Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
McCabe
O ur third win in a row puts us up 3-2 in this semifinal round of the playoffs. The celebration in the locker room after our first win on home ice this series is dying down, and most of us are showered and dressed, but the music is still pumping and people are yelling back and forth over each other. Hartmann’s on one of the benches in the center of the room, trying to prove he can moonwalk, while our unimpressed teammates jeer.
The party doesn’t stop when AJ strides through the door, and yet everything in the room fades away when I catch sight of her. She gives me a subtle nod, our eyes connecting for the briefest moment, and then she’s turning to talk to Coach Wilcott.
Walsh elbows me, and grits out, “You trying to get caught?”
I’m fucking tired of hiding this, that’s for sure. “No.”
“Then stuff those fucking heart-shaped googly eyes back into your head before someone else sees you looking at her that way.”
I turn to face him, taking in the hardened look on his face. Luckily, we’re off to the side of our teammates, so no one can hear our conversation.
“When did you become the asshole here?” I ask.
“When my team captain started a relationship with the only person in the world he absolutely shouldn’t be dating, and I had to start worrying about anyone else finding out. Just stop being so fucking obvious about it. At least until the season is over.”
It’s exactly what Frank told AJ, and I’m sure he’s saying it for the same reason. And as she and I finally agreed the other night, it’s the right approach—after the season is over makes so much more sense. There’s no reason to risk causing issues within the team when we’re so close to making the finals, or to jeopardize her chances of winning a well-deserved award. Two or three more weeks, at the most. I can keep this on the down-low that long.
But god, it fucking hurts to hide how I feel about her. It hurts when every fiber of my being wants to reach out to her, wrap her in a hug, and give her a celebratory kiss. Instead, I get a nod of acknowledgement.
I watch her turn and head out the door. “I’ll be right back,” I tell Walsh.
He grabs my forearm as I turn to go, and when I pause and look back toward him, he just says, “Be careful.”
I’m not sure exactly what he’s warning me about—getting caught, getting hurt, or hurting her?
Without responding, I glance around to make sure no one’s focused on me, and then I follow AJ out the door. She’s not in the main part of the hallway when I exit the locker room, so I follow it toward the elevator she probably used to get down here. And sure enough, I find her waiting in the alcove for the doors to open.
“We’re going out tonight to grab a beer and celebrate.” I keep my tone casual, in case anyone’s in the hallway and can overhear me. “You should come, too. Jules and Audrey will be there.”
“I can’t.” Her eyes meet mine as she drops her voice lower and tells me, “You know that.”
“Why would I know that?” I ask quietly, moving toward her until there’s barely any space between us.
“Ronan,” she says in warning. I’m so used to her only saying my name in private, and usually in the bedroom, that a low hum of desire rumbles in my chest. I take in the slender column of her neck above the lapels of her suit coat.
“I hate it when you wear your hair up,” I tell her, leaning my head down even closer.
“Not feminine enough for you?” She sounds surprisingly defensive, even while I watch goosebumps erupt on her skin as my breath caresses her.
“No...” I say, trailing my finger from the edge of her collarbone up the side of her neck and stopping right behind her ear. I’m counting on my large frame blocking the view if anyone passes in the hallway behind me. “I hate it when you wear your hair up because all I can think of is what it would be like to taste your exposed skin.”
I dip my head then, my lips gently brushing down the side of her neck as she sucks in a surprised gasp, when my lips meet her hard, tense muscles. I want to dig my fingers into her shoulders, massage them until she’s loose and relaxed. But I can’t. So instead, I let my tongue do the teasing, enjoying the way it draws a shiver from her. I stop when I reach that hollow between her collarbone and neck, and then, realizing how dangerously out in the open we are, I pull back.
“Fuck, AJ. You’re going to be the goddamn death of me.”
“I doubt that,” she says with an air of nonchalance, but her cheeks are flushed and her breathing is ragged.
“Trust me,” I tell her. “I’ve never felt so close to spontaneously combusting. I have to go out with the guys, but I’ll be home after one beer. I can’t wait to get you alone tonight.”
A needy sound rasps from her throat as she looks up at me with those big brown eyes. “Drink fast.”
“ T his is why we should just find a diner or something like we do when we’re on the road,” I say after we send away another group of women who have approached our table at the Neon Cactus. I get it, we’re a table of five guys having some beers, and none of us is wearing a ring...yet. But Drew and Colt are engaged, and Zach’s so far gone over Ashleigh that he might as well be. Only Luke Hartmann and I are available—at least as far as my teammates know. “Or somewhere with a VIP section.”
“Nothing wrong with women hitting on you,” Hartmann grumbles, like we just took away his dessert.
“There is when you’re taken.” Colt rolls his eyes. “Our better halves will be here soon, and then hopefully this won’t be an issue.”
I wish AJ were coming. Not that she could slide in the booth next to me so I could wrap my arm over her shoulder like my friends can do with their girlfriends and fiancées. But just being able to see her, meet her eye across the table...
Zach sighs. “Ashleigh can’t come tonight. She has to be at her internship really early tomorrow.”
“Remind me where she’s interning,” Drew says.
Ashleigh is studying to become an aerospace engineer, and Zach talks a bit about the defense contractor she’s doing a paid internship with this summer. The way he describes her role on the project oozes with pride.
