Chapter 20 Kane
Kane
“Holtz, what the fuck are you doing!?” Assistant Coach Wilder yells from the other side of the rink as Timber misses another pass. Ares Wilder has been bringing him on and off the ice the whole game, trying to get him to get his shit together, but it just isn’t working.
Timber’s more on it than the last game, but we all notice his attention is drifting everywhere. He scored one goal in the first away game two days ago, and that was enough to keep the coach happy. But he’s been in a daze for most of the week, and I want to do something about it.
We have this game and then we can go home—and he can go back to ‘Luke’.
We’re both out on the ice, close enough that we can skate together.
Timber is on the face off, I’m hanging on his back left, Thorne has his right, and we’re ready for it.
The whistle blows, and Timber is in there, whacking the puck back to me. I shoot forward, dodging a Virginia Beach Viper to the right, scanning for Thorne, who’s sailing up the outside.
But Timber is there like a bull, ramming his shoulder into a Viper and storming forward to the goal. I don’t need to think. One punt, the puck flies toward him, and he gets it at the perfect angle to shoot it straight into the back of the net.
It’s over in seconds. The music bursts around us, and I fly straight for him, jumping on him, hugging him before he can stop me.
Thorne skates in, clapping Timber on the back as we swerve around the ice.
And I nearly fall over as Timber lifts his head and meets me with a gaze that shakes me to my bones.
His arm comes up, sliding around my back, and he pulls me to his side. He holds me as we glide and the other guys get into position, his hand tight, his glances slight, and it feels like he actually needs me.
“We gotta get in for the face off!” I shout to him over the music, and he gives me a hard nod. The second he lets go, the cold of the rink bites through my suit.
My chest is tight, too shaken to be sure if that really happened.
I’ve been trying to get him to open up to me since I joined the team, and it’s the first time he’s shown me an ounce of softness, apart from the night we kissed. Maybe I can be someone he can rely on instead of annoying the shit out of him to get a reaction.
I groan as we skate back, and I fix a stare at him. He looks strong and in control now he’s had a hug, and I want it to be because he knows I have his back.
***
It’s obvious I’m a needy alpha, but it’s even worse when we’re away from Ollie. I mean, okay, she’s probably in Timber’s house, and that’s fine. She’s texting me way more, so that’s also fine.
She always says she’s busy when I want to call her, though she’s probably guessed what I’m angling for. And I’m not just talking about phone sex.
The other thing is Timber. Even though I keep hanging around him and bugging him about it, he won’t talk to me about Luke, or Ollie, or whoever. He gets pissed every time I casually bring them up.
Now there’s this, where Timber is sitting by himself in the locker room with his lunchbox that’s just as succulent as his chest.
I don’t get how Ollie can keep cooking for him when she’s back in Nashville, but I’m not going to complain when it means the scent of maple syrup swirls up from his lap.
Timber doesn’t stop me as I lean in and pluck up some of those awesome sausage rolls she must make from scratch.
The fact that he lets me sit and press my shoulder against him as I happily munch away means we’ve made a ton of progress. Or he cares less. Either way, I still want to rub myself up against him just like how he held me out on the ice.
“What’s been going on, baby? You’re all over the place,” I say through a mouth of meat and pastry.
He grimaces at me as his gaze stays on my lips, and I lick them for extra effect.
I thought he would explode at me eventually if I called him ‘baby’ enough. It was one of my many plans to annoy him, but he still hasn’t told me to stop.
“You ask me that every day. Do you really think I’m going to answer you now?”
“Well, since you were feeling me up on the ice, I figured I’d shoot my shot.”
He arches a brow, and I grin back, pretending I don’t see the way pain beats from him.
I could unleash my dickhead side and hit on him big time, but the other guys are still milling in and out of the locker room. Some of them clocked us, and they can sense something’s off with Timber as well.
They keep coming up to us, asking him what’s going on while I keep chomping , dragging in as much of her scent and taste as I can.
Timber very politely tells everyone to leave him the fuck alone.
Everyone apart from me.
“Are you still messed up about our date?” I ask as the last of the other players files out. They’re going to party tonight, but I want to see if Timber will give me a chance before I go.
“Stop calling it our date. We happen to be going on dates at the same restaurant at the same time. There’s no ‘our’ about it.”
