Hard Checked: Ice Kings, #4

by Lynn, Stacey

  “Well no, I’m a book girl. But we all have our ways of self-care. If movies and video games are your thing, I’m not one to judge.”

  “Music.” His nose wrinkles like he hates it. “Madison always had music on. Even when we were out of town or out to dinner, she’d set the house system so it was always playing music when we walked in. I don’t know if my house was ever quiet.”

  “And now you hate it.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure this out.

  It also confirms my suspicions.

  Something heavy and ugly settles in my throat. I swallow it down right as he takes a fist and jabs it into my gut.

  “I hate the quiet. It’s a good thing you’re around to keep my thoughts off it.”

  I stop. He keeps walking and I’m still standing there, blinking stupidly at his retreating figure.

  My hands curl into fists when in slow-motion, he slows and drops his head.

  It took him that long to figure out why that would hurt so much.

  It’s not intentional. Not even surprising, but damn… that hurts.

  He has the actual power to hurt me, and if I’d driven myself, I’d walk away right now.

  “I think that came out incredibly wrong,” Sebastian says.

  At least he’s self-aware. I peer down at my phone. My finger is shaking. I have the Uber app. There is no reason to put myself in this position.

  Besides, he’s married for cripe’s sake.

  “Gigi.” His voice is soft. Carries a hint of pain in it. I’m still staring at my phone and I can see the tip of his running shoes in my vision. At his feet, Bruiser is sitting patiently, little white fluffy tail whipping back and forth on the cement. “I didn’t mean it like that. I should have said thank you for being willing to spend the day with me. Even though we barely know each other, I like being with you.”

  He likes being with me isn’t the same as liking me.

  “Yeah, well, I’m a barrel of laughs.”

  Since I’m still being stupid, and staring at my phone, I jolt when a warm hand curls around my shoulder and his thumb slides to my neck.

  And oh dear sweet gracious. That thumb on my neck sends a spark straight to my lower stomach.

  He’s touching me. I’m not sure he’s done that. Ever.

  “Can you look at me? Please?”

  There’s a slight pressure on my shoulder, where he’s curling his hand over it, fingertips in the back, and that thumb… it grazes my pulse and makes it skitter out of control.

  Looking at him now would be a mistake.

  He’ll see too much.

  “Sebastian.”

  “Please.”

  And oh my. The man should never beg. It makes knees tremble. Hearts leap. The hairs at the back of my neck stand at attention.

  I do as he requests and then blink when I meet his face.

  Because he’s looking at me with so much the same look I’m currently experiencing I’m not sure I know what to do with this.

  “Sebastian—”

  “I’m sorry. Again. Someday, I swear I’ll get to a place where I’m not constantly putting my foot in my mouth around you. I like being with you. It confuses me, and I like it. Can we… can we leave it that for now?”

  At our feet, Bruiser barks and I grin down at the dog who’s distracted by a fly. He yanks on the leash and bounds off for it, jerking back when Sebastian doesn’t move with him.

  “Okay,” I say, because I’m a glutton for punishment. I enjoy things that are bad for me, adrenaline rushes and the unknown.

  I have a feeling for the first time with Sebastian, it just might be my downfall.

  He brushes against my neck one more time. Emerald green eyes watching and flaring when I can’t hide my shiver from his touch. And then it’s gone, his hand shoved into his pocket.

  He clears his throat. “Walk with me?”

  I try to resettle my racing heart. “Sure.”

  I fall in step next to him and it feels like a step toward my doom, but I’m too enamored to fall back to safety.

  We walk for a while, mostly in silence, the patter of Bruiser keeping our attention. I’m not sure how upset I should be, if anything.

  He likes being with me. Isn’t that enough? He’s made no promises. Heck, as far as I know, he may have already put me in the friend zone.

  But that look when he said, it confuses me.

  Yeah… that wasn’t exactly friendly. Still, I need to be careful. He’s a mess.

  I prefer the only messes of mine to be my clothes in my apartment.

