Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
brUCE
Referring to Farrah as my friend feels like referring to hockey as just a game .
I’m sitting on the sofa in Remy’s living room, Nella is making herself comfortable on my lap, and all my friends’ wives are surrounding me. The men are whispering in the kitchen as they prep the burgers, and Farrah and her mother disappeared upstairs.
And every time Remy makes eye contact with me through the open concept space, his eyes are slightly narrowed. My captain’s eyes have never been narrowed on me.
Andie looks up at me from where she’s seated on the floor. “Come on, Bruce,” she whispers. “Just tell us what really happened. Did Farrah really need to go to the hospital? We won’t tell the guys.”
“ I’m one of the guys, Andie. I’m not sure how I got lumped in as one of the girls.”
She waves a hand in the air. “Oh, stop, you’re one of the girls and you love it.”
I shrug, because she’s not totally wrong. I do love chilling with the girls. My teammates fell in love with some pretty great ones.
“Well, I hate to disappoint.” I raise my eyebrows pointedly, because she’s the one that knows just how disappointed I really am. “But I honestly just took her to the hospital and then home to sleep. She was in so much pain.” I grimace remembering how I found her on the bathroom floor. “She was miserable. It scared me to see her like that.”
Amber, Noel, Mel, and Andie collectively sigh, and their eyes go all soft and shiny.
“Aw, Bruce,” Amber whispers. “You’re falling for her, aren’t you?”
I blow out a breath, which causes Nella’s wispy curls to flutter. She turns to glare at me, much like her dad is all the way from the kitchen. Birth dad or not, these two have similar mannerisms. Just like me and my dad.
I swallow. “I’m not falling, Ambs. I’m crashing and burning, and I don’t know how to stop.”
All the girls scoot a little closer, wanting to hear more.
“But it can’t happen,” I say through gritted teeth, my eyes moving to the grumpy man in the kitchen—and for once, I’m not talking about Mitch. “I can’t mess up my relationship with Remy or my teammates. And Farrah has been pushing me away from the start. I’m pretty sure she wants nothing to do with me.” Even as the words exit my mouth, I know they’re not true. If she wasn’t attracted to me, she wouldn’t have stayed for a movie this morning, and her eyes wouldn’t find me in every room and linger on me. She wants me as badly as I want her, but the difference is, she’s scared to admit it and I’m not.
Andie rolls her eyes. “Are you kidding? The constant tension between you two is palpable. I don’t know how the guys didn’t notice it before.”
Noel slowly nods her head.
Amber pats my knee. “Remy will get over it, if you guys really wanted to make a go of it.”
“I agree,” Mel says. “Remy has always been the level-headed one in the group. He’s protective of his sister, especially after what she went through. But if he saw you being good to her, how could he still be worried? I mean, you literally came to her rescue last night. You’re husband material, Bruce.”
I scoff. “Would you let Farrah know that?”
Andie gives me a sympathetic smile. “Keep doing what you’re doing, and she’ll see it for herself.” She quirks an eyebrow, looking briefly back at the guys in the kitchen. “So, just confirming…you didn’t even kiss last night?”
I throw my free hand in the air, rattling Nella, and earning another pout. She jumps off my lap and heads back to her makeshift hockey rink off to the side of the living room. She dive-bombs Noah, who’s lying on the rug looking bored. He makes an oof sound when she jumps on him.
“You made my little buddy leave,” I say to Andie.
“Sorry.”
“Dinner is ready,” Remy says, startling me. I hadn’t realized he was in the living room. He eyes me warily, and there’s a beat of awkwardness between us.
The girls get up and make their way into the kitchen, leaving the two of us there in a strange faceoff. I’m unsure what to say to him, since I’ve already said a million times that nothing happened between Farrah and me—not last night, anyway. If I keep saying it and defending myself, I’ll look even guiltier.
Instead, I get up and follow my captain into the kitchen. “Are we good?” I ask quietly.
He glances over at me and nods. “We’re good.”
Something about the look in his eyes makes me think he doesn’t mean the words he just said. My relationship with my teammates is incredibly important to me, more so than the game itself. But this is the year we’re favored to win the cup, and we’ve been working like a well-oiled machine. This is the type of issue that sets a team on its axis and puts the chemistry off-kilter.
My teammates are counting on me, and I cannot let them down.
But what would really be so bad about me being with Farrah? Remy’s attitude shouldn’t bug me so much since his sister and I aren’t even together. But why wouldn’t he be happy about it? Doesn’t he trust me to be more than just a goalie? Do my teammates only see me as a teammate and someone to further their career?
Why wouldn’t they want me to find happiness the way that they have…?
These thoughts niggle, grating at me for the rest of the evening. And what’s worse is that Farrah heads straight back to her apartment with her mother once they finally come back downstairs.