Delay of Game

by Amber Lynn

  There were going to be hurt feelings left behind him as he walked out of the locker room without saying anything on the subject. If the guys ever matured enough to not rag him about things like a hickey, then maybe he’d consider letting them know more about his love life. Until then, they could use their imagination.

  It took him five minutes to make it up to the doors Hope was supposed to be waiting by. Usually when he left, the elevator came right when he pushed the button, but clearly half the crowd was still in the arena using it.

  Hope was standing off to one side of the doors. She was spacing off, so it took her a second to see him coming. When she did, her face lit up to a full megawatt smile.

  “Hey, beautiful. I have to say that jersey looks really good on you. If I’d known you were willing to wear my name in public, I’d have let you grab one of the ones out of my closet.”

  One of his jerseys would’ve dwarfed her, but he was hip on the idea of her running around his apartment with nothing but it on. The thought only added to the ones he’d had in the locker room. Jason tried to make sure Hope had the same basic state of mind as he swooped her up and planted his lips on hers.

  For the most part, the people around them were staff of the arena, so they didn’t have a huge audience, but there were a handful of people able to watch the public display of affection. They’d had a bigger audience in the bar, but Jason was mindful that Hope may be a little uncomfortable with strangers watching them make out.

  “I want to talk about how awesome you looked on the ice, but I’ve got to say that I could’ve waited while you took a shower. That’s a lot of sweat, and I’m not sure that shirt is going to come off without some surgical help.”

  Jason laughed as he led them to the car. It wasn’t the first time he’d delayed a shower until he got home. He didn’t remember it feeling as grubby, but he also didn’t expect to be wearing clothes for more than fifteen minutes. He was starving for two very different things and he was pretty sure his stomach wasn’t going to win the battle to eat first. He wasn’t the only person he had to worry about, though.

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to pry it off when we get home. Did you have anything to eat? We can stop and pick up something from a drive-thru, maybe hamburgers or tacos to get away from our Italian trend.”

  He really didn’t care whether he ate the same thing every day, but he picked up that Hope liked variety. His car wasn’t far from the door they’d come out, so they were to it before she had a chance to answer his question. Jason unlocked it and opened her door for her to let her slide down into the car.

  “I had a pretzel, but maybe it’s a good idea if we go the burgers route. You had to have burned off a lot of energy, and if I’m helping you pry off clothes when we get home, there’s a good chance we’re going to need all the energy we can get.”

  Jason leaned in the car to give Hope another kiss. She had her mouth open to say more, but he’d heard enough to get them moving towards home. He shut her door, after making sure her knee and arm weren’t in danger of being maimed, then hurried to get to the other side of the car and in the driver’s seat.

  “I was going to conclude by saying, you kind of had an amazing game and I’m sure that’s left you with all sorts of pent up energy you need to get out.”

  “Thinking about you in nothing but my jersey and how fun it’s going to be to take a shower is what has me excited. I couldn’t wait for the game to get over.”

  “Be that as it may, you did really look good out there. It’s different being here in person than just watching it on TV. You don’t get the bits and pieces of banter and all the communication, let alone the feel of the ice in the air.”

  Hope sounded enthralled by the experience, which was a good thing. Jason wanted her to enjoy coming to the games. Her schedule made it hard for her to, but he’d try to get her to as many as possible.

  “Was it okay sitting by yourself?”

  They were on their way to the nearest drive-thru as Jason hurried to get them home. The traffic getting out of the parking lot had been heavier than usual, causing a small wait in line. Jason usually took another thirty minutes to get out to the car, so he wasn’t used to having to deal with people in his way.

  “I had people sitting all around me, so I wasn’t by myself. They were a little more intense than I expected, but we got along okay.”

  “A lot of the other guys’ wives and girlfriends sit together. I wasn’t sure if you were ready for the hen party that can become, but next time we can see about introducing you to some of them.”

  Jason was torn about whether that was a good idea. He had nothing against the other guys’ significant others. He’d met most of them at team parties and they seemed like nice enough women. There was just something that worried him about exposing Hope to too much, too fast. He didn’t want her to think he was hiding her, but at the same time he wanted to do exactly that.

  “As much as I loved coming to the game and seeing you in action, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to come in person, so why don’t we worry about where I’m sitting when it becomes an issue?”

  “Good idea. I am glad you had fun, and that you actually watched the game. Of course now that you have and saw that I scored a goal, I’m sure you’re going to run around and tell everyone you’re dating a famous, goal-scoring hockey player.”

  Hope laughed, which was what Jason was going for. There was a chance she could’ve taken the reference to Kate the wrong way. Jason had trouble not comparing the two women, even if he’d come to the conclusion there wasn’t any comparison. Hope was far and beyond superior in every way.

  “I’m pretty sure not many people would believe me, and that’s fine. I got the feeling the people sitting around me thought I was moments away from being slapped with a restraining order. I definitely got some weird looks when I said something about you getting lucky tonight after the goal.”

  “Really? You announced to the crowd we’re having sex?”

