Chapter 3
3
Five years later
Portland, Maine
Kit
W earing a furry cat costume on a public bus is something beyond embarrassing. I mean, the pussy jokes from creepy dudes practically write themselves. But wearing it to Liam Locke’s house was asking for ridicule. Big time.
But desperate times and all that.
I got off the bus and walked what felt like a mile uphill to the gates of Liam’s fancy Portland home. My long tail, bent from the bus ride, brushed my face with every step. I batted it away and it came back harder.
It was one of those perfect Maine Spring days. Bright blue sky, cool breeze off the lake. No bugs. I’d learned in my brief two months in Maine, it was either bug season or no bug season. And apparently, we were on the last few days of no bug season.
Having never lived in Maine before, I was terrified of bug season.
Mike, as per usual, was sitting on the extended porch of Liam’s house. Big arms crossed across his bigger chest. If he had a neck, I’d never seen it. Maybe you’re wondering why a six-four, two hundred twenty pound NHL star needs a guy like Mike sitting outside his house and looking fierce.
Good question. Glad you asked.
Because Liam Locke was a sucker.
Liam played for the Bruisers, who were currently competing in the Stanley Cup finals. Fans knew where Liam lived. His three known stalkers knew where he lived. He was so beloved by this city it was dangerous. Can you imagine? Being so loved by people that it was dangerous?
He’d invested in dozens of small businesses in the city. Car washes and flower stores. Daycares. Bars and restaurants. It seemed like all you had to do to get money from him was show up with a business plan and a dream.
He’d also lost money. In crypto and real estate. Investing.
The guy was a legendary easy mark.
Ask me how I know.
“Hi, Mike,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. The cat costume was freaking heavy.
“Hey, Kit.” He didn’t smile. He didn’t ask me why I was wearing a giant cat costume. Mike was like one of those palace guards who were not allowed to react at all. Not that he was an actual bodyguard. At least I didn’t think Mike did anything other than sit on Liam’s porch and look mean.
I was pretty sure he was just another one of the satellites revolving around Liam, an old high school friend who needed some financial help, so Liam made up a job for him.
“Is he home?”
Mike nodded and stepped aside.
I knocked and waited. It was nine am on Sunday morning, so Liam knew it was me. He was probably in there polishing his knives. Coming up with some insults to make me feel even worse about myself. But I’d signed up for this, so I deserved what I got.
I pulled off the head of the cat costume, holding it under my arm like a helmet. My hair was in sweaty clumps around my face and I tried to push them back as I waited for the door to open. My mascara had to be dripping down my cheeks. That’s what you get for wearing makeup under a cat costume.
I wasn’t sure if I was better with the head on or without.
The door opened and I bared my teeth, expecting him and his insults. Instead a perky blonde wearing a white tank top and a pair of over-sized sweatpants greeted me.
Of course. Half the time I showed up at his place there was a perky blonde. Or a seductive red head. A cool brunette.
Sometimes all three.
“Hi,” I said. “Is Liam here?”
“Liam?” The blonde asked over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off me. “There’s a big cat here to see you.”
I rolled my eyes.
“A cat with attitude,” the blonde amended, and I almost laughed.
“A cat, huh? She real ugly? With a snaggle tooth?” Liam’s shout floated through the doorway.
“No,” The blonde said, her eyes walking all over me. “She’s cute in a sweaty kind of way.”
“Then it’s not who I’m expecting. Kit’s not cute in any kind of way. Just feed the thing some milk and it will go away on its own.”
I rolled my eyes again. “I’m Kit,” I explained.
“I gathered,” said the blonde. “Never heard him be so rude to a woman before.”
“What can I say?” I said. “I bring out the best in him.”
The blonde hummed and stepped back from the door so I could get through, but my giant cat belly and cat feet made it impossible.
“Sorry,” I murmured when my tail hit her in the head. “Excuse me.”
“Did you drive with that on?” she asked, stepping to the end of the foyer so I could get in.
