14. Calvin
CALVIN
All fucking day, that cheer chant has been spinning around in my head. It’s stupid, and more than a few of the guys have caught me singing it out loud.
Rett didn’t want to admit it, but I saw a flash of recognition in his eyes when he heard it.
There’s no way Parker let him get away with never watching it.
The only person who shamelessly joined in with me was Hayden.
He even knew a few of the moves, too. That had the guys howling with laughter.
I’m pretty sure the worst bit about it was that Hayden’s moves weren’t bad.
Maybe if things hadn’t worked out for him on the ice, he could have gone into cheerleading.
But the movie isn’t the only thing that’s stuck with me from last night. The sight of Sienna’s giant pink vibrator sitting proudly beside the sink in her bathroom is burned into the back of my eyeballs.
She knows I saw it. She couldn’t even look at me when she opened her front door this morning.
And I get it; it’s probably not what she wanted me to find.
But, goddamn, the images I’ve had going on in my head ever since.
Those little rosy cheeks from this morning would be blazing if she knew what was in my head.
It was never like that the first time we met. I wanted her, I knew that from the moment I saw her. She was the hottest girl I’d ever laid my eyes on. But we were young, innocent. Neither of us had reached the point where we understood what our newly teenaged bodies were really telling us.
Now, though? Now, I’m more than aware of what I want.
The problem is, she keeps stating that she doesn’t want the same.
Every time I hit on her, she waves me off and pretends she isn’t interested.
I can see more than she thinks I can, though.
I see the way her eyes darken and her cheeks heat.
She’s definitely interested; she’s just holding back.
Right now, I can only predict why that is, but I have every intention of finding out, because I’m not going to be going anywhere any time soon.
I’ve waited years to find her again. It’s killed me not to say anything since she walked back into my life, but this isn’t something I can rush.
If I want her to get to know me again, to see if the horny teenage boy that still lives inside me was right all those years ago, then for once in my life, I need to practice patience. It’s not one of my strong suits, but for Sienna, I’d pretty much do anything.
I drag my hand down my face. There is no other woman I’ve ever met in my life who has made me want to be different, to be better.
“Just here is great. Thanks, man,” I say to the driver as we pull up outside our building.
My leg aches as I climb out. I’ve been overdoing it, and I’m paying for it.
I’ve spent all day trying to hide it, but Darcy knows.
The motherfucker can see deeper. He knows what hockey players are like, how we hide the pain that we’re in.
Hell, we’d do anything if it meant we could get back on the ice faster.
Just like last night, our dinner is waiting for me, and Harold hands it over as I hobble through the foyer.
“How are you doing?” he asks, his eyes dropping to my knee that’s unusually exposed. I’ve pretty much been living in sweats since the accident. It’s stupid; it’s not like I’m going to forget it happened, but I was going for out of sight, out of mind.
This afternoon, though, I pulled on a pair of athletic shorts after my session with Darcy, showing off my unflattering new accessory: my knee brace.
I fucking hate it.
“Yeah, you know,” I mutter.
“You’ll come back stronger, just remember that.”
I nod as I continue toward the elevator. I don’t mean to be rude, but the only place I want to be right now is on Sienna’s couch, eating my body weight in Mexican while we watch sappy movies that will make her smile.
I swear the elevator goes slower than I’ve ever known. My fingers drum against my thigh as I watch the numbers rise at a snail’s pace.
No sooner have the doors opened than I’m out and marching toward her front door as fast as I can move, which isn’t all that fast these days.
I knock, and only a few seconds later, the lock disengages and she pulls the door open.
The moment my eyes land on hers, everything inside me relaxes.
“You look good,” I say as I hobble inside. She’s got more color in her face, and the circles beneath her eyes have lightened.
“Thanks. I slept all morning, then had a bath. I feel a little more human.”
And you smell incredible. Like strawberries and cream.
I keep that little nugget to myself, though, as I follow her to the kitchen, where she already has plates out ready.
“I knew you weren’t ignoring me,” I tease as we work side by side getting the food out.
She chuckles, and I lose myself in the sound. Fuck. I want more of that.
“Have you decided on a movie?”
“I’ve got a couple of ideas,” she says coyly.
I glance over and find a smile playing on her lips.
“I can’t wait,” I say.
“Who’d have thought it—Calvin Keller, willing to have a night in, watching movies with a girl.”
“Shush, don’t say it too loud. You might ruin my rep.”
“Do you need a heating pad or something for that?” Sienna asks when I shift my outstretched leg for the millionth time in my quest to get comfortable. “Painkillers?”
I shake my head. “I’m okay.”
“Liar,” she accuses.
My lips part to argue, but I quickly find that the words I want to say die on my tongue.
“It’s…it’s easier to try and pretend,” I confess.
“Pretend what? That Cooper Nash didn’t fuck up your knee? How’s that working for you?”
“Really well. I’m on the next train to the land of delulu.”
She laughs before covering her hand with her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s not funny.”