  Jason tried to pretend to be astonished, but it was too funny of a picture to keep a straight face. The light in front of them was changing to red, so he was able to stop and look over at Hope to see her shrug and nod her head before she said anything.

  “I could’ve told them that at the beginning of the game, but they would’ve believed it even less. You had to know watching you out there in all your glory was going to make me horny.”

  “You better be careful there, Ms. Nacin. I’m liable to find somewhere to park and check to see just how horny you are.”

  They were almost to where Jason had decided to pick up food and probably about seven minutes from home. It may not have been a long time in the grand scheme of things, but Jason was already making plans to take Hope on the first surface he could find when they got to his apartment. He didn’t need any extra temptation.

  “It’s too bad you don’t have a big backseat. That seat doesn’t look like it moves back far enough for me to climb in your lap without the steering wheel ending up permanently embedded in my back.”

  Jason groaned loudly. She was right, but the fact that she had even considered it made him really want to give it a try.

  “Obviously, that means we need to go car shopping to see if we can find something more accommodating. You did say you have your license, just didn’t have a reason to get a car, right?”

  “Yeah,” Hope said slowly. “And I still don’t need one. If you want to get something for yourself, that’s your prerogative. I can’t justify a monthly car payment for something I’d barely use.”

  “No one said anything about a car payment. I can’t drive two cars at once, so if you ever needed to get somewhere and didn’t want to wait for someone to pick you up, you’d have one available.”

  It sounded logical to Jason. Hope didn’t jump at the idea of him buying her a car, which he knew she wouldn’t. Cars fell into the same category of the expensive jewelry he let cross his mind. Hope liked things she would use, not sit around and get dus
ty. He got the feeling she was the kind of woman you could buy a vacuum cleaner for Christmas and she’d actually be excited about it.

  “As long as there’s no confusion about it being yours, but I’d check to make sure they have a garage you can put it in. I’d hate for the garages to all be full and you’d have to park it on the street.”

  She was so practical. Jason was kicking himself for waiting so long to get to know her. At the same time, it was good that she wasn’t just a quick rebound after Kate. Hope deserved so much more than that and Jason had plans to make sure she knew exactly how he felt about her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We expecting any disruptions today?”

  Marie had started asking the question every morning. There were ways to say the words that would make them positive, but they definitely weren’t coming across that way. Just hearing them made Hope want to be petty enough to bring up the condoms and how useful they’d been. Jason had finally gone out and bought some of his own boxes, three to be exact, but they’d made it through an unbelievable amount of the original batch in just a few days.

  Having the night off from the bar had really opened up Hope’s schedule to the various forms of pleasure Jason could provide her. After they’d picked up their food, he’d told her to eat on the way home, which was surprising given they were in a fancy car that probably didn’t mix with grease and ketchup. She’d found out the second they got in the door why he’d come up with the idea. Their clothes flew off and he was inside of her before she could even blink.

  Thinking about it, the shower, bed, couch and eventually bed again made it hard to concentrate on anything else. She smelled Jason’s sweat everywhere. It had a tinge of the cologne he wore woven in, but more than anything it was a musky scent embedded in her nose.

  Hope was about to quit running down the rabbit hole of her sex life and answer her mother’s question when she looked up to the door. She’d been putting a fresh tray of cinnamon rolls on display and hadn’t been paying close attention to the bells on the door. Apparently, her bitch radar needed to spend some time in the shop, because there in the middle of the bakery was Hope’s worst nightmare.

  “I’d get the police on speed dial. There’s a chance they’re going to need to arrest me for murder.”

  Hope’s words were said quietly as she straightened herself up. She’d helped roll out dough that morning so she was covered in flour. That mixed with her jeans and t-shirt and hair pulled lazily into a ponytail made her look like the bad end of a before and after makeover.

  Kate, on the other hand, looked like a million dollars. Her yellow strands of hair were pulled into a high and tight bun, with two curled tendrils hanging on either side of her face. Her sunglasses had been pushed to the top of her head to reveal dark smoky eyes that somehow made the blue of her eyes even brighter.

  Not wanting to lose eye contact, Hope could only see from her peripheral vision that the woman had crammed herself into another skimpy dress. This time it was a deep purple color that only reached mid-thigh.

  “Okay,” Hope’s mother said before retreating to the back room.

  Hope wasn’t sure what she thought or saw, but she was surprised her mother had disappeared. It wasn’t like her to run from an argument and since they were at work, it would’ve made sense for Marie to try to keep the murdering to a minimum.

  “So not only do you work at a hillbilly bar; you work the counter at a bakery. Do you honestly think you have enough class to keep him for long?”

  “I’m assuming you didn’t come in looking for breakfast, Kate, which means you followed me here. I believe some people would classify that as stalking.”

  Kate shrugged and pretended to peruse the options of pastries. The woman could be starving and Hope wouldn’t feed her, so the move wasn’t going to do Kate any good.

  “I was just curious what took you out of his bed at four o’clock in the morning. I was hoping you were sneaking away to another lover and I could use the information to find myself back in that bed, but I suppose a second job isn’t the same as a lover.”

