Hooked On Her: Ice Kings, #3 Page 4

  See? Nicest guy ever. It’s too bad he’ll never be my nice guy. And his presence and kindness is putting a serious kink into my “Get over my stupid crush” plan.

  “That’s nice of you and all, but I already have one brother looking out for me, I don’t really want another right now.”

  “I’m not your brother.”

  Yeah. Trust me. I know that very well. I shrug my shoulders and shift in my chair. Perhaps if I start ignoring him, he’ll go away and yet I hate the sting in my eyes when I do so, knowing it’s because I can’t have him. “You know what I mean. I just need a few minutes to chill and then I’ll be back out there, okay?”

  “I know what you mean, Tessa. But trust me, I’ve never once thought of myself as your brother.”

  “What?” My head jerks in his direction and this time, my eyes are wide open.

  “You heard me. How drunk were you on New Year’s?”

  Oh God. My heart is thumping out of control and there’s some strange tingle racing down my legs. If I were standing, I’d definitely collapse. I haven’t even been quite sure that moment we had was real.

  It was?

  “New Year’s?” I’m almost laughing hysterically at this point.

  And yet, he’s moving. Closer. Like in slow motion giving me plenty of time to leap and lunge over the rows of chairs to escape and yet somehow, my feet are super glued to the carpet.

  I’m too stunned by all of this because what in the heck!? I’m stuck here, rooted to my spot while he leans in… so close. So close I can smell his cologne or body wash or maybe it’s his natural pheromones that makes him smell so edible. Like candy. Strawberries dipped in chocolate. Sinfully yummy chocolate.

  “I wasn’t drunk on New Year’s.” That’s right, brain. You can work. Think. Speak. All the good things.

  Jason moves closer, looms over me with his brawn and beefy goodness until his lips are at my cheek. I shiver, darn my stupid teenage crush that’s only multiplied over the years. I cling to the chair behind me. Otherwise, I’ll rip off his shirt, climb him like a tree, and have my way with him and YIKES! Not good! Abort! Abort!

  “So you remember what I said.”

  “Umm.” I mean, I have this fuzzy memory of him almost kissing me, but surely that can’t be what he’s implying. Perhaps it was when he asked me if I wanted champagne. Some totally innocuous earlier conversation before the hallway incident.

  “Jason.” I say nothing else. There isn’t anything else to say. “Why did you come in here?”

  “Because you’re not with Will, and I’m pretty sure that night I gave you a hint of what I was feeling and you froze up. But in case you need it said more clearly, here it is. You’re not with Will. And I’m tired of waiting.”

  Don’t ask! Don’t ask! Don’t even think of asking! “Waiting for what?”

  I said don’t ask! My brain screams at me. I definitely need to find some mental help pronto.

  “You know…” he drawls and it’s so irritating how calm he can be right now. “I think I’m going to let you finally figure that out for yourself,” he whispers and gah! Why is he doing this and what is this madness. I’m dreaming. I have to be! I pinch myself and squeak from the pain.

  He chuckles at my ridiculousness.

  He steps back and grins. I can’t decide if I want to slap him or kiss him. It’s not possible he’s meant any of this. No way.

  No how.

  “Sawyer,” I say and I want to slam my hands over my mouth.

  Jason’s smile falters for only a moment and he shrugs. “Maybe I don’t really give a crap of your brother’s opinion about what this would be anymore.”

  What this would be? What would WHAT be? What does he mean!?

  He turns then and walks away. He’s leaving? After tossing me a grenade with the pin pulled? What do I do with this?

  When he gets to the doorway he turns, and I brace myself for the punch line of his joke. Oh hey, just kidding, Tessa. You’re my totally too cute and too young sister. I’m totally messing with you.

  Oh Jason… you funny, funny boy, you.

  “I’m going to head home. Want a ride?”

  Yeah, I want a ride. Probably not the kind he’s thinking of with four wheels in an enclosed vehicle. Mine is more sweaty. Without clothes. On a soft surface. Heck, any surface will do.

