Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Hatch
Summer needed access to a computer, so I made her a guest login, and she sat out on the patio in her bikini and worked away. She had the decency to cover up with a white shirt she found in the laundry room—my shirt—and I had the indecency to think this was hitting another one of my fantasies.
Summer wearing my clothes. My sweats, my tee, my tuxedo jacket, now my shirt.
Teammates first, H. Always.
I needed to get away for a while. “I’m heading into town to get some supplies for the boat.”
Her head shot up. “The boat?”
“Thought we might go out this afternoon. If you’re still interested.”
“I would love that!”
After that chat about kissing, Summer’s admission about the roles she played and why she let her relationship with Dash go so far had been illuminating. Talking about what had happened before, joking around about the kissing, had eased things between us. Something still gnawed at me, though.
It could have been like this all along.
All this time, I’d made it my mission not to like her.
Put her into a box, walled her off, because it was easier than thinking about what if.
I hated seeing her with Carter, and the fact that he had a few years more experience than me on the team and was more often in the roster mix didn’t make it easier. The guy had everything I wanted.
Now I was seeing Summer more clearly. Not that it made a blind bit of difference to the situation. Sure, it was better not to be at each other’s throats, but that didn’t mean we should be at each other’s mouths.
Or other body parts.
“Can you get the new tube for the bike while in town?”
“Sure.” There was nothing wrong with the tire, but I didn’t want her gadding about town where someone could spot her.
“So what are you working on?” I could have looked at the screen, but I didn’t want to pry.
“Just returning gifts. Well, creating shipping labels so I can be ready to print them off when I get back.”
“No one else can do that for you?”
“It’s my responsibility.”
Fair enough. I left her to it and drove into town. In the Gourmet Grocer, I picked up a few things for the boat, all the while wondering about Summer and Carter, and how they had got to that point. I had believed her today when she said she wasn’t a gold digger, but I had sure thought that before.
My experience was that a lot of women were looking to land a rich pro-athlete, and if a guy disrespects his girl—especially in public—and she’s okay with that, then there had to be a reason.
My sister thought Summer was trying to reform Carter.
That she was too decent to be in it for the money, but I hadn’t listened.
Unfortunately, I had personal experience that colored my thinking.
And that personal experience was now walking toward me in the Condiments aisle.
I had to admit that Ava looked good. Since her engagement, she’d acquired a cultured air.
Her fiancé was an investment banker, as far as I knew, and Ava had landed pretty well for herself.
When I hooked up with her last summer, she was more of a townie, a good time girl not interested in anything serious—or so I thought.
I was looking for consolation, a salve to my self-inflicted wounds.
“Looks like the Gourmet Grocer is the place to be on a Monday in Saugatuck.” She picked up a jar of wasabi and looked at the ingredients. “How are you, Hatch?”
“No complaints.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have. You and your girlfriend sure know how to put on a show.”
I turned to her, looking for some indication of where this conversation might be going. She’d played her hand with me and lost. But she’d obviously played another and gained a fiancé.
“It’s early days.”
She smiled serenely. “Any chance we could go for coffee?”
“Why?”
She seemed taken aback at my abrupt response. “To clear the air. I feel like things ended … not so well between us. I’d like a chance to explain.”
“Listen, Ava. There’s nothing to explain. After it happened and the dust settled, we realized that it wasn’t meant to be. You caught me at a strange time in my life.”
“Are you saying I took advantage?”
“I’m an adult and I knew what I was doing. What happened is done and I don’t want to relitigate it.” I picked up a jar of olive tapenade and put it in my basket.
“Okay, I get it. I just wanted to say no hard feelings.”
“None, whatsoever.”
Summer
What I knew about boats could barely fit in one of the triangles of my bikini.
But I trusted that Hatch knew what he was doing, and that I was in good hands.
Over my itsy-bitsy child bikini, I slipped on a purple-and-white checked shirt.
A pair of Aurora’s capris in lilac and a floppy-brimmed straw hat completed the ensemble.
This was a motorboat, and smaller than I expected.
I’d imagined I’d be stretched out on the deck like a model in a Duran Duran video.
While there was room to do that, it wasn’t quite the luxury yacht experience I was used to with Dash, which sounded awfully snooty.
I had never really enjoyed those summer excursions to the Cape with Dash and his family, though.
I always felt too much pressure to be on, and Dash didn’t like that I wouldn’t take more than a few days off from work.
They won’t need you in the summer, babe. Hockey season is over.
I’d tried to explain that the front office staff continued to work in the off season and that the business of running the org didn’t end in June. But he hadn’t understood. He didn’t think I needed to worry about “franchise business” in my lowly position.
Frankly, it was a relief to return home from the Cape to Chicago without him.
I could wear cozy sweats and hit Lula’s, the cat café (Dash wouldn’t allow any pets).
I even volunteered at the animal shelter run by Ashley, Rebel player Dex O’Malley’s wife, though Dash thought I was just trying to suck up to the partner of one of the team’s elder statesmen. Everything was transactional with him.
