Cross-Checked (Boston Rebels #3)

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

AJ

O rdinarily, I can’t wait to get home and into my own bed after a road trip. This return trip is different—my body is jittery with nerves as I approach my building.

I drive down the ramp into the underground parking garage and my eyes are scanning the reserved spaces for McCabe’s black Range Rover. When the elevator doors open, I half-expect him to be inside. And when I walk down the hall of the seventeenth floor to my condo, my eyes flick over to his door.

How is it possible that he lives right on the other side of the hall?

I wonder if I will feel this keyed up every time I come home now, or if it’s just because this is new information?

My heart races as I step through my door, and I let out a deep sigh of relief as if I narrowly avoided running into him. Even though I’ve lived here for months and never seen him, now that I know that we’re not only in the same building, but also just across the hall, I can’t help but expect him to be everywhere.

Standing there with my back against the front door, I catch sight of my asshole of a cat, Tabitha, who hisses at me as she arches her back, her black fur standing on end, before she runs toward the doorway across from my bedroom.

Just then, my brother steps into the hallway in nothing but a pair of jersey shorts, and Tabitha snakes her way around his ankles, rubbing against him like he’s her best friend. I’m not sure why she hates me, or if maybe she just prefers men?

“Shit,” I say, glancing at my watch. “Did I wake you? It’s not even five yet, I’m sorry.” I always try to be as quiet as possible when we get home from a road trip, because the worst possible way to thank my brother and his girlfriend for cat sitting is to wake them up at the ass crack of dawn.

“I was half-awake,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because Nicole had wine last night.”

The laugh comes from the back of my throat and sounds almost like a snort. One of the first things Nicole and I bonded over when my brother started dating her a year and a half ago was how much we both love red wine, but how it makes us snore if we drink too much. Now that I’m not sharing my bed with anyone, it’s not something I worry about, but my brother’s always a little bitter when she chooses to drink it.

Taking a few steps forward while I roll my suitcase behind me, I step out of the small entryway and into the living room. My eyes scan the space, and I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. Everything is organized, and it looks lived-in, with no trace of the moving boxes that have been my roommates for months.

“What the hell?” My gaze flicks over to my brother, where he’s rubbing the back of his neck like he always does when he’s nervous.

“We made an executive decision while you were gone. You’ve lived out of those boxes long enough. It’s time you were settled.”

I’ve been saying I’d “unpack the rest soon” or I’d “unpack once the season’s over.” Nicholas obviously knows me well enough to know I’d probably still be living out of those boxes next season too.

“So . . . what? You guys finished unpacking for me?”

He clears his throat as he bends to pick up Tabitha, and she cuddles into his arms, closing her one eye and letting her front leg hang over his arm. “Uh, we sort of hired a professional organizer to unpack and organize everything.”

“You didn’t have to do that!” As a college senior who is working as a waiter for the summer, he definitely doesn’t have the money for that.

“Well...please don’t be mad.” He widens his eyes in a silent plea. “I sort of used your credit card for it.”

My chest shakes with laughter. “Of course you did.”

I’m not mad in the least. The lightness I feel walking into this space and not seeing evidence of all the things I have to do makes it worth whatever was spent.

“Now you can just relax when you’re home.”

“That’s . . . really thoughtful, actually. Thank you.”

“You don’t even want to know what you spent on this?”

“Nope. I’m just glad it’s done.”

“Okay.” He releases a whooshing breath. “Nicole thought you might be mad.”

“Nah,” I say. “I probably would have still been living with those boxes when next season starts. It takes some weight off my shoulders not to have to think about how I should be unpacking them. Plus, now when I need something, I can just hunt through drawers and cabinets to figure out where my shit is, instead of having to open up boxes.”

Truth be told, when I couldn’t find something I knew I already owned, I usually ended up buying a new one. Because which is easier: buying a new can opener, or rifling through five unopened boxes of kitchen stuff to find it?

I’m not normally big on avoidance or wasting money. At work and in my personal life, I’m more of a take-the-bull-by-the-horns kind of girl. But for some reason, the weight of everything I still had to do to finish moving in was crushing me. I couldn’t feel settled until it was done, but I also couldn’t force myself to do it. Time was certainly a factor, but it was also like I couldn’t allow myself to feel settled in this new place, and I’m still not sure why.

“I’m relieved you’re not upset,” he says. “But you look exhausted. Did you not sleep on the flight?”

