Benched: Gold Hockey Book 4

by Elise Faber

  Head spinning, it took incremental movements to bring it closer, but finally she was able to reach her cast-free hand inside and extract her cell.

  There were a dozen missed calls from Anna and Mandy, plus text messages and calls from Kelsey. Even the group chain with Cora, Kels, and company was flooded with concerned inquiries.

  But the one person she really hoped to hear from had been silent.

  She called Mandy first.

  Her sister picked up before it even rang once. “Angie? Are you—?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I’m coming home,” Mandy said, and Angie could hear movement in the background. “I knew when I saw Max get off I should have followed, but I got on the damned plane and then I heard and now you’re—”

  “I’m fine, Mandy. Pinky promise,” Angie told her. “Aside from a splitting headache, so if you could take it down a notch that would be great.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Angie smiled. “Please, don’t apologize. I’m good but tired. Can we talk tomorrow?”

  “Of course.” She sniffed. “You had me worried there, kid.”

  “I always pull through.”

  They exchanged goodbyes and then Angie sent a text to the group chain and Anna, fielding replies and giving assurances for a few minutes.

  And then, heart in her throat, she texted Max.

  Her response was silence.

  Look, she got it. Brayden had been under her supervision. She’d let him down, had put his son at risk, and—

  Tears flooded her eyes.

  It was her fault that Brayden was—

  Please, she sent. Please just tell me if he’s okay.

  Finally, what seemed like an eternity later, her cell buzzed with a response.

  He’s uninjured.

  But not okay? She wanted to ask but was too scared. What if he wasn’t okay? And they’d already established the whole situation was all her fault. If she’d been more aware of her surroundings, if she’d taken up Devon on that ride . . . it might not have happened.

  Dammit. She’d been through this before.

  She should have known better.

  I’m so sorry, Max.

  Me too, Angie.

  Angie. Not Angel.

  As far as painful goodbyes went, that one was at the top of the list.

  Thirty-One

  Max

  “I want to see Angie,” Brayden said, pushing his bowl of cereal away.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning and they’d skipped school because being kidnapped by his biological mother seemed like a really good excuse for Bray to play hooky.

  “Angie’s probably sleeping,” Max hedged. “It’s still early.”

  Fuck, but he didn’t want to think about Angie or the trickling feeling that Anna was right and he’d acted like an asshole. He needed to do what he should have done in the first place and keep his distance.

  Focus on his son.

  Suzanne wasn’t going to be in the picture again. She’d been unconscious when the police arrived, slumped over the steering wheel, bloodstream full of drugs and alcohol, and damned lucky she hadn’t killed Brayden or someone else. Currently, she was detoxing in jail and would be staying in those accommodations for a good long while.

  Max might have felt guilty pushing for the harshest punishments for a pregnant woman, but it turned out she wasn’t actually pregnant at all. Another ploy, another manipulation.

  But this time, it would be accompanied by criminal charges and jail time.

  “I want to see Angie!”

  “Brayden,” he warned.

  His son burst into tears. “She’s dead, isn’t she? Mom killed her, and now I’ll never see Angie again, and—”

  “What?” Max rounded the table and put his arms around Brayden, holding tight despite the fact that his son tried to push him away. “No. I talked to her last night. She’s okay.”

  Brayden sniffed. “I don’t believe you.”

  “She was hurt, but she texted me last night.”

  Brayden crossed his arms. “Angie is nice. She likes me and wants to be my friend.”

  “Bray.” Max sighed when his son stuck out his bottom lip.

  “She was going to be my new mom, I know it.”

  Yeah, Max had thought that, too. But that was before he realized that taking his focus off Brayden was a mistake that would put his son at risk.

  “She was fun and loves me, and now—” His eyes welled up.

  Max said the only thing he could, “Should we check on her?”

  Finally, some light appeared in his son’s eyes. “Yes! We need to bring her flowers. And a card!” He pushed out of Max’s arms. “I’m going to go make her one.”

  “I meant call . . .” Max trailed off with a sigh.

  Sparky padded into the kitchen, eyed the bowl of cereal. Max narrowed his eyes at the dog and took it to the sink before spending a few minutes cleaning up the space. He hadn’t slept at all last night, had just sat on the floor next to Bray’s bed, listened to his son sleep, and thought about all the ways he could have lost him.

  He could have lost Brayden.

  He’d had a lucky miss, and now he needed to put all his focus back where it should be.

  Max opened the pantry door, put the cereal away, then saw the wrapped box, an envelope adorned with his name taped to it.

  “What is—?” That hadn’t been there the day before. He knew because Anna had stocked up at the grocery store while Brayden had been at school, and Max had helped her put everything away.

  He picked up the box—it rattled and was surprisingly light. He tore open the envelope.

  Max,

  I know how much you missed these, so I had a work friend pick you up a box when he was in Vancouver. Enjoy your sugar fix, just don’t send the team’s nutritionist after me.

  Love, A

  “Fuck.”

  “That’s a bad word.”

  Max jumped and whirled around. Brayden was fully dressed, card in hand. “I know, bud.”

