Kane

by Sawyer Bennett

  “That’s awesome, man,” Bain says, joining the group conversation I had no intention of having with these boneheads. “She’s a great girl.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I move back to my cubby, wanting to disengage from this discourse.

  “So… Kane Bellan is now a kept man.” Jett eggs me on, his voice dropping low and sexy. “I bet the two of you—”

  “Don’t even go there, dude,” I warn, but it’s done with a slight smile. They want to give me shit, and there’s nothing wrong with a little ribbing. But I’m sure as hell not going to share the details of what changed our relationship.

  That’s for Mollie and me alone.

  “Let’s go,” Bishop Scott bellows from the front of the locker room. “You ladies have better things to do than gossip. Get dressed, then get on the ice.”

  His comments weren’t necessarily directed to my second linemates and me since everyone has been chattering away as we suit up, but it snaps me into focus.

  While not all conversation stops, it dulls, and we move quickly to put our gear on. I put Mollie out of my mind, for the moment, anyway. I’m eager to get my blades back on the ice to start working toward that championship Coach and Dominik have demanded we bring home again.

  CHAPTER 10

  Mollie

  The smell of spices permeates the air. Samson lays in the middle of the kitchen floor, nose raised to sniff.

  My phone is tucked between my ear and my shoulder while I measure out just a teaspoon of cumin.

  “Are you sure only a teaspoon?” I ask my mom.

  She’s been on the phone with me for fifteen minutes, patiently walking me through her spicy chicken recipe she created years ago, which has become my favorite meal she makes when I visit.

  But tonight, I wanted to make something homemade for Kane for dinner, and I didn’t know what to do. When I think of home and comfort, I think of my mom’s spicy chicken, so I knew that’s what I wanted to make.

  “Trust me,” my mom replies with a laugh. “There are enough other spices in the dish. You only need a teaspoon of cumin.”

  “Got it.” I tip the measuring spoon over the bowl of cut-up chicken breasts, officially making it the seventh spice I’ve added.

  “And that’s it,” she says. “Just stir it up well, then let it sit for about thirty minutes before sautéing it. And don’t use oil. Use butter. Trust me on that.”

  “Always,” I murmur, pushing the bowl away from the edge of the counter—Samson is looking at it a little too intently—and transfer the phone to my hand. “So, what’s going on with you and Dad?”

  “Oh, the same old, same old,” she replies. “He’s buried in his work now that classes have started up again, and I’m puttering away in my studio. We’re thinking about taking a weekend drive up the coast, though.”

  “Well,” I hedge, leaning my hip against the counter. “I was thinking of coming to visit this weekend.”

  “That would be fantastic,” my mother exclaims. “Your father will be thrilled, too. How long will you be staying?”

  “Just the weekend,” I say. “Then, I think I’m going to come back to Phoenix and hang with Kane for a while.”

  My mom is silent for a moment before she asks, “What’s going on?”

  Part of me wants to laugh at how astute she is, but the other part holds my silence and lies. She knows I’ve been at Kane’s for a week. I’d told her I wanted a break from traveling, and it was fun hanging out with my bestie. This, she readily accepted. While my parents are free spirits, which apparently got handed down to me through the gene pool, they do worry about me being out on the road so much. They always urge me to take more breaks, and well, they adore Kane.

  But they’ve never known me to want to stay in one place for so long, and it’s causing her eyebrows to rise across the phone line.

  The real reason I don’t answer her truthfully is because I’m not ready to tell her about Matthew. That’s not something I want to discuss over the phone because both of my parents are going to freak out.

  As they should.

  They love me, and they’ll be horrified I went through that.

  Which is the real reason I want to fly in this weekend to see them. I want to tell them what’s going on, not only what happened with Matthew, but also current news of Kane and me. It’s the sort of situation I could use motherly advice on.

  Samson’s head turns toward the front door before I even hear the lock snicking open, but then Kane is walking through. Samson looks back to the bowl of seasoned chicken, then to Kane. His desire to greet the latter wins out, and he scrabbles across the kitchen tile toward him.

