CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Still, Tanner had to fight to keep from throwing himself into Leif’s arms when he saw him in the family lounge a couple of weeks later.
They’d just won game three against the L.A. Suns.
The games against Florida hadn’t been easy—winning the Conference Finals was always hard—but they’d had the better team and despite Connor’s shoulder clearly hanging on by a thread, they’d managed to pull out the win.
No one had dared touch the Prince of Wales Trophy.
None of them were doing anything that could risk jinxing this run they were on.
Everyone was looking pretty rough by now. Connor’s and Luke’s beards made them both look like deranged mountain men and the rest of them were just sort of … scruffy.
Tanner was actually sort of impressed with how much facial hair he’d managed to grow this season. His beard was still a little weird because it always came in heaviest on his upper lip, chin, and cheeks and there were weird naked patches where they didn’t quite connect.
But Leif seemed into it, so there was that.
Leif and Silje had flown into Boston yesterday, and Tanner had been busy with team stuff, so he hadn’t been able to sneak away for even a minute to see him, but they’d video chatted.
Leif seemed lighter now. A little less sad, and Tanner was relieved.
He glanced around, looking for his family, and his mom—who’d been talking to Jesse’s parents.
“You were so good tonight, baby!” Stephanie said when she spotted him and Tanner walked over to his mom. He hugged her, lifting her up off her feet, and she laughed.
“Tanner! Tanner!” Mia and Olivia chorused as they ran over, and he grinned and let go of his mom to grab his sisters. He hugged them and ruffled their hair and hugged Jeff, and tried not to steal little glances at Leif who was talking to his own parents.
Everyone assumed he was there to support Aksel, but Tanner knew the truth.
Leif’s glance flicked over at him. He didn’t smile or anything—he had that resting ice princess face thing going—but Tanner still shivered.
Damn, it was going to be so fucking hot when they could finally be alone together in person. Hopefully no had noticed him eye-fucking Leif, since he knew he had no poker face whatsoever.
He glanced around the room. It wasn’t super full.
The SAPs had watched the game from their assigned seats in the lower bowl and were probably still on their way down to the lounge.
“Hi, Tanner!” someone said and he looked down to see Harper. For a kid who’d been through heart surgery recently, she looked great.
“Oh, hey!” he said with a big grin.
“Where’s Mr. Luke?” she asked. “Is he hurt?”
Her big eyes were filled with worry and Tanner held out his arms to see if she wanted to be picked up. She nodded and he hefted her onto his hip, even though literally every muscle in his body was screaming at him right now.
“Mr. Luke is just fine,” Tanner said firmly. “He’s just being slow and lazy.”
Harper giggled.
It was mostly the truth. Tanner would swear that Luke was about ready to permanently move into the training room for the rest of the playoffs at this point, but he hadn’t injured anything that kept him out of the game.
Tom had gotten pretty banged up in the game though and was still being looked after too.
“Where’s your mom and Uncle Seb?” Tanner asked.
“They’re with the—the pretty jacket ladies.”
Tanner laughed. The SAP jackets were pretty epic this season. Mandy, Krista, and Jesse had collaborated on them and they’d turned out great.
Jesse had made ones for himself, Connor, Mickey, and Rafe too, though they were playing and had no opportunity to wear them.
“I don’t care,” Jesse had said stubbornly. “We deserve SAP jackets. We’re cheering for our men to win too, right?”
Tanner had high-fived him and laughed when Connor rolled his eyes at them.
Sebastian, Dakota, and Thad had them too. Dakota and Thad had worn their jackets as much as they could, but it was really only Sebastian up in the stands with the female SAPs. Thankfully, he had a great sense of humor about it.
Tanner had wished he could get a jacket for Leif, even if he’d scoff and refuse to wear it.
“Tanner!” Harper said, booping him on the nose to get his attention. “Let me down. I wanna go play with Evie and Maura!”
“Okay.” He lowered her to the ground. “Hey, did you meet my sisters?”
“Yes. Miss Catherine intro—intro—”
“Introduced?” Tanner guessed.
“In-tro-dushed us.”
Meh, close enough, Tanner decided, then said, “Good! I hope they’re being nice to you.”
“So nice! ’Livia gave me a bracelet. See?” Harper thrust out her arm to show it off.
“Ooh, pretty,” Tanner said, showing her the ones he wore. His sisters had made them for him a couple of years ago, and he only took them off when he was playing.
“Nice,” Harper said. “Bye!”
Tanner laughed as she walked away, clearly done with him. A moment later, the doors swung open and Tom stepped inside.