  “Oh,” Bray said. “Angie asked me where we should hide it.” His voice got excited. “She even let me wrap it, and I put it in here because it’s food—” He clamped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, voice muffled. “I almost ruined the surprise.”

  Max stood there, eviscerated to the core.

  He’d thought Angie was a risk? Fuck, but how could she be a risk when she was so fucking wonderful with Brayden?

  “Dad?” Bray said. “Open it!”

  Max tore the paper off, held up the box.

  Brayden grinned. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s only the best cereal ever.” Something he’d mentioned once in passing during their conversations. Something she’d actively gone out of her way to get for him. Something—

  “Dammit, Anna was right,” he said. “I really fucked up.”

  “Dad!”

  He glanced down at Bray. “Sorry. But I owe Angie a really big apology. I wasn’t very nice to her last night.”

  “You lost your temper?”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, but worse. I was so worried about you and scared, that I took it out on her.”

  Bray’s brows pulled down. “That’s not cool, Dad.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  And now, shit. How the hell was he going to fix this? How was he going to prove to her that he had room in his life for both her and Brayden? Because it wasn’t a space issue . . .

  It was a how could he possibly live his life without this incredibly kind, beautiful, and gifted woman issue?

  Spoiler alert. The answer was: he couldn’t.

  “We need to get her really big bouquet of flowers,” Brayden said. “And chocolate, and—”

  “We’ll get all those for sure, bud,” Max said as an idea occurred to him, a way that just might show her how important she truly was to him and Brayden. “But we have to make a stop and get a few other things first.”

  “What things?”

  Max to
ld Bray his plan then asked, “What do you think?”

  Brayden nodded determinedly. “I think it’s perfect.”

  Thirty-Two

  Angie

  Angie had just completed a wholly unsatisfying sponge bath—which first, why was it called a freaking bath when she hardly felt any cleaner after it? And second, was wholly sponge free—when she met her gaze in her bathroom mirror.

  Bruising covered the side of her face but a bandage hid the worst of it—sixteen stitches and two staples in her scalp.

  Frankenstein, she was.

  Sighing, she dropped her towel then went into her bedroom to slip on a pair of sweats and a hoodie.

  This was a no bra and no underwear day, m’kay? She figured she’d earned it.

  Especially after the police had come to the hospital last night and taken her statement.

  For hours.

  Which had been an exercise in uselessness as far as she was concerned, considering that she hadn’t seen anything other than a flash of movement.

  The only beneficial thing was that she’d found out her attacker had been Suzanne.

  No stranger she had to worry about attacking again, no stalker waiting in the bushes, just a deranged ex-wife that would be locked up for a long time.

  Which should have been equally concerning, but Angie had already been through this before. She knew she wasn’t going to slip back down the path of not living her life, of locking herself away out of fear.

  Nope. No way. She’d take some precautions, adjust her bearings, and keep on living.

  But how to make Max see that he needed to do the same? Understandably, he had been freaked out last night. His ex-wife had snapped, put his son at risk. That would make anyone panic and lash out.

  Not that she was a glutton for punishment or ready to be someone’s punching bag. She had worth and deserved to be treated as such, but even the most casual observer had to understand that sometimes there were extenuating circumstances, and Max having his son kidnapped by his crazy ex certainly fit into those.

  Angie was ready to put his outburst aside, to move on.

  What she wasn’t ready for was to give up something precious that she’d fought her fears and anxiety to obtain.

  She finally had a family, dammit, and she wasn’t giving them up.

  After struggling with her hoodie zipper for a minute, she managed to get it lined up and zipped.

  And not a moment too soon.

  Because there was a knock at the door.

  She sighed, hurrying over. It was probably Mandy even though she’d told her not to come.

  “I’m fine—”

  Her words dried up at the sight in front of her.

  Two Stormtroopers stood on her threshold.

  “Um . . .”

  Yes. Not her finest moment of dialogue, but it wasn’t often that two cinematic characters stood on her doorstep.

  The little one held up a giant bouquet of roses.

  Angie took it. “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”

  She couldn’t help it; the situation was just too perfect to not quote a line from the original Star Wars film.

  (Star Wars: A New Hope if she were being technical).

  Brayden tore off his helmet, revealing a huge grin. “I knew you’d say that!” He turned and grabbed the other Stormtrooper’s hand. “Dad! You were right.”

  Max started to extend a box in her direction then seemed to notice her hand and halted. He tucked it under his arm then tugged off his helmet. “Hi,” he said.

  God, he was pretty.

  Black hair mussed. Blue eyes bright with emotion.

  “Hi.”

  His lips—the ones she loved to kiss—twitched. “Hi.”

  They were such dorks, and she loved him so much and so she continued along their usual tack. “Hi.”

  Brayden pushed by her. “Can we go in now? Where’s Sammy? Can I pet him?”

  “Sure—” Angie began, but Max cleared his throat and raised a brow. “Bray.”

  Brayden spun on a dime and launched himself at Angie. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  She smiled, hugging him tight, careful to not whack him with her cast or the flowers. “I’m glad you’re okay. That was scary.”

