Not A Chance (Heartstrings #2)

36. Indie

Christmas morning had me awake long before dawn. I was still operating on Toronto time.

It was surprising because I’d been drowsily content for the entirety of Christmas Eve, barely able to keep my eyes open after way too many fried foods. It wasn’t my fault that sweet-and-sour chicken balls were my favorite, as blasphemous as they were to proper Chinese cuisine.

Christmas Day had always been the main attraction around here, what with Joe’s obligations at the college and Alice’s research deadlines. It had always been Chinese food for dinner, as traditional as Alice could find in San Jose, and last night showed that the ritual continued.

There was a bittersweet tension to the dinner table by the time Joe made it home just before 6:00 p.m. He’d obviously been expecting my presence, too, since I was just one of five who got called to help with the takeout bags he brought home. He’d waited until I had my arms full to give me a side squeeze.

At six five, Joe had to lean down to give me what reminded me of a “good job, sport” kind of hug. It reminded me of when coaches congratulated their players after a good game. With the way he messed up my hair with a gentle pat on the head, I was glad he remembered I wasn’t wearing a football helmet.

“Good to see you, Indie. It’s been too long.” He gave me a meaningful look that had my face warming slightly. Joe Miller was a pretty excellent bullshit detector. I guess he had to be with children like Chase and Liam.

“I know, Joe. I’m really glad to be here.” I shrugged in a helpless you’ve-got-me-there kind of gesture without being completely transparent about the embarrassment that had kept me away all these years.

“Well, we’re all glad to have you here. You’re family, you know that.” His words made my breath catch in my throat. I focused on not choking and remembering how to move air in and out of my lungs. “We all think that too.”

He gave me another knowing look that dared me to disagree with him, even in my own mind. I felt so seen that I wondered if this was what it felt like when you had a parent who really saw you for who you are.

The longer he waited patiently for my response, the more I felt like I should confess that I kissed his son out of nowhere at nineteen. And maybe tried smoking a cigarette as a high school freshman during my brief grunge phase when I tried to befriend the skaters at school. Shit, maybe even my first sip of vodka from his very own liquor cabinet at sixteen that his daughter served me, followed by us refilling the bottle to its previous volume with tap water.

“Thank you, Joe. I don’t… I can’t say what…” My words tripped over each other.

“I understand, Indie. Don’t worry.” Did he? I could barely process the impact his words had on my worldview. “Let’s just make sure this is back to a yearly thing, hmm? Theo is a lucky man. I’ll make sure he knows it. Alice would have been thrilled.” His voice became rough when he mentioned his late wife, making my heart squeeze tightly.

I couldn’t deny how incredible it felt to know that he gave me his approval before even talking to Theo about it. I heard his monthly calls with his dad, and they mostly talked sports stats and player trades.

He added one last gem before I could reply. “God knows, we’re going to have to work hard enough to keep the twins from sending you screaming from the house with their shenanigans. At least Theo and Emery are here to balance things out.” His voice was much quieter than before.

“I heard that!” came two deep voices simultaneously from the den. Joe hefted the biggest bag of food in his arm and cocked his eyebrow in a “see what I mean?” kind of expression.

I woke up before 5:00 a.m. Unable to go back to sleep, I stared into the darkness above me for another forty-five minutes, lying as still as possible so as not to wake Theo. Stir-crazy, I rolled out of bed as stealthily as possible. It wasn’t an easy task, seeing as I was sleeping with a six-foot, built professional hockey player in his teenage double bed. There hadn’t been a single moment of the night where our skin wasn’t pressed against each other.

I had managed to creep downstairs without making any noise. Now, I stood in the kitchen, eyeing their fairly sophisticated coffee machine. The cupboard above it held bags of actual coffee beans. Did I have to figure out how to grind the beans before figuring out how to make the coffee brew?

I now regretted my daily choice to buy coffee on my way to work since the beginning of forever. I opened a few more cabinet doors, hoping to find some sort of pre-ground coffee. Hell, I would even take instant crystals right now.

Shit. Maybe I’ll just pour six glasses of orange juice and call it a day.

I was bent over, rifling through the lower cupboards, when a deep voice had me startling .

“Rocky.” Thankfully, my knees gave out in surprise rather than my head swinging upward and dropped to the floor with the grace of a tangled-up baby flamingo.

I leaned my shoulder against the frame of the cabinet and turned my head to look up at my boyfriend, who had just scared the crap out of me.