  “Mom… I gotta go. Kane’s here.”

  “Well, let me talk to him,” she says excitedly.

  “Um…” I mumble, because the minute he stepped inside his apartment, his eyes found mine and locked. And the way he’s gazing at me now, as if it’s been ten years since he’s seen me rather than just one day, causes my heart to slam against the inside of my breastbone. “Maybe later. I have to help him with something.”

  “What’s that?” she asks conversationally. Kane’s head tips to the side in curiosity over my words. He lets his gym bag slide from his shoulder to the floor, ignoring Samson dancing around him in excitement.

  Oh, I have to help divest him of his clothing, I think.

  Instead, I outright lie to my mom. “He has a load of groceries I need to help carry in. I’ll call in a few days to let you know my flight information, and you can talk to him then.”

  At the mention of me flying somewhere, Kane frowns.

  “Okay. Mom… love you. Talk later.” I disconnect the phone, then set it down on the counter. Just moments ago, I was thinking of getting Kane naked, but he’s still frowning. Plus, I smell all the spices from the chicken. It makes me feel awkward now that I was making a home-cooked meal for him after a long day of training camp.

  “Flying somewhere?” he asks as he starts toward me.

  I nod. “Going to go visit my parents for the weekend.” As he gets closer, I have to tip my head back to keep eye contact. “I was going to come back here after… if that’s okay?”

  His answer is the crushing of his mouth to mine. Kane takes me in his arms, bending me backward with the force of his kiss. When he lets me up, he orders, “Don’t ever ask if it’s okay if you stay here again. As long as we’re together, this place is yours.”

  “Okay,” I breathe out. My head is reeling a bit, not only from the kiss, but also from the permanency he’s giving our relationship. He’s essentially saying his home is my home. I know we had the philosophical discussion about making our friendship a sort of home base, but this is quite the commitment he’s rolling out before me.

  Before I can think about it too much, he’s changing subjects on me again. “Are you going to tell your parents about Matthew?”

  He knows I haven’t wanted to involve them in this to keep their worry at a minimum, but it’s not a farfetched guess that it’s the reason for my trip home.

  At least one.

  “I was also going to tell them about me and you,” I admit, giving him a sheepish smile. “They adore you, of course, so they’ll be thrilled.”

  “They will,” he replies with a grin, his chest puffing out. “Because I’m awesome. They’ll wonder why it took you years to realize that.”

  “I always knew you were awesome,” I point out.

  Kane sobers a bit. “They’re going to flip out about Matthew.”

  “No more than you have,” I reply dryly, pulling away from him and returning to my task. Thoughts of a quick hop in the sack have been dispelled with all this talk of Matthew and outing our new relationship to my parents. It causes me to feel a bit anxious, so I decide to continue dinner.

  “Have you called the detective?” Kane asks, moving to the refrigerator to pull out two bottles of water. He sets one down near the stove as I rummage through his lower cabinets for a sauté pan.

  “Nothing new to
report,” I mumble, rising with a deep stainless-steel pan. Kane made me promise to call today, so I did, even though I didn’t want to.

  I didn’t want to call the detective in North Carolina who’s overseeing the arrest warrant issued for Matthew. He’d been charged with assault and battery with intent to commit serious bodily injury, but he was lost in the wind.

  “Are they not searching for him?” Kane asks, belligerence in his tone. I understand it’s not intended for me, but for the situation.

  “They’re doing what they can,” I murmur, turning on the flame on one of the burners and setting the pan on it.

  “Which is nothing,” he growls. Kane moves over to the right of the stove, pivots, and leans back against it to watch me cook. He eyeballs the bowl of spiced chicken appreciatively, but I can’t wait until he sees the mango-and-red-pepper salad I’m going to whip together to go with it.