I can normally sleep in any moving vehicle, but on last night’s flight—with McCabe sleeping next to me after learning that we’re neighbors—I don’t think I slept much, if at all. I’d close my eyes, but then thoughts of running into him in our building kept haunting me. I fell asleep at one point, because I dreamt that I was leaving very early to go to work and when I opened my front door, he opened his too and was standing there in nothing but a towel.

It was nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times in the locker room. But something about that sight in my own building, and the way we locked eyes and stood there staring at each other, jolted me awake. And after that, there was no hope of going back to sleep.

I’ve never dreamt about one of my players before. Never allowed myself to picture any of them in a state of undress, even though it’s a sight I’m so used to. I don’t allow my eyes to go below shoulder level when I’m in the locker room.

I’m a goddamn professional, and there’s no chance I’m ever looking at one of my athletes as anything but the hockey players I hired them to be.

So why did I dream about McCabe in nothing but a towel?

“Yeah, I had a hard time sleeping,” I tell my brother. “I think I’m going to head to bed and see if I can get a couple hours in.”

“You going to work today?”

“Maybe for a little bit,” I say. No one expects me to work on the weekends, yet I find myself in my office most days.

“You promised you’d slow down once the trade deadline passed,” he reminds me, needlessly. I’m a workaholic, and he knows that will never change. But taking care of each other is just what we do.

When I don’t reply, he says, “Okay. Well, Nic and I are going to head out early because she has a big test this week, so she’s going to the library all day.”

“How long is this summer class she’s taking?”

“Six weeks.”

I let out a low whistle. “That must be intense.” Nicole is a nursing major, and she’s taking one class this summer while also doing an internship in the NICU at the children’s hospital.

“It keeps her pretty busy.” He doesn’t sound resentful, just like he wishes he could have more time with her.

“What are you doing today?” I ask. “You’re not working until tonight, right?”

“Yeah. I’m going to take care of some grocery shopping and errands so Nic can study in peace.”

“She hit the lottery with you. You know that, right?”

He winks at me. “You trained me well.”

In truth, he hit the lottery with her too. Nicole is not only naturally beautiful inside and out, she’s also low maintenance, incredibly smart, and unequivocally kind. She thinks my brother walks on water, which, after the upbringing we both had, is exactly the kind of partner he deserves. He treats her like a queen, and she responds in kind. It’s the partnership every woman wants, and they found it in their early twenties. I’m thrilled for them, even while I’m a bit jealous that I’ve never had that.

“Let’s do dinner one night this week,” I say, moving my suitcase in front of me. “I’ll cook.”

“Ugh...” The hesitation comes through loud and clear.

“I found a new recipe I want to try.”

“Do you remember what happened last time you cooked for us?” he asks, slightly cringing.

I roll my eyes. “It was a tiny fire. Stop acting like I burned the place down.” When I overheated the oil and it caught on fire in the pan, I froze for a second while trying to figure out what to do. My brother raced in and threw the lid on it, and the fire died out in seconds.

“How about you get the ingredients and I’ll cook,” he suggests.

“You don’t even know what I want to make.”

“So send me the recipe. We can make it together if you want. It’s never too late for you to learn,” he says, but his voice betrays him. He sounds doubtful, like he knows you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Our seventeen-year age difference has never felt greater.

“Fine,” I say. “How’s Wednesday night?”

“I think we’re free,” he says, as I start heading across my living room toward the hallway to the bedrooms. “I’ll check with Nic and let you know.”

“Alright,” I say. “Goodnight. Or . . . whatever time of day it is.”

In my room, I fall into my bed fully clothed. The guys change into sweats or more comfortable clothing once we’re on the plane, but I never feel comfortable getting that casual around them. Luckily, I’ve managed to find nice-looking dress clothes that are comfortable, too. And as I snuggle into my pillow and pull the blanket that lays at the foot of my bed over me, I’m so tired that changing into pajamas never even crosses my mind.

Unfortunately, thoughts of McCabe climbing into his bed across the hall, trying to get a few more hours of sleep before his baby wakes up, permeate my thoughts and keep me awake.

What the hell is happening?

I haven’t spent this much time thinking about McCabe since he punched my now ex-husband eight seasons ago, dislocating his jaw and forcing me to trade him.

And you’re not going to start thinking about him now, damn it .

But telling myself that and actually doing it are two different things. It seems I can’t stop my mind from racing through all the possibilities of how things could have gone between us in the past. And try as I might, I can’t come up with a single scenario that doesn’t end with him hating me.