25. Miles
Chapter 25
Miles
“ S tella? What the fuck are you doing at my best friend’s house, wearing his clothes?”
Holy fuck.
This is an actual fucking nightmare.
Rex is here. In my apartment.
Jumping up, I throw on a pair of sweats and a shirt and head out to the kitchen to figure out what the fuck is happening.
“What are you doing here?” Stella asks nervously as Rex walks into the apartment, Max following him in, but he’s damn near laughing.
Fucker.
“I asked you first,” Rex spits through his teeth, his eyes finding me the second I turn the corner. “You’re spending time with this asshole, and that’s why you’re keeping secrets from me?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Stella snaps.
“You’ve been so secretive. Your trip, your apartment…you’ve been so weird about everything and that’s not like you!” Rex yells. “And now I find out you’re over here, doing God only knows what with the biggest player in New York, and it’s all starting to make sense to me.”
“Rex, I think you need to stop talking,” Stella says.
But it’s just getting interesting.
I’ve always known my friends think I’m a bit of a player, but it sounds like Rex thinks even lower of me than I thought he did, and I’m somehow the biggest player in New York.
“No, Stella! Do you realize Miles is always with different women? You go from the guy before who wouldn’t give you the time of day, to a man who gives every woman he meets the time of day. Sounds great until you want to settle down and he wants to fuck anything that walks.”
“Rex, I think Stella is right,” Max says.
“I don’t need your advice,” Rex snaps. “This guy is fucking my sister! I’m allowed to be pissed.”
Max just stares at him before shaking his head, grabbing a bag of M she has to be here somewhere,” Rex growls, moving through my apartment like he owns the place, but he comes up empty as well.
She’s not here.
“She’s not,” Max says. “She left a while ago.”
“You didn't think to say anything?” Rex asks.
“Last time I talked, you yelled at me.” Max shrugs.
“We aren’t done with this conversation, Miles,” Rex says before storming to the door and slamming it shut behind him.
“Didn't think we were, dickhead,” I say, slumping down onto the couch. “Fuck me,” I groan.
“Seems you've got that under control, or you did.” Max smirks. “Just ride it out. It’ll all be okay.”
I hope so.
Stella, baby, please answer your phone.
Stella
No. You said everything you needed to.
No baby, Rex wouldn’t let me talk. Please. Hear me out, Stell.
Stella
Maybe after the opening, but I’m letting everything die down until then.
Trevor
Have you tried to call Rex?
Nope.
Trevor
Will you?
I think you two should talk.
When he wants to act like a grown-up and not throw a hissy fit, he can come talk to me.
In my entire career of playing hockey, I've never once had a game like this one. It hasn’t just been a bad game; I’ve practically been skating around defending the goal the entire time because for some reason we haven’t been able to clear the puck to switch out our lines.
It’s been frustrating as fuck. For some reason, Harris and I just haven’t been able to get on the same page tonight, which is frustrating with it being our first game, especially against Nashville.
Even worse, late in the second period, Levi snuck the puck past me and scored, and the only thing I could think about in that moment was the way it looked with Stella on her knees for him. It doesn’t matter that things didn’t progress. That was the only image I needed to want to put my fist through his face.
It’s hard because I was supposed to be staying here in Nashville for an extra day so that I could make it to Stella’s opening, but now that’s not happening, and I hate it. After she left yesterday, she turned her phone off, and I didn’t hear from her until later that night when I was already on the plane to Nashville.
She left me a voicemail of all things—letting me know that until everything blew over, she was going to stay at her parents’ house because she didn’t want to see me or her brother. If only Rex and Stella both knew that I wasn’t going to let her go this time. This time, I wasn’t going to fuck it up. I mean, the only reason I hesitated was to figure out how to let him down nicely.
I was attempting to figure out how to respectfully tell my best friend that if he was going to make me choose between him and his sister, he was going to be really pissed off when he had to spend every holiday for the rest of his life with a brother-in-law that he despised.
But it never came to that because she left, and all I want to do is to be back in New York, in my apartment, with her next to me, baking—hell, doing anything. I just want her there.
But that’s not what I should be thinking about as I hop on the ice for another shift, Harris and I switching out Murphy and Smith who look gassed, having been on the ice defending the goal for longer than usual. Cade hasn’t let another one past him since the first period, and thankfully Benson scored earlier on a power play, so we’re not sitting too bad with four minutes left in the third.
That is until they get the puck and start making their way down the ice toward our net, Levi coming out of nowhere and slamming me into the board.
“Daydreaming about the pussy I nearly tasted?” Levi says, and although I know he’s just giving me shit, I see red.
“The fuck did you say?” I growl, skating to catch up before slamming him into the boards, dropping my gloves in the process. He just grins as my fist hits his face, but this crazy motherfucker loves the action. I’m positive he gets off on the fighting, but to each their own.
“Oh, are we a little sensitive about this one?” he smirks as blood starts running from his nose, and I punch him again, only this time, he returns the favor, sending a sharp sting of pain as his fist connects, splitting my lip.
The refs split us up, throwing us both in the sin bin, even though there’s only three minutes left in the game. Coach shakes his head at me, but I’m not usually the fighter so I doubt he’ll give me a hard time for this one.
It’s hard to watch the last couple of minutes, so I’m surprised when, somehow, Harris steals the puck with twenty seconds left, passing it to Benson, then over to Lawrence, our other winger, who scores right through the five hole.
Fuck yeah!
After the final buzzer goes, they let us out and we all rush over to thank Cade for somehow making thirty-eight saves, only letting that one goal past him, but even with our first win of the season, I’m finding it difficult to want to celebrate.