  Kicking a small rock in our path out of our way, I watch it clatter to the weeds to the side. The silence is killing me. Odd, consider I’ve confessed how much I like being alone with thoughts.

  Just not these particular ones.

  “So, you have a game tomorrow?”

  “Home. You working?”

  “Always,” I confirm. My eyes squint against the bright sound despite wearing sunglasses. “Will you… well…”

  I’m not sure if I should ask, but I’m dying of curiosity.

  “Will I what? Play?”

  “Yeah. I saw you didn’t last week.”

  “Ahh.” His hand scrubs his hair and he tilts his face to the sun. His beard, while growing longer every time I see him, is still neatly shaven at beneath his jaw leaving me a view of his corded throat, the muscles at his shoulders. And hell, I mean, he’s muscled everywhere, obvious beneath his shirt.

  “I went to Minnesota to see Madison.”

  “Oh.” I’m not expecting that, and I trip over a small stick in my path before righting myself.

  I can offer him nothing, not even real understanding because my divorce was my idea and it was mutual. Not painful like the ripples of his hurt rolling off him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He huffs and rolls his shoulders as if the mere mention of Madison bunches his muscles to the point of pain. “It sucks. A lot, but I guess, I think more than anything, I needed our goodbye to happen in person. I needed to hear it from her.”

  My fingertips burn to squeeze his arm. Wrap my small arms around his waist and place my cheek to his chest to hold him, to promise it will be okay, but I do nothing.

  I say nothing. My role in his life is uncertain and I don’t know what moves of comfort would be welcome.

  “Did it help? Seeing her?”

  His jaw falls forward and tightens before he shrugs. “In some ways. She… I don’t know how to explain it. I think the pain over the years, of not getting what she wanted, of all the help we had, I think it made her depressed. Or made it worse. I’m not really sure how that works, and there were medicines she took. The hormones she took were hard for her. We’ve had years of it being hard, I’m not sure I remember now what it was like when we had fun.”

  I kick another pebble. At my side, I can almost sense his defeat. He’s given up. But on what? His wife? His marriage?

  “She was beautiful and crazy and wild. Always the one planning our social calendar and God, she could make me laugh. All of that… I don’t know how to describe what happened and I can promise you it wasn’t all her fault, it wasn’t all the medicine. I think I started getting upset when we stopped having sex for fun. You know what it’s like to be told no because it’s ‘not the right time?’ Or because I had to wait forty-eight hours? It sucked, and I can’t say I was always nice about it, even if I understood.”

  His sex life with his wife is the last possible thing I want to hear about, but I’m trapped, and yet fascinated. Especially while he seems to be focusing on nothing and talking more to himself than me. Perhaps this is what he needs—to work this out verbally instead of bottling it all in.

  “Did you… were you ever able to figure out what was making things difficult?”

  “Yeah, and when we learned it was her body not working the way most women’s do, that was tough for her. She felt broken. No longer a woman. But then we learned it was me too, I think that was the tipping point.”

  He ha
ngs his head in such sadness I can no longer stop my instinct to comfort. I reach out and wrap my hand around his wrist, squeezing. “You?”

  “Turns out my swimmers aren’t the manliest either.”

  Another huff, that disgusted, hard rough sound that sounds like it’s torn from razor blades and sandpaper.

  “You…?”

  “Can’t help her make kids even medically. Not anymore.”

  “I’m so sorry, Sebastian.”

  “Not exactly something I planned on talking about,” he admits slowly. “Or ever, but yeah… after we learned that, it was her final reason for leaving. Together, we can never have what she so desperately desires.”

  I drop my hand.

  There’s nothing I can do for him. No way I can comfort him. He’s just confessed it himself.

  I have more questions, about adoption. Or surrogacy. Maybe one of her sisters. Or a company. Yet it’s not the right time and if I’m being honest with myself even though it makes me feel like there are ugly bugs crawling inside my stomach at the thought… I don’t want to hear any more about Madison.

  I can though, switch the topic to something I’m hoping is more pleasant.

