IMPACT: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (4 page)

"Really?" I could not believe I was having this conversation with my mother. One, because she had never shown an interest in hockey since I'd known her. And two, because I was finding out all these things about Brad from
her.

Instead of...oh I don't know...from Brad himself.

"Well," my mother soothed, sensing my mood, "It's not like it matters any more anyway, right? You guys are through."

"Yeah. I mean, pretty much."

"Oh?" My mother's eyebrows nearly zoomed off her forehead.

I stood up and stalked to the kitchen. The jitters were already setting in, but I brewed another pot anyway. I needed the time to think.

"I'm going to be seeing him again, for sure," I called to my mom.

She appeared in the doorway to my tiny kitchen and leaned against the frame. "Why's that?"

"He's Ian's best friend," I sighed. "Candace's Ian. Candace's fiancé?"

"Ooh."

"Yeah."

"The wedding?"

"He'll most likely be best man."

"That's awkward."

I laughed. "Yeah well, not as awkward as it's going to be when I ask him why the hell he never talked to me about his job." I poured another cup of coffee and then looked down at my hand and wondered why it was shaking. "We totally talked all the time. I mean, sort of. I may be a self-absorbed bitch sometimes, but I certainly didn't ignore him when we talked."

My mother's silence spoke volumes. "Well," she exhaled after a long beat, "I can start making some eggs if you have them. Want me to scramble them the way you like?"

"Sure," I answered glumly. I was still stuck on the fact that my mother seemed to know more about Bradley Scott than I did. We were too busy having wild, incredible sex to pay attention to such a trifling matter as what he did all day long. Apparently.

Of course, I could remember babbling nearly ninety miles an hour about my job, and my coworkers, and how I spent my days. And he had listened to every single word.

Why the hell that he never told me anything about himself?

And why the hell did it bother me so much?

Chapter 4

Brad

Our first away game was in Pittsburgh in two days. We were leaving tomorrow morning after a quick practice. I had to pack still and check in with the equipment manager about the rough edge on my right skate.

A ton of little shit to take care of, but I couldn't concentrate on any of it.

Because at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I had to collect Marcus.

It had to be me. There was no one else who would willingly give up part of his or her day to do my asshole brother a favor. My mother up in Glencoe was too busy praying for his soul to worry about taking care of his body. And Marc had burned through the little goodwill he had left with his friends when he'd gotten his ass thrown into prison three years ago.

So it was on me. His shit was my shit. Just like always.

The blazing heat of a full-on Indian summer made my morning run pretty miserable. But that was fine. It matched my mood. The summer heat still shimmered in the air, but the air inside Johnny's IceHouse West was ice cold, raising goose bumps on my superheated skin. I was already exhausted and this long, stupid day had barely begun.

Ian was already changing into his practice uniform when I arrived, sweating, in the locker room.

He took a dramatic step backward and waved his hand in front of his nose. "You smell like something that died in a vat of vinegar."

"And good morning to you too, asshole," I grumbled.

"Always the ray of sunshine," Ian joked. Then he paused. "You doin' okay today?"

I shot him a quizzical look, confused at his uncharacteristic concern. I hadn't told him Marcus was getting out. Ian thought my brother was a piece of shit. And he wasn't exactly wrong. But it really made no difference either. Marc was my brother. We looked out for each other. That was that.

He couldn't be talking about Marcus so he must be...

Oh.

Of course. Candace must have told him about Olivia. And he was checking in to see if I wanted to chat about my feelings and emotions or some shit.

Awesome.

"Yeah. Of course I'm okay," I said, dismissing the idea that I missed Olivia with a grunt.

"You want to, I dunno, talk about it or some shit?" Ian looked supremely uncomfortable.

I waved my hand. "Nah," I said, in a voice I didn't recognize. "It's cool. It's a good idea, really. We had a shitload of fun, but that's all it really was."

"Olivia's a ballbuster," Ian declared, in the understatement of the year. "She'll realize her mistake, dude. Don't sweat it. You guys will figure it out."

But he didn't sound convinced, and I, even though I was a dumbfuck most of the time, was too smart to be fooled by his lies.

I slammed my locker closed, shutting the door on my shit
and
on this line of conversation. "Let's go play some fucking hockey. It'll help distract me."