  “They can’t send every cop out to look for him.” I attempt a soothing tone, but it falls short. I’m as frustrated as he is, but the difference is I’ve given up expecting Matthew to face justice while Kane refuses to accept anything less. “If he gets picked up or stopped, they’ll see he has a warrant out for him.”

  I expect Kane to want to quibble about it more. Over the last few days, he’s ranted a time or two about what he’d love to do to Matthew if he ever got his hands on him.

  Instead, he completely surprises me when he asks, “Mind if I come home with you this weekend?”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” I reply. I step past him to the fridge to grab the butter. He stops me with his hand grabbing mine, causing me to half turn to give him my attention.

  “That’s sort of a big deal,” he says, eyes twinkling. “Being a couple in front of your parents. Think we can have sex in your bedroom—be really quiet about it?”

  I snort, jerking my hand away. “You’re such a man-child,” I chastise. In truth, though, that idea has merit. “But… you have time to make the trip?”

  “This weekend will be the last for a while that won’t be chaotic. Pre-season games start next week. So, I’m in if you’ll have me.”

  Butter in hand, I move back to the stove. “It’s a date then.”

  I busy myself heating the butter to sauté the chicken. Kane asks if I’m making the same spicy chicken my mom makes, which he’s had on occasion. We lapse into small talk while I cook, and he tells me all about the first day of training camp. It consisted of meetings, some ice drills, and physical evaluations. Kane is pumped—there’s no hiding it. Ever since I saw him in his first hockey game at Boston College, I knew his destiny was on the ice. It’s as much a part of him as the blood and bone that make up his composition.

  He chatters on about how good it felt to be back on the ice, how despite the hard training efforts he put in over the summer, his legs are still wobbly from the ice time, and how the team is excited to take home the Cup again this year.

  After I sauté the chicken, I start putting the salad together. At some point, Kane pulls out a bottle of white wine and pours us each a glass.

  It feels so weird and natural at the same time. As friends, we’ve never had a lull in our conversations. We’ve shared food and talks many times. But now there are little changes that, quite frankly, thrill me.

  Kane needing to shift past me to the cabinet where the wineglasses are kept, putting a hand to my waist to move past.

  Or the way, after we tapped our glasses together but before that first sip, I went up to my tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.

  Those are things we’ve never done before. Yes, they feel slightly weird because it’s new, but it’s so fucking right all the same.

  We choose to eat in the formal dining room, carrying our plates and wineglasses in there. Samson, ever hopeful of getting a stray bit of food, settles in at my feet.

  “So, one of my teammates, Aaron, is dating a girl named Clarke. She owns a bookstore not far from here,” Kane says as he spears a piece of chicken and brings it to his mouth. He chews with a delighted expression. When he swallows, he says, “Goddamn, Mollie, that’s amazing.”

  Cheeks heating, I feel my belly start to flutter over the praise. I had wanted to make a nice meal for Kane—as part of our new relationship—and it appears to be a success.

  But I steer him back to the conversation. “Bookstore?”

  “Right,” he replies with a lopsided grin. “You should go over there and introduce yourself. Her store is neat, and I know you love to read. She’s cool, too, and it would be good for you to get to know some of the other players’ significant others. I mean, you’ll be meeting them at some point at team functions and games, but I figured it would give you something to do during the day when I’m gone.”

  And there it is… Kane has already accepted I’m here to stay. Or at least for long enough to become integrated into his life. For the most part, I love that because while my future may still be all kinds of up in the air, I know the immediacy of my life is here with Kane.

  “I’ll head by tomorrow,” I say, actually eager for something to do. I figured I’d explore Phoenix in the days to come, but meeting a new friend is always something I’m up for. No matter how isolating traveling alone can be, I’m a social creature at heart. I love meeting people. Love listening to their stories and hearing about their travels. It gives me a perspective I can’t find out there on my own.

  Kane launches in to tell me more about Clarke and Aaron, the most recent of his Vengeance teammates to fall victim to love. He spends time telling me about the other players, too, and I’m fascinated by Tacker’s tragic story of losing his fiancée in a plane crash where he’d been the pilot to his surprise wedding just two months ago. It’s what romance is all about.

