Hot Shot (Hot as Puck Book 2)

8. Branton

I watch the sun rise from the front porch. The way the sky changes color and the world around me lightens always brings me a sliver of hope, a few minutes of peace.

Hope for what, I’m not sure, but these quiet early morning minutes have saved me more than once.

The air is frigid, burning through my chest with each breath I take. My nose is numb, my fingers and toes too. I’ve endured the freezing pre-dawn for thirty minutes, probably should have gone out on to the back deck where I can switch the heaters on to banish the frosty temperature, but the sunrise isn’t as good out there.

The peace the breaking morning brings me not as lasting.

It’s the shadows of the tall trees surrounding the backyard I think. They keep the light away longer and with it the possibility of a new beginning.

I might be doing something I’ve done most mornings since I got here. It might seem like nothing has changed. Except everything has.

Blake is here.

And for the first time in months—years—I’m thinking about something other than the shit show my life is.

My mind keeps wandering to what it could have been—what it should have been.

For as long as I can remember, my future had been clear. Make the professional hockey league and be with Blake.

We’d—I’d—stupidly thought we had time. I had it all planned out. I’d hit the league, Blake already deep in her own success with both hockey and her business by then, and we’d both move toward the thing we’d agreed should wait until after we hit our professional goals, until the time was right.

Stupid.

So fucking stupid.

There is no right time.

Life, other people, all move at their own pace and with their own intentions, and those movements trip you up, those intentions detour you, stop you altogether.

I never saw it coming.

The change to my plans—our plans.

Never saw the person who, once her claws were in deep, did everything she could to destroy me, coming.

Thinking back on what I’d done, where I was now, how long I’ve been in this self-imposed exile, I have to admit she’s still destroying me.

How does a dead woman, a woman I hate—will always hate—have the power to ruin me?

So much about my relationship with Celeste was bullshit.

Most of it was bullshit.

Only I hadn’t had a clue, had I?

I’d believed her. Believed the story she told.

I didn’t understand it, how I’d let it happen, why I’d done it when my heart had been Blake’s.

It wasn’t until after everything had imploded, after she’d ruined the one good thing in my life, that I finally understood the lengths Celeste had gone to in a bid to get what she wanted.

And what she wanted wasn’t me.

It was what I could give her.

Money.

Celebrity.

The trap had been sprung and I’d been oblivious to it. Until the darkest moment of my life when she slapped me in the face with the truth.

A truth my heart still can’t believe.

My brain knows it to be true. The science backs that knowledge up, but my heart…

My heart bleeds and aches in a way I’m not sure can ever be repaired.

The door creaks behind me and I brace myself, suck in a deep breath to clear my head of the past and prepare for my future—for the sight of Blake.

“Hey. Why are you out here in the cold?”

“Enjoying the sunrise.”

“God, it’s cold! Aren’t you freezing?”

I am. But it’s part of my punishment. Part of the penance I’ve made myself endure for all the mistakes I made. All the people I hurt. All the things I could have done different and didn’t.

“Not too much. Nose, toes, and fingers.”

“Jeez. You’re not wearing a coat. Fucking hell, Bran, your feet are bare. You’ll get frostbite!”

“It’s not that bad. I’m used to it.”

“You do this every morning?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Okay. Well, I’m not freezing my ass off out here. I’m going in to make breakfast. You want something? Coffee?”

“There isn’t any.”

“What? Food?”

“No. There’s food. Eggs and bacon, pancake fixings in the pantry. But there’s no coffee.”

“You don’t have coffee?” she questions, her confusion clear.

I want to laugh but I don’t. Coffee is another of life’s luxuries I force myself to live without. Although if I’m honest, it was the least difficult to give up. “Haven’t so much as sniffed a cup since I left New York.”

“Oh.”

Funny how that one small word tells me she gets it. “Get inside out of the cold. I’ll come in and help you make breakfast when I’m done.”

Dammit. I’m dismissing her when I promised myself last night—after our chat at my bedroom door—I’d do my best to not avoid her or the elephant in the room.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” I apologize.

