Chapter 15
Rowan
Waking up with the unfairly hot hockey god I shared a bed with is screwing with my head. Or maybe it wasn’t so much the waking-up part as the feel of his arm around me, the way our bodies found that perfect fit in the night… the barely banked heat in his eyes before reality set in.
How his low laughter in the darkness rubbed and rumbled against all the places inside me I never meant to let him near.
Ugh!
I pull on my jeans, T-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie while said man finishes in the bathroom.
I’m rusty, is all. Out of practice.
And it’s just been a lot of years since I had to defend against his special brand of appeal.
But I have to. Because as amazing as it was to joke and tease and pretend that maybe we could actually be real friends…
Jason isn’t going to be okay with this island belonging to my mother.
And even though he understands that my motives aren’t hers… in the end, it won’t matter.
We meet in the kitchen where our mugs are on the drying rack. Our foray into the spiked hot chocolate seems like it was weeks ago instead of hours. But maybe that’s because in real life, it would have taken me weeks, if not months, to talk to someone as much as I talked with Jason last night.
The sky is still gray, and no matter which window I look out, signs of the storm are everywhere. The rain and wind haven’t let up, but the only thunder is distant rumbling. Hopefully the worst is behind us.
Jason braces his hands on the counter to my right, his shirt pulling around the bulk of his biceps and shoulders. “Not sure we can chalk this up to Mother Nature’s chaos. Looks more like she decided to reclaim her island.”
I nod, trying not to study the lines of his face or give in to that new little pull asking me to lean a bit closer to his arm. “Still no power either. How long does it usually take to get back up?”
“Honestly, I’ve only seen it out twice. The first time, it was on within a few hours. The second?” Shrug. “We left before it was going again, and Bruce had to help close up.”
“So like… a couple days?”
He grimaces. “More like a week. But out here you just never know. It depends on what caused the outage.”
“And without phones, we won’t know…”
“Nah, Bruce will be out here checking in once the waves die down. We’ll get the download then.”
We have coffee and some peanut butter toast for breakfast, avoiding opening the fridge.
“Hey, so I’m guessing cabin rainouts aren’t completely out of the norm. What do you do on days like today?”
He blinks, that scowl I know all too well peeking from between his brows. Like something about my casual, upbeat question doesn’t quite ring true.
But this isn’t my first rodeo, so I pretend I don’t notice and walk over to the window to watch the rain. It’s beautiful, really. Relaxing if it weren’t for—
Another low rumble, louder than before.
I almost don’t even tense up.
“Board games,” Jason says, wiping his hands on a dishcloth.
“Which ones?”
He tosses the towel onto the counter behind him and comes into the living area. “One I beat you soundly at the last time we played.”
I grin. “Scrabble? Brace yourself, buddy. That win was a fluke.”
“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” He points to the built-in cabinets beneath the shelves on the opposite wall. “Grab it, will you?”
“Oh man, you have all the classics in here.” Not just the selection of traditional favorites, but these boxes definitely aren’t from this century.
Carefully, I pull out the slim box. When I turn around, Jason is moving a table and two chairs from the corner to in front of the fire.
“Just me, or am I picking up some strong gaming tournament vibes?”
He snorts. “Just you. I go out of my way to limit my competitions to hockey.”
“Mmm.” That’s not how I remember it, but we’ll see.
One game in, it’s clear: Jason is totally competitive.
What’s also becoming clear… the man can be remarkably easygoing too.
The power is still out, and when Jason checks his phone, there’s still no service. But instead of huffing about it or obsessively refreshing, he just sets it aside facedown.
“Doesn’t bother you at all to be out of touch like this?” I ask, playing my word.
“The phones?” He shrugs, arranging his tiles, giving my last word a hard stare, then rearranging his letters again. “Truth? The lack of service is normally one of the things I enjoy the most about being out here. It’s a break. An escape.”
An escape. It resonates even though I imagine our versions of escape are probably vastly different.
But also, “Even while you’re waiting on your lawyer?”
He plays a word worth twice the points from my last one. “He was gone for the weekend anyway.”