“Hey. How are you doing?” Tanner asked with a frown.
“Sore as fuck.” Tom grimaced, pointing to the brace on his knee. “I’ll survive though. Just a sprain.”
“Good.”
Tom had gone down weirdly in the third period and hadn’t returned before the game ended.
Tom chuckled. “Krista’s probably gonna murder me though. She sent a text saying she was on her way down to find me and chew me out.”
“For what?” Tanner asked with a laugh. “What did you she think was going to happen when she married a hockey player? Besides, you’ve had worse.”
Tom shrugged. “Never gets easier, I guess.”
Tanner thought of the way he’d felt when he’d seen Leif lying on the ice after taking a puck to the elbow and winced, nodding. “Yeah, I guess not.”
The door opened again and Tanner glanced over to see a blonde woman standing in the hall. The security guard said something to her, and she nodded and stepped inside.
She looked vaguely familiar and Tanner idly wondered if he’d had sex with her or flirted with her on an app or something, before he realized he’d seen her at the restaurant when he’d gone out with Tom.
Oh, that was probably why she’d been looking at him like that. She was probably trying to figure out how she knew him. Maybe she was dating one of the Black Aces on the team or something? Probably not the rookies since she was maybe in her early thirties …
She moved toward them, smiling, and off to Tanner’s left, Tom made a choking noise.
Tanner glanced over to see his eyes were wide and his normally warm brown skin was a weird, ashy color.
“Hey, you okay?” Tanner asked. “Your knee hurting or something, dude?”
“Darla?” he choked out, staring at the woman, and Tanner’s brain whirled before the pieces settled into place.
Oh fuck, that was Tom and Krista’s stalker!
She was short, with lean muscles like a gymnast or a dancer or something. Pretty. But what the fuck was she doing here? And how the fuck had she gotten in here?
Duh, the security guard, his brain helpfully supplied, but there were still a lot of things that didn’t make sense.
“I just want to talk to you for a minute,” Darla said, holding up her hands.
“You aren’t allowed to be here,” Tom said in a low, furious voice. “You have to go.”
Tanner glanced around. No one was really paying them any attention. Shit. What the hell were they supposed to do if she lost it completely or something though? He thought of the true crime shows on stalkers he’d watched after Tom had thought he’d spotted her in L.A. and flinched.
Fuck, if she’d shown up here in Boston, that was bad, right?
Tom clearly hadn’t imagined that he’d seen her in L.A.
And Tanner had definitely seen her when they were at lunch in Boston.
Which meant she must have come to the city and waited outside of HCI and followed them to the restaurant or something.
That was so creepy. Tanner knew stalkers could get pretty fucking dangerous too.
But what could she really do to either of them? Physically, she was way too small to do any real damage to hockey players unless she had a gun or something. But how would she have brought a gun in? Security screened all the people coming into the building, right?
“You can’t just throw me away like this! I love you!” Darla said, her voice growing louder. “You told me you loved me too. So did Krista. You both lied!”
Tears were running down her cheeks now and Tom held out a hand, not quite touching her. “We did love you. But you—you weren’t listening when we said we needed to take things slowly.”
“If you loved me, you would’ve told people about me!” she snapped. “Not kept me a secret.”
“It was complicated,” Tom said, his voice still calm, but Tanner could see the tension in his shoulders. “You know that. I’m a public figure. If people found out about you, it would have blown up in the media, right?”
She wiped at her nose. “You were lying. Just using me.”
“No, no,” Tom said, and Tanner could hear the hurt in his voice. “We wouldn’t. Never.”
“How can you just stop loving someone?” she said, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “How can you do that?”
“Darla,” Tom said. “I—”
But the doors opened and Krista walked in, arm-in-arm with Brie. They were laughing about something, but Krista froze in her tracks, staring wide-eyed at Darla.
“I knew it!” Darla shouted. “You’re with her now, are you? You left me for her!”
“What?” Tom asked hoarsely.
“That woman.” Darla pointed at Brie, her fingers shaking. “Brie or whatever her name is. You’re with her and that’s why you don’t love me anymore.”
Brie shook her head, letting go of Krista. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! I’m not dating them. I just got divorced and Tom and Krista are my friends.”
Darla’s laugh was low and bitter. “That’s what they tell you at first. They tell you they want to be friends with you and then when you fall in love with them, they throw you out like a piece of trash. Like you mean nothing to them.”
Fresh tears appeared and she fumbled with something under her jersey. “Fine! If you don’t want me, there’s no reason for me to be alive anymore!”
She was crying in earnest now, almost sobbing as she held something to her wrist.