Daddy Next Door - The Complete Series Box Set (A Single Dad Navy SEAL Romance)

by Claire Adams

  “I have driven I think a hundred miles today. I am not happy. I am exhausted. But it should at least be a good game,” I said, staggering alongside Georgia.

  “It’s always a good game when Johnny plays,” Georgia said. I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t you go chasing after him, too.” Gigi shook her head.

  “Nope. He’s all yours. I don’t know if I could have dealt with all that crap as well as you did.” We went to the box office and I gave them my name; true to Johnny’s word, they had seats reserved for me — right behind the glass, where Johnny loved to see me watching him play. Georgia and I stopped at the concession stand, which I knew was mostly a rip-off, but I was starving and tired. I got coffee and a couple of hot dogs and fries, and decided that that would keep me afloat while I watched the game.

  Georgia and I got to the stands and started talking about the whole crazy trip. “I caught part of that press conference!” she said. We were careful to keep our voices low, since there were so many people in the stands behind us.

  “It was intense,” I said, shaking my head.

  “It’s obvious Johnny really loves you,” Gigi told me, nodding solemnly.

  “I know he does, but what brought you to that conclusion?” Georgia grinned.

  “I could see him looking at you every few minutes, like he needed to see you to keep going. He’s totally gone on you. You’re so lucky. You met the love of your life the first day you moved in.”

  “Hold up, hold up,” I said, laughing and shaking my head. “We don’t know that he’s the love of my life. We’ve only been dating for a couple of weeks!”

  “Oh, please. You’ve been through hell together and you didn’t run away.” Georgia poked me in the ribs, nearly upsetting my large coffee. “If you can do that after only dating a few weeks, you’re going to be together forever.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t jinx it, okay? We’ll just take things how they come and see how it all plays out.” I thought about everything that had gone on between Johnny and me; I had been so scared so many times since we had first met. I had not known what to think about Johnny — whether he was a good guy or some kind of sociopath, whether he was a player or someone I could trust. I had gone from being convinced he would never truly be interested in me to having a fight with my parents over him and standing at his side at what had to have been one of the most difficult moments in his life.

  I had told Johnny about the fights I’d had separately with my mom and dad about what they had done. He had laughed at the fact that I’d cursed both of them out, telling them that I would never forgive them. I told Georgia as we sat waiting for the game to get started; she had known I was upset, and she had known that I had expressed my upset at both of my parents, but she hadn’t known the details. It felt good that it was all behind me, though I knew that it was likely that my parents didn’t look at it that way. They probably thought that I had been absolutely terrible and that I should apologize to them over and over again for how I’d “overreacted.” But they had very nearly ruined Johnny’s life. I didn’t feel any regrets over what I had said to them.

  I was so tired, even as I slurped down coffee, that I wanted nothing more than for the game to be over. I was gradually starting to appreciate hockey, but I didn’t think I would ever fully love it for the sake of the game. I would enjoy it because it was something that Johnny loved. I just wanted Johnny to get out there and score points, and I wanted the game to come to an end with us winning, and I wanted to go back to the frat house with Johnny — or maybe sneak him up to my room in the dorms — and make up for all the lost opportunities of the past several days. I fidgeted in my seat; as tired as I was, the prospect of sleeping with Johnny was definitely a powerful one.

  I looked around and saw that there seemed to be an awful lot of journalists covering the championship. I knew that championship games tended to merit more attention than regular in-season games, but this seemed like a lot of reporters for any kind of college game except for at best, one of the major college football rivalries. I knew that Johnny’s press conference, the whole situation with Claire White and the resolution that that had come to, had a lot to do with it. I could only hope that the reporters minded their manners.

  As Georgia and I sat and talked and ate, we pulled up more information on hockey and she started quizzing me. “I don’t even know why I have to go through with this,” I said. “Johnny knows I’m not some, like, hockey super-fan.”