“But the power. The storm. The damage.” And even though I don’t want to say it and potentially bring an end to this tentative peace between us, I add the obvious. “Me being here. This situation with the cabin.”
He marks his points with another pencil that looks like it was sharpened with someone’s pocketknife. Ed’s?
“All that stuff is just part of being here. You never know what you’re going to get.
” The corner of his mouth twitches, and I think he’s got a fifty-point word lined up.
But then, eyes still on the tiles he’s pushing around, he says, “I mean, sure, it’s not usually a beautiful woman dancing around in her knee socks when I walk in… and tackling me to the ground.”
My mouth drops open into a gape, and he flashes a devastating smile and wink that is so potently sexy… Whoa.
I clear my throat, acting as unaffected as possible. “I didn’t tackle you. I thought I was alone and then— Triple points!”
I place my tiles one at a time, checking his reaction and then soaking in the satisfaction when he rocks back with a laugh.
“Nice.”
We’re quiet as we study the board and our options. I’m thinking about asking who sharpened the pencils… but when I start to speak, that’s not what I say.
Jason
“So… umm… no girlfriend either? You know… desperately trying to get through.”
I freeze, my index finger hovering over the blank tile in my lineup.
It’s not so much that the question itself catches me off guard.
I mean, hell, I’ve got reporters, staff from the Slayers organization, and Boomer asking me about my love life every other week.
But to the best of my recollection, only once has Rowan asked me whether I had a girl and that was the week I met her, ten years ago.
The question doesn’t mean anything.
Sure, women asking about relationship status can signal interest. But it can also signal a need to fill some lull in the conversation with basic pleasantries. With Rowan…
I stare at her as she stares at her tiles like all of humanity’s survival depends on the points she scores this round. She’s competitive, not trying to play it cool or something.
When she finally looks up, it’s with a passive smile that all but screams BASIC PLEASANTRIES, DICK.
Of course. Obviously.
Thankfully.
“No girlfriend.” I keep my voice level, my eyes fixed on the lines of her face as I wait for some tell that doesn’t come and I shouldn’t be waiting on anyway. Because I’m never cool around this woman. But I need to be.
“Still leaving a string of broken hearts in your wake?”
I cough out a laugh. “Hardly.”
“Hmm.” That noncommittal sound might as well have been a hard eye roll. She is not convinced.
It shouldn’t matter if she believes me or not.
I don’t care one way or another… and I know I’ve got tiles for a score that’ll make her weep. Only… “For real.”
See: Not. Cool.
She peers up at me, and Christ, when she really looks at me, I hardly know what to do with myself. Which is crazy considering my chosen career puts me in front of an average of 450,000 television and 18,000 live viewers per game.
But Rowan gives me her full attention, and suddenly I don’t know where my arms go. Feels like I’m too big for my chair, like my legs take up three-quarters of the fucking cabin, hell, the island.
She folds her arms over the edge of the table, leaning in. “Okay, since we’re here for a while and you’re so desperate to correct this misconception about your status as an international Hockey God Heartbreaker…”
My jaw drops, but then I see it. That flicker at the corner of her mouth, the first spark of a smile about to ignite in her eyes. And yeah, she can tease all she likes. In fact, I sit back in my chair, suddenly comfortable in my own skin again. I wave her on with a patient grin.
She goes on. “So let’s hear it. Tell me about your epic romantic exploits.”
Or lack thereof?
“Honestly, it’s not much different from high school.” I’m getting attached to the way that pretty brow wings up, challenging me with nothing more than a look. “I’m serious. Couple of girlfriends over the years, but nothing really stuck.”
“Right. More of a casual guy.”
I frown. “What makes you say that?”
But then I remember. It was early on after the wedding. The weird comments Marsha would drop at the dinner table. Little bits of misinformation that hardly merited correction. Some semi-unflattering reference, offered with a warm laugh and a “boys will be boys” smile.
The suggestion that she’d heard about me.
That mothers talk.
That there was some reputation I’d earned… about girls. Violence. Hell, sometimes as vague as her having heard about “that night.”