The rink felt like a refrigerator and helped cool me down. I looked around at the new faces; fresh-scrubbed recruits still sporting baby fat along their jaws. Was I so young when I started? These kids looked practically fetal.

But Coach Randall was still the constant. Out there on the ice, looking utterly pissed at everything. His normal expression, basically. The man was always either purple with indignation or red with rage. I barely recognized him the first time I saw him off the ice and his face was a normal color.

He shouted over the sound of the new guys' chatter. "Listen up! Carter's got an announcement."

We all looked over to Ian, who in turn looked at the ground. "I'm not a speech guy," he said, clearing his throat. "New guys, ask one of us old fucks to catch you up. Or I dunno, check Wikipedia or some shit. Whatever you need to do to figure out why I'm telling you that I can't act as captain this year."

I felt my stomach drop. I knew this was coming...but I didn't know it would be today.

There was a murmur. He held up his hand. "My knee is fucked. The docs say they can get me on the ice, and you can bet your ass I’m going to be working like hell to be out there with you.  But until you can count on me to be at every game, I’m not the right choice for captain. You all need to pick a new one."

Coach Randall cleared his throat. "I told Ian it wasn't a choice, but then he sicced his mom on me and I had to let him do it."

There was an appreciative chuckle. Coach Randall was Ian's stepdad and what shit he didn't get from Ian on the rink he caught from his mother at home. Poor guy probably never had a peaceful moment. No wonder he usually looked furious. "So I had to give in," he continued. "We've got a new team this year. More recruits than seasoned players. I'm going to let the vote be up to you. Take a week, see how it shakes out for you."

The rest of the team nodded as one, and I spotted one or two of the new guys starting to puff up. Little shits thought they could fill Ian's skates. The notion pissed me off more than the surprise did. "You could have fucking told me," I snarled to Ian.

"If I did," Ian said evenly, "You would have tried to change my mind."

I exhaled, trying to let go of some of this weird, free-floating anxiety. "Yeah, you're right. Who the fuck is going to be captain now? Oswald?" I asked, naming our veteran goalie.

"Did you hear he and his wife are reconciling?" Ian said, nimbly avoiding the fucking question.

"Yeah, good for them," I growled. This was fucked. A team full of raw newbies and our enforcer, our fucking captain, was stepping aside. And I couldn't even deal with this now. I snuck a look at the clock overhead. In less than twenty-four hours, my brother would be walking out of MCC, and back into my life again. I jammed my helmet onto my head. "Let's play."

Chapter 5

Olivia

"What do you think of this one?" I asked Candace, eye fucking the banking type who was blatantly staring in our direction. "'That suit is pretty becoming on you. Then again, if I were on you, I'd be cumming too
.'
"

Candace snorted into her Shirley Temple and I grinned in triumph. "That’s pretty fucking terrible," she observed. But she was still smiling so I didn’t believe her at all.

The closer we got to Candace's due date, the more freaked out she was about going out. "This might be the last time we can do this!" she'd screech into the phone, practically every evening, completely panicked. There was no begging off that I was tired, or, god forbid, not in the mood to drink on a Tuesday evening.

It didn't matter if my heart wasn't really into it. If my Candy Cane wanted to go out, well then I had a moral duty to join her and perform my role as her best friend.

In other words; drink too much, tell embarrassing stories starring myself, misbehave and, most importantly, blatantly hit on men for her amusement. 

I tossed my hair over my shoulder and leaned against our table, letting suit-man get an eyeful of my cleavage. "Like a moth to a flame," I preened, as he scooted right over.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he practically begged.

"I'm already drinking, but I'm feeling a little nauseous. Maybe you have some hard candy I could suck on?" I slurped up a big mouthful of my fruity cocktail, just for the pleasure of watching his eyes bulge.

  He stiffened at the innuendo. I’m pretty sure something else stiffened too. Now I was off and running,  "I hear they have hot dogs here," I went on, waving towards the bar and then looking him dead in the eye. "I'm looking for something I can slip between my buns."

The suited guy reddened. Candace desperately avoided eye contact, her lips pressed together to stop herself from bursting into hysterical laughter. I blinked slowly at him and ran my tongue along my teeth.

He turned and ran away.

"Oh my god!" Candace cackled. "I think you broke his brain!"

I leaned back in my chair. "Aw," I grumbled. "I scared him off."

The image of Brad devouring a hot dog came unbidden to my mind.
He
would have loved that line
.

