TORE (Sidewinders: Generations Book 2)

by Kat Mizera

  “I think Jen drinks too much,” Tina Lenahan said once Chelsea had gone inside to check something. Tina was married to Tore’s teammate, Royce. “She’s smart and super funny, but lately I’ve noticed she’s always drunk. I wouldn’t say that in front of Chelsea because they’ve been besties for a long time, but I think there’s more going on there than just her and Tore breaking up. She broke up with him, after all.”

  “It was rude as fuck to show up here like that, though,” Lexi said. “She knew she wasn’t invited and she came anyway.”

  “That’s something that happens when you drink all the time,” Tina said. “My family owns a restaurant in New York, and believe me, I saw a lot with our regulars. The ones who started drinking at noon, seven days a week, were the ones who started fights or couldn’t pay their bills and stuff.”

  “Maybe someone should say something to Chelsea.” Ashley Lassiter had recently joined the conversation, and I was a little starstruck. She was an actress who starred in a really popular television show, and I couldn’t believe she was just hanging out with us here.

  “It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is,” Lexi said, nodding. “But maybe we should leave it to the guys in this case? Like Tore can say something to Nate and he can mention it to Chelsea. That way, it doesn’t seem like us ganging up on her friend, especially since this is coming from a place of concern. I don’t know the woman, so I don’t care what she does, but if she’s in trouble, Chelsea might be too close to it to see.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. “I think I’ll mention it to Tore.”

  The subject was changed when Chelsea got back, and the next few hours were fun. I really liked most of the women I met, and it didn’t take long for me to feel at home with them. It helped that Everly was there and she’d already been accepted into the fold, but everyone was genuinely nice and laid-back.

  “Mommy, I have to go potty.” Gracie was bouncing up and down on her toes.

  “You’ve been going by yourself all day,” I said. “Why do you need me?”

  “There’s someone in there for a long time.” She pursed her lips. “Mommy, I’m gonna have a accident.”

  “Take her to the guest bathroom upstairs,” Chelsea said. “It’s on the right at the top of the stairs.”

  “Thank you.” I got up and took Gracie’s hand as we went up the stairs.

  I got her settled on the toilet and she looked up at me.

  “Mommy, can I has some privacy, please? I have to go poopies.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” I bit my lip not to laugh and stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. This privacy thing was new, probably because I’d been trying it out on her so I could actually pee in peace once in a while. So she was now copying me, and it was cute.

  I stood in the hallway waiting for her when I heard people talking down the hall. It was definitely Tore’s voice and I took a curious step in that direction.

  “Tore, I said I was sorry.”

  Oh, boy. That was definitely Jen.

  “It wasn’t cool,” he said. “Even if I didn’t have a girlfriend, why would you think it was okay to just kiss me like that?”

  “You used to like it when I kissed you like that.”

  “That was before you dumped me and broke my heart.”

  “Oh, stop. I had issues too, but you weren’t ready to be serious with anyone.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Whatever. You were partying even harder than I was, which wasn’t good for either of us.”

  “It wasn’t, but I’ve stopped that now. And you should too.”

  “Why? So I can find some boring guy like your precious Margot?”

  “She’s not boring.”

  “Oh, please.” Jen laughed. “She’s so damn innocent and prudish, you can see it a mile away. Is she a kindergarten teacher?”

  “Knock it off, Jen. You don’t know a damn thing about Margot. You’re just being a bitch because you’re either jealous or mad about something else and I’m today’s easy target.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Pass.”

  “You’re just going to hurt her, you know.”

  “You don’t know anything about us.”

  “She has a kid, Tore. When you cheat on her or dump her or whatever you’re going to do, you’re going to break that kid’s heart too.”

  “All right, I came up here to try to make peace and maybe smooth things over with us, not to be insulted.”

  “It’s not an insult. It’s a fact and you know it. You’re not ready to be anybody’s dad. You can barely take care of yourself. Besides, you don’t even know if you like guys or women or what.”

  “Okay, we’re done here.”

  I saw the door handle turning and I quickly slipped back inside the bathroom. “Are you done?” I asked Gracie. “Do you need help wiping?”

  “Mommy, you were supposed to knock first.” Her little face was filled with indignation.

  “Sorry, but we’re at someone else’s house so I’m trying to get back downstairs.”

  “Fine. But next time, please knock.”

  I mentally rolled my eyes. If she was like this now, I could only imagine what the teenage years would bring.

  I cleaned her up and we washed our hands before stepping back into the hallway. Hopefully, Tore was gone and wouldn’t know I’d been eavesdropping.

  I took Gracie’s hand and we descended the stairs. As soon as we got to the bottom, she took off again, probably more at home here than I was, and I turned as a soft voice spoke behind me.

  “How much did you hear?”

  18

  Tore

  I’d been coming out of the guest room when I heard the door of the bathroom click closed and Gracie’s chirpy little voice. My gut clenched worriedly, hoping I hadn’t said anything to upset Margot, because I’d known she had to have heard at least part of my conversation with Jen. I shouldn’t have come up here in the first place, but I’d been annoyed at her, and really wanted to see if I could smooth things over with her so this wouldn’t happen again since we were both friends with Nate and Chelsea. And now Margot was probably upset.