“Didn’t you?” She places a hand on my shoulder but remains behind me, my body probably shielding her from the cold breeze. “You’re still in defense mode. Protecting your goal. I don’t know what happened because you haven’t told me, haven’t told anyone, but, Bran, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here for an explanation or apology. I’m here because I think you’ll fit into the Rogues roster and be an integral part of the team, of our success. And because I will always be your friend. You will always be able to rely on me.”

“Blake.” I swallow back the tears her words bring. “I don’t deserve your friendship.”

“You don’t get to decide that.” Her fingers dig into my shoulder. “I do.”

“I’m not worthy.”

The laugh that bursts from her is short and sharp, a scrape over my nerve endings that puts every hair on my body on end. “You don’t get to decide that either. My friendship is mine to give, not anyone’s to take.”

“I betray?—”

“No. The only thing you did was close yourself off from me. From everyone. We never would have judged you. Least of all me. Take a close look at those who love you, no one has stopped the way they feel in spite of you shutting yourself away.”

“How can anyone love me when I hate myself?”

“I don’t think you really hate yourself. I think you hate what happened and the way you dealt with it. Time to come out of hiding and live again, Bran.”

I’ve been here so long, ignored everything outside of this little house in the woods for months and months. Hell, I don’t even know how long it is. Two years? Three?

No. Yesterday would have been Laura’s third birthday. Not quite three years then. Over two years of hiding away, licking my wounds. Letting the cuts Celeste inflicted fester.

And they have festered.

Fuck.

I need to get back in control.

I need to stop letting her dictate my life.

Hiding out, cutting myself off from everyone I once relied on has done nothing to help me get past the circle of hell my life is—no, was. Because it is in the past, my life is no longer being sucked into the depths of hell.

But it’s not anything else either.

The coward I am has done nothing to move on, to pick up the pieces and go on.

And I need to do that. Pick up the pieces, fit them together, and get back to living.

Except I don’t know where to go from here—how to live when the life I envisioned was destroyed by lies, and the life I was living before it was cruelly ripped away, was someone else’s.

I know I have to claw my way back. Have to find the right path, not to where I was but to where I should be now, where I can reclaim myself and possibly the sport I loved. I just…

“I don’t know how to live anymore.”

“Good thing you’ve got a friend to help you, a family who loves you. And a multi-million dollar contract ready to sign.”

The laugh that leaves me sounds rusty and pulls at muscles in my gut I haven’t used in too long to remember. “You had to dangle the contract.”

“It’s why I’m here.”

I look over my shoulder, lock my eyes on hers. “Is that the only reason you’re here?”

“Yes. No.” Blake sighs, her gaze moving out to the driveway. “It’s a see-saw of both. I’m here in my professional capacity as assistant coach and co-owner of the Rogues, and I’m here because I’m your friend. I love you. Neither of those were shut off because you shut an invisible door in my face.”

“You can’t say you love me. I’ve done everything to prove I’m not worthy of that.”

“You don’t get it, Branton. You don’t get to decide if you’re worthy of someone else’s love or friendship or affection or whatever. They do.”

She doesn’t let me argue. Spins so fast she slips and bumps the edge of the doorframe with her shoulder as she rushes back inside.

Except she didn’t turn fast enough for me to miss the sadness, the disappointment, in her eyes. And that guts me as deeply as the moment I decided to cut her from my life years ago.

Celeste had demanded I break off a number of previous connections. And while I’d done it, I hadn’t done it for her. Although I won’t deny it had given me a level of peace to let her believe I’d complied. What I’d really done was protect the people who meant the most to me from the venom my wife—the mother of my child—seemed to splash in every direction.

The only thing I’d succeeded in doing was hurting everyone I cared about.

Something I continue to do every day I spend hiding out here.

Because Blake is right.

I am hiding out.

I can’t bring myself to face the people I disappointed and hurt in my efforts not to.

I should never have kept them in the dark. Should have reached out the second Celeste had shown me that positive pregnancy test and said the baby was mine.