"Who?" Candace wondered.

Shit.
I had no idea I had said that out loud. I lifted my chin, wondering if I should lie and then decided it wasn't worth it. Everything was cool, right? I didn't regret ending things with him at all. I was happy to be back in bars hitting on guys. This was my natural habitat. "Brad," I answered, casually swirling my straw in my drink.

Candace gave me a penetrating look, one I couldn't quite understand. "You should say it to him then."

"Um, he's not exactly available."

"You have a phone, smartass."

I swallowed. "We agreed not to call each other."

Candace threw up her hands. "So text it to him!"

"But...."

Candace took her straw out of her drink and jammed it in my direction. "Who the hell is this 'fraidy cat in front of me and where the fuck did my ballsy best friend go? It's not a
call
, it's a
text
. You guys parted on good terms, right?"

"Did you seriously just call me a 'fraidy cat?"

"I did. Am I wrong?" She jutted her chin out at me.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Yes. Yes, you are."

"You told me you guys parted as friends."

"We did."

"So what's the problem? Send your friend Brad a funny text. Make him laugh." She leaned back. "I know that Ian's all stressed to fuck about having to pack up and head out on the road. Brad's probably the same way. He could use the pick me up."

I nodded. I didn't want Candace to know how guilty I felt about sending Brad away.
No
regrets.
I felt no regret about telling Brad it was over, so why did I feel so guilty about the idea of contacting him right now?

Because it turns out you dumped him before you learned anything about him. Because you really enjoyed being with him, even when you weren't fucking him, but you were too stubborn and set in your sluttish ways to admit it.

Because you probably really hurt his feelings.

I shook my head, swatting away the thoughts that swarmed liked mosquitos.
Bullshit.
Brad was a grown-ass man. A big, bearded hockey player for fuck's sake. He had exactly two emotional states - hunger and horniness. That's what I liked about him. He was an un-fucking-complicated guy. Not even a guy. A boy.

A boy who loved my cheesy ass pickup lines.

A boy I kind of really missed.
Sort of. Maybe.

"Fine," I grumbled. "I'll send it to him." then I brightened a little. "I don't think I ever even got to use it on him. That's one of my new ones."

"He's missing out then," Candace said sharply. She was giving me a look I had never seen her give to me before. She looked like she disagreed with me.  She looked like she was
disappointed.

Chapter 6

Brad

My alarm was set to go off at six and even that made me nervous. Traffic getting across town to the MCC campus was a total crapshoot at that hour. Marcus was getting released right during the morning rush, and it was supposed to rain to boot.

I leaned over and picked my phone up. Better to make it five thirty. 

But as I flicked through the menus, it buzzed right in my hand.

I hadn't deleted Olivia's number from my phone. I hadn't blocked her either. Maybe I should have? Maybe I should have also immediately deleted the text she just sent me. Instead of reading it over and over again, my pulse quickening each time my eyes drank in the words.

Olivia: If I said, "that suit's becoming on you, and if I were on you, I'd be coming too," you'd totally appreciate it, wouldn't you?

All thoughts of going to bed early fled my brain. My heart was pounding with...excitement? Anger? Why would I be angry that she was contacting me? Except that I had nearly made it one whole day without thinking of her... and here she was, reminding me that I was
not
over her in the slightest.

I tapped out a snide response, deleted it, tapped out a sexy response, deleted that even faster, and finally settled on:

Me: I would. For sure.

Then I put my phone aside.

Then I picked it up again, remembering my alarm, and saw her message, waiting.

Olivia: What would you say back? If I had said it to you?

I sat up in bed and thought for a second.

Me: That dress looks nice on you, but it would look better on my floor.

I set my phone down and closed my eyes. I could see Olivia, projected there on the back of my eyelids. She would be sitting on her bed in her pajamas - either that little slinky black thing she preferred, or, if she was feeling lazy, just that little white cotton set that had been my favorite - I didn't dare consider that she might be naked. She'd have one long, olive-toned leg stretched out in front of her and the other one tucked underneath. When she saw my reply, she'd laugh her full-throated laugh, tossing her head back to expose that long neck of hers and causing her hair to fall along her back in disarray. Then she'd tuck the long strands of hair back behind her ears, bite her lip and smile as she dove back for her phone, too delighted with her games to think for one second about how she was driving me crazy.