  Again.

  She was staring at me, her big brown eyes full of something I wasn’t expecting… Sympathy? What in the world was that about?

  “She was wrong,” she whispered, moving against me. “You’re absolutely dad material, if you want to be. And you’re not the kind of man to cheat. I know that. I don’t know what our future holds, but I trust that about you.”

  Holy fucking shit, I fell harder and harder for this woman every day. She’d heard my ex-girlfriend insulting her to me and instead of being upset, she was worried about my feelings? How the hell had I gotten lucky enough to find someone as amazing as Margot?

  I didn’t know how to respond so I kissed her. We communicated a lot better physically than verbally sometimes, and this seemed like one of those times. Her mouth opened for me and when she pressed those gorgeous tits of hers against my chest, my dick sprang to attention.

  “Dammit, I need to take you in the bathroom and fuck you until you scream.”

  “Well, what’s stopping you?” Her eyes burned with lust and it took a second for it to register that she actually wanted to have sex right here and now. The more time we spent together, the more I realized she was freakin’ perfect for me.

  Oh, yeah, I was falling hard.

  I grabbed her hand and practically yanked her back up the stairs.

  Training camp started two days later, and it was great being back with the guys. I saw a few of them regularly, but not all, since some guys lived elsewhere in the summer. Being back together today was great and there was a lot of good-natured joking going on as we got ready for a team meeting. Today’s agenda was pretty mellow, consisting of the meeting, introductions to the rookies, and some team-building thing in the gym. Frankly, I didn’t care what we did, as long as we were back for the season.

  Our team captain, Cody
Armstrong, had announced this would be his final season, and there were rumors about Dom Gianni retiring this year as well. So we had a lot to accomplish this season if we were going to send off some of our original players. Cody and Dom had been here since day one, when the Sidewinders had begun as an expansion team seven years ago. I hadn’t been here yet, since I was only seventeen then, but I’d joined the team at nineteen and we’d been through a lot together in the last five years. I’d learned so much from these veterans. Cody. Dom. Toli. Drake Riser, who’d already retired and was an assistant coach in Alaska now.

  Knowing that a lot of these guys would be gone for good soon was kind of a bummer, but it added to the excitement of the season, and reminded me of the opportunity to learn from them. I was pretty established in my own right, but no one knew everything and every season brought new challenges. This year would be interesting because of how many new guys we had. There were a lot of new faces reporting for camp this morning, but most of them wouldn’t make the team and would be sent down to our minor league affiliate in Reno. I’d spent my first year in the minors as well, but I’d been called up at the end of that year and had been here ever since.

  I never took that for granted, though. While most of us had definite spots on the team, there was always someone new who could come and replace you if you started slacking or let yourself go too much in the summer. I was in shape and ready to go, though, even though I’d slacked off on workouts the last week because I’d wanted to spend every minute of every day with Margot.

  Love was weird. I mean, I liked being in love, but it made me feel different somehow and it was hard to explain. I just didn’t feel like who I usually was. Maybe it was because there hadn’t been any hardcore partying or gambling or womanizing in months. Or maybe it was because Gracie was under foot most of the day, constantly looking for my attention. And the weirdest part of that was that I didn’t mind. Well, not much anyway. Sometimes she didn’t stop talking, but I could usually distract her by tickling her and then she’d run off for a while.

  “My man.” Decker Reece came up to me with his hand out.

  I shook it and grinned. “Hey. How was your summer?”

  “Good. Went on vacation with my friends and then spent a little time in Toronto with my dad. How ‘bout you?”

  “I was in Scotland for Ian’s wedding and then went to see my family in Sweden for a week, but mostly been here in Vegas with Margot and Gracie.” I figured I’d get that out of the way now since I was perpetually single as far as most of the guys knew, so someone would undoubtedly have something to say.

  “You work things out with the chick you were talking about at the end of the season?” Decker asked as we put our things away.

  “Yup.”

  “Cool. I have a girl back home in Toronto but she’s at university and doesn’t want to come to Vegas. We were together most of the summer but I don’t think we’re going to last the season.”

  “It’s hard to leave them behind,” I said quietly. “I had a girl when I was in the juniors and she was seventeen when I moved to Reno. By the time she graduated high school the following summer, we were done.”

  “Yeah, we’re not exclusive anymore, so that was a red flag to me.”

  “Her idea?” I asked in surprise.

  He nodded.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “Lots of fish in the sea, my friend, and a lot of the pretty ones live here.”

  He grinned at me. “You got that right. And there might be one or two for me now that you’re off the market.”

  I laughed, but on the inside, I got that weird feeling again. Every time I thought about being serious with Margot, I remembered my past, my spending habits, my fucking debt. Ugh. I had to stop thinking about this shit. She was the best thing to ever happen to me and I wasn’t going to fuck this up.

