Chapter 29 Talbot
TALBOT
“It’s not fair—that’s not fair! He’s not getting the job done. He’s sleeping around,” Lawrence complains.
“No, I’m not,” I argue.
“Look, Misty’s crazy old grandma posted on her story that her granddaughter had sex.” My brother shoves his phone in my face.
“Finally, after a very looong dry spell…” Half the old woman’s face is cropped off from the frame. The audio sounds garbled. Off-screen, someone breaks a glass in the café, and she yells at them. “Is she going to be pregnant by Christmas? Follow my channel so you don’t miss the update.”
“Oof, Misty’s not gonna like that.”
“And I wonder who the other person was at the end of horizontal tango.” Anderson hums.
“The what? Are you hanging out at a retirement home again?” I peer at him.
“It’s Mrs. Pruitt. She hired us to see if her son was stealing her money. Spoiler alert: He was, and she cut him off, then he threatened her, so now she wants to hire us to play security.” My brother waits a beat. “She also bought a gun, so I don’t know what she needs us for.”
“Hudson said to send her to Crawford.” Jake hops up to sit on the worktable next to me. “We don’t do security gigs like that. We’re too busy.”
I pack hockey tape in my bag.
“Hudson, he’s playing hockey,” Lawrence yells.
His complaints are drowned out as I pass my skate blade over the grinder.
“Are you going to take out Austen at this hockey game?” Hudson peers in from the kitchen.
“There’s gonna be, like, a hundred of Ryan West’s family members there. I can’t take him out at the game,” I argue.
“So you’re just going to drink and play hockey.” Lawrence digs in my bag, probably trying to steal my new tape.
“Did you just give up on Colorado?” Jake asks.
“I missed out on Colorado because of you fuckheads, especially you, Elsa.” I blow on my skate.
She blows me a kiss that turns into giving me the finger.
“Anyway, I can always go to Colorado to snowboard and fuck in a hot tub anytime.” I’m impatient. “This is my one chance to play with the Ryan West, and the Dartmouth Demon is going to be there. Do you guys think I should buy a new stick?”
My brothers contemplate the impressive collection of sticks hanging on the wall of my apartment.
“I think you need to do some Swedish death cleaning, Mr. Hitman.”
I select one of my newer one-piece hockey sticks, thinking about the upcoming match. Misty even said I could come to the Christmas party.
This must be what it’s like to be in a normal, emotionally stable family. No one’s comparing kill counts or how morally gray their last job was or getting drunk and dredging up old grudges from childhood and beating the shit out of each other.
It’s intoxicating. It’s something new. I’m Jack Skellington when he crash-lands in Christmas town.
“He thinks he’s too good for us. Look at him,” Anderson sneers.
“You’re trash just like the rest of us.” Jake smirks.
“No, I am not like the rest of you because I am fucking Ryan West’s daughter.”
“She is your client,” Hudson barks. “For the love of god, get rid of Austen.”
I reach over her shoulder and grab one of the herb-and-cheese-stuffed pretzels.
“How come he got to have one?” Misty’s little brothers clamber around her.
“It’s because—” I grab Misty, tip her back, and kiss her long and deep. “I’m the new alpha in the pack.” I bat at them. “When you get a girlfriend, you’ll understand. Or should I say, if.”
“Real mature,” Misty scoffs, but her cheeks are pink.
I split the steaming pretzel and offer pieces to her younger brothers. “And you, Cocoa Puff!” I toss the dog a piece after blowing on it. “Can’t leave you out of the snack circle of trust.”
“Cocoa!” Misty’s brothers pick up the dog and parade her out to the dining room where Ryan West’s family is gathered, chanting, “Puff! Puff! Puff!”
“You’re not dressed for hockey.” I fluff out Misty’s loose hair.
“I have to cook.”
“Scared I’ll kick your ass? No shade. It’s a fair assessment.”
“Are you kidding me, buddy?”
I kiss her nose. “She’s so cute when she’s offended.” I take the spoon out of her hand for good measure. “Don’t need you to gut me with that. It’s okay to be scared of the big, bad hitman, Gumdrop.”
“I saw you on the ice. You can barely skate,” she snorts.
“The hell I can’t. I could have gone all the way if I hadn’t gone into the military. I was totally going into the NHL. Scouts were watching.”
“In your dreams.” She sticks her tongue out at me.
“Like you’re so good.” I follow Misty down the hall to the mudroom storage. “You what, skate around with babies every Tuesday?”
Ryan West’s already there, knee on the floor, meditatively packing his hockey bag.
Misty walks in and starts pulling her sticks and pads from the shelves. “You’re one to talk,” she says, tossing me a look over her shoulder. “One of those kids sneezes, and you lose control of the puck.”
