and played with Foreman. Had roomed with him for away games. Had been on the receiving end of his fist. This was the first time the man had sent him a text.
“You mean Mia’s Foreman?”
Mia’s Foreman. That sounded about right. He texted back, Probably.
The phone rang. Fuck. The asshole had done the sneaky check-in with that text and now Reid had no choice but to answer. He hit the accept call button though acceptance was far from his mind.
“Yeah?”
“Some of the guys are coming over in thirty minutes or so. Thought I’d extend an invite.”
“Why?”
Foreman muttered something unintelligible, seemed to confer with someone else—a female someone else—then, “Because I’m a nice guy.”
“I’ve already eaten.”
“Good because I’m not offering food. Though Kershaw and Jorgenson usually order pizza because they’re fucking garbage cans.”
At Reid’s snort, Foreman pounced. “Have I amused the unamusable Reid Durand?”
“Don’t get carried away.” He caught Kennedy’s eye. She had paused the cheerleader-cannibal manual, and was now leaning on her palm, smiling like one of her favorite serial killers.
“I would but my dog sitter is busy tonight.” Kennedy had something on, another side gig at a community college with an art class.
“Bring the dog,” Foreman said. “I’d like to see him again. I miss my own.”
Boxed in and no way out. “Thirty minutes, you said?”
“Yup. I’ll text the address.” Then he hung up before Reid could. Fuck-er.
Kennedy fluttered her eyelashes. “You got a play date with your buddies?”
“It wasn’t clear what exactly would be happening, but yeah, I have a play date.”
“Aw! And you’re bringing Bucky.” Bucky was currently cowering at the side of the sofa because he was scared of the Netflix ta-dum sound, though it had reverberated through the apartment thirty minutes ago. What a dummy.
