“She swears nothing happened.”
“While I take partial blame, I’m not going to lie to you about what did or didn’t happen.”
“You’re calling the mother of my children a liar?”
I could call her a lot more than that, but I doubted insulting the woman would do anything to defuse this situation. “I didn’t know she was married. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You slept with her.” He spoke through gritted teeth, displaying a monumental effort to hold back. I understood how he felt. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do if confronted by my wife of sixteen years sleeping with a teammate.
I glanced around the room. “Could we continue this conversation in a more private area?”
“The conversation is over.” He started to push past me, and I stumbled into him. The rest was a blur of flying fists, shouts of teammates, and arms yanking him off me as I lay on the floor.
“What the fuck?” roared Gorst from behind us. “You two. In my office—NOW!”
I wiped the blood off my split lip with a towel one of the guys handed me and headed to the gallows, a.k.a. Gorst’s office. Jock followed, but much quieter and less angry now. My last glance backward revealed Ice standing with his hands on his hips in the middle of the room. When our eyes met, his were filled with disappointment, as if he’d expected better of me. Fuck, I expected better of myself.
Jock and I took seats in the coach’s office, not looking at each other or saying a word. There was nothing to say. I hung my head, while Jock stared past us at a point on the wall.
I rubbed my throbbing jaw and avoided eye contact with Jock as we waited. One of us wouldn’t be on this team much longer, and I was guessing I was the logical choice. My week with the team hadn’t been overly impressive. I hadn’t scored a goal, I’d messed up more than I should’ve, and spent too much time in the penalty box because of my frustration. As much as I hated to admit it, the tension between Jock and me played a part in my inability to find my zone.
Gorst stomped into his office a few minutes later. He was furious, and I kept my head down, not wanting to do more than I already had to incur his wrath.
“I trusted both of you to work out your differences like adults,” he said with barely contained fury. “Instead, you’ve escalated this situation to a feud status. It stops here and now. I don’t care what the fuck happened. Deal with your personal issues away from the team, find a way to get along, or one or both of you is going to be gone—sooner rather than later.”
I lifted my head and nodded; Jock did the same.
Coach glared pointedly at each of us. “Unfortunately, I can’t trust you two clowns to settle this among yourselves, so here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to force you to deal with each other. You’ll be roommates on road trips, and if I hear of one physical altercation between the two of you, you can both pack your bags.”
Jock visibly winced. At thirty-eight years old, he probably lived with the fear his career could be over at any time, while I lived with the possibility mine might never get off the ground. Perhaps that fear of losing our career might be our shared point of reference.
“Yes, sir,” I said, leaning forward in my seat, anxious to get out of here.
“Not so fast, rookie. Sit back. I’m not done yet.”
Duly chastised, I sat back in the chair, which was uncomfortable as hell, by the way, and probably by design. Gorst preached hard work, mental toughness, and competition. He didn’t want any of us getting soft. The guys joked he’d have us flying in a cargo plane with wooden benches if he could get away with it.
“You are going to learn to get along,” Gorst said. “No fighting. Not even one derogatory word. I want to see the two of you act like you’re best buddies when you’re around your teammates. Got it?”
The implied threat in Gorst’s words goaded Jock to lift his head and glare defiantly at our couch. “Is that all? I mean, you don’t want us to have dinner together once a week or anything?” Jock was being sarcastic, and Gorst knew it.
“Excellent idea,” Coach said with an innocent grin.
“I was… I mean… I don’t…” Jock couldn’t find the right words, and I wasn’t saying shit. “I have dinner with my family when the team is at home.”
“I love the idea of Axel joining your family for dinners.” Gorst was on a roll now. Wisely, Jock shut his mouth before committing us to spending even more time tougher.
I scowled. This wasn’t what I had in mind at all, but one scathing frown from Gorst wiped my scowl right off my face. He wasn’t doing this for his own amusement. We were being tested.
“Any questions, gentlemen?”