  “How’d you get started in hockey?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sebastian

  I’ve had absolutely no intention of telling Gigi any of this. And yet I’m learning that’s part of my draw as well as concern with Gigi.

  She’s too easy to open up to. She’s too easy to talk to.

  And when she reaches out and touches me?

  My blood sizzles and sparks so deep in my veins it’s possible she electrocutes me.

  None of these things are what I should be thinking. Or why I’m so drawn to being around her, and yeah, I might have royally screwed up earlier, but everything I said is true.

  I like being around her.

  I like her.

  It’s confusing.

  For fifteen years I haven’t looked at a single woman and yet now, even on this stupid hiking path, my lame excuse to be able to spend time with her, my muscles are feeling the strain of forcing myself to not stare at her.

  Ask her about her tattoos. Her hair. Her piercings. Good Lord. I want to trace all of her visible tattoos with parts of me that shouldn’t be anywhere near her. I want to discover if she has any that aren’t visible, ones she keeps hiding.

  More intimate ones with deeper meanings in more intimate places.

  And piercings? She has several in her ears, one in her nose. Does she have her belly button done like Madison and her sisters got in their rare rebellious act as teenagers? When their parents freaked out and made them all remove it.

  If Gigi does, I bet there’s a brightly colored jewel dangling from a ring.

  She’s too intentional with everything else she does to have a simple hoop, that much I’m certain.

  The thing I’m not certain of is why I’m so damn curious outside the fact I haven’t had sex in months.

  I’m too smart to know it has anything to do with simple horniness though.

  No, it’s Gigi. The way I’m drawn to her.

  The way I want her even knowing it’s the dumbest thing I could do right now.

  I blow out a sharp breath, clearing my head.

  In front of us, Bruiser is slowing down. He’s not used to these kinds of long walks but I’m not ready to turn it around. And since I’ve slowed to Gigi’s smaller steps, this hasn’t even been a workout for me.

  I take the out she’s giving me, not surprised in the least she’s changed the subject. Sometimes I think she can read my moods better than I can.

  “Hockey?”

  “Yes. I imagine you were one of those kids strapped to skates before they can walk, put in all the fancy camps. I bet you were a rock star from the time you could tie your own shoes. Or skates, I guess.”

  Her nose wrinkles at her joke and I chuckle.

  “That’s not it at all.”

  “No?”

  I scoff. “Hardly. I started when I was six.”

  “Oh. That’s late, isn’t it?”

  She’s not wrong. Not entirely. I’m also enjoying the way she’s teasing me.

  “For us Minnesota boys? You betcha.” I throw in the heavy accent and earn a laugh from her which makes me feel all kinds of good about myself. “Truthfully, I sucked when I was a kid. Thought about hanging up my skates quite a bit but my mom knew I liked it, even if I wasn’t the greatest, so she kept encouraging me.”

  “Really?” The shock in her tone is adorable.

  “Swear it. I didn’t even make the varsity team the first time I tried out.”

  “Noooo…”

  Her hip bounces into me. She’s so small I barely feel it.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, you know?”

  She gives me a smile full of teeth. “I try.”

  Shaking my head, I smile back at her. Adorable isn’t the word for her, but all the words I can think of to describe Gigi don’t fit. She’s so much more than any of them.

  “Anyway, I begged my parents to put me in training camps that year in the off-season. I worked out in gyms with a personal trainer, did everything I could think of. We didn’t have a lot of money. My parents are both teachers, so I had to get a job to cover all the expenses. It wasn’t even until I was in high school and made the school team, I had brand new equipment for the first time.”

  “Really?” Her voice softens and shoots straight to my chest.

  “Yeah, I mean, we didn’t have a lot and when I was young, my equipment always came from a secondhand store. Most kids on the team had sticks that cost hundreds of dollars, skates that were batshit crazy in price, and there I was, going through four to five used skates a season, getting them sharpened all the time. I wanted this and I worked for it. I owe my parents a lot for sacrificing so I could have it.”