“Shit. Sorry.” Theo took long strides across the kitchen, reaching out his arms to scoop me up and set me back on my feet. “I thought you heard me come down.” A slightly bashful look took over his gorgeous features. His hair, now longer than his ears due to the fact that he didn’t cut it during the season “for luck,” was sticking up in all different directions.

I realized how lucky I felt to be the one who got to see him like this. He was about as far from the polished NHL star who held his own in post-game press conferences and interviews. My heart, recently resuscitated from its frozen state since being with Theo, warmed to the point that it sent tingles along my skin.

I shivered with the sensation. Theo, mistaking my movements for something else, gathered me into his arms, surrounding me in his gloriously warm arms and pressing me toward his chest.

“Cold, baby?” He looked down between us, gaze fixed on my usual thin tank top I wore to bed.

“Mmm. Giz?” I couldn’t articulate my feelings in this moment. It was easier to let him believe I just needed some shared body heat. And I was not complaining about being surrounded by the scent of Theo’s minty bodywash, leftover from his quick shower before bed, and all those rock-hard muscles he earned on and off the ice.

“She’s fast asleep,” Theo assured me.

Despite it being close to 6:00 a.m., a glance at the digital clock on the stove told me I’d been looking through the cupboards for longer than I thought.

“Let’s get you into a hoodie.” He paused, letting one of his hands drift down to tease the hem of my sleep shorts. “And definitely some pants before my family wakes up. There’s no way my hooligan brothers get to see you like this.” He squeezed my ass cheek possessively.

“Okay, caveman.” I leaned back a bit so I could meet his gaze. “You’re very lucky that—for some unexplainable reason—I find that territorial bullshit extremely hot when it comes out of your mouth.”

He walked me back until my back met the counter before lifting me up to sit in front of the professional-quality coffee machine. Theo brought both hands around to the front of my body and covered the tops of my bare thighs with his fingers spread as far as they could go. He proceeded to dip his thumbs down into the crevice between my pussy and inner thighs. His firm touch swept every inch of skin he could cover with his hands as he moved them down to my knees. Once he had both my knees cradled in his palms, he firmly pushed them apart so that he could step into me, our bodies touching chests to pelvises.

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he whispered against my lips.

“Merry Christmas, goalie.” I smiled into his mouth, which barely grazed mine.

“I was thinking, there’s something I’ve been meaning to correct. And now is the perfect time to do it,” he said softly.

My head touched the hard cabinet behind it when I leaned back enough to see his face clearly. I had no idea what he was talking about. Unease bubbled in my stomach.

Where was he going with this? A flash of worry hit me. Was my perfect bubble with Theo about to burst with whatever he was going to say?

“Six years ago, we stood in the kitchen, and you were brave as fuck to sneak down here and wait for me, looking like a goddamn siren in that peach satin. Then you surprised the hell out of me by kissing me.” He brought his hand from my knee to cup the right side of my face in his palm.

My stomach dropped for a whole different reason at his seductive words. The memory of his rejection all those years ago stung a little less with every moment we spent together.

He rubbed his thumb back and forth along my jaw. “I fucking hate that I hurt you that day. I had no idea that you had feelings for me. You have always been beyond beautiful. But I had so many firm lines drawn in my life for what I needed to do to make my hockey goals happen. At twenty-five, I was in the thick of making it to the next level.”

Theo used his other hand to reach up and rub the back of his head, his lips pressed into a small grimace.

“And I was somewhat of an arrogant son of a bitch back then. I’d let the hype of being an up-and-coming star go to my head. I was never a fuckboy. But I admit to liking the attention. It was so easy to let being a hockey star distract me from really dealing with losing Mom.” His Adam’s apple moved with what looked like a tough swallow, like those words were physically painful to say. “You were only nineteen, and I’d always kept you firmly in Emery’s best friend category in my mind…”

“It’s okay. It wasn’t the right time,” I rushed out. It hurt me to see him struggling, and I immediately wanted to ease his discomfort. “You don’t have to…”

“No. I do. Out of everyone, you need to hear this.” His right hand joined his left as he held my face still so that I had no choice but to look at him. “It took me too many years to realize that I was using hockey as an escape from everything here. I’m lucky my brothers and sister are giving me a chance to make things right between us.”

I kept my eyes on Theo’s, wanting him to know I would listen to anything he wanted to tell me.

“I’ve decided I’m going to see someone about what I’ve been dealing with over Mom’s death. You know, like a therapist. Now that we’re together, it’s made me want to live fully. And I can’t do that until I work through all the stuff I’ve been trying to ignore for years.” His gaze slid to the side for a second, perhaps lost in thought, before moving back to mine.