“How long do we have to do this?” Jock asked.
“Until I say so. Any other questions?”
“No, none,” Jock said.
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
“I’m glad we had this little talk. Now leave me alone to get some work done.”
Jock bolted out the door, and I was fast on his heels.
“Axel, one last thing.”
I froze in the doorway. With a sigh, I turned back around. “Yes, Coach?”
“You’re a better player than you’ve been showing us. I have faith you’ll rise above personal issues and find your stride. I’m counting on it. We need every member of this team engaged and playing their best right now.”
“Yes, Coach.”
“That’ll be all then.”
I gladly escaped the office and hurried down the hall. No one was visible in the hallway. If I were lucky, I’d make it down to the parking garage without another confrontation with Jock or judgmental glares from teammates.
I was ten steps from freedom when a door swung open. Jock and his hot sister strode out the door together, deep in conversation. Before I had a chance to alter my course, Geneva barreled into me.
Instinctually, I reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her. For one second, time stood still.
No shit. It stood still.
I’d never experienced such a phenomenon before when staring into a woman’s eyes, but there was a first time for everything, and I was stunned, caught off guard by her presence.
I saw her, deep inside her, as if I knew who she was and what she wanted, and I knew she saw the same thing in me. I couldn’t drag my eyes from her, couldn’t break the contact between us, didn’t want to lose that thin thread binding me to her like a fragile lifeline leading me to something so profound the results would be unimaginable.
Geneva looked away first and pushed my hands off her shoulders, forcing me from my stupor.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I glanced at Jock, who was shooting daggers at me and wishing the intensity of his glare did real bodily harm.
“It was our fault. We weren’t watching where we were going.”
She was right, but I had the good sense not to agree with her. Jock said nothing.
“So, Jock tells me you’ll be our dinner guest for the next few weeks.”
Or months, I thought gloomily. “Yeah, I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience.”
“Not for me. I don’t cook,” his sister said. “But Eunice is going to throw a fit.”
I didn’t bother asking who Eunice was. Keeping track of Jock and his brood wouldn’t be an easy feat. And thinking straight with Geneva nearby would be even harder.
Jock shrugged and opened the door. Together the three of us walked to the parking garage.
“See you tonight.” Geneva winked evilly at me. She was enjoying my discomfort along with her brother’s. From her point of view, we probably both deserved what the coach had dished out, especially me.
“Tonight?” I choked out the words.
“Yes, tonight.” Her smile was full of innocence, but she knew what she was doing.
I looked to Jock, but he ignored both of us.
“Yeah, tonight,” I responded.
I would do this. I had to do this. My career was hanging in the balance, and n
ow I was being forced to be in both Jock and Geneva’s company. Despite his animosity toward me, Jock would be much easier to deal with than his sister. I’d noticed her more than I’d wanted to in the week I’d been on the team. I’d been hyperaware of her and tried to ignore my growing interest in her. If Jock hated me now, imagine if I fell for his sister.
Chapter 7—Dinner with the Family
~~Geneva~~
I wasn’t good with kids. I’d never been around them much in my twenty-four years, and I was woefully unprepared. My nieces and nephews graciously accepted my bumbling attempts in good faith. They were basically wonderful kids, maybe a little spoiled but with an innate kindness they must’ve inherited from my brother, as they didn’t get it from Bria.
Teagan, at fifteen, was the oldest, boy crazy, and fully embroiled in teenage angst. Everything was cause for huge drama. I related to her the most as I remembered those days of rampant hormones, when everything had been a crisis, and just wanting to fit in.
Desmond, or Dez, had just turned thirteen and recently discovered girls were as interesting as sports. He was a hockey player and quiet and intense like his father.
Anna and Alice, the twins, were ten, and I still fumbled over which one was which. My inability to distinguish one from the other was compounded by them pretending to be the other. One of them was more of a tomboy and the other more of a princess, but when they did the switch on me, I was left clueless.