“Okay, sure,” I say, leaning over again to grab myself a little omelette roll. “But I wasn’t joking when I said I want you to meet my omega.”
“Stop calling her yours. Unless you share a bite, there’s nothing there,” he growls.
I know he has issues with omegas, but I didn’t realize it’s so intense. I want to ask him if he shared a bite with his ex, but it’s not the right moment.
“Did you share a bite with your ex?” I ask, and he snaps straight back.
“I had the fucking thing lazered off as soon as we broke the bond. And that’s what I’m talking about. Even if you bite each other, it doesn’t mean shit, because you can just cover it up as if nothing ever happened, just like my nose.”
I flinch as he mentions it again.
I consider how Ollie and I made love, and how we were with each other afterward. It had been brief, but there’s so much more there for us. I just need to meet her again so we can learn about each other and really open up to our bond. And our connection can’t be so easily erased.
Plus, we still need to fill in the pack registration forms. Which is another reason I keep going back to the hospital.
My grin turns into a softer smile. “Ollie is definitely my omega,” I say, looking up at Timber.
He can’t smell or taste her, but would it matter as long as he’s attracted to her?
Would he change his thinking if he saw how confident and cheeky she was?
I hoped he already knew what she was like, even if he hadn’t guessed what might really be going on with her and Luke.
“I’m serious about you meeting her, and about being a pack.”
I don’t like how quiet Timber goes when I say that. A dark look creeps into his eyes, and his head dips. I’m going too far, but I’m getting so desperate that my knee is bouncing.
“Yeah, I know you hate the idea, but I want you to forgive me. Maybe we could fuck around and find out how stubborn you want to keep being from here on out.” Or I have to stop being so greedy because I want them both so badly.
The way his brow tightens and he lets out a slight breath makes me just as hot as scenting Ollie when she slicked for me.
“Kane, I’m really not in the mood,” he says through stiff lips.
“Would it really be so bad to go on a date with me?” I ask, leaning forward to pluck another sausage roll, waving it up to him. I’ve been trying to get him to repeat the move he planted on me and stole my breath with last week.
I can see him considering it as his gaze dances over it. But someone laughs from outside the door, and he pulls back at the last moment.
I shrug like it doesn’t matter, as if I haven’t been desperately missing his coffee along with Ollie’s syrup.
“I don’t want to be with another omega. Never again,” he says. And that could be the end of the conversation. I could leave it there and wait for Ollie to meet Timber as herself and hope that things would work out how I want.
But I’m a nosy bastard, and I don’t want to let this go.
“What if you scent match with someone else?”
Timber turns to glare at me, and guilt stabs me for speaking too quickly.
“You’re the second person who's asked me that this week. Do you really think I’m ever going to scent match with someone?” he asks with a growl that really gets me going.
“Maybe not scent match, but you might feel something. Since I’m obviously off the table, you could be attracted to someone and not need to scent them.”
He gets this look on his face that sparks me up, like he already knows what I’m talking about. Or maybe that’s what I want to see.
“Do I need to remind you that you’re the reason why I’m like this?” he asks, his voice numb.
Silence falls between us as the guilt grows even sharper in my chest. Because I’ll forget it, and maybe introducing him to Ollie, or getting him to see how I feel about him, could help the tiniest bit toward getting him to forgive me.
“No, you don’t need to remind me, Timber,” I say quietly. “Why do you think I can’t let you go?”
I’d told him I was sorry so many times, but I wouldn’t forgive anyone who did that to me.
The idea of meeting Ollie and not knowing she was my mate seems wild now.
If I met my omega and never knew there was a future there for us because I couldn’t scent her…
my heart would ache for something I could never have, and I was the one who took that from him.
I always wondered if loving him could make up for all of that.
“Do you still think I ruined your life?” I ask.
“I never said you did.” Normally, he snaps at me to shut up whenever I bring it up, but something’s different this time.
“But you can’t say I didn’t after everything that happened in your life since I smashed up your nose.”
“You keep thinking you’re important enough to me for me to give a shit about what you think? Go ahead and assume all you want, but I’m the one who gets to decide if you ruined my life or not.”
“Then why do you keep reassuring me when I hurt you like that?”