  “Yeah.” A sage nod.

  She bent, whispered, “You need to talk about it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I go see Sammy now?”

  “Sure.” She pointed to the bedroom. “He was sleeping on the windowsill last I saw.”

  Brayden tore off down the hall, leaving her alone with Max and suddenly feeling nervous. Maybe this was just a pity visit. Or the precursor to a kiss-off-and-leave-him-alone. Or—

  What had that been about her fighting for what she wanted?

  Well . . . it had certainly been a lot easier going in her mind.

  Max took the flowers from her hands and headed for the kitchen. He found a vase on his second try of her cabinets then plunked the bouquet into the water.

  “Here,” he said, handing her the box.

  “Um.”

  “Open it first. Then we can—”

  His eyes were so serious that she found she had to break the tension. “There better not be confetti in here.”

  Max shook his head, the barest trace of a smile on his lips. “No confetti.”

  She tore one corner of the wrapping paper, stopped, and sighed. “Why am I so nervous?”

  He took her good hand, used it to continue tearing the paper off. “Because I was a total jackass, and you deserved better. I was panicked, but—”

  “I get it—” she began.

  “Well, I don’t.” He tossed the paper aside. “You’re important, Angel. And fuck, but I love you so much. Last night was . . . a supremely shitty way to show it. I was out of my mind and horrible and—”

  “Max.”

  “I need you to see,” he said, “that I will never treat you like that again. I was all ramped up and ready to play the martyr, to try and survive without you because it would be quote-unquote better for me to focus on my son.”

  Her heart twisted. Maybe that was better?

  “I—”

  “But you know what I realized? This morning, I saw your gift. Just cereal, but so you—thoughtful and sweet.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t just the gift itself. Brayden was so excited because you included him in it. Same as he was thrilled to go with you to the game last night and to invite you to the concert.” His hands were trembling now, the box rattling in their shared hold. “I realized that you don’t just make my life better. You make Brayden’s life better, too.”

  She inhaled rapidly. “I love you both. But I understand if you need to keep it just the two of you. I’d like to be friends with you and him at the very least, but—”

  “Open it.” He inclined his chin toward the box, which was now paper-free, but the plain cardboard did nothing to reveal its contents.

  Angie gave him a questioning look.

  What was in that damned box that was so important?

  His eyes warmed. “Never mind. I’ll do it.” And he took off the lid.

  “Oh.” She sniffed, tears immediately welling up. “Dammit!” She smacked him, but it wasn’t out of anger. She was so incredibly touched, and now he was going to turn her into a watering pot.

  Because inside that box was the cartoon drawing from an artist on the pier. The one who drew little caricatures of people and families. Only this one had been done in the theme of Star Wars.

  Max was there, along with Brayden, Anna, and Sparky.

  And Angie was there, too.

  She was in their family drawing.

  “Fuck,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes.

  Because Sammy was there, too.

  “Fuck’s a bad word,” Brayden said, coming up behind her and surprising her with another hug. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. Dad says it more.”

  She met Max’s amused gaze. “It’s true,
” he said with a shrug.

  Brayden tugged her good hand. “Do you like it?”

  “I love it so much,” she told him.

  “And you’ll be part of our family?”

  “I would love that more than anything in the world.”

  He smiled and Max set the box down on her kitchen counter. “Go play with Sammy for a few minutes. I’m going to kiss Angie now.”

  “Ew.”

  Brayden ran back down the hall.

  “Really?” she asked, raising a brow. “You had to tell him that?”

  “He’ll need to get used to the idea,” Max said, tugging her close. “I plan on kissing you a lot.”

  Her lips curved. “Yeah?”

  He nuzzled the curve of her jaw, nibbled at her ear lobe. “Yeah.”

  “Cool,” she said, affecting Brayden’s tone.

  They both burst into laughter, Max’s hot breath on her neck making her shiver. “I thought you were going to kiss me,” she teased when they both had regained control of themselves.

  “That’s the plan,” he told her and cupped her face in both palms. “I just—I don’t want you to forgive me so easily. I was a real ass—”

  She cupped one of his cheeks in turn, the unwieldy cast getting in her way on the other. “Damn, you really are determined to hold on to that martyr card, huh?” Her lips found his for a short kiss. “I was already cooking up a plan because I wasn’t going to let you push me away from the best thing in my life.”

  “Thing?” he asked. “You mean Brayden?”

  “No,” she said then hurried to add before he could misinterpret her, “I mean, he’s wonderful, but what I really meant was that I wasn’t going to let you push me away from my family.” She smiled. “Luckily for us both, you came to your senses before I had to jump you and force you to see reason.”

  Max paused, head tilting as though considering. “How exactly were you going to jump me?”

  Angie snorted. “Don’t you want to know?”

  “I do,” he said, laughing. “I really do.”

  “Maybe I’ll show you sometime,” she teased, bringing her mouth close and her body flush to his. Her breasts brushed his chest, her pelvis pressed firmly against the hard ridge of his erection.