“I took the bus.”
She laughed like I was joking and then sobered. I wasn’t joking.
“Liam is in the living room.”
I didn’t ask who she was or what she was doing there, because it seemed pretty obvious. She was a beautiful woman here on a Sunday morning. Wearing Liam’s sweatpants.
I wasn’t the most experienced cat in the world, but I could do that math.
On my giant cat feet I padded down the long hallway from the front door to the living room at the back of the house. Resolutely, I did not look around. I did not absorb any of the fruits of his labor, his rewards for all his hard work.
I ignored the framed jerseys, the trophies. The pictures with famous people that covered the walls. I walked down the hallway to the living room with the huge windows looking out over a golf course and that stupid painting of him over the couch.
I ignored everything. Except I couldn’t ignore the man in the room.
Because Liam was naked.
“Come on, Liam!” I cried, looking up at the ceiling. “You’re doing this on purpose!”
“Doing what?”
“Put some clothes on.”
“I’m wearing clothes.”
I glanced back down and realized he was wearing gray boxer briefs and two gold chains nestled in the hair of his chest.
“Barely,” I muttered.
“What’s the matter? This bother you, Kit?” He held his arms out. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”
For a moment, startled and weak – I stared. I gaped even. Liam Locke was a thing of beauty. Muscles on muscles. Groomed chest hair that narrowed to a thin strip that bisected his strong stomach and disappeared down the low waistband of his clingy fucking boxers.
Hockey player legs – which meant they were like tree trunks. Requiring custom tailoring for every fancy suit he wore. Shoulders so wide they could carry his whole team. A chest so thick it made a girl want to rest her weary head against it. Arms so strong they could curl around that girl. Keep her safe.
His unreasonably handsome face lit up at the sight of me and my cat costume. That I’d handed him such amazing ammunition to use against me delighted him.
“Shit, she wasn’t lying about the cat thing. You look ridiculous,” he said.
“You look…” I froze. The next word caught just barely in my teeth. Because of all the stupid things I could do, telling Liam Locke that he looked amazing, would be top of the list. But he did.
He looked delicious.
His playoff beard was scruffy bordering on mountain man. His blonde hair hadn’t seen scissors because of playoff superstition. It was so long in the back it brushed his shoulders. A mullet shouldn’t look good on anyone, but Liam Locke was just that kind of asshole.
He was a beautiful, beautiful man.
And I was a black cat.
Literally.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. How do I look, Kit?” he asked, stepping forward, making all those muscles ripple. I noticed bruises on his forearms and a scrape across his cheek. The black eye. I wanted to touch each of those injuries. Press my lips against them like I could make them better. After all these years, that instinct hadn’t changed.
“Like you’ve been in a fight.” I said, pretending all that skin did nothing to me. And it didn’t. I hardened my heart and my lady parts. I was impervious to Liam Locke. I didn’t even care about that sizeable bulge in his underwear.
Barely noticed it.
“You watch the game?” he asked.
“What game?” I was playing dumb, but it was one of the few moves I had left with him.
Last night’s game had been a brutal one and he’d been in the thick of it. The Bruisers had won, but barely.
Not that I would ever in a million years reveal I’d watched the game. Or seen that hit behind the net or that I’d held my breath waiting for him to get back up. I didn’t see him score the game-winning goal either. The bar where I worked had gone nuts and I’d forced myself not to cheer. To not feel anything.
My dad had always said Liam Locke was one of the most talented rookies he’d ever seen on the ice. Touched by God, he’d said. My dad had always been good at spotting true talent.
And taking all their money.
“Come on,” Liam said. “I know you watched.”
“Too busy,” I said with a shrug.
“Out on the prowl?”
A cat joke. He really could be funny, sometimes. “Something like that.”
“Well, it’s too bad because you would have seen my hat trick-”
“Oh please, you only scored one,” I shot back. “And it was a lucky shot off Lukov’s skate.”
