Lucky Score (The Hawkeyes Hockey Series Book 6)

It’s been almost an hour since I left Brynn, and I’m already counting down the minutes until I’ll have her up against my shower wall, helping her create content for the next dirty scene in her book.

After some cardio and weight lifting, Silas and I move over to the squat rack to finish up for the day.

‘I haven’t heard from you about your hurricane intruder in a while. I have some openings at the hotel now if you need a room for her,’ Silas says, finishing his set on the squat rack.

‘Thanks, but Rita ended up giving her the apartment to stay in, and she’s only here for another couple of days.’

Discussing Brynn’s expiration date here and the inevitable conclusion that she’s headed home to get back together with her ex, unsettles something in my stomach.

‘What a weird situation, but I guess she couldn’t have known that she had booked a scam vacation rental. You must be relieved that it’s over.’

‘Not exactly,’ I say, finishing my last rep and dropping the bar and weights on the padded gym floor.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she stayed the night last night and she’s still in my bed waiting for me to get back.’

‘Shit, that situation changed fast. So you kicked her out of your house but now you’re sleeping with her?’ he asks, one eyebrow lifted in question.

I don’t blame him. I was hellbent on getting her out of my house the last time we talked and now I’m trying to think of ways to keep her in it until she leaves.

‘That’s the gist of it.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ he asks.

‘It’s been on and off for a couple of weeks, I guess.’

‘Sounds complicated… especially for you,’ he says and then reaches for his water bottle to take a drink.

‘What do you mean ‘especially for you’?’

‘I just mean that I’ve known you for fifteen years now, and in that time, you’ve maintained a strict rule about never bringing a woman back to your place. I’ve never seen you date anyone seriously and I’ve only seen you with a small handful of women over the years.

‘Ok, what’s your point?’ I grumble.

I know where this is going since I already get it from Cammy and Rita. Working out with Silas is supposed to be my escape from those two, but now I can see that I’m going to get flak from all sides.

‘My point is that this woman shows up out of nowhere, and you change all your rules.’

‘I haven’t changed any rules for her.’

‘You just admitted that she’s still in your bed waiting for you to get back and looked fucking happy about it. I’ve known you for long enough to know this isn’t like you. This one’s different, and I think you already know that.’

‘She has a boyfriend,’ I admit.

‘Whoa… what?’ he asks, turning to me quickly.

I guess I could have worded that differently.

‘They’re not together right now… they broke up when he moved to Australia temporarily. But now he’s coming back and they’re getting back together.’

‘But they’re not together right now, correct?’

‘No, they’re not. Not until he gets back in a couple of weeks.’

He grabs his keys, towel and water bottle off the floor.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

‘I’m headed back to the hotel. We got in a good workout, and you have somewhere to be.’

‘Oh yeah? Where’s that?’

‘At home, convincing this girl not to get back together with her ex.’

He turns and starts to walk away with all the items he brought in with him.

‘Silas, I don’t want a relationship. I’m not cut out to give her what she needs,’ I call out after him.

He turns back around to face me.

‘You’re scared that you’re going to fall in love with her, and then she’ll leave you for someone else,’ he says.

I cross my arms over my chest, not liking his analysis of the situation. I never told him about Josslin but I suspect he’s pieced together enough of it in order to come up with that conclusion.

This isn’t the kind of conversation I want to have at the gym… or anywhere for that matter. The gym is supposed to be my escape. The place where I sweat out whatever is bothering me and then walk out those doors like nothing ever happened.

When I don’t answer him back, he speaks up again.

‘Or maybe it’s too late. Maybe you’re already in love with her, in which case, you don’t have much of a choice now. Win her over or let her go—those are the options. Which one can’t you live with?’

Then he turns and walks towards the exit, giving the receptionist a wave before he pushes through the glass doors.

His question hangs in the air and I don’t have to dig very far to find the answer.

Unfortunately, there’s more to this equation— an entire second half… her.

What does she want?

The lawyer with the normal life and the steady job, who’s rising up the law firm’s corporate ladder and who she’s spent the last eight years of her life with?

Or a broke-down hockey player with only a couple of seasons left before his body can’t handle anymore, who’s out of town half the year playing in different cities and sees his future on a fish boat in Mexico and his weekends doing little chores around Scallywag’s to keep busy.

Picking up my water bottle, I drop it in my duffle bag before swinging it over my shoulder and heading for the exit.

The receptionist gives me a small wave and tells me to have a nice day, and I do the same. I push through the glass doors and head for my Jeep.

I guess there’s only one way to find out if this thing between us is still just a fling, or if it’s turning into more.

I’ll have to ask her.

As soon as the Jeep is parked inside the garage, I whip open the driver-side door, jump out, and head straight for the house.

My conversation with Silas made me realize that if I let her leave without knowing if I ever had a shot, I’ll always wonder, and he’s right, there’s only one of those options he listed that I can’t live with. I can’t live with her ending up with Daniel… not if I had a chance to change the outcome. But I need to know if I’m her first choice. I’ve already been the second choice and I can’t be that again… not with her.

‘I’m home,’ I say, taking long strides toward my bedroom, where she promised she would stay until I got back.

I push the door open to find that not only is the bed made and there isn’t a beautiful brunette waiting for me in it, but Brynn’s clothes aren’t on the bedroom floor anymore.

‘Brynn?’ I call out. ‘Where are you?’

‘She’s not here.’ I hear a familiar voice call out from the kitchen.

My blood pressure rises at the sound of her voice.

Josslin

She knows she’s not supposed to be in my house, and with Brynn no longer here, I can only guess she’s responsible for that too.

‘Where’s Brynn?’ I ask, walking through the hall and heading straight for the kitchen.

‘She left so that we could talk.’

