Chapter 14
fourteen
CADEN
This wasn’t how I wanted the new year to start.
Christmas had been a quiet couple of days back up in Sudbury. My first visit back since moving to Lakeside was made better by my dad spending less time at home than usual. He’d claimed he’d been invited ice fishing with an old buddy who “didn’t have anyone else at Christmas.”
The twenty-fourth had been our traditional Chinese takeout meal—“Who wants to cook big meals two nights in a row, Caden?” my mom always said—while Christmas Day dinner had been a small chicken I’d helped Mom cook. Between the two meals, I’d managed to make it out unscathed.
Now, on the third road trip since New Year’s, the thud of my steps echoed back at me in the empty hallway.
It was an eerie reminder that I shouldn’t be on the top floor of the nicest hotel we’d stayed at all season, when the rest of my team was in their rooms five floors below.
At 2:00 a.m., my teammates were all asleep, having taken Coach Wilder’s strict routine to heart. Not a single Hammerheads player wanted on Coach’s shit-list.
And here I was about to put myself at the top of that list.
“You can’t just leave without talking to someone. It’s the right thing to do,” I whispered to myself.
As if saying the mantra I’d been repeating since I got Kait’s text would make any difference to the shitstorm writhing away in my gut.
Kait: I know you’re in practice right now so I didn’t call.
Your mom had a fall getting out of the shower.
She couldn’t reach your dad, so she called me.
It was lucky as hell she had her phone on the bathroom counter.
She needs surgery first thing tomorrow. Not sure when they will actually get her in.
You might have time to drive up tomorrow morning, but they won’t promise if it’s going to be 8:00 a.m. or 4:00 p.m. I’m staying with her in the ER.
Drive safe and let me know when you are on your way.
Everything I’d eaten in the past twelve hours threatened to make a reappearance as I arrived in the doorway of Ash’s hotel room.
This was the last thing I wanted to do. Ash had been avoiding me for the past couple of weeks, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was my fault.
I realized after my visit with Kait that my behavior due to my embarrassment had pushed him away.
I’d been so embarrassed about falling asleep and waking up on his shoulder in his office that my brain had literally shut down.
The first week after, I could barely look him in the eye, but he’d kept acting as warm as ever. I should’ve said something, but Kait’s visit took over, and then by the time she left, it felt even weirder to bring it up.
Knocking on his door in the middle of the night was just another way to show him how fucked up I was. I’d already tried Coach’s room, but there was no answer. He told us on the bus ride to the hotel that he had a buddy in Belleville he might visit.
So, as much as I didn’t want to face the music with Coach, I would rather have dealt with whatever he had to throw at me instead of coming to Ash like a kicked puppy and telling him that I needed to get up to Sudbury as soon as possible.
They’d have to scratch me for at least the next two games. I just hoped the head office would be understanding. I hadn’t informed them about my mom’s MS, due to Dad’s 1950s mentality about never looking less than perfect to the league.
Hell, if he could have avoided our neighbors knowing about her illness, he would have.
All my life, I’d heard, “Don’t you dare air our dirty laundry in public, Caden.” And if my mom wasn’t home, he’d end that sentence with. “Or I’ll beat you so hard with my belt you’d wish you’d never been born.”
As if every other moment in his presence didn’t already make me wish for that very thing.
My anxiety about seeing Ash stole the feeling from the tips of my fingers as I raised my partially numbed fist to rap on the hotel room door.
One pathetic tap, followed by an actual knock of my knuckles, had a barely discernible “hold on” sounding from behind the door.
My guts churned as an eternity elapsed between Ash calling out and when the door swung open partway.
His head and neck appeared in the open space. His expression turned from disgruntled to concerned in a nanosecond.
To say he looked shocked to see me would be an understatement.
“Cade?” Ash rasped, his tone deepened from sleep.
His expression did not match the thickness of his voice. Ash’s features tightened as he peered at me.
A quick glance down at my ratty sneakers made me wish I could focus on the hole that was wearing through in the side of my right shoe, rather than look Ash in the eye.
“Cade?” he repeated when I didn’t say anything.
I forced my gaze up to meet his.
“Yeah, um, hi,” I began. A slight tremor in my voice revealed my mounting panic at standing in front of him.
