Chapter 6
Evan
I lay in bed, my shoulder throbbing, trying hard to go back to sleep, when I heard something.
I listened hard, focusing on the sound. Music.
I closed my eyes, trying to drown it out.
The music stopped, followed by a cough, then it started again.
I took a deep breath and continued to listen. What the hell…was she…was she humming?
Annoyance crept through me as I slipped out of bed. I made my way to my bedroom door, cracked it open, and listened. Yes, she was humming. My chest tightened. Whatever the song was, it was soft and pleasant, but it still grated on my nerves.
My mother used to hum to me in the kitchen when I was little, way before my father’s injury, way before my entire world fell apart and our home turned into a place of silence and resentment.
I could still remember the morning she walked out.
She’d hummed the song she used to sing to me as she closed the door behind her, leaving only an echo of those melodies along with a note about how she could no longer watch someone disappear into their own pain.
Forcing the painful memory from my thoughts, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, ready to let Bianca have it, but stopped in my tracks.
I barely recognized the place. This wasn’t the dark cave I’d left when I’d gone to bed. Instead, sunlight poured into the kitchen from the large floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.
She’d opened the blackout curtains. I’d kept them closed on purpose. When it was dark I seemed to have control. My condo was a place for me to sleep, that was about it.
Her being here had somehow changed it into something else. The condo now looked like a home, warm and inviting. It was funny how sunlight could do that. I could see her laptop open on the counter, and I could smell the hint of coffee in the air along with the scent of cinnamon.
Then I saw her.
She stood there in my kitchen, barefoot, in short sleep shorts and a tank top that left little to my imagination, her dark hair falling over her shoulder.
The way the sunlight danced against her hair brought out tiny hints of copper-colored highlights I’d not noticed before.
She continued humming that soft song, acting like she belonged here, in my space, while she reached up for a mug that sat on the top shelf of the corner cupboard.
I watched her shirt rise, giving me a full view of her flat stomach.
I hated the scene that lay before me, at least that was what I was going to tell myself, especially when what I actually felt was that I could get used to it.
As I watched her stretch even farther, heat surged through my body and I felt my cock jerk.
Then I remembered the warning the coach had given us all before she’d started.
The same warning he had directly given me the morning he’d announced she’d be staying with me.
I turned my eyes away, realizing I’d been watching her for far too long, noticing way too much, and that I’d loved every second of what I’d seen.
I cleared my throat way louder than necessary, causing Bianca to jump and spin around, almost dropping the coffee mug in her hand.
“Oh, gosh, you’re awake,” she said, her eyes dropping to my bare chest.
I glared at her, part of me wishing I hadn’t made a sound so I could have continued to watch her, to catch another glimpse of that perfectly tight stomach.
“Unfortunately,” I muttered, moving toward the fridge.
“Well, good morning to you too,” she said, rolling her eyes as she moved to the oven and pulled out a tray of freshly baked muffins.
I focused my gaze on her ass, taking in the view as she pulled them from the oven and set them on top of the stove. I’d had up to eight hockey players in this kitchen at once, and I’d never noticed how small it actually was until this moment.
“Want a muffin?” she asked, removing them from the pan, placing them on a cooling rack.
“No, thanks,” I mumbled, reaching past her to grab something from the cupboard. She went to turn around, and that was when my shoulder brushed against hers. Pain laced through my bad shoulder, sharp and sudden, causing me to flinch.
“Are you okay?” Bianca questioned, her expression changing instantly.
“Fine,” I said, pulling back, keeping my jaw tight, hoping to hide what never should have crossed my face.
“Evan, that wasn’t nothing. Let me—”
“I said I’m fine,” I barked, the words coming out harsher than I’d intended.
She looked at me, narrowed her eyes, and then stepped back. “Okay, then.”
As she looked at me, I felt like she was filing this moment away, or adding it to some mental list she was keeping of all the things that weren’t adding up, possibly to sideline me at some other time.
I turned away from her stare and moved to the cupboard to grab my protein shake, quickly mixing one up. When I turned around, she was sitting there behind her computer, hands over head, stretching, giving me more than a perfect view of her hardened nipples through her tank top.
