Game Changer

by Melissa Cutler

  As Brandon moved around the bar, chatting people up, a waitress brought him a beer that’d been ordered for him by Elijah, which was cool of him, even though Brandon didn’t often drink. No sooner had he thanked Elijah, then discretely passed the beer to Kayla, before another beer showed up. He kept that one as a decoy.

  “The guys are just trying to tell you they miss you,” Theo said when yet another player passed him a dark beer that looked like Guinness. A couple of those and Brandon’s eight-pack would look more like a two-liter.

  “I miss everybody, too. I miss all this stuff,” he said. But as great as it was to hang out with his buddies, his thoughts kept pulling to the apartment upstairs. For reasons he didn’t care to analyze, he wanted Harper to know he hadn’t hooked up with Lindsay.

  “I’m going to check in with Harper, make sure she’s okay.”

  “She was already asleep when I came down here,” Kayla said.

  “Yeah. Good. I’m just going to check. Be back in a few.”

  He left the decoy beer on the bar, then slipped up the stairs and let himself in through Harper’s front door, making no effort to be quiet. He wanted her to hear him. The apartment was still, with a small lamp in the living room the only illumination. Dropping the keys on the kitchen counter, he flipped the kitchen’s main light on, then strode straight to Harper’s bedroom door and brazenly pushed it open.

  The shaft of light from the kitchen stretched along the carpet and licked up the side of her darkly stained sleigh bed frame. Harper lay on her back, surrounded by all kinds of pillows as though she were sleeping in a nest. Even with all the noise Brandon was making, she didn’t stir, which probably meant she’d taken a big dose of pain meds before bed. The glass on her nightstand was empty. He grabbed it, walked to the kitchen and filled it, then returned, but she was still motionless, her breathing even.

  His phone chimed with an incoming text alert. Shoot. He’d forgotten to shut off the volume. He fumbled for his phone in his pocket as Harper sniffed and rustled the duvet, resettling.

  The text was from Lindsay. A selfie of her mugging a sexpot pout at the camera, her exceptionally perky cleavage on full display. The shot was captioned with a text. Not too late to change your mind and make a girl’s night.

  No, he supposed it wasn’t. Breasts were his favorite part of the female body, and it wasn’t too big a mental leap to picture himself burying his face in Lindsay’s fantastic rack. But beyond that primal reflex at seeing the erotic sight, the idea of hooking up with nurse Lindsay for a one-night stand held no allure. Zero.

  “Brandon?” Harper said, her voice thick and raspy with the pull of sleep.

  He turned the volume on his phone off and pocketed it. “The game just ended so I was checking on you. Go back to sleep.”

  She hummed. Her eyelids opened and she looked at him, her eyes onyx pools that a man could stare into forever. “What time is it?”

  “About ten.”

  “Early. Did Bomb Squad win?”

  “Yeah. Four to one.”

  A faint smile touched her lips. “You must’ve been their lucky charm.”

  “Maybe so.” He pulled the duvet up to her chin.

  Her eyelids closed and she hummed again. “You’re my lucky charm, too.”

  He shook his head at the ridiculous proclamation. What was he, a leprechaun? “I thought I was your spirit guide.”

  “That, too.”

  “Enough talking. Go back to sleep.”

  He stood next to the bed and watched the muscles of her face relax as she drifted to sleep again. She looked so soft, so pretty, in her little nest of pillows, her blonde hair fanning out around her. Until now, he’d never cared about a woman as a person before, as a friend. Even with Harper, with all their years of painful back-and-forth, he hadn’t felt a bond beyond lust until the past few weeks. So much had changed. It was a good shift, centering.

  They were meant to be in each other’s lives, just not in the way they’d always expected. In the years since he lost his leg, he’d felt lost, like a ship sailing through the night without a map or a compass, without the stars or moon, trying to find the right path through the darkness. But he would always have Locks and Bomb Squad and Harper as his north star. Funny that it’d taken moving away to shake him into realizing that fundamental truth.

  He leaned over, planning to kiss her forehead, but on a whim, he angled his lips over hers and kissed her lightly. He loved the way her kisses tasted, the way their mouths notched together so perfectly. That was the one part he missed about the unhealthy first chapter of their relationship.

  When he pulled away, she sighed. A sweet, sleepy smile returned to her lips. His heart did a heavy da-dum that he felt all the way in his throat and down to his toes. He leaned over, unable or unwilling to stop himself from kissing her again.

  It took him a moment to realize that her lips were moving against his, nothing more than a slight pucker of a response. Then her lips parted and he heard another contented hum whispering from deep in her throat, a sound he’d never heard from her before tonight. With a pounding heart, he parted his lips enough that the tip of his tongue could taste her lips. Damn, he loved the way she tasted.

  For the briefest moment, she arched up into the kiss. Then she wrenched her face to the side with a shaky exhalation. “You keep telling me to go back to sleep, but you won’t go away.”

  He spun away from the bed, his hand covering his mouth and his body and mind reeling in shock. Thank goodness she’d stopped that kiss before it’d gone any further because he’d demonstrated a complete lack of self-control.