My hands came up to grip the strap of the duffel bag I wore on my back, needing to hold on to something.
“What’s wrong?” Ash’s eyes were suddenly clear and alert as if he had taken a shot of espresso.
“I’m sorry to bother you. I know I shouldn’t be here at two in the freakin’ morning. But Coach didn’t answer his door, and I knew I had to tell someone.” The words tumbled out in a rushed whisper.
I sucked in a breath, needing to rein in the verbal diarrhea so that I could figure out how the fuck I was going to get to Sudbury in the middle of the night without a car.
“Did someone hurt you?” His eyes darkened, his jaw clenched so hard that I feared for his molars.
“Oh god. No, no. I’m sorry. It’s nothing like that.
I need to go. Back to Sudbury. It’s my mom.
She slipped getting out of the shower, fell onto the bathroom tile, and had to wait until someone found her.
Now she’s having surgery in the morning.
. .or afternoon. The hospital can’t promise anything.
On top of all that, she has MS, which makes everything about this situation complicated.
She’s never had any surgeries since her diagnosis, so I have no idea what to expect.
I just wanted to tell you before I started calling car rental places or organizing an Uber to get me there. ”
The toxic mix of worry for my mom and shame I felt standing in front of Ash collided as I stood there, almost begging for his understanding.
The deep line between Ash’s brows receded slightly, possibly reassured by the fact that I wasn’t coming to him about some sort of inter-team hazing or something.
“Get in here, Cade.” The door swung open fully to reveal a shirtless Ash dressed only in a pair of black boxer-briefs.
Averting my eyes to respect his privacy, my mortification skyrocketed at seeing Ash in his underwear.
Years of hockey had desensitized me to guys’ bodies around the locker room. But this was different. It was like I was seeing something private that I shouldn’t be allowed to see.
I guess I’d hesitated because a hand gripped one of my wrists, pulling me inside the room. My other clammy hand still held on to my bag’s strap like it was a life preserver.
I tried to avoid looking at the back of Ash’s body illuminated by the hallway light. However, the flash of a set of well-defined shoulder blades caught my eye before the door swung shut behind us.
Ash guided me into the darkness of his room.
The only hint of light came from the bottom edge of the blackout curtains.
He didn’t let go of my wrist until he located a light switch.
The lights on either side of the bed came on, brightening the room with a warm glow that was a direct contrast to the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway.
“Sit down for a second, okay?” Ash waved at the small two-seater couch on the wall across from the bed.
It served only to remind me of the last time I sat on a couch with Ash. There was no way I was going to be able to deal with all the emotions thinking about that debacle would bring up when I really needed to get out of here.
Instead, I stepped back awkwardly, hovering near the small coffee table that stood in front of the couch.
Ash had moved over to the pile of clothes in his roller suitcase, grabbing the first two pieces of clothing at random and throwing one on the bed.
With his body facing half away from me, my eyes fell to his injured shoulder. I could see a small portion of a pink surgery scar marring the still-golden tan of his skin.
Despite Ontario being well into winter, Ash looked like he’d been on a tropical vacation recently.
An ache formed in my chest at the thought of what that scar represented for him. He never spoke or complained about his injury. Sometimes his total focus as an offensive coach and how much he seemed to care about the rest of the team made me forget coaching wasn’t his full-time gig.
That pink line was also a reminder of how little I knew about so many parts of Ash’s life.
Just because the poster on my teenage bedroom wall had come to life in front of me didn’t mean I knew him.
I couldn’t predict if he was about to ream me out for disturbing his peace and leaving the team down a player.
Without my permission, my gaze traced his form, cataloging the pure vitality and strength he carried in his muscular body.
If the universe had set out to create the perfect male specimen, it had succeeded in Ash.
His arms and back were corded with muscle.
Each curve of taut brawniness beneath his skin balanced flawlessly with his height and stature.
As he bent to put one foot and then the other into a pair of wrinkled jeans, his midsection flexed with the action, and I could see the outline of a six-pack ripple over his stomach.
My ears heated with embarrassment. I should have given him privacy while he was getting dressed. But the draw to look was just too strong.
It was totally natural to compare how I physically stacked up against another center player. That’s all this was. Simply professional curiosity.