  “But you need to be able to talk to him about something he loves. Come on, he’ll appreciate it, I promise.” I knew Gigi was right, but that didn’t make me any more interested in learning things about a sport I’d only recently developed a passing interest in. As long as Johnny was on the ice I’d be into it, but I didn’t think I’d ever really know the differences between any of the professional teams unless Johnny went pro. And I didn’t think I would particularly care. I would cheer for whatever team Johnny liked and devote brain cells to something else that actually mattered in the grand scheme of things.

  But Georgia was right; Johnny had done so much for me — he had loved me passionately, he had been so wonderful to me on so many occasions, he had tried to protect me from the pain that he was dealing with. I could afford to learn at least to know what he was talking about at any given time when it came to his favorite sport. It wouldn’t kill me to know more about Johnny’s position on the ice or what he might get fouled for. I was so tired and so ready for the game to start — we had sped down the highway enough to make it so that we got to the stadium with apparently more time than we had expected for Johnny to get ready. Or maybe they’d delayed for another reason. I wanted to curl up in Johnny’s arms and press my cheek to his chest and feel that safe, warm feeling once more. I had no doubts in my mind at all that Johnny and our team would win; they had won every game I had ever seen them play before. The possibility that they might even struggle a little bit hadn’t really occurred to me. “Ah, here they come. Come on, Becky, let everyone see you cheering for your man!” I laughed at Georgia, but went along with it; I cheered for Johnny as he came out, and he glanced up at me, a happy look in his eyes once more. That look was worth every bit of the fatigue in my bones.

  Chapter Eight

  Within moments of the team taking the ice, I realized that this was not going to be the great, winning game that I had believed it would be. The reporters were shouting for Johnny, taking pictures, and I heard some of them turning to camera and making statements about Johnny’s past — about the rape and suicide of Claire White, about the press conference he had given a few hours earlier. On the ice, Johnny looked like a spooked horse at the sight of the reporters and photographers.

  When the team started to play, it was difficult for me to watch; where normally Johnny was all aggression and focus on the ice, he didn’t seem to be able to concentrate. I remembered that he’d floundered just a little bit on one previous occasion — when everything had been great between us and he’d kept looking up at me in the stands. Some of the students watching the game shouted jeers, and I shivered; I would be even more distracted than Johnny was, and he was pretty distracted. I looked around. It wasn’t fair — it wasn’t right. There out to be rules against press trying to hound a player at a time like this. “What’s wrong with him?” Georgia asked me as quietly as she could.

  “It’s all the hounding. Some of it’s even people from the school,” I said, pointing out one or two girls from the campus who were waving signs proclaiming Johnny to be guilty. I shook my head. Johnny had explained what had happened. Claire’s own parents had come out with what had happened in that horrible incident. It didn’t make sense for people who want Johnny, and the team, incidentally, to lose.

  One of the other team’s players hooked Johnny’s skate with his stick, and I yelped in dismay and surprise as the man I had seen evade dozens of hits on the ice sprawled on his front, moving several feet before he gathered himself up. It wasn’t right — there was something wrong
. What could anyone do for Johnny?

  “It’s like before,” Georgia said, “when he was too busy paying attention to you to pay attention to the game, only it’s worse.” I nodded, chewing at my bottom lip. I didn’t think they could kick Johnny out for not winning a game, but they could find other reasons, I was sure, if he was off his game. And it would not do his reputation any good to lose a game just now. I cheered for Johnny with all my heart, trying to overcome the jeers, trying to understand what was going on. I thought that maybe Johnny was still shaken up by the press conference, but he had seemed so on top of everything, so confident. He didn’t exactly look unconfident now. He looked distracted.

  I was shocked as the other team scored its first goal a few minutes into the first period, followed quickly by another. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Johnny’s team always won — he had said so. But Johnny kept missing his shots or kept getting intercepted. I grabbed onto Georgia’s hand and held tight, watching in amazement. All of the guys were struggling. None of them knew how to deal with the game with Johnny not on the top of his strategy. They had counted so much on Johnny being able to out-play everyone they ever went up against that they floundered around, always a minute — a second — late to where they needed to be, hesitating just a moment too long.