  Even if he wasn’t bound to a reality TV dating show with an ironclad contract, he and Harper didn’t work as lovers. Whole stop. When they’d let lust rule their relationship, they’d been unhealthy and vindictive, punishing each other at every turn—the exact opposite of their relationship now. Instead of kissing her, instead of wanting something that was impossible, he should be expending his energy cultivating their friendship.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, blinking and getting a grip before speaking again in a carefully modulated voice. “Good point. I’m leaving now. Night, surfboard.”

  He walked from the room, his hand returning to cover his lips again, as though he could scrub away the lingering sensation of kissing her. Impossible. He had no doubt that the record of her—of the couple they’d tried and failed to become over and over—would be branded on his soul for the rest of his life.

  In a mental fog, he walked to the living room and packed his bag, then set it by the door. It was good that he was leaving in the morning. Cultivating their friendship would be infinitely easier from thousands of miles away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three weeks later . . .

  Harper and Kayla skated through center ice, dribbling pucks at the ends of their hockey sticks. Or rather, Harper was busy practicing hitting the puck while Kayla wobbled and flailed her hockey stick around in the air. Harper skated a quick circle around Kayla, satisfied by the lack of pain and the strength she felt returning to her body. She was just about ready for her refereeing debut in a couple weeks.

  Her incisions were healed enough that her doctor gave her the green light to start wearing soft, wire-free bras along with breast inserts—cutlets, which was a gross but an accurate description—but bras didn’t feel comfortable against her scarred skin yet. Plus, it was nice not having to worry about a bra. She’d hoped to become comfortable enough with her new shape not to use the inserts at all, but total acceptance was slow in coming. Often, she caught herself wearing baggy, formless shirts and sweatshirts, but she was trying to be gentle with herself about that. Someday, she would feel beautiful again and wear skintight clothes; she was sure of it.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn to skate, but this is hard,” Kayla said.

  “It gets easier. Just keep at it.”r />
  “Yeah, for the whole two weeks I have left here. I’m sure I’ll be a ready to join Bomb Squad after that.”

  Harper sped up, then shifted into a perfect side stop. “Geez, I hope you never have to join Bomb Squad, but another hockey team would be great. You could put it on your own bliss list.”

  “Speaking of that, you look about ready to call the league president about refereeing.”

  “I am. I feel great and my skills are improving.”

  Kayla smacked her stick on the ice and used it as a crutch to help with her balance. “What are you going to do next from your list?”

  “I don’t know. I’m almost done with everything on the list.”

  “Really? That’s so cool.”

  It was, even though the idea of completing the list carried with it an element of sadness. “I think I’ll need to come up with a new list here pretty soon so I can keep it going.”

  “What do you have left?”

  “Skydiving, which I’ll do with Brandon because he got me that gift certificate, though I have no idea when because he’s not sure what his shooting schedule is going to be like yet. I might wait until the show finishes taping. Let’s see . . . what else . . . Going to the top of the Empire State Building.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? I’ve always been too cheap to spring for it because they gouge you with the price.” From her complete stop, she pushed off the ice into a sprint, then stopped just as fast. She was really getting good at this whole skating business. “Also left on the list is fishing.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “That’s what Presley said, too, but she agreed to take me for my birthday along with Olivia and Marlena.”

  “Actually, it sounds like a lot of fun. I wish I wasn’t leaving so soon. I love fishing.”

  “Oh, please. You’re going to be off in boot camp. You won’t have time to wish you were fishing.”

  Kayla chuffed. “And that’s supposed to be comforting?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who signed up. Are you and your parents getting along any better these days? You haven’t mentioned them much.” She tapped the puck with her stick and sent it in Kayla’s direction.

  “They’re okay. Still mad at me, but now I think they’re mad because I left town instead of spending time with them.” Kayla wobbled toward the puck, her stick out. Lo and behold, she managed to stop it. “They’re acting like I’m going to be walking off a plank, straight into a coffin. So we’ve been fighting about that over the phone. I keep telling them that insurgents aren’t going to shoot me the minute I step off the bus on the base. Who knows where I’ll be deployed? Or when? But they’re not buying it.”

  “Time will fix that.”

  “That’s what Grandma says.”

  Donna had sent many casseroles to Harper and Kayla, along with innumerable dinner invitations, which mean that Harper had gotten to see more of Duke and his wife in the past four weeks since Kayla arrived than in the past few years put together. She’d expected Will to join them on occasion, but he took most of his dinners at Locks and the rest of the time he mostly lurked around the edges of Duke’s property like a feral cat.

  “Hey, ladies!” Presley called from the edge of the ice. She was dressed in a faux fur–lined coat and skin-tight white pants.

  “What, no matching muff for that jacket? Girl, it’s like you don’t even understand retro fashion,” Harper joked as she skated her way.

  Presley stuck out her tongue at the teasing. “Don’t hate me, but I brought you some show-and-tell.” She held up a copy of People magazine. A full-body shot of Brandon was on the cover, with the headline reading, “You’ve Never Met a Groom Like This.” Naturally, he was shirtless, but all salaciousness was removed from the image by the American flag draped around his shoulders and his prosthetic foot, which was framed by text in a way that drew the eye to it—right after said eye finished admiring his ripped abs and the subtle trail of hair disappearing into a pair of black workout shorts.