Individually, they were nothing. A stepparent trying to tease or connect but being out of touch enough that the details were wrong.
Cumulatively though? It had begun to feel like a campaign to undermine me.
Subtly. Over time. In a way that would have been hard as hell to defend against without looking like some petty baby-man who was jealous that he didn’t have his dad’s full attention anymore.
Especially because I wanted my dad to be happy with Marsha.
He’d been alone for sixteen years.
No girlfriends. No relationships. Just me and him. And the ghost woman he’d loved who’d slipped away less than a year from the day he’d met her.
“You’re saying you don’t do casual hookups?”
I want to tell her no. But it wouldn’t be true.
I have. They just aren’t what I really want. And what I want… “It’s complicated.”
“I’m sure it is.” This time, something about her smile bothers me. A lot.
“Rowan,” I start, wanting— or fuck, maybe needing her to understand.
But she’s already holding up her hand, her eyes shifting down to her tiles. “You don’t need to justify it. So long as everyone is on the same page and responsible, what’s the harm with some casual fun?”
When I don’t say anything, she goes on. “You’re an attractive guy, in a career known to draw the attention of plentiful willing partners who aren’t asking for more than a night.”
“Or a couple of hours. Maybe less.” Why am I telling her this?
What kind of reaction am I pushing for?
She blinks, slowly. But she doesn’t meet my eyes.
“I’m not saying that kind of company isn’t available.
You’re right, something about this job… I don’t know why.
But yeah, there are probably more opportunities than the average…
banker gets? And a lot of players get caught up in it, at least for a while.
I mean, it’s easy. Convenient company when there isn’t always a lot of bandwidth left at the end of the night because of a career with hours and travel and more commitments than aspiring players are usually prepared for.
But it’s not for everyone. There are plenty of Wife Guys and Relationship Guys on the team. ”
Though in all honesty, not all of them started out that way.
“But you? Still not much of a relationship guy, huh?”
There are a lot of different answers I give when this kind of question comes up.
Last week, when ancient Mrs. Geirgrich from the seventh floor asked on the elevator, I told her I was waiting for her.
Last month, when Sammy from parking asked, I gave him the bullshit line he loves about not being able to choose from all the beautiful women out there.
But here, now, sitting in the one place in the world where what I do for a living has never come into play, and I’m just a guy with a loving family who isn’t around anymore… I give Rowan the truth.
“For the right girl, I’d be a relationship guy in a minute.” Then, “Wait, what do you mean ‘still’?”
Eye contact, startling and addictive… and then gone in a blink. “Oh, umm, nothing. Just, you know. Everyone called you Heartbreaker in high school.”
Weird. “I’m not a heartbreaker kind of guy.”
“No? I guess maybe it was because you didn’t date much. In the traditional sense.”
The way she says it, so offhandedly, like it’s a matter of fact, doesn’t sit right.
“I had girlfriends.” A couple. Before I met Rowan.
“I wasn’t popping the question or shopping for promise rings for them, but that’s not out of the norm for high school.
But even back then, I didn’t have a lot of time for some of the stuff other kids did. ”
“Yeah, but… I mean, there were plenty of girls even when there weren’t girlfriends.”
Umm. “Not really.”
She blinks, a little furrow marring her brow as she seems to process my answer.
Then it’s like the ancient Etch A Sketch my dad played with when he was a kid and somehow survived my youth and is now living out its golden years in the cabinet under the window. The slightest shake of her head wipes her expression clear.
I want to ask her where she got the idea. Who was spreading the rumors, but really what difference does it make now what some kid said about me ten years ago.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t worry about it. Whatever you heard ten years ago is probably nothing compared to what’s out there today.”
“Does it bother you?”
I shrug. “Not like it used to. Yeah, it’s weird the first time you encounter that kind of bullshit and it’s not from some jealous asshole you’ve known since the second grade.
It’s a stranger you’ve never met, and I don’t know.
It almost feels more personal, even though it’s actually less.
But as a professional, you have to get used to it.
And you’ve got a team that helps you. An organization that supports you. ”
And then, because this is Rowan, I confide, “But yeah, sometimes it still bothers me.”