“I’m pretty sure I can kill you on the ice. Literally.”
“Those weak ankles?” She’s already digging in her heels. I love it.
I open my mouth to chirp her back, but Ryan gives me a look. That Stanley Cup champion look, that captain look, that coach look. That I will jump over the boards and beat your ass with this hockey stick look. I like the look. I worship the look. Just not when it’s pointed at me.
“She started it,” I mutter. “Sir. All due respect.”
“There’s a reason I pulled rank,” he says, looking back at his bag, “and put Misty on my team.”
“Oh yeah?” I cup her face. “What are you hiding from me, Gumdrop?”
She shrugs, playing innocent. “You’ll see,” she says, way too breezy.
Ryan huffs a laugh under his breath.
Yeah, that doesn’t bode well.
I let her go because if I don’t, I’m gonna end up kissing her again, and I don’t need a pissed-off Ryan West after me.
Instead, I take her gear bag off her shoulder and sling it over mine. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue, just yanks open the back door to the cold.
“You’re chivalrous for a hitman.”
“Keep your enemies close.”
“Thought I was a client.”
“You’re a job perk.”
Out in the driveway, the West family chaos is in full swing. Misty’s younger siblings are already wrestling their cousins in the snow over who gets to ride in what car and tossing snowballs at each other with ruthless aim.
Cocoa barks her head off from the hood of my truck, where I suppose one of Misty’s brothers must have set her.
Misty pauses, gripping her hockey stick grim faced.
I lean in close, dropping my voice so low she has to tilt her head to hear. “Smart Christmas cookie. You should be scared,” I murmur, “of how bad I’m gonna beat your ass on the ice.”
That gets her—her eyes flash, her competitive spirit flaring. She taps the butt of her stick against my boot, a light, challenging thunk. “Bring it, hitman.”
God, she’s beautiful when she’s like this—all fire and confidence and bright, reckless light.
And she doesn’t even know it. Doesn’t even know that every second I’m around her, it gets harder to pretend this is all a game.
Harder to remember that I’m supposed to keep things simple, that I’m supposed to distract her enough to close out a contract, not want her.
I grin—wide, wolfish—and toss her bag into the back of my truck. “Don’t worry, Gumdrop,” I say as I open the passenger door for her. “I’ll be gentle.”
“Don’t bother. I like it rough.”
The Elfs are losing.
I have to admit I had not been practicing as hard as I should have been, but it’s not all on me. The game is chaos. Ryan West and his kids might live on skates, but his extended family barely knows which direction to hold the stick.
“It should be spelled ‘Elves,’” one of Ryan’s cousins, an English professor, complains as she misses a pass from me.
Fortunately, Sienna’s father gets it and snipes it at his daughter in-goal.
“It’s like the Leafs, and you’re gonna lose like them,” her brother chirps at her. He can’t talk and play hockey at the same time, though, and falls on his ass. “I need a beer.” He rubs his hip. “Someone sub in for me.”
Fortunately, I can play any position because my team ain’t great, especially since they’ve been drinking.
Granny Keagan might be able to skate, but she’s drunk as a skunk and is shouting out really unhelpful commentary as she skates around in her black-and-white-striped ref outfit while taking sips from a noxious-smelling flask.
At least I have Mike Tiernan on the Elfs. Even though the Dartmouth Demon is in his fifties, he still skates circles around me.
Mason sprints out onto the ice wearing a Team Santa jersey and knifes through the forwards.
Skating backward, I keep up with him as he carries the puck to our goal.
“Hey!” Mason cries as my stick whips out and I skate off with the puck, pushing up through the neutral zone.
“There’s Austen Langley. Is he going to shit the bed on this game?” Granny Keagan announces then hiccups into the megaphone.
Mason comes toward me, and I fake him out, letting the Dartmouth Demon check him so I can take the puck to the goal.
The Santa’s left defenseman is busy telling his kids that no, they cannot have that fourth hot chocolate. I’m wide-open to the goal. I aim to slide my hand down the stick to take the shot—
I grunt as Misty slams into me, knocking me off the puck. “Damn, Gumdrop.”
I can’t get it away from her. She’s a machine as she guards it, controlling the puck with one hand. Her ass and thigh muscles dig her skates into the ice while her empty hand is outstretched, keeping me away from the puck as she scans for a teammate to pass it to.
She takes it around the back side of the net as I chase her, does some crazy stutter step that damn near breaks my ankles, then she’s pushing it to the blue line.
It’s dazzling.
I have sudden visions of building her a hockey rink in our backyard, going two-on-two, skating with our kids...
I need to focus. Even though I can keep up with her, I cannot get the damn puck from her.
She knocks me off-balance, again uses the brief window to send the puck back to Ryan West, who moves like a shark up the ice.