  It’s been a long time since I’ve thought back to those earlier years. Amazing how once you get millions, you can lose sight of some of that, some of what made me who I was, what helped me get to the pros in the first place. It was all that grit Dad said was ingrained in me. I was too stubborn to give up. Too stubborn to quit.

  Which makes me wonder if I’ve lost that somehow with Madison. When did I give in? Or did I? Or did she?

  The thought makes my heart squeeze and I blow out a breath.

  No, she’s the one who walked away. And with all the hard times we’ve been through, that hurts maybe more than anything.

  “Hey. Where’d you go?” Gigi asks, and her lips are pressed together. I don’t even notice her hand is on my arm until I look down and see that little broken heart on her knuckle.

  “Mind wandered,” I admit. “There’s a picnic stop up here. I need to get Bruiser some water.”

  Gigi’s tattoo on her ring finger has piqued my curiosity. Odd for her to get a broken heart on her left hand’s ring finger if she claims she wasn’t all that cut up about her marriage ending.

  I wait until we find the picnic area, moving slow while she stops and starts a few times to take pictures. There’s nothing interesting outside trees and leaves and sticks and the ground, but she chooses all different angles. I make a mental note to check her Instagram feed later to see her photos. What is she seeing that I’m not?

  Once we find a picnic table, I dig out a collapsible bowl I brought for Bruiser and pour a bottled water into it. He slurps it up happily while Gigi wanders the small area, phone in hand, thumb pressing away on her photo app.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  She peers at me over her shoulder, that soft smile on her face. Her cheeks have pinkened from our walk and are almost as bright as her lips. “Of course.”

  “What’s with the heart tattoo on your finger?”

  “Oh.” She laughs, shakes her head and her teal hair bobbles back and forth. “Stupid, drunk night shortly after I left Evan and wondered if we did the wrong thing. It was a few weeks before I went traveling.”

  “Did you? Mak
e a mistake?”

  “No.” She drops her phone to her side and climbs up on the other side of the table top, putting her back to mine but she scoots back onto the table and leans back on her hands so I can see her face tilted up to the sunshine. She has another tiny semicolon behind her ear I’ve never noticed before and I want to ask her about that too.

  And her mermaid. And the butterfly.

  All of them.

  Good Lord… I want to know so much about this woman it’s unsettling.

  “I think, when Evan and I decided to part ways, I was more upset I’d failed at something. Or that I hadn’t taken our vows seriously enough or worked hard enough. I mean, the final straw in my marriage for me was a paint color on the walls on the surface. I was out with some friends, who all knew us, who loved Evan too, and I just… had a moment of fear. Or sadness for what I’d lost.”

  She shrugs and her thumb swipes over her tattooed knuckle. “I was sad, and I was drunk, so I went and got the tattoo to remind myself to be smarter about choices I made in the future. I’m not sure why I chose the broken heart outside the fact that night, it felt like it was broken. Live and learn, I guess.” She smiles up at me and shrugs. The winter sun hits her face so perfectly and brightly I’m almost blinded by her beauty. “Not all the tattoos I have are ones I wish I would have gotten, but they’re all part of me. Of who I was… who I’m becoming.”

  I’ve never considered tattoos anything more than artwork. Not as deep as Gigi explains it, anyway. My interest in her—in her ink—piques so much deeper. Who was she? Where has she come from? What has she conquered or lost that she’s memorialized on her skin with ink and permanency?

  I shake my head and then let it fall back so we’re both looking at the sun.

  “If I were to get a tattoo,” I ask. “What should I get?”

  Her lips press together in a teasing smile and that blinding spark in her eyes dims to a glimmer. “A wolf. Surrounded by daisies.”

  “What?” I bark out a laugh. I’m already shaking my head. “Daisies. Really?”

  Her shoulder bumps mine and she turns her head toward me. “Yeah. You’re all gruff and growly and so serious, but I think beneath that, you’re one of the good ones, Sebastian Hendrix.”