“It’s either laugh or cry,” I mutter before lifting a taco to my mouth, wondering why it’s so easy to talk about this shit with her.
If I’m with anyone else, I lock it all down and try to pretend that my current situation isn’t fucking killing me. But with her…the words just flow.
“It’s okay to cry about it if you need to,” she says with so much understanding in her tone it brings a lump to my throat. “I won’t tell anyone if you do.”
“Appreciate that.”
“So, heating pad? Painkillers?”
“I’m meant to be taking care of you.”
“And you have. Now let me return the favor.”
I smile at her, and she takes it as a silent agreement, getting to her feet to get what she knows I need.
Two minutes later, she’s back with a heating pad that she gently places over my knee. I wince as she looks at it, at the scars that mar my skin, telling a story that I don’t want to know, before handing me two pills and passing me the bottle of water I left on the coffee table.
“Thank you.”
“They’re not very strong. I’m not sure if—”
“They’re perfect,” I tell her before swallowing them. “Now, eat your dinner.”
“Yes, sir,” she teases. It’s so unexpected, I choke on my water. “Shit. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I wheeze. “I’m great.”
Her eyes meet mine and for the briefest of moments, something passes between us.
Sienna’s breath catches, letting me know that she felt whatever it was too before she drops back on the couch and pulls her dinner onto her lap. “We should eat before it gets cold,” she says, her eyes on the blank TV screen.
“Yeah,” I muse, suddenly not feeling so hungry for the Mexican, and every bit starved for the woman beside me.
Two movies later, Sienna is slumped on the couch, her eyes barely open, and the blanket pulled right up to her chin.
“We should call it a night. Want me to carry you to bed again?”
“No, I can do it myself. You shouldn’t be carrying anyone with that knee.”
“I wouldn’t carry anyone else,” I admit.
She gazes at me with sleepy eyes and a soft smile.
“You’re not like what everyone thinks, are you?”
“I dunno about that, darlin’. I certainly have my moments.”
She doesn’t look like she believes me.
“I won’t be over tomorrow night. Got a team thing.”
A little frown forms between her brows. “Oh.”
“I can cancel if—”
“What? No. Don’t be crazy. I don’t need you to come and babysit me. I’ll probably be almost back to normal tomorrow.”
I want her to get better. I do. But also…once she is, will this be over?
I won’t have a reason to come down here and take care of her if she’s okay and back at work.
“Good. That’s…good.”
Her brows lift.
“I should probably head out,” I say, peeling the heating pad from my knee and awkwardly getting to my feet. I’m gonna regret pushing myself so hard in the morning.
“Thank you for dinner,” she says as I slowly back away from the couch.
“Breakfast in the morning?” I ask, a little bit of hope trickling in.
“Sure.”
A smile twitches at my lips.
“Any requests?”
She shakes her head. “As long as it comes with coffee, I’m good.”
“Got it. I’ll let myself out. You get to bed.”
I keep my eyes on hers for as long as I can before I have little choice but to turn around, lest I end up on my ass.
“Good night, Calvin. Sleep well.”
“Good night, darlin’. Sweet dreams.”
A little voice screams at me to just tell her who I am and give her every reason I can come up with as to why I should stay with her. But I force it all down and pull her door open, letting it close softly behind me.
I’m halfway to the elevator when I hear her locking the door from the inside.
My heart thumps against my ribs, and I ride the elevator up a floor before walking through my apartment with my shoulders slumped, wishing I was still downstairs.
I have a hot bath in the hope of soothing my knee a little before crawling into bed.
I lie there staring up at the ceiling, trying to picture what Sienna is doing right now.
Is she already in bed? Or is she doing something else?
Whatever it is, is she thinking about me?
Does she even think about him? The boy she met all those years ago? The boy whose life she changed by just being there, by listening to him, by making him feel seen?
I shake my head and close my eyes.
I know the answer to that.
She doesn’t think of that boy, because if she did, she’d realize that the grown-up version of him has been sitting next to her on her couch for the last few hours.
He was the one who carried her to bed last night.
The man who would do just about anything to get even another hour with that girl.
Despite my exhaustion, it takes me hours to drift off to sleep, my head full of memories of those two weeks that summer.
It was hands down the best summer of my life, and Sienna has no idea.
Reaching over, I flick my light on before pulling open the second drawer of my nightstand and grabbing a small photo album I keep hidden in there.
I don’t open it very often. It contains images of my past that often come with nothing but pain. But tonight, I need it.
I flick through the images of my family until I land on one I’ve spent hours staring at in the past.
My breath catches when my eyes land on us.
It’s over fifteen years ago, but looking at it, it could be yesterday.
My finger gently trails over her face, over her sun-kissed blonde hair and her rosy cheeks.
That summer, I thought I’d found the girl I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
And now…now I don’t know what to think, other than I can’t let her go again.
Fifteen years ago, Sienna Wentworth was mine.
And while a lot of things have changed since then, that hasn’t.