  “Look, I understand you missing what you threw to the curb, but Jason is with me now and he’s not going to fall for any of your games.”

  Hope’s fingers tensed into fists as she thought about what Kate was implying. More than anything, she worried that Kate would find a way to falsify some kind of evidence that Hope wasn’t faithful to Jason. The idea was crazy in Hope’s mind, but Kate seemed to lean towards the side of crazy.

  “I actually didn’t know about you when I came on my little trip down here. I told Erik I should come along to make sure Jason didn’t start anything, but as you’ve already indicated, I really wanted to see if the little pit in my stomach telling me I’d given up on Jason too soon was real.”

  Kate straightened up so Hope could get a look at the smirk that lined her face. Some people would see it as a smile, but Hope saw right through to the conniving nature hiding inside the woman.

  “From what I understand, the pit you’re feeling in your stomach is someone else’s baby. I imagine in six or seven months, you won’t feel it anymore.”

  The laughter that came from Kate felt like ice pouring in Hope’s veins. Something about it made her feel like there was something she was missing, but she had to believe it had nothing to do with Jason. He’d been adamant that he hadn’t seen Kate in over a year and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

  Hope didn’t fool herself into thinking that a little alone time with Kate couldn’t change his mind about the latter. He was a warm-blooded male and Kate certainly had the ability to make a guy sweat.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure the pit will be there until I get Jason back in bed to see how he reacts to my body after a year’s absence. I always expected him to come crawling back for seconds, but since he finally signed the divorce papers, it meant I had to come looking for him.”

  Kate drummed her fingers along the glass of the display case and worked her way over to the cash register. It was creepy that Jason had done the same thing just days before.

  “You should probably head back to your twisted happy home where the adults don’t seem to care who they’re sleeping with. Jason isn’t going to buy into your crap.”

  There was authority to the words that Hope didn’t really have. Jason was an adult and could do whatever he wanted, whether that caused a pain in her heart or not. She liked to think that the Jason she knew wouldn’t fall into Kate’s trap, but the woman knew how to manipulate.

  A tingle in the air caused Hope to look over to the door. She usually only felt the static when Jason was around, but she didn’t see him magically appear in the bakery. Her eyes lingered, looking for any sight of him on the sidewalk outside.

  “You think he’ll be able to resist when I show up at his door in nothing but a bow? It’s more than just a few steps up from someone covered in flour.”

  There was no argument as far as appearances went. A naked Kate would trump a fresh-from-work Hope any day of the week. It wasn’t looks Hope was counting on keeping Kate out of Jason’s bed, and the fact that the other woman didn’t know that made it clear she lived in a fantasy world.

  “It’s one thing to bring your vulgarity into a bar, but it’s not something that’s welcome in this family establishment.”

  It was hard to tell who was more surprised to hear Jason’s voice coming from behind Hope. Kate’s face instantly transformed from the mocking one she’d painted on for Hope to some attempt to look sweet and innocent. She should’ve just left it as is, because no one was going to buy it.

  “You know it’s funny. Last time she called for reinforcements, she had to actually leave my presence to do so. Have you guys established some kind of telepathic bond?”

  Even though the words came out of Kate’s mouth, that was Hope’s initial question for the man whose body moved close enough that his heat radiated on her back. They’d decided it was best for him not to show up at the bakery again until they both
made it through dinner that night alive. The fact that he hadn’t come through the front door made everything even more suspicious.

  “Whatever you’re trying to do here, it’s not going to work. I spent my walk over here on the phone with my lawyer and he’s looking into what kind of protection order or harassment charges we can file. If you come near either one of us again, he told me to just call the police.”

  “Really? What do you think they’re going to say when they show up at a public place where I have just as much right to be as either of you?”

  Kate made it sound like she wasn’t going anywhere until she got her way. Whether she had a baby on the way or not, she did have one somewhere that she should’ve been worried about. Understanding the family dynamic going on in Kate’s life was something Hope would never figure out.

  “Hope’s parents own this building, so it’s not exactly just another public place. My lawyer assured me that by the time he finished making calls and filling out paperwork, here, the bar, the arena and our apartment building will be off limits for you. If you show up at any of those places, the call to the cops will be more than just a laugh.”

  It all sounded nice, but Hope could see the threat still alive in Kate’s eyes. Knowing how it felt to be with Jason made it hard to blame the other woman. Kate was an idiot for letting him go, but that wasn’t Hope’s problem.

  “That sounds like a temporary bump in my plans. From what I’ve overheard, this thing between you two is so new that it’s just waiting for something to come along and prove how silly your desire for monogamy is. I’m even nice enough that if you don’t want your little mouse to feel left out, I can get Erik to come back to diddle with her.”

  “You need to leave now.” Jason’s response was slow and sounded calm, but his hands moved up to grip Hope’s hips and pull her closer to his body. “Whether this thing between us is new or not, we’re already talking about getting married. There is absolutely no chance your plan is going to work.”