  As we’re talking, Kane’s phone—which he had set on the table when we sat to eat—chimes. I can’t help but move my gaze to it. It’s close enough I can clearly read it’s a text from Nalia—the gorgeous woman I met coming out of his apartment the morning I arrived.

  I’m too curious to avert my eyes, so I read the first few lines showing on the screen. I’m genuinely happy for you, Kane. But if things change….

  It’s a longer text than what shows. I wonder what she’s offering if “things change,” so my gaze snaps up to his. He’s watching me, obviously having seen what she wrote.

  Smiling, he lifts the phone and pulls up the full text. He reads it, then turns the screen to show me.

  …you know where to contact me. Best of luck to you and your girl.

  I’m immensely relieved he respects me enough to show me what she sent. In the next breath, I feel guilty over wanting to know. I trust Kane. When we talked about giving this a go and being exclusive, I had no doubts he would sever anything with her or any other woman he might have had on the side.

  “I sent her a text explaining you and I reconnected on a pretty deep level,” he explains. “Something I wanted to work seriously on, so I would have to call it quits with her.”

  “What exactly did you have with her?” I ask curiously.

  He shrugs. “It was a booty call a handful of times a year when I played in Raleigh. She’s a flight attendant, and that was one of her hubs. We weren’t exclusive.”

  “And is Phoenix one of her hubs?” I hate the jealousy this notion stirs because it implies something more.

  “No, but it was still just a booty call, Mollie. Nothing more, and it’s nothing now.”

  “You and I aren’t having protected sex,” I blurt out, forcing a conversation we probably should have had days ago. He was in an active sexual relationship when I walked in his front door. Matthew was my last sexual partner. That was months ago, but I haven’t been an angel over the years.

  “You’re on the pill,” Kane points out, setting his fork down.

  “Yeah… but… we’ve neither one been celibate either,” I reply, making my point.

  Kane gives me an understanding smile, reaching for my hand. My fingers curl around his. “Yeah, but we’ve both pro
tected ourselves. Always practiced safe sex.”

  “You know that about you, but how do you know that about me?”

  Kane rolls his eyes. “Come on, Molls. Why the doubts in our friendship? You and I have talked about our sex lives in the past. We’ve both stressed the importance of safe sex.”

  “Sure… in passing. But how do you know I do that?”

  Chuckling, Kane squeezes my hand. “Because I trust you. You’re level-headed, smart, and wouldn’t go bare unless you were serious with someone. The other thing I know about you, dear bestie, is you haven’t ever been serious about a man like that. Just as you know I’ve never been serious about a woman like that.”

  He’s saying exactly what I already know. When it boils down to it, I know Kane wouldn’t have ever had sex with me without a condom if he thought it posed a risk. And he trusted the same from me.

  “You’re right,” I admit. “I inherently trusted you not to put me at risk. Just as you trusted me.”

  Kane squeezes my hand once more before releasing it. “We know each other, Mollie. You and I entered into this with something most other people don’t ever attain.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Absolute faith in the other person,” he replies. “It’s what makes what we have so special.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Mollie

  It was only a fifteen-minute walk to “Clarke’s Corner,” the bookstore Kane had told me about last night that belongs to his teammate, Aaron’s, girlfriend. When I glance in the storefront window, it looks like a fantasy wonderland with rows of bookshelves, tables covered in trinkets, softly glowing lamps, and plush-looking chairs to cuddle into with a favorite read.

  I push open the door, the bells above it tinkling merrily to announce my arrival. Scanning the interior, I spot a beautiful redhead behind the counter. She smiles warmly.

  “Well, you must be Mollie,” she says cheerily as she comes out from behind the register.

  I blink in surprise.

  “Kane texted Aaron, who then texted me, to say you might be stopping by,” she explains as she approaches with her hand extended.