He jabbed his finger at me. “I knew you watched.”
I snorted. “I watched you not capitalize on the power play in the second period.”
“Made up for it in the third.”
“Barely. Your brother had your number all night long.”
He smiled. I forced myself not to smile back. Two brothers playing each other in the Stanley Cup Finals was not new. But it was still a good story. One defenseman, one star center. One elder statesman. One young hot shot. The press was loving it.
“My brother always has my number,” Liam said with all the grace of a little brother who’d made a hell of a home in his older brother’s shadow.
“His time on ice was double every other defenseman on that bench,” I said.
“It will cost them for game seven,” Liam said. “When his legs are ruined.”
“You hope.”
Liam grinned, and for a moment it was so…tender between us. Kind. Like it had been that night in Nashville. The air was warm and sparkly. His blue eyes were the bluest blue.
I wanted to ask him what it was like. Playing his brother for the Stanley Cup. If it was as fun as they made it look. Two men who’d played thousands of hours of hockey together. During warmups Liam was constantly chirping at Wyatt, until Wyatt got frustrated and skated away to warm up someplace else.
But they always hugged each other after every game. No matter who won or lost.
“Hey Liam,” The blonde said from behind me, snapping me out of my trance, reminding me she was there. “Is it okay if I…?” She jerked her thumb back towards the long hallway that I assumed led to bedrooms.
“Knock yourself out,” he said.
All perfection, she skipped down the hallway.
“So, why are you dressed like a cat?” Liam asked, crossing his arms over that hairy chest and making every muscle pop and ripple. The tenderness was gone and now he was a growly predator. An NHL star, full of bad intent. A man wronged by my father.
And me, if I was being fair.
But I only owed him money. Not my story.
“It’s none of your business.”
Cool as a cucumber, I opened up the giant bag I was carrying, full of birthday supplies and snacks, and pulled out my wallet. I had the money I’d saved over the week, plus what I’d earned this morning.
“I think I’m making it my business,” he said. He stepped forward. His toes touched the edge of my ridiculous cat feet.
“Our arrangement doesn’t work that way,” I stepped back, adding his feet to the list of things I was ignoring. But stupidly, my eyes fleeing the scene of his feet got distracted by that damn underwear and what it was barely concealing.
Touched by God, indeed.
“Our arrangement,” he said, his voice a dark purr that did wonderful and terrible things to my cat insides, “is whatever I say it is. This was your idea. You came to me, remember?”
“Yes. I did. Fine. What do you want?”
His laughter was all kinds of innuendo.
You’d think it would be easy to flat out reject a guy who thought so little of me, but…whatever. He was hot. And once upon a time, a million years ago, he’d directed all that charm my way. It had been…electric. The kind of electricity that could kill a girl if she wasn’t careful. I’d grabbed onto it for as long as I could and we both got burned.
Though only one of us had the scars to prove it.
“So many things,” he said with a sigh. “I want both my brother and me to win the Stanley Cup.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“You asked me what I wanted, not what made sense. I want to learn how to fly and perfect my approach shot. I want to meet Sydney Malloy and declare my undying love. I want you…to beg me for forgiveness.”
“Forgive me,” I said, without any begging. Because I knew it was impossible. He’d made it more than clear he would never forgive me. “Here’s your money.”
I held out the five hundred dollars, mostly in ones and fives, as well as the crisp two, one hundred dollar bills I’d earned today. He looked down at it and back up at me.
“No. Like…beg…on your knees,” he said with a smirk. And just like that, the golden boy of the NHL, who was known for his volunteer work and soft heart, was all cruel intention when it came to me. When this was over, I could sell my story to the press, but no one would believe me.
“Seven hundred,” I said and shook it at him. “You want to count it?”
He took it and tossed the money behind him on the couch like it was nothing. I got it – it was pocket change to him. But that money was my literal blood, sweat and tears. That was an Uber ride home after a terrible shift. That was my stupid uniform at the bar and rude men who thought I was free game because I wore that uniform. That was blisters on my feet that bled through my sock.