  Of course, the fans for the other team were thrilled; they had expected at best an exciting game and a loss by one point. By the end of the first period of the game, the other team was up by three points. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to be angry at the goalie, but I knew that it was the whole team that was struggling to deal with the situation, especially Johnny. If he had been scoring the way he normally did, if he had been acting like his usual brash, impulsive, aggressive self, he would be keeping the other team so harried and confused that they wouldn’t have any idea of how to get in to score. “What the hell is going on with him?” I asked Georgia in confusion. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” Georgia shrugged. I looked around me in disbelief, and I saw the girl who I’d been having so many problems with — the redhead from the dining hall, who had had no success with getting Johnny to herself. She caught my gaze and smirked, looking directly at me.

  I frowned. I looked at Georgia. “Do me a favor,” I said to her. Georgia looked at me in confusion.

  “What do you need?” I pointed to the redhead.

  “Hold my seat. I feel like I might get kicked out for a little while.” Georgia laughed as I stood up, walking slowly and deliberately over to the redhead. As I walked towards her, more of the people in the stands noticed I was there in the first place; I guessed not all of them had been paying attention. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want a fight, but I was good and tired of the girl. I wanted to have it out with her once and for all; and as I had told Georgia, there was a good chance that it would get me kicked out, though I was pretty sure I could convince them to let me back in since I was Johnny’s girlfriend. I hoped so, anyway. “Hey!” I said, calling to her before I walked up the couple of levels to her seats.

  “How’s your loser boyfriend treating you? Has he done you like he did Claire White yet?” I crossed my arms over my chest and held the redhead’s gaze levelly.

  “You know,” I said, looking her over, “I would think that if you really believed that Johnny had had anything to do with that, if you thought he was capable of hurting and driving a girl to suicide, you wouldn’t want anything to do with him.” The redhead blushed. “So I gotta think that you’re of the belief that it’s more important to get rid of me than it is to do something that might actually be good for Johnny. Sort of a ‘if I can’t have him, no one will,’ am I right?” I spoke loudly enough for the people nearby to hear, a few feet away from the girl. Someone giggled.

  “You’re not woman enough for him!” the redhead said. “Besides, I don’t want him anymore.” I snorted, rolling my eyes.

  “I think you want him bad. But here’s the deal, sweetie: you don’t get him. In fact, even if he left me tomorrow, you wouldn’t get him because he doesn’t go for backstabbing rumor-mongering bitches with a jealousy complex.” Someone — I thought it was one of Johnny’s frat brothers — hooted appreciatively. “So I’m going to warn you this one time: you ever say anything to me about Claire White, if I even hear her name from you again, I am going to make you regret it.” I turned on my heel and went back to my seat, shaking. I wasn’t a very violent person, but in that moment, I was more than willing to punch that stupid girl out if I had to.

  As I sat down again, the game went into the second period and I sighed. It was starting to look hopeless, absolutely hopeless. Johnny made one goal and then the other team pulled ahead again by another point. We were a consistent two or three points behind, all the time. It wasn’t good. Normally by this point, we were at least keeping the other team from scoring any points, even if we had only a one or two point lead. It was unheard of for us to be behind. It never happened — at least, that I knew about, and everyone else seemed to be almost as shocked as I was, if not more so.

  “What can anyone do about it, though?” Georgia asked me when I mentioned it to her. I chewed on my bottom lip. The second period of the game was moving forward just like the first one had. It was not a good situation. It wasn’t a situation anyone wanted — or at least, it wasn’t one I would have thought anyone wanted. I looked around; most of the jeering people had been taken out, the reporters were being thinned out by campus security, which gave me a deep feeling of relief. But there were still students jeering the team as a whole — and that was their right. There were a few students waving signs accusing Johnny of aiding and abetting rape, and I wanted to punch them, but I knew I couldn’t. I had to figure out how to help Johnny.