  “No,” I choke out. Bad idea! I’m full of them today! I blame the sun and this wretched heat. Us Canadians aren’t equipped to handle it. “No.”

  “See you soon, then.”

  The last thing I see is a flash of his sparkling white teeth. I drop back to my chair and somehow, sit right on my phone because beneath my ass a muffled voice says, “Breathe deep.”

  “Yeah, meditator… I’m breathing deep. Trust me.”

  “This sucks.” I pop a grape into my mouth and hug the fruit bowl tighter. Apparently fruit is Debbie’s first craving and the fridge is stocked with all kinds of it.

  “What do you think you’ll do?” She’s lounging on her couch, feet tucked beneath a blanket. She has dark circles under her eyes and a rumpled tank top on. She came out of the bathroom thirty minutes ago after another morning puke-a-thon, collapsed onto the couch with a pathetic sound, and hasn’t moved in hours.

  She listened to me call the police department closest to my neighborhood. I was transferred to three different people before finally explaining to a detective what happened last Friday. Unfortunately, everything I learned isn’t the greatest news and not much different from what I was expecting. It was our joint bank account. Both of our names are on the apartment lease. All the furniture was purchased from said joint account making it all ours. Sure, Will-the-slimeball shouldn’t have taken everything and he definitely stole since all the money going into the account was my money.

  But as far as recourse? The detective said things could get “sticky.” He assured me they’d have officers swing by the apartment and check it out, file a claim. I’ve called my landlord to ensure the company gives them access considering I’m out of the country. Detective Richard Struble also kindly explained they can enlist the divisions to assist in finding Will if I can send them a recent picture as well as if they can find one of him on a camera, but in all honesty, his lack of enthusiasm doesn’t give me much confidence anything will be found. Or if it is, that there’s really anything we can do to get it back.

  When I called the landlord, I also asked if she can give access for the insurance company whenever I call them to file my claim. Even then, if it’s discovered Will took everything, they might not be able to provide any assistance.

  In short, none of it looks promising. Even if they find Will, it’ll be complicated to prove he stole from me. All the bank records show are withdrawals made starting a week ago which I never caught.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do.” I toss another grape into my mouth and chew slowly.

  “You can stay here,” Debbie says and I laugh quietly.

  “Right. I’ll just move on in.” Don’t get me wrong, their place is really nice. They live in a decent-sized townhouse, and while I know it’s expensive due to its location in a ritzy area of Charlotte, the home isn’t that large. I can stand at the kitchen island and overlook the entire downstairs. The kitchen opens up to the dining area and the living room behind it. It’s gorgeous and updated with gleaming white woodwork and sparkling wood floors and a wood stairway that leads to the bedrooms upstairs. But it’s only two bedrooms. And as I’ve recently learned, built with thin walls.

  I used to tease Sawyer about his humble home considering the money he made but stopped the day he turned to me and replied, “I can live like a king for a short time, or ensure I live easy forever.” Sawyer’s always claimed he knows his professional career won’t last forever and while he’s one of the highest-paid defenseman in the league, he’s still thirty-three years old. He doesn’t have many years left if he keeps being hard on his body. I know when he retires, he wants to be able to maintain his standard of living wh
ile never having to worry about money. Now that his family is expanding, I can’t imagine they’ll stay here. He’ll want a yard for his child to run in someday, maybe a pool.

  “It doesn’t have to be permanent. But you have more vacation time, right? You can stay until your next paycheck comes and the insurance claim goes through. At least then you don’t have to sleep on your floor and live on ramen.”

  “I like ramen.”

  “You’re also stubborn.”

  “It’s a Chauncy family trait.”

  “I’m well aware,” she drolls. Reaching over to her bowl of oyster crackers, she tosses one at my face and then plops back to the couch. “God. Every time I move I think I’m going to puke.”

  “You shouldn’t have let my brother put his woohoo in you then.”

  She waggles her brows and smirks. “Your brother’s woohoo—”

  “Enough!” I slam my hands over my ears. I started this, but that’s enough. I should have known better than to have said anything. The thought of Sawyer’s willy or woohoo or whatchamacallit getting anywhere near Debbie makes me be the one who’s going to vomit.