  We walked into the meeting and got seats in the back. Usually the rookies sat up front, like overeager students in high school trying to impress the teacher, while the rest of us spread out. There would be introductions, film of the last game of last season, and a handful of other yawn-worthy topics, but I was glad to be back.

  Zaan fist-bumped me as he moved to my left and Ian winked, which was his thing. Anton Petrov came in and sat next to his father, which was interesting because he tried hard not to ride on his father’s laurels. I couldn’t imagine playing on a team with my dad, especially when the dad was a legend like Toli. There was no doubt of the affection between father and son, though, even though Anton tried to keep it mellow.

  The morning was long and kind of boring, but there was some laughter and lighthearted banter before we broke for lunch. It was catered today, because the coaches wanted us to spend some time with the rookies, which was fine with me. I wandered over to the buffet and filled a plate, figuring this would be the last time I ate something so unhealthy. I would have to talk to Margot about food, too. While Gracie undoubtedly ate differently than Margot, we’d need to be on the same page when it came to dinners.

  “So, are you moving Margot in or what?” Ian asked me as we settled down to eat.

  “I dunno,” I murmured through a mouthful of steak fajitas.

  “I think she was moving back into our house today,” he said, eyeing me. “At least that’s what Everly told me this morning before I left.”

  I frowned. We hadn’t talked about that, so it was kind of weird that she was moving out. Of course, we hadn’t officially moved in together either. We’d used the whole “sleepover” idea to skirt around the moving-in-together topic, and that was kind of dickish on my part. I should’ve addressed it directly.

  “Should I?” I asked quietly. “I mean, ask her to move in?”

  “That’s up to you. Are you ready for a family? For full-time relationship status?”

  I sighed. “This would be so much less complicated if Gracie wasn’t involved. I love her, she’s my buddy and I’d do anything for her, but it’s separate from what I feel for Margot.”

  “Do you not know how you feel?” he asked. “You’ve been chasing her for a long time. If you’re bored now that you caught her, I’m going to be pissed.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I’m not bored. That’s just it. I’m crazy about her, but I was crazy about Jen too, and look what happened. Also, living together is, like, permanent. Not marriage permanent, but you can’t just change your mind, and I’m nervous.”

  “About which part?” His gaze was steady, without censure, but pointed. He expected a deep, thoughtful answer, and I sucked at those.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I feel like we’re in the too-good-to-be-true stage and that something is going to go wrong.”

  “Jen got in your head, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” I sighed. “Fuck, she made me feel like a loser who isn’t good enough, mature enough, man enough, to be a good partner, or a dad to Gracie.”

  “Jen is a jealous drunk who’s going through something,” Ian said quietly. “I don’t know what, and I’m not making excuses for her, but you can’t listen to someone like her. You and Margot are good together, so don’t listen to anyone but yourself.”

  “You’re right.” I took a bite of black beans.

  Zaan and our other buddy, Dax O’Day, sat down with us, so conversation turned to other things, but thoughts of living together simmered in the back of my mind the rest of the day. By the time I got home, I was ready to have the conversation Margot and I needed to have, but the apartment was empty. No Margot. No Gracie. No toys on the coffee table. No Sidewinders sippy cup on the counter. All traces of them gone.

  I was inexplicably both angry and sad.

  She hadn’t even talked to me about it. She’d just left. Which told me that she didn’t trust me either.

  I opened the refrigerator, and while it was emptier than usual, since all of Gracie’s juice boxes and cheese sticks were gone, there were remnants of the dinners Margot and I had planned. There were fruit and vegetables, some gourmet cheese Marg
ot had said would be amazing on crackers with chutney. I didn’t even know what chutney was, but she’d promised I would love it.

  I slammed the refrigerator door shut and grabbed my phone, sending her a text.

  TORE: Where are you?!

  19

  Margot

  Something about Tore’s abrupt text rubbed me the wrong way and I stared at it for a minute or so before answering. Was he mad about something? It was hard to tell from a text but he didn’t usually use exclamation points, so that told me he was.

  Was it that I was gone?

  I slowly typed out a response.

  MARGOT: At Everly’s. Where else would I be?

  TORE: Why?

  MARGOT: Why what?

  TORE: Why are you there instead of here?

  I scowled. He’d been specific that I would need to move back once hockey season started, and it had started today. What the hell was wrong with him?

  We weren’t in high school, though, and I wasn’t going to fight with him by text. If he wanted to argue, he’d talk to me. Dammit.

  I dialed his number and waited, tapping my foot.

  “You just packed up and left while I was at work?” he demanded as he answered.

  “Before we started with the sleepover bullshit, you said I’d have to move home once hockey season started, so I did!” I snapped.

  “I said probably!”

  “Well, you didn’t say not to!”

  We were both quiet for a few seconds.

  “Are we having our first fight?” he asked slowly.

  “Maybe.” I was too annoyed to laugh but I kind of wanted to.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  We spoke at the same time.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he continued. “I walked in the door and it was like you’d just vanished.” He paused. “Jen did the same thing. She waited until I was on a road trip and moved out. When I got home, it was like she’d never been there.”