  The problem was that I had no idea what the actual problem was; he didn’t seem insecure and he didn’t seem to be distracted by me. If he were distracted by me, then I would have just left. This was not a time for me to enjoy the flattering feelings of a guy being so distracted he couldn’t work for thinking about me. But Johnny wasn’t even looking at me very much. He just wasn’t as quick, wasn’t as focused, wasn’t as aggressive on the ice as he normally was. I bit my bottom lip and worried it between my teeth. The second period was quickly winding down, and we hadn’t even been able to make up the lead the other team had on us. I didn’t even know if it was remotely possible to make up a three-point lead in such a short time. We would have the last period of the game to try and make it up, but if the other team kept up at the rate that they were going, it wouldn’t matter if we had a whole three more periods.

  Johnny needed to get his mind off of whatever was clouding it. He needed to…I bit my lip again, watching him on the ice. I tried to figure out what was going on in his head. I tried to think of what would help him, something I could do. I was getting antsy, and I could hear in the commentator’s voice that he knew that the team was in trouble without Johnny’s usual aggressive style. But of course, he couldn’t say anything about it really. He couldn’t suggest anything. He had to remain as neutral as possible; the most I heard the man say was that Johnny, “looked like he was in trouble this evening.”

  The buzzer ticked down the last few minutes of the period and I was at a loss. The other team scored another goal! They were four points ahead — even with the last period of the game to go, four points ahead was a difficult thing to come back from. It was almost hopeless. In fact, most of the seasoned fans around us were saying that the best that the team could hope for to come back from that was that they could, with a lot of luck, bring it up to a tie and make it a shoot-out. Somehow, that sounded less than promising to me. They had to make a comeback. They had to get in the game; Johnny had to get in the game. I looked at Georgia as the regulation clock ticked down the last few seconds and then the buzzer sounded announcing the intermission. I saw Johnny, his face sweaty as he took of his mask and helmet, and an idea occurred to me all at once. “Georgia, hold my seat again,” I said, feeling giddy and breathless.

  “Y
ou’re not going to beat someone up, are you?” I shook my head.

  “I’ll be back. I swear.” Georgia looked at me and I felt myself blushing, but I wasn’t about to explain the idea that had popped into my head just yet. “I’ll be back in time for the third period.”

  Chapter Nine

  I found my way over to the locker room where I saw the last of the players filing in, looking less than happy with how the game was going. I bit my lip. I knew that Johnny was distracted. I knew that everyone was distracted, really. But the idea I had in my head of talking to him was not exactly orthodox. But really, I thought, what else could I do? I didn’t think I could work any kind of magic, but I knew that it had helped in the past for Johnny to talk to me, just as it helped me to talk to Johnny. Maybe if we could talk, I could get to the bottom of what was distracting him and we could fix it. I hoped.

  I saw the goalie heading for the locker room and took a deep breath. “Hey,” I said. “Hey!” the goalie looked up from his gear and blinked at the sight of me.

  “You’re Johnny’s girl, right?” he said. “What are you doing out here instead of screaming your head off in the stands?” I blushed.

  “Look, could I…could I talk to Johnny real quick?” I bit my bottom lip. The goalie rolled his eyes with a grin.

  “Look, he’ll have plenty of time for you after the game, even if he does lose.” I put my hands on my hips, getting irritated.

  “I’ve had a really long day, and honestly, I’m at the point right now where if you don’t get him I’ll just walk in there and find him myself.” The goalie’s eyes widened with respect.

  “Coach says women weaken the legs — we’ll just not tell coach,” he said, winking at me. “Stay right here. I go find him for you.”

  I knew the intermission wasn’t very long; I fidgeted, pacing back and forth while I waited for Johnny to show up. Of course, I had no way of actually knowing if the goalie had just been humoring me or if he had actually gone to get my boyfriend. I wondered what he thought I wanted to do to Johnny. I closed me eyes and grinned to myself; I had a really good idea of what I wanted to do to Johnny, I just couldn’t do it here, I’d have to wait until after the game.