  Harper tore her gaze away. She’d been mesmerized by that particular photograph for a couple weeks now, ever since he’d seen the mock-ups, which he’d emailed to her. He was nervous about his reception by the public and afraid the cover would give the appearance that he was exploiting his injuries for fame, and he was nervous about criticism from other soldiers who thought he was treating the flag disrespectfully. She didn’t think so, and had done everything she could to assuage his concerns. Now that the magazine was out, she’d have to call to reassure him again.

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because you miss him and we’re all trying to avoid saying the B word around you, much less sharing shirtless photos of him that women across America are all ogling this week.”

  Lovely. What a pal for pointing that out. “Why would I mind? I’m proud of him. He’s going to help Meet the Groom get their best ratings ever. I can feel it.”

  “So, then, it’s okay to mention that he was on the entertainment news show last night doing an interview? They called the segment ‘The Groom: Confidential’, as if featuring him on a nationally syndicated show in in any way confidential.”

  “We watched it,” Kayla said. “Good interview. He looks even hotter on TV than he does in person.”

  “Agreed. In person, he just looks like another guy from the neighborhood,” Presley said.

  Brandon would never look like just another guy from the neighborhood.

  Presley stepped out on the ice, wobbling a little. “Have you talked to him lately?”

  Every day, in some way or another. Usually texts. Sometimes video chats. She’d come to rely on their daily connection as an anchoring force in her life. “Yeah, we talk. Why?”

  “Has he started filming yet?”

  “No. On Tuesday.”

  And every time she thought about that day, fingers of anxiety slithered through her. Flipping through the contestants’ dossiers had been a fun, catty, and shallow exercise. But he was actually going to be dating those women starting on Tuesday and the thought of it made her feel off, the same way that passing his number to nurse Lindsay had made her feel off, even though she knew she had no reason to feel anything but happy for him.

  Kayla said, “I think we should ban the B word for the rest of the night. This is our time. No boys allowed.”

  No sooner had she said that than they heard a wolf whistle, followed by a catcall. One after another, the Bomb Squad players trickled in, their hockey bags and sticks slung over their shoulders.

  “Speak of the devil.”

  “What are you guys doing here?” Kayla called.

  “Practice.”

  Harper had forgotten about that. “Guess our time’s about up.”

  “We could stay and hang out with them. That would be good practice for you.”

  “That it would. But what’s all this we business? You can barely stand up without holding on to the edge,” Harper said.

  “Yeah, but it’d be fun to fall into the guys and let them pick me back up.”

  Harper shook her head. “Don’t act like a helpless princess if you don’t want to be thought of as one.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She has a point,” Presley said.

  Will walked out to the team bench, dressed in a gray T-shirt and hockey shorts, which were his typical practice clothes. “Hey, Harper, I heard from Brandon today. He sent Duke a magazine. He’s on the cover.”

  Harper skated to the bench, with Kayla inching along behind her.

  “Don’t say the B word,” Kayla said. “We’re trying to forget his existence for one night.”

  Will scratched his beard. “Why? Oh.”

  Kayla tsked. “Boys are so dense.”

  “Not a boy, not a dog that lives in Duke’s yard, not—” Shaking his head, he
swatted the air and stomped back through the hall to the locker room.

  Guess Harper wouldn’t let on that she’d compared him to a feral cat in her mind. Oops. She cracked the seal on her water bottle and drank deeply. In her peripheral vision, she watched Presley pull herself along the wall in approach.

  Kayla swung up beside Harper, bracing her hands on the rink wall. “Will’s kind of cute, in a lumberjack sort of way, don’t you think?”

  Harper hadn’t given much thought to Will in a sexual sense before, because he wasn’t her type—too big and burly, especially with that beard he was growing, and he was even younger than Brandon—but he really was cute in a lumberjack sort of way, now that Kayla mentioned it. “I could do without the beard, but he’s got a nice face.”

  “He’s got a nice face that I can picture between my legs, is more like it,” Kayla said under her breath.

  Harper spewed water, then devolved into a choking cough.

  Presley slapped her back. “I’m going to use that line sometime. I mean, if I ever decide to give men a chance again. I like that.”

  Kayla’s head tipped to the side, her eyes narrowed, thinking. “Maybe I’ll sleep with him before I go to boot camp.”

  The proclamation struck Harper’s funny bone, and apparently it did Presley’s too, because they both burst into laughter.

  “What?” Kayla asked.

  Harper took Presley’s hand and pushed away from the wall, skating backward while stabilizing Presley. She motioned with her head for Kayla to follow them. This conversation would be better had as far from the guys’ locker room as possible. “You’d have better luck waiting until you get to North Carolina for boot camp. There isn’t a single eligible bachelor in Destiny Falls who would dare sleep with Duke’s granddaughter.”

  Presley lowered her voice and clutched Harper’s arm for support. “Even if Will didn’t care what Duke thought—which he does, probably more than any other guy on the team—Will’s a self-declared celibate.”