“Oh, I forgot one hard ground rule: each of us must wear clothing in shared spaces. We can’t be running around half-naked,” I said, completely forgetting I was standing here in nothing but my boxers.
She looked down at herself and then looked up at me, confusion lining her face.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? At least I have shorts and a tank top on, which is more than I can say for you.”
I swallowed hard, not really having a comeback to her response because she was right. Instead, I took a sip of my protein shake and left her sitting in the kitchen.
This morning threw me off my game. I hadn’t been able to clear the image of her sitting in my kitchen, stretching, out of my mind. I’d been happy to get out on the ice, hoping that a little game play with the boys would clear my head and bring me back to neutral.
It had been working until a whistle blew and I noticed Bianca waving at me.
I continued to skate around the rink, continuing with the drills, completely ignoring the set of waving hands I saw each time I passed by where she was standing.
Was I being a jerk? Yes.
Did I know it? Absolutely.
Did I care? Not really.
When I noticed she’d given up and left, I skated over and stepped off the ice, handing my things to Asher, the equipment manager, and took off down the chute to the locker room. I was just about to reach the door when Bianca stepped out in front of me from another corridor, blocking my way.
“What the hell are you doing here?
“Evan, you can’t keep pretending I don’t exist.”
“Is that so? Well, just you watch me.”
She was so tiny compared to me, I could easily just pick her up and place her off to the side, or up on the countertop and have my way with her, but I stepped around her and continued down the hall, striking that thought from my mind.
I adored how she looked at me, at the fire in her eyes, but I also loved the way she stood her ground despite our size difference.
She stepped in front of me again, this time stopping me. She was wearing her team polo and black leggings, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, every inch of her professional. However, all I could see was the girl who’d been barefoot in my kitchen this morning, humming as if she belonged there.
You could get used to her.
“Evan, I’m serious. Now please stop pretending like I don’t exist,” she repeated.
I looked down into her eyes when I heard a noise behind me.
“Jesus, why don’t you two just kiss already and kill this sexual tension we are all feeling?” Matt, the team’s newest rookie, yelled out, causing some members of the team to laugh.
Something snapped inside me, and I whipped around, glaring at Matt. If Coach had been around to hear that, I’d be dead because he’d think I was talking smack in the locker room.
“Say it again, I dare you,” I growled.
Most of the guys who’d laughed went back out onto the ice while Matt went silent.
“Man, it was just a joke.”
“Does it look like I’m laughing?”
The anger, the violence in my voice surprised even me.
My reaction was too big for some stupid comment about nothing.
This was classic of us; they were just guys being guys.
He’d said nothing different from what I would have said to any of these guys to get under their skin.
However, it bothered me because I’d thought it more than once, and I couldn’t allow myself to think it.
That I wanted her. That I was already halfway to needing her.
Bianca met my eyes, her cheeks holding a pink hue, muttering to herself something about me being impossible and the others being immature, and then she stormed off.
I couldn’t help but watch that ponytail swing side to side over her tight ass.
I really needed to tone down the attitude with her.
I thought about how the coach had asked me to make things easier for her, and I’d honestly done nothing to make things easy on her.
I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders as Kells grabbed me, causing me to flinch silently in pain. He let out a low whistle.
“Jesus, man, you sure Matt isn’t right because I can feel it from here, Callahan.” Kells chuckled, bumping Nightly in the arm, causing him to laugh.
“Fuck, man, honestly, you should just go get her. Otherwise, you’re going to drive yourself mad.” Cromwell chuckled, tapping me on the ass before passing by, each of the guys behind him doing the same thing.
“Jesus….” I sighed under my breath.
If only they knew half of it.
“Come on, Evan, let’s get changed. We’re heading to Maguires for dinner,” Nightly said, tapping me on the shoulder as he made his way by me as well. “You can fill us in on your little crush.”
We sat at our usual table at Maguire’s, the guys talking amongst themselves as I ordered my food. I closed the menu and handed it to our server and turned my attention to them, each one of them looking at me.