“Hey man, want to go grab a beer with the guys before we head to the airport?” Harris says, grabbing his stuff after his shower.
“Nah, I’m meeting up with Levi after this to catch up. Y’all can just head out and I’ll see you guys at the airport,” I tell him, not missing the looks shared between him and Cade.
They’ve been trying to figure out what’s happening since they heard about Rex and Max showing up to my apartment, but they’ve also been respectful about not prying for information. I think they had an idea of what happened and thought it would be better to just stay the fuck out of it.
It’s not that I don’t want to share with them or tell them what’s going on. It’s just that I don’t even know what the fuck is happening, so what do I tell them? Are Stella and I together? Was her disappearing her way of backing out? Changing her mind?
Or do I need to go get her? Go fight for her?
I’m trying to be respectful, but it’s really fucking hard. She told me to let everything die down until after the opening. That we would talk after…but goddammit I miss her, and it’s been less than forty-eight hours.
I didn’t think it was possible to miss someone like this, especially someone I’ve only recently started spending time with. But somehow in this short time, my feelings have evolved from a simple crush into something all-consuming. It’s become something that grips me completely, something so intense it’s impossible to ignore any longer.
Now I know that I’m in love with her.
Grabbing my things, I head out to meet Levi at the bar across the street. Looking down at my phone, I hope to see a text from Stella; unfortunately, there’s nothing except for one text from Rex asking me to call him.
Maybe tomorrow. Right now I’m still pissed, and I truthfully don’t want to talk to him.
When I get to the bar, Levi is already there in a booth, his eyes glued to his phone with a beer for each of us in front of him.
“Hey, man,” I say as I slide in across from him.
He looks up for a moment before setting his phone down. “Hey,” he says, passing the beer my way. “Thought you could use this.”
The fucker is smirking, looking down at my lip that finally stopped bleeding.
“Thanks. I could, but not because of the lip.”
“Oh? Things with blondie not going well?”
I glare, and he must get the hint as he holds his hands up in surrender. “Just a question. My bad.”
I lean back in the booth, grabbing the beer in one hand, and I stare at him, thinking about how to say this.
“Rex found out and he’s not exactly pleased.”
“And?”
“That’s her brother.”
“Okay? Aren’t we all adults here? I’d never expect either of my sisters to listen to me if I told them not to date someone. In fact, I think if I told them not to date someone, they’d probably make it their life mission to date that person to spite me.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. He’s one of my best friends, and he’s close with his sister. I’m not getting in the way of their relationship.”
“You’re an idiot,” Levi says, shaking his head.
“I’m an idiot? Wanna talk about Quinn?” I ask, and the second I mention her name, his eyes narrow.
“No,” he seethes.
“Oh? Did we find the angry button?” I gibe.
“Miles…not tonight. I’ll tell you all about Quinn, but not tonight,” Levi groans.
“At least tell me who she is?” I push.
“Remember Ally?”
“Wasn’t she your fiancée?”
“Yeah. Well, Quinn is her sister,” Levi says, his eyes just off to the side, gazing out just past me.
“Oh…fuck.”
“See the problem now?” Levi asks, and I can tell there’s more to this story…probably a lot more, especially because if I remember correctly, Ally was his coach’s niece which makes this very messy.
“I do. We’ll save that story for a night with more time and more bourbon.”
“Deal. Now back to you real quick before I go kick your ass at pool. Take some time if you need to come up with a plan, but don’t wait too long. If Rex is really your best friend, all it will take is one look at the two of you to see how much you care about each other. He’d be a horrible friend to deny you both a love like that.”
I know he’s right—about Rex’s friendship, not the pool game. But having that conversation with him is still going to suck, and I know I need to do it quickly because I’ll be damned if Stella ever feels like she’s not my first choice.
That’ll be a problem for when I’m back home. For now, I’m going to kick Levi’s ass at pool until I have to make my way to the airport to fly back to an empty apartment.
What I thought was going to be an empty apartment instead became a very tense apartment when I arrived home to someone waiting for me.
Damn me for giving my friends keys.
I mean, I wanted there to be a Lockwood here; I just wanted it to be the prettier one.
“Hey,” he says with a nod as I walk in and set my bags down in the coat closet next to the door.
“Hey,” I tell him as I grab a water from the fridge and take a seat across from him. “What’s up?”
“You haven’t been answering my phone calls.”
“Haven’t wanted to talk,” I tell him truthfully.
“I get that. I was a bit of a dick. Max had a fun time telling me how much I sucked during that little interaction, and out of all of our friends who could have been there during that…why the fuck did it have to be Max?” Rex says, and I can tell he’s trying to lighten the mood.
“A bit of a dick? Have you apologized to your sister yet?” I question, still pissed at the way he talked to her.
“No, but only because she’s been even worse about answering her phone. At this point I think I might actually be blocked, and I don’t know where she’s staying. I’m sure my parents and Sawyer know and are just refusing to tell me.”
I just smirk, because the thing about Mama Lockwood, and Sawyer for that matter, is that they love and protect their own, fiercely. If they disagreed with Rex, they’d protect Stella, and that at least sort of gives me hope.
“Look, I know we need to talk, but can you tell me where she is?”
“Right now? She’s probably in Nashville getting ready to open the bakery tomorrow.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, and it’s not because of me. I know because I helped her when she needed someone, and for some reason, she trusted me to be her person. If I tell you all of this, you can’t be pissed at her or throw it in her face.”
“Okay.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky promise.”