The youngest, Amos, was eight. He fancied himself a superhero and was always looking for villains or someone to save from said villains. We needed more people like Amos in the world. Happy, intelligent, kind, and always willing to help out whenever he could.
Jock’s current nanny, Esme, was a career nanny somewhere between fifty and eighty. We really had no idea how old she was and didn’t care. She jogged every morning, lifted weights, and had some kind of belt in martial arts. The kids loved her and so did Jock. She was a pseudo grandmother for them, and somewhat of a kick-ass mother for me. She lived in a mother-in-law apartment in the daylight basement of Jock’s big home with her lifetime partner, Eunice. They grew flowers and veggies in a garden next to the garage. Eunice was as tough as Esme. She, too, worked out and knew martial arts. Jock never worried about the kids’ safety when he was on a road trip, and rightfully so.
Esme and Eunice had been with Jock about six years and were essential members of the family. Neither gave her opinion of Bria, but I suspected they had one based on the sour look on their faces every time the woman’s name came up. I didn’t pry into their past, but once in a while, I caught Esme looking at the children with such profound sadness, I guessed she had a tragedy in her past.
Someday we’d have a talk over a bottle of brandy.
Esme was the glue that held us together. She didn’t mind the daily chaos and drama, maybe even relished it. She had a way with the kids, and I envied her ability to talk Teagan out of a meltdown and coax Amos out of his cape long enough to sit down to dinner. She knew which twin was which, and they’d never been able to play their games with her. She counseled Dez on girls while suggesting how to improve his hockey form.
Eunice did the housekeeping and the cooking. She made the most delectable meals with whatever she found in the refrigerator. I’d never seen her use a recipe book or look up cooking instructions on the internet. Esme told me in confidence that Eunice had once been a chef in a popular restaurant in Seattle, but the stress got to her.
All in all, Bria’s absence didn’t affect the running of the household because she’d never participated in anything domestic and wasn’t a large part of the children’s lives. They missed her, though. She was, after all, their mother, and I knew more than anyone how it felt to be abandoned by the one person on earth who should be your rock above everyone else. At least they had Jock. From what I’d seen during the months I’d lived here, he was an incredible father.
I’d been raised an only child with an absentee mother and workaholic father. I embraced this boisterous, loud, unruly bunch. They became the family I’d never had growing up, and I became their beloved, though clueless about kids, Auntie Gen.
My job didn’t allow me to be home much, any more than Jock was, but we did our best to be there for the kids in the week that followed their mother’s exile from their home. Regardless of what I thought of her, she was still their mother, and I never said one bad word about her in front of them, quite a feat for me.
When Jock had told me about the coach’s decree that Axel be his roomie on road trips, I thought it sounded like a good idea. Then Jock told me about his sarcastic offer to have Axel to dinner once a week, and I laughed my ass off. There was something inherently funny about forcing these two tough hockey players to play nice with each other.
A few hours later, we were all seated around the table doing just that. Esme mothered Axel, and Eunice plied him with more stew every time he put a dent in his bowl. Much to my surprise, Axel was a charming dinner guest. He had Esme and Eunice eating out of his hands. The kids adored him almost instantly. I grudgingly admitted the guy had a way with kids. He didn’t talk down to them but treated them as if they mattered. He remembered every one of their names and seemed able to tell the twins apart. I’d reserve judgment on that, as they hadn’t had an opportunity to get out of their seats since he’d been introduced. They’d surely pull a switcheroo at some point in time tonight.
Jock sat sullenly at the head of the table and fumed.
I had a front-row seat for the entire show and was able to observe Axel without anyone else noticing. I was having a hard time believing he would’ve knowingly slept with a teammate’s wife. He didn’t seem that type, and I knew that type because I’d been around such men most of my life.