It certainly didn’t feel like that with Hatch, who hadn’t asked me for a single thing. Instead I was the one making demands: hide me, strip me, feed me, kiss me.
I needed to stop thinking about that last one.
After about ten minutes on the water, we came to the middle of the lake and settled.
Captain Hatch put on a lifejacket, tied a rope to a metal bar on the boat, then lowered the anchor carefully.
After checking for something—lake sharks, perhaps?
—he let the anchor out fully. Stepping back, he removed the lifejacket and his T-shirt with it.
Oh Mama.
He spied me drooling. “What?”
“Impressive. Your anchoring technique, that is.”
He smirked. “Thanks. Didn’t realize you were such an expert.”
“Oh, I’ve sailed. Boated. Trawled the waves. Dash’s family has a yacht.”
“Well, this is likely a bit more humble, but at least it doesn’t require a crew.”
“Self-sufficiency is good.”
“I was thinking more of privacy.” He took a seat and popped the lid of a cooler. “La Croix? Or something stronger?”
I peeked inside, noting cans of soda, flavored water, beer, ciders, and wine coolers. Even a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a wine cooler fan.”
“I don’t see it as a threat to my masculinity. Neither are pink shirts, liking to cook, nor eating a woman out.”
Well, then. “I’ll start with water.” Or a bucket of ice, if you have it.
He passed off a lemon water and took one for himself. I sat on the bench a couple of feet away. I drank about a third of the water, then set it to the side.
All while Hatch watched me. It no longer freaked me out, mostly because I liked when he did it. I liked how my skin tingled and my stomach fluttered.
“Could you tell me what happened with Ava?”
“After how I overreacted to that kiss, I suppose I owe you that.” He blew out a breath.
“I came down here last summer and we hooked up. I’ll admit that I wasn’t really that into her, but I was at a low point—” He stopped, restarted.
“I used her to make myself feel better. She wanted more. Pushed for labels, for something big to happen. Then she told me she might be pregnant.”
My mouth fell open. “Was she?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ll admit I wasn’t careful the first time with her. But later, I was. I should never have continued when I knew nothing would come of it. She finally admitted the pregnancy was more hope than reality. I knew then that I’d let it go too far.”
I felt a little bad about my mistaken read of the situation. I might have hurt her feelings last night, but if she tried to trap him with a baby … Also, Hatch’s assumptions about me being a gold digger made more sense now.
“I’m sorry if I made things awkward with her.”
“It’s okay. Besides, she’s engaged.”
“Oh, she’d throw over New York Guy in a heartbeat if she thought there was the slightest chance with you!”
He rolled his eyes. “So I guess you did me a favor after all. Made it clear we’ve all moved on.”
I rubbed my hands together. “See? My instincts were completely right! Summer to the rescue.”
That made him laugh, and the ease of it gave me a fizz in my veins to rival this bubbled lemon water in my hand. Something he had said struck me, so I circled back to it.
“You were at a low point when you met her.”
He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “Yeah, I had a thing for someone, and it had just become clear that it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Oh. And Ava was a way for you to forget.”
He nodded. “Not fair to her, but sometimes that’s what you need. An escape from what’s weighing you down.”
True. We were all looking for ways to escape our pain. Our pasts. Often they were one and the same.
Look at me: fleeing my problems, the cliché of a runaway bride, fantasizing about the hot hunk who saved the day. As much as I wanted to, I wouldn’t use sex to escape, not even with the god posed like a sunbathing lion before me. Neither would I judge anyone who did.
“Sometimes we can think only of the moment. Of getting through it. My momma was a big fan of numbing the pain with anything that made her feel good. Alcohol, drugs, sex. She let every guy run roughshod over her, treat her like dirt, steal every penny and cheat her. She thought those were the prices we pay for the small sliver of pleasure a man could give you.”
“Is that what Carter was to you? A way to escape?”
I’d never looked at it that way, but there might be some truth in it.
“I thought this girl who grew up poor with no prospects and no one to encourage her to do better had finally made it to the pinnacle. Hot, rich athlete, who doesn’t beat me or treat me terribly, and if I wasn’t a hundred percent in love with him …
well, life is a compromise. To be honest, up until he asked me to marry him, I didn’t even think we were going in that direction.
We didn’t live together. We’d broken up several times over stupid things.
I was sure he cheated on me, but I could never prove it.
And he had to convince me to marry him. I didn’t say ‘yes’ the first time.
Or the second. The third time, he asked me in public because he assumed I wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his friends. Shows what he knew.”
A tear escaped the corner of my eye. There would be no more compromises. No more subjugating my life to a man and his career.
Hatch leaned forward. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“No, I-I don’t. But saying it aloud helps me get it straight in my head.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Your momma, huh?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You said ‘your momma’ and it’s not the first time that Southern twang has crept into your speech. Where are you from, Summer? Really?”