I step into the kitchen and find Josslin sitting at the breakfast table.

Note to self: burn that kitchen table in Rita firepit tonight, it’s tainted now.

‘Talk about what? Whatever it is, it could have been handled over text. You didn’t need to come all the way out here.’

‘You never respond back to my text messages, so here I am,’ she says.

‘Fine, if it gets you the hell out of my house, say what you need to say, and make it quick so that I can go find Brynn and fix whatever shit you did.’

I plant my hands on my hips and stare back at Josslin. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look slightly nervous.

‘Your brother finally agreed to go to a rehab center in Arizona for vets with PTSD. They have a great program for addiction too. It seems the two can often go hand in hand. The center seems perfect and offers family counseling too.’

‘That’s great, I’m glad he’s finally going to get the help he needs, but you didn’t need to fly all the way out here for that. A simple text could have saved you a flight.’

‘That’s not all. I need to tell you something else and I need you to promise to let me speak before you fly off the handle and bolt out the door.’

‘What an opening,’ I say, but leaving me for my brother who she moved into the house I bought her pretty much takes the cake. I doubt anything could be worse than that. ‘Ok, say it as quickly as you can. Preferable as you head for the front door, closing it on your way out.’

‘Seven…’ she says, standing out of the chair she was sitting in. ‘I should have told you sooner but I with Eli going to rehab, she needs you more than ever to step into that role for her.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Cammy… she’s yours.’

My vision almost turns red and my hearing short circuits as if I’m hearing every word underwater.

‘No… no, you told me that she’s Eli’s. You swore to me that you were only a couple weeks pregnant.’

‘I was six weeks pregnant. I got pregnant when I flew out to watch you play the San Diego Blue Devils in San Diego and you didn’t have any condoms with you.’

I can see her eyebrow turn up and worry coats her expression, but if I know her, she’s only worried about herself… not the fact that she just dropped the bomb of a lifetime on me.

‘You were on birth control. I saw you take them.’

‘Yes, I did but I had a stomach flu a few days before I came out to see you. I couldn’t keep anything down for a couple of days. I hadn’t thought about the fact that missing those days would affect it so dramatically.’

I thought leaving me for my brother was bad enough, but never telling me that I fathered a child? That’s unforgivable. It’s worse than unforgivable and if it were my brother standing here instead of Josslin, I’d hit him so hard it would knock his teeth out and send him to the hospital… if I didn’t kill him first.

‘I want you the fuck out of my house and I never want to see you again,’ I tell her, pointing to my front door.

‘Seven… please…’

‘I have nothing to say to you. Leave or I’ll call the authorities to remove you. You won’t do well in a Mexican jail cell and I sure as hell won’t be bailing you out.’

She stalls for a second but she’s staring back at me with some fear in her eyes. I probably look like a man about ready to go on a killing rampage.

She starts heading out of the kitchen and straight for the door.

I hear the door open but then she speaks again.

‘I don’t expect you to forgive me or for this to be a good enough excuse to right the wrong I did to you, Seven. And I can’t imagine you’ve ever experienced that feeling of being looked over for so many years that when that one person sees you, your whole world comes to life. That’s what happened to me the day that Eli came home from overseas. After loving your brother since I was six years old, he finally glanced over from the sofa in your parent’s living room and actually saw me. I think it was the first time he had truly seen me as more than the little tomboy who lived down the street and chased you two around the neighborhood.”

‘While you were trying to get his attention, I was trying to get yours. When you agreed to marry me, I thought I’d won the lottery. We’d been dating for a year but I still couldn’t believe you said yes. If only I knew that you’d be the biggest mistake I ever made.’

‘I had no idea that you felt that strongly about me.’

Of course, that’s her takeaway. Not the fact that I regret ever looking in her direction.

‘That’s because you’re too self-absorbed to have seen anything outside of what you wanted for yourself. That’s why you used my daughter to trap my brother. You didn’t care that I wouldn’t get to raise my own child and miss out on her first words—her first steps—everything. And you didn’t care that my brother, who isn’t in the mental state to care for a child, was forced to raise a child who wasn’t his. Nor did you care that Cammy ended up being raised by an alcoholic father who would rather interact with random people playing video games online than attend a single one of her volleyball games, graduations, or birthday parties.’

‘He was so bad Seven. I thought finding out that he was about to be a father would pull him out of his darkness. I just wanted to give him something to look forward to.’

I spin around to face her.

‘Do you want to know what I actually think happened?’

She stands there waiting for my response.

‘I think my brother came home, jealous about my NHL career and saw the one thing of mine that he knew he could have but all he wanted to do was prove that he could have it if he wanted it. So he slept with you for a couple of weeks to make himself feel better and then when he was about to leave you, you trapped him with my kid.’

I can see in her eyes that I just hit a nerve because tears well in her eyes.

‘I didn’t trap him… he could have left.’

‘My parents would have disowned him if he would have left after you told everyone that the baby was his.’

There’s a silence for a moment and I can see the gear working in Josslin’s head to come up with a way around this.

‘Eli and I are separated and I’m moving to Seattle to be close to Cammy. I’m not saying that it will happen right away but over time, I think you’ll come to forgive me and we can be a family.’

‘Josslin, you have one second to turn around and close that door before you end up sleeping in a jail cell until your estranged husband decides to wire money for your release.’

Her face crinkles together like she’s upset that she couldn’t spin this into some long-lost family reunion.

What the hell was she thinking?

She finally leaves and closes the door behind her.

Then another thought dawns on me… Cammy.

I turn and head back down the hall headed for my Jeep.

What the hell do I say to her once I see her?

‘Funny story… your mom should be in a straitjacket and I’m actually your dad?’

I’ll work on my delivery in the car.