“Man, you fell for her fast,” I say. They met at a diner in Seattle where she was waitressing about six months ago.
Colt scoffs. “You should see how fast I fell for Jules.” The way Drew side-eyes him makes me wonder if my suspicions about their engagement are right. He’s been telling everyone they’ve been secretly dating since October, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s more recent and there’s more to the story.
“Hey, when you know, you know,” Zach says, smiling.
“That’s how it was with Audrey, too,” Drew adds. “Like the minute she was back in my life, I knew I wanted so much more than just to co-parent with her.”
“How did you know it was love, though?” I ask, looking around the table, clearly asking all of them the question.
Four pairs of eyes focus on me like I just said something incredibly revealing. And maybe I did. Maybe even asking the question makes it obvious that I have a vested interest in the answer? But I have nothing to go on here. I’ve never been in love, and while I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m feeling here, I don’t have anything to compare it to.
I press my lips to the mouth of my bottle and tilt it back, taking a long pull of beer and hoping that they’re not still staring at me when my head comes forward.
No such luck.
“Oh shit,” Colt says with a laugh, and then falls uncharacteristically quiet.
“Are you seeing someone?” Zach asks.
I snort a laugh to show them how ridiculous that idea is. I don’t date, and they know that. I swore off dating after Jenna and I broke up, and that was before she showed up with my baby. The one time I broke that rule was a disaster.
Besides, I wouldn’t call what AJ and I have “dating.” It’s more like...I don’t even know. What do you call it when you’re sneaking around with your boss, and are so desperate to be with her every available second that you move her into your place even though she lives across the hall? That you stay in her hotel room on the road?
“I’m not seeing someone,” I say with an eye roll and a shrug, but the added signs of indifference don’t seem to dissuade them.
“Oh, so you’re just asking about how to know if you’re in love for...what? Research purposes?” Drew asks, his voice so full of sarcasm I want to throat punch him.
“I’m asking because I have no idea...” I draw out the words like it’s painful to talk to these idiots. I hope they’re buying the attitude, rather than sensing how eager I am to know their answer. Because I’ve never actually felt so entirely consumed, I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t picture my life without that person. “...and you’re all so stupidly in love with your women, I was curious how you knew it was love and not just like infatuation or something.”
“Remember in the fall when we all met for dinner, back when I was trying to figure out how to convince Audrey to trust that I wanted, and was ready for, a real relationship with her?” Drew asks me.
“Yeah.” I huff out a laugh, remembering how we all offered ridiculous advice before Walshy started dropping truth bombs.
“Walsh told us that the secret to a successful relationship was that you need to complement each other, to balance each other out,” Drew says. “And when that happens, when there’s that perfect sense of symbiosis, and you realize that you’re happier with that person than you could ever be without them—that’s how you know.”
I think about what he’s saying, and about how easy and natural everything is with AJ. But more than that, I think about how much I crave her company, how life just feels incomplete when she’s not around.
“Doesn’t that get hard, feeling like you can’t be happy when she’s not around?”
There must be something in my tone, because four sets of eyes are back on me. “He didn’t say you couldn’t be happy without her,” Colt says. “He said you’re happier with that person than you could ever be without her.”
The realization hits me, harder than it has before: I could never be happy without AJ.
“You sure you’re okay?” Hartmann’s eyebrows dip as he looks at me.
“Yes, Lover Boy, I’m sure. Why? Are you in love, and we don’t know it?” Am I an asshole for deflecting this conversation back to him? Quite possibly. Do I care? Not at the moment.
His cheeks pinken, because Hartmann’s still got a bit of a baby face and is like a goddamned golden retriever—happy and wagging his tail one minute, then talking shit and irritating me the next. It’s hard to imagine Lover Boy ever being serious enough to fall in love.
Because if there’s anything this relationship with AJ has taught me, it’s that love is serious—it feels an awful lot like taking a vow, risking being torn apart, inviting pain.
These feelings I’m having don’t make me proud or gooey, like my teammates sound every time they talk about their significant other. And they don’t necessarily make me feel happy. They make me feel clingy, like I can’t live without her. Like I’d do anything to protect her, give up everything just to be with her. And yet, there’s a lightness I feel when I’m with her that I’ve never felt before—a confidence that everything will be okay in the end.
It has to be love. I don’t know any other way to describe how I feel about her and the sacrifices I’d be willing to make to be with her.
“Ooooooo,” Colt says, his attention averted just as I intended, “you got something to tell us, Hartmann?”
He rolls his eyes as he chuckles. “I don’t do relationships, so, no.”
“Why is that?” Zach asks.
“Why is what?” Hartmann responds.
“Why don’t you do relationships?”
There’s a moment when a look flickers across his face, which I have no doubt we all just noticed, before he says, “There are way too many women in the world to settle on just one.”
Zach opens his mouth to respond, when Audrey and Jules show up at our table. I drain the last few sips of my beer, then push my chair back, seeing my opportunity to leave. I can’t fucking wait another minute to get back to AJ.
“Here you go.” I gesture at my chair. “Someone can have my seat. I need to go home so my nanny can leave.” And then I’m out of there before anyone can even say goodbye.