God, he was gorgeous. I loved his too-long wavy hair that did its own thing. He pushed it off his face, and it’d fall across his forehead time and time again. I had this insatiable urge to run my fingers through his hair and mess it up even more. And those eyes, those fucking, mesmerizing eyes of his… They were this deep green, a color I’d never seen before. Maybe he wore contacts or something, though I’d seen no proof of it in the week I’d known him. Stuff like that got around to equipment staff in case a player lost a lens during the game, and they needed to provide him with another.
And his body. Holy shit. He had a body. Most of the guys on the team did, and I’d seen quite a bit of those bodies at one time or another on my trips in and out of the locker room. Mostly, I ignored the naked men, even while admiring their physiques. Only Axel was different. I had a hard time dragging my gaze off him when he was half-dressed or undressed in the locker room. He had tats, and I loved a tattooed body. My own was decorated quite liberally with ink. I’d seen a dragon tattoo on his hip. He had a large tattoo on his back of vines and stuff. I hadn’t really stared long enough to know what all was hidden in the intricate artwork.
My favorite part was his ass. Axel had one of those big, tight hockey asses that made a girl want to grab a couple handfuls and urge him to—
“Geneva? You okay?” Axel asked. His smirk gave me fear he’d read my dirty mind.
“I’m fine. Just fine.” I was flustered, and my face was hot. I ducked my head and dug into the food on my plate, ignoring the snicker from Teagan. She’d caught me ogling our dinner guest too.
“Do you have brothers and sisters, Axel? You seem comfortable in a large family.” I wanted to jump up and hug Eunice for taking the heat off me, but I wasn’t a hugger. Besides, she was practically rolling over for Axel so he could scratch her belly. Everyone was. Except Jock. And me, of course. I’d only been appreciating his body, that was all. I wasn’t stupid enough to fall under his spell.
“I have two brothers. I’m the middle child. My dad raised us after Mom left.”
“Your father never remarried?” Esme asked in between bites of Eunice’s rich, savory stew.
“No, he had his job as a plumber and his boys. That’s all he needed, or so he told us.”
I leaned forward, interested despite my dislike of this guy. “Isn’t your dad lonely now? I assume everyone is grown and gone.”
“Not really.” Axel’s gaze swept the room, as if assessing us, and settled on Esme and Eunice. He seemed to make a decision at that point. He folded his napkin neatly in his lap and cleared his throat. “My dad came out last year.”
“That must’ve been surprising,” Teagan gushed. Only then did I realize she’d already latched onto Axel and was on her way to developing a big crush on him. I couldn’t blame her. He was hot. So very, very hot. Teagan was drooling all over the man, but secretly so was I.
“Yeah, I mean, it took some adjusting, but all of us like his new boyfriend.”
My brother noticed his daughter’s attraction to Axel, and his glower deepened. This situation could turn volatile at any moment. I nudged Jock with my foot. When he frowned at me, I gave him a you’d better behave glare I’d stolen from Esme. He returned the glare and amped it up a notch. I kicked him under the table, and he yelped, drawing the attention away from Axel.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Anna, the peacemaker of the family, asked. Poor girl, she craved harmony and was clearly disturbed by her mother’s absence and her father’s current emotional state.
“I’m fine.” Jock’s face colored slightly, and he suddenly seemed to think his stew the most interesting thing in the room.
The conversation refocused on Axel, and my brother’s face turned to stone, unreadable. He was trying, and I gave him credit for his efforts.
The rest of the meal went without a hitch. Afterward, rather than eating and running, Axel stayed and played a board game with the kids for about an hour. Jock excused himself and went to his room, while I stayed and oversaw everything. I didn’t entirely trust Axel around my nieces and nephews, but I had to admit he had a way with kids.
“It’s time for bed,” I announced promptly at nine p.m. to the collective groaning and complaining of the children.
“I’m fifteen. I don’t have to go to bed at nine,” Teagan protested. “Axel, let’s take a walk. I can show you the neighborhood.” She batted her eyelashes at him and leaned across the table, gazing up at him with this dreamy expression. Axel stared back at her in abject horror as if he’d just realized she was coming on to him.
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