My hand was already on my cock. Olivia with those green eyes of hers, watching my every move, like a cat ready to pounce. Olivia who made me laugh so hard I'd forget about my stutter and just relax. Olivia, who wasn't afraid of anything... except the feelings we had for each other.

I exhaled hard, releasing my grip on my cock. I wasn't going to do this....

Olivia: Very nice, Bradley. You have a proper appreciation of these things.

I have a proper appreciation of
you
, I didn't write.
I miss you
I typed, then deleted. I also didn't write,
Don't toy with me. We can't just be friends. I thought we could, but we can't. You mean way more to me than I ever realized. I need you more than I want to and if I can't have you then I need you completely gone and out of my life.

Instead, I deliberately took my hand off of my stiffening cock and wrote what needed to be said.

Me: I need to head to bed. We're leaving tomorrow.

But Olivia was not one for subtlety, nor was she someone who left a conversation before she had said her piece.

Olivia: Where are you headed first?

Me: Pittsburgh.

Olivia: Ooh, lucky you!

Me: Totally.

Olivia: Maybe you could go to Primanti Brothers and eat one of their famous sandwiches with the fries on them.

Olivia: You have time to eat out while you're there, right?

Olivia: You really like eating out.

Olivia: You're good at it too.

My pulse was rising fast and my cock even faster. What the fuck was she doing? This girl was going to kill me.

Me: Yes. I enjoy restaurants.

The three little dots that showed she was typing hung on my screen. I stared at them, breathing hard.

There was a fucking line, and she crossed it. And even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I shot her down.

I hated her for making me hurt her this way.

The next incoming text seemed almost embarrassed.

Olivia: Well, I should let you go, then. Good luck.

Me: Thanks.

She didn't type anything after that, and I eventually gave up staring at my phone and set it back down on my night-table with the alarm set. I closed my eyes, but sleep wouldn't come. I reached out for my phone again, wanting to start the whole conversation over again.

I want to talk to her and she apparently wants to talk to me. We want each other, but we're not together anymore.

What the fuck are we doing?

This wasn't what I wanted. Lying here, alone in my bed, her spot next to me still empty. What I wanted was to take her panties off with my teeth and let her go buck wild on my face. I wanted to taste the way she tasted in the deepest parts of her. She used to tell me that only I knew how to get to those places. To think, to even have a passing thought, that some other guy might get the opportunity to taste what I considered mine.

Fuck that shit.

Fuck being friends.

Fuck doing the right thing, fuck being rational grown-ups making rational fucking decisions.

Fuck getting tongue-tied and shy in the face of the Olivia-onslaught.

I was going to get her back.

Where she belonged.

In this bed.

As soon as I made that decision, my anxiety about tomorrow melted away and I slept like a rock.

*****

Morning came too quickly. The shushing sound of rain against the windows had me in a stupor and I dragged my feet all morning so that by the time I reached the front gate of Metropolitan Correctional Center, Marcus was already waiting outside.

I threw my battered old pickup into park and took a deep breath. Then I stepped out into the rain.

"You still drive this old piece of shit?" Marc called by way of greeting. He was grinning ear to ear.

"She's more reliable than you are," I shot back, going in for a bone-crushing hug. "You're bald, what the hell happened?"

Someone, maybe it was him, had shaved off all of his dark brown hair, leaving a scalp so pale it looked like he was wearing a white swim cap over his head.

"New me, bro, what do you think?"

"I think you look like an idiot, so nothing has changed, really," I said, slapping the back of his head.

Marc was three years older than me, and I had always considered him my
big
brother. The fact that I stood taller than him, the fact that my shoulders were broader and my waistline narrower, these were all facts that had nothing to do with my impressions.

My big brother was out. I pulled him in for another impromptu hug.

"Oof," he grunted as I socked him in the side. "Calm the fuck down, little brother, you're gonna break my fucking ribs."

"Pussy. Didn't you work out at all in the prison gym?" I yanked open the passenger door - you have to have the right touch otherwise it'd get stuck - and Marc climbed in.

"I did. Look at this shit." Marc pulled up the sleeve of his gray sweatshirt and flexed his bicep.

"Ooh, I'm terrified," I mocked.

"Shut the fuck up and get me the hell out of here? That is, if you can get this piece of shit running." Marc looked back into the bed and burst out laughing. "Isn't this the same truck you had when you were in high school?"