That was the iced vanilla latte with cinnamon syrup I dreamt about and denied myself every single day.
Liam Locke was the jerkiest of jerks. Except no one would believe me. Because he was only that way with me.
“Fine. Then tell me why you’re dressed like that.”
I shook my head, and it was like I’d waved a red cape in front of his face. Because if there was one thing – besides me – that Liam Locke didn’t like? It was not getting his way.
“Sooner or later, you’re going to tell me,” he said, like he was the master of the universe.
“Not if I was dying and telling you would save my life.”
“Is it a sex thing?”
I rolled my eyes. “You think everything is a sex thing.”
“Most things are. I’ll take a thousand dollars off your debt.”
Oh. That was tempting. Even more tempting than his wide chest and his gorgeous shoulders. The twinkle in his blue eyes. That bulge in his jockey’s.
“Come on, Kit,” he cooed at me. “I’ll take a grand off your debt, and here…” he turned and grabbed a hard-earned twenty off the stack I’d just given him. “You can have this back too. Now…” he waved his fingers at me. “Tell me.”
It was my business, not his. For the past five years, I’d been reaching out to all my father’s victims with a simple offer. What could I do to pay them back?
I knew what my pay-back tour implied. That I was guilty too. That I’d worked with my father to fleece young athletes. That I’d participated in his crimes.
It wasn’t true in black and white. I didn’t know what he was doing, but that didn’t stop my shame. Or my guilt.
A lot of the guys didn’t answer my calls. Some of them took my money and donated it to charity. A few told me I could suck their dick. I didn’t - my guilt only went so far.
Liam Locke was the final name on that list. For obvious reasons.
He didn’t need to know how I earned the money, only that I did.
But I also knew the sooner I worked through what I owed him, or in reality, the sooner he felt like he’d gotten whatever revenge he was interested in taking, the sooner I would be free from all of this.
“I work birthday parties on the weekend,” I said, lifting my chin, ready for him to make fun of me. “Little kid birthday parties. Today’s was a cat themed party for a little girl.” I held out my arms. “So, I am a cat.”
He looked baffled at the information.
“It’s barely noon,” he said. Like that was what was weird.
“It was an early morning birthday party for a cool little girl who digs cats and science. You want to make fun of her?”
“I want to make fun of you.”
I blew out a long, exhausted breath and put the twenty bucks back in my bag. Today I’d earned that latte with cinnamon syrup.
“So let me get this straight. That’s how you earn all the money you pay me back with?” he asked, like it was just occurring to him. “Birthday parties?”
“That’s one of my jobs.”
“What are the other ones?”
I shook my head. The threat of him showing up at the bar where I worked to see me in that stupid uniform was too real. I would die. I would. I knew exactly how far I’d fallen. I didn’t need him to show me.
“I owe you money,” I said. “I don’t owe you anything else.”
Liam looked like he wanted to argue but I was saved by the return of the blonde.
She was still wearing all the same clothes. But now she carried a giant watering can and a leather duffle bag.
I wondered what kind of kinky shit they did with the watering can and then hated myself for it.
“Liam, is it okay if I borrow this?” she said, lifting the small duffle. It was Louis Vuitton. “I’m going on a trip next week and I don’t have any luggage.”
“No problem, honey,” he said.
“I’ll shout about next month.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll talk to you later. Oh, and good luck tomorrow.”
“Yep. Bye,” he said.
She wiggled her fingers at him and walked out of the living room. Perfect hair and perfect ass swaying.
Sweat slipped between my butt cheeks.
“You don’t remember her name,” I said when she was gone.
“Of course I do,” Liam said.
“There’s no way-”
“Lexi,” he said. “She takes care of my plants. Comes in once a month and makes sure I don’t kill them. Tries to get me to sing to them.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
Of course, I did. Because that was the kind of shit Liam Locke was known for.