  Her laugh is sweet but short, quickly followed by a moan. “You’re supposed to head back in a few days and on top of working you have to deal with all this bologna. Why don’t you stay here a couple more weeks?”

  I can call my boss. Email him. Antoine Benoit is a really decent man and a great boss. If I tell him Will took all my belongings, he’ll probably set me up in his family’s guest bedroom. Sharing a house with four kids under the age of eight isn’t really my idea of a great time.

  “I don’t know…”

  Maybe I don’t really give a crap of your brother’s opinion about what this would be anymore. It’s not the first or the thousandth time Jason’s words have slithered through my mind since yesterday. I lost my train of thought so much earlier talking to Detective Stroble I’m pretty certain he thinks I’m making this whole thing up. Surely people who are telling the truth can say it much more effectively than the constant stammers of “uhs” and “huhs” I used.

  But it’s Jason. The very last thing I was expecting was for him to say that and I’m still not sure I heard him correctly. I mean, why? Why now? And what does it really mean?

  I think I should call his team doctor, maybe have his head examined for all the strange things he said to me the other day at that pool party. He wanted to talk to me? Take care of me? Now in addition to having to figure out my life in Canada, I have to figure out what in the world to do with the dark-haired—and most likely concussed—man I’ve always loved.

  The hits just keep on coming and one more might knock me out completely.

  “It could be great though, if you want to stay longer. You can help me start picking things out for the baby. Or decorate the nursery. And… if you decide you like it here, then you can see your little niece or nephew grow up. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

  Debbie’s usually pretty perky. She was a natural-born and good cheerleader all through high school. What she’s not usually is manipulative.

  My eyes narrow. “Did Sawyer try to convince you into talking me into this?”

  He’s been at the training facility all day.

  She has the grace to blush, but her hand slips to her still completely flat stomach and rubs gentle circles. “No. Why ever would you think that?”

  I snort and stab a piece of melon with a fork. “I’ll think about it.”

  After all, what exactly is waiting for me back home?

  Chapter Seven

  Jason

  * * *

  “Well get me someone who does not cry all the time then.”

  I can’t help but laugh at the way Sylvia, our team’s travel director, barks through the phone. She’s a robust Russian woman, almost my mother’s age. She’s as terrifying as facing down Washington’s enforcer who’s given me more than a few black eyes over the years. On the inside, I’m convinced she’s sweet as apple pie. I enjoy trying to dig that part out of her.

  Pretty sure she likes to pretend she hates me for it.

  I’m outside her office today only because I need to let her know my parents won’t be coming to watch our pre-season games this year. They tend to alternate trips between seeing Jude and I play and our little brother Joey out in Las Vegas. This year, it was their turn for our pre-season where they were supposed to spend a few nights in hotels and join us on the road. The guys love it when my dad is with us. Coaches too. Yeah, my dad’s a legend, but he’s also damn fun and slightly crazy. But since Jude was injured last season, they want to make sure they’re here for our first home game stretch instead.

  Enter Sylvia.

  As the team’s travel director, she’s essentially our boss when we travel. She takes care of the entire team and coaches’ schedules, ensuring we all have rooms and roommates we don’t hate. She makes sure busses are scheduled to take us from hotels to arenas. That we eat on time. That our gear doesn’t get lost. She’s our mom. A mean one. I’m pretty sure she wishes she could paddle us with our sticks when we don’t listen to her.

  Listening to her shout into her phone over another lost assistant? Hilarious. It’s a demanding job during the season and I have a lot of respect for the members of our team who don’t take to the ice but take care of all of us in the background. But Sylvia goes through assistants faster than I go through stick tape.

  Wait. Hold up a second….

  She’s still shouting as the thought forms. I should probably call Sawyer. Have him float this idea out. But nope, this is it… my opportunity.

  I knock on Sylvia’s door while she continues ranting in her thick Russian accent about not needing pansy assistants who can’t do their jobs. She either doesn’t hear it or ignores me, but I enter despite the risks of her throwing a flaming dart at my chest.

