Chapter 7 #2
“Then I will. Try, that is. No promises. But if I don’t spot anything obvious, I’ll get creative in edits with something to make your club drop you.
” Fuck knows what that could be. I chance a risky reminder of another no-go.
“Even if a sex tape is out of the question.” I take a hand off the wheel to mirror a stance I bet he wouldn’t want the world to witness but that has stayed with me—I cover my heart, fingers splayed the same way his did in my bed only days ago, and I make a promise.
“No videos of you and me bumping and grinding. I can be professional even if that means no more bumping and grinding, full stop.” I do bump us over several boat wakes before I pull up in a hurry.
“Shit. If you were having treatment for a concussion, I’ll go slower. ”
“You don’t have to worry about that. They wouldn’t have let me fly home if it was an issue.”
That rules out some of the internet’s upper-body speculation. I pick up speed again and bump us over several more boat wakes in quick succession, and bingo, he smiles. It’s faint. So is his volume. I barely hear him murmur, “And I wouldn’t go as far as ruling out a repeat.”
I check if I heard him correctly. “Of us bumping and grinding?”
He meets my gaze, nothing frosty about his confession. “Haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
Fuck being professional. I whoop and spin the boat in a splashy circle, but he grins for real, and that’s so much better.
We also have something else in common—Calum proves he shares my speed-freak credentials by budging me over.
He shares my seat to spin us in tighter circles, and I could give him more space to do that, I guess.
I could also pay more attention to the river.
It will be another Christmas miracle if the River Police don’t stop us.
Who knows if we pass any patrol boats. I don’t notice. I’m too busy watching his grin widen.
He’s windswept and flushed rosy, which lingers long after we’re safely moored, and he shows me his schedule on his phone. The first three weeks of December look busy. “I won’t be here the whole time. I’ll have some more out-of-town club business to take care of. Those visits are off-limits.”
Christmas week looks completely empty. I tap the calendar on his phone screen. “How about here?”
“That’s when I’ll be at home in Cornwall. Can’t fucking wait.” He makes that time sound completely off-limits as well. So are a lot of the evenings when he will be in London. “This is when I can see you, Valentin.”
What he had pointed out were afternoons filled with visits to rinks, like our first destination, where I spend the rest of the afternoon watching him glow.
He’s happy as soon as he steps onto ice.
In his element.
Calum skates a few laps fast before stopping to tower over local reporters, a giant who wears a bright yellow jersey with NO CONTACT printed on it.
I video him answering questions. “How is my recovery going? The club is happy with my progress.” He fields another.
“What are the specifics of my injury?” He zips his lips with a finger in another reminder of an alleyway conversation.
“You guys know we can’t share strategic intel.
” He grins. “You never know who might be listening. I’ll be back on the ice next year.
But this recovery period did seem like the perfect time to come home and let more kids know that hockey can change their lives like it changed mine.
I scored a million-to-one opportunity. More British kids deserve the same chance to learn to love the best game in the world as much as I do. ”
So why does he want to escape the contract that lets him play for his living?
I park that question while a reporter asks another.
“How did hockey change my life?” Calum crosses thick arms, and I expect him to mention his big-money contracts.
“By extending my community.” He glances my way.
“My hockey family. It’s given me more brothers worth dropping my gloves for.
” I can’t help replaying the sight of teammates swarming to him the same way children do now, impatient for their coaching session with an actual NHL star.
Calum is quickly surrounded. “Which is why camps like these are important,” he calls out from a huddle of hero worship.
“They extend my hockey family and theirs.”
It’s cute.
It’s also useless, which I tell him hours later after steering him back along the river. We end up at a familiar Chelsea mooring. “You want me to record more coaching sessions like that one?”
He nods, eyes glinting like the night-dark river.
“I’m telling you straight, nothing I recorded today will make your club drop you.”
“I already guessed that.” He can’t stop himself from asking, “Because?”
“Because there’s nothing juicy to work with.” I follow him ashore and explain on the same brisk walk we’ve made once already. “You’re meant to be a hard man. I’m telling you now, I’ve spread harder butter in my galley.”
He laughs.
I don’t.
“Seriously, you did everything right with those kids. You need to do something wrong. Something so out of character the whole hockey world takes notice. Something your club can’t let slide.”
He stops dead, getting in the way of evening Christmas shoppers. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like letting a kid fall over instead of helping them to keep their balance.
” An idea strikes. “No. If you got the timing right, you could shove one and take down the rest of them like dominos. Toc, toc, toc.” I flick a finger the way Père Noel taught me to one Christmas Eve.
“Line them up and knock over every single kid in one go. The optics would be so grim. You’d look a massive dickhead. It’s perfect.”
“Perfect?” He eyes me, his brow furrowed in a reminder of his older brother. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Juno?”
“I wasn’t suggesting you push kids over for real. We could stage it.” I sniff. “It was just an idea.”
“A psychotic one. It’s a shitty idea.”
I finally take in where he has come to a standstill. We’re close to the same restaurant he visited once already. “Not as shitty as this place.”
“Penny’s?” He turns to study a candlelit window across the street. “I thought it would be good for an early dinner.”
“If you hate whoever you’re eating with.”
“Hate them?”
“Yes. Hate, because this place has such a bad rep. You know it has a really low star rating and terrible reviews, don’t you?”
He faces me, game-face mask back on. “How do you know that?”
I pull out my phone and give it a wiggle. “Because I was . . .”
“Nosy about me?”
Yes, but I select the word my grand-mère always called me.
“I was curious.” I still am. I’m so, so curious about everything Calum-related.
About cool eyes I know can turn warm. About bruises fading on someone so gentle with today’s children, or with an egg I still don’t know for sure holds a living duckling.
I’m as curious about this decision to revisit somewhere food critics have slated as I am about what motivated him to pull up my blankets to tuck around me.
Big and bad, my arse.
I’m still a sucker for Christmas puzzles. I drift closer to solve his, only Calum speaks first. “Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you read online.”
“No?”
“No, because most of those bad restaurant reviews are old. And any recent ones—” He winces the same way Dad did each time he watched opponents collide with Calum.
“It isn’t Penny’s fault that her husband did a moonlight flit with her head waitress.
Or that his leaving left her in the lurch with no chef.
The other ones she’s hired haven’t been great either, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how often she fed Pat and Seb when they were students.
Or how she found a friend for Jack when he was first in the city and so lonely.
Penny’s good people. The best, and that’s all any reviews should say about her, which I thought was your thing, yeah? Chasing the truth until you find it.”
It is. So is catching every moment with my camera to add to my contest entry, which I still need to confirm he agrees to. I yank off my gloves and unzip my jacket a little to set my GoPro running, all while we’re both still in the path of Christmas shoppers.
I could get out of their way. Could step back into the same alley where a surprise kiss started the ball rolling on a fascination that hasn’t slowed down any. Calum takes off his own gloves. He holds a hand out, one quirked eyebrow issuing a silent order.
I’m usually so bad at following those.
If Dad witnessed me following this one, his jaw would drop, I know it. That’s what happens all the same—my camera gets close-up footage of my hand getting swallowed up by a hockey player’s. His fingers curl around mine, and his warmth hits me. So does the smile I like so much on him.
Calum holds my hand for just long enough to draw me across the street with him to the restaurant entrance. He lets go to hold the door open for me in a second silent order, and . . .
Yes, I’m usually the worst at following those.
Tonight, not even traffickers could stop me.