At some point, I’d unconsciously moved my hands to his waist. I gave him a squeeze of reassurance.

“That’s amazing, Theo. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that you want to do this for yourself. You’ve already given me so much just by being back in my life,” I whispered.

“I’m not going to let anything distract me from the most fearless, intelligent, and utterly gorgeous woman in front of me this time.” His voice was steady.

“Theo,” I whispered. Where was he going with this?

“I love you, Indie.” His voice was steady and his eyes clear as he looked directly into mine.

I stopped breathing. I was certain. This was how I was going to die. Lack of oxygen from Theo Yao-Miller, my lifelong crush, saying he loved me and I forgot how to breathe in and out.

My mind raced. No one had ever said that to me before. Sure, Emery, Abbie, and I said “love you” as goodbye sometimes. But those three words had never been directed at me with the intention that Theo looked at me with right now.

I sucked in a much-needed breath, still just staring at him in shock.

“Rocky?” A little wrinkle appeared in his forehead. God, he had the audacity to be adorable by just being slightly uncertain about my reaction.

Even being equal parts thrilled and scared out of my mind by the fact that he loved me, looking at him crystallized what I’d felt in all the little moments we’d spent together since we saw each other in the hallway of our apartments: I loved him.

“Theo, I love you too.” The words were out of my mouth before my mind caught up to my heart’s realization. “I love you,” I said again, high on the incredible intimacy of this quiet moment with him.

His eyes widened in shock, like he hadn’t expected me to reciprocate his feelings or say it back to him. Until this very moment, I wasn’t sure I could have either.

“You love me?” His lips broke out into the biggest grin I had ever seen him wear. It was wider than any photograph of him had ever captured—and I’d internet stalked him enough that I considered myself an expert on all Theo Yao-Miller expressions—the ones that sold millions of copies of magazines and whatever product he endorsed.

“Yes, Theo. I do. I love you.” My words seemed to sink in as he surged forward and captured my mouth with his. His kiss was a feral expression of how desperate we both were from this huge emotion between us. Our tongues rubbed against each other, and we mirrored their actions by pressing our pelvises together. Both of us let out low moans as we struggled to get close enough to express the multitude of feelings we’d just experienced.

I let out a totally out-of-character tiny whimper of need as his cock hardened in his sweatpants. The two layers of thin fabric between us did little to cushion my aroused center from the rock-hard length pressed as firmly as we could manage between us.

“I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I AM ABOUT TO WALK DOWN THE STAIRS,” a voice yelled from another part of the house. My money was on Chase, who would likely be the early riser compared to Liam and his love for sleep.

Though either twin would probably delight in scaring everyone awake.

“THAT’S RIGHT. I’M HOLDING A SMALL FUR CHILD, AND I DON’T WANT HER TO SEE ANYTHING SHE SHOULDN’T. THINK OF YOUR CHILD, FOR GOD’S SAKE!”

“FIRST STEP!”

“SECOND STEP!”

Theo dropped his hands from my face, gentling our kisses enough to pull back. His shoulders dropped in resignation.

“Can’t get a fucking moment’s peace in this house. Doesn’t even matter what time it is,” Theo muttered against my lips, drawing another uncharacteristic giggle from my mouth.

Did being in love make you high? Maybe all the endorphins had rushed to my head, making me stupid. Whatever it was, I couldn’t say I didn’t want to bask in this sensation for days.

Preferably naked. With Theo.

“Get your ass down here, Chase! It’s safe.” Theo’s gaze made a quick sweep of my body before he tugged his sleep shirt off and over my head, covering my sleep tank and shorts.

Chase came into the kitchen wearing pajamas and his Elf on the Shelf hat. In his arms, Giz was sporting her own smaller version with a chin strap keeping it on her head.

I arched a brow at Chase.

“What?” he said. “As if I’m going to leave out my new niece at Christmas time. I headed out to the pet store as soon as Emery told us you two were together. I’m not a monster.” He shifted my fur baby so that she was more secure in his arms, even as she became less tolerant of her new hat.

I grabbed my phone off the counter to snap a picture of them .

Before the rest of the family came down, Theo adjusted his shirt so it sat evenly on my shoulders. He nodded to himself in a satisfied kind of way before he looked back up into my eyes and gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders. And here I was, amused by his well-intentioned caveman behavior again. I couldn’t help as I basked in his protectiveness the same way the comforting warmth of his shirt settled over me.

I smiled at him as I rolled my eyes, letting him know he was ridiculous but that I didn’t mind.

“I can’t help it, baby. No one gets to see all that perfect skin but me,” he rumbled.