  She glares at me and slams her phone down. “Vhat do you vant?” It’s amazing after all this time in the States, at least thirty years, her W’s still sound like V’s.

  “Maybe if you stopped making them all cry, someone would stick around.” I think Sylvia’s turnover ratio on assistants is higher than the team’s trading average.

  She gives me a look that can kill a hard-on. “You are bugging me. And I am busy.”

  “I have someone—”

  Her glare narrows. Pretty sure she’s at risk of snapping the pen in her hand and it looks metal.

  “You know. On second thought, never mind. She’s probably too nice to work for you.”

  I don’t need to help out Tessa, convince her to take this job and maybe move here only to have Sylvia kill her soul.

  “Not interested in one of your floozies—”

  “It’s Chauncy’s sister. And who in the hell still says floozies?”

  She taps her pen to the desk, lips pressed into a pout. When Sylvia frowns, a grouping of lines burrow deep into her forehead.

  “Humph,” she finally grunts. “I can try to be nice to her. For Sawyer. He’s a nice boy.”

  I’m pretty sure Sawyer hasn’t been called a boy since he was nine.

  “But not me?” I press my hand to my chest and give her a puppy dog look. I swear the woman loves me. Deep down, deep, deep down in her tiny black heart. “Sylvia. I’m hurt.”

  “To be hurt you’d have to have heart.” Takes one to no one, I suppose. “Have her email me her resume or call me if she’s interested.” She flips her hand in the air. “Now go. You bug me too much.”

  In my mind I hear it as Jason Taylor, you are my favorite boy on the team. Come on in and kick your feet up. Stay awhile.

  “I actually did come up here with something else to tell you.” I push off the wall of her office and duck as the pen she’s holding flies at my head. “Hey! No stabbing the assistant captain! Coach has already warned you about this.”

  I grin as I bend down and pick it up.

  “Vhat do you vant.”

  I take a slow, cautious step toward her desk and set down the pen. “My p
arents’ schedule has changed. But—” I lift my hands in the air before she throws something else at me. “This makes it easier for you. No traveling. They’ll only be here for the home games and they’re staying with Jude.”

  And Lord help him and Katie for it.

  She scribbles something down on a notepad in front of her and doesn’t look at me. “Any work more than what I had is not easy. Spoiled boys. All of you. What else?”

  “Nothing, except I’d love to say that the color of your shirt makes you look very beautiful today.”

  She’s wearing a black shirt. She always wears a black shirt. And in all honesty, it makes her look a little washed out, but I love my balls way too much to ever say such a thing.

  I grin shamelessly. I have two goals in life. Get Tessa to admit she loves me and get Sylvia here to admit she doesn’t want me to die in a fiery inferno.

  “Humph.” She goes back to writing my death plans but I swear I see a smile. Just a twitch.

  I wait until after Sawyer and I are done working out in the team’s training facility before I approach Sawyer about my idea. Mostly it’s because I want to be the one to bring it up with Tessa.

  She’ll probably growl at me for getting involved in her life, tell me how stupid I am for thinking this. Hell, she does have a job and a life in Canada and even without dipshit Will who will lose his balls someday soon, she has to have friends. A social life. Co-workers. Maybe she doesn’t want to consider something else.

  Which is why it’s important I see her face to face when I bring this up because I know Tessa better than I know how to read the puck on the ice.

  I’m spotting Sawyer as he bench presses, biting my tongue with my excitement over this opportunity. Hell, he loves Tessa. He’ll probably champion it before he considers what it means to work for Sylvia. I don’t doubt he’d love to have her close. Their parents, while incredible, are also pretty anti-social and homebodies. They’re sweet people, full of open arms and refrigerators for when I’d come to visit but I know they prefer to stick close to their small town forty-five minutes outside Toronto. They rarely watch Sawyer play anymore because they don’t like to fly and other than their annual cruise they take over New Year’s, the only games I’ve seen them at are when we’re within driving distance.