There had been a scandal during his rookie year. A claim made by a woman that he’d fathered her child. Nothing new in the world of professional athletes, but Liam had been upset enough by the accusations that he’d made the results of the DNA test public.
It had also been reported, very quietly, but public enough, that he’d helped the woman who’d made the claim get some mental health treatment. He’d also set her up with an apartment and a job to help her raise the baby in a safe environment.
That was the first story like that about Liam, but it wasn’t the last. Time and time again women and men, people he’d only known casually, had come out to say how much Liam had helped them get back on their feet.
He probably went on three dates with Lexi, casually fucked her in a hotel suite. Then found out after the fact that she was hurting for money, so he made up the job of plant waterer.
“You’re just going to let her take that bag? You know you won’t get it back.”
He shrugged. “It’s just a bag.”
“She might have stuffed it full of your shit.”
“Mike checks her at the door, makes sure she’s not taking anything important.”
“Oh, so she can steal from you and it’s fine-“
The second I said it, I regretted it. I knew exactly the leap he would make.
“You did more than steal from me,” he said, that cool guy grin of his vanishing. He was hard and mean and hurt, all over again. “Didn’t you?”
I didn’t. But he thought I did. He thought I flirted with him, seduced him…fucked him. Just so my dad could steal his money.
He thought that entire night had been a lie. An orchestrated plot by both me and my father to fleece him.
I could have told him a thousand times he was wrong, but of course all I had was my word and the word of Bill Barrington’s daughter was worthless.
“Liam…” I began, but there really was nothing for me to say.
He walked out of the living room with its low leather sofa and giant screen television towards the kitchen. I had no choice but to follow him.
“I want it noted that the grand, plus the seven hundred, puts me at seventeen hundred for the week.”
“Noted,” he said. In the kitchen, he opened a cupboard and started putting together some kind of healthy protein drink. It was green and looked disgusting.
“Are you writing it down?”
He tapped his skull. “Up here.”
“You’re not keeping track?” I asked, slightly outraged. But of course he wasn’t. This wasn’t about the money. It was about punishing me. It was about me showing up here every Sunday, like I’d been doing for months, so he could remind me I was a lying dirtbag.
“You know there are easier ways to pay back your father’s debt.”
He made this insulting offer with the biggest smile on his face.
There were about a million things I could say about his smile. About how it was an assault on women. How it was profane and kind of sweet at the same time. He had X-rated lips. Absolutely filthy. You couldn’t look at them without wanting to lick them. Suck them. Feel them on the ticklish skin of your neck.
But his grin was crooked, in a boyish way, and he had a dimple on his left cheek that was criminal.
The combination of all those things, the trouble-making little boy and the deeply sexual grown man, was potent.
“I’m not sleeping with you for money,” I said, lifting one of my cat paws.
“Not what I was suggesting.” He stirred his green drink and then sucked it down with a grimace and full body shudder. “Besides, I already did that, and frankly, I’m not interested in a repeat performance.”
His eyes raked me, reminding me that my hair was sweaty and clumpy and any makeup I put on thinking of this moment was long since gone. Also, he hated me.
It shouldn’t have made me so sad.
“All you need to do is admit what you did that night.”
I stiffened.
“Just look me in the face and tell me that you seduced me just so I would hand over a pile of cash to your criminal father.”
This wasn’t the first time Liam had made this demand. It was the only thing he’d said he wanted when I first approached him to pay off my father’s debt. But I couldn’t give him what he wanted.
Because as incredulous as it seemed, I wasn’t a liar.
And I had some pride.
In the absence of my confession, he barked out a sharp laugh.
“Okay then, it’s more kids’ birthday parties for you. You might want to get that cat costume washed. It smells like public transit.”
With that, he left the kitchen, and this time I had no reason to follow him.
So, I took my cat head and wounded soul and made my way out of his mansion, knowing I would be back the following Sunday to do it all over again.
Because Liam Locke was both my fate and my punishment.