Chapter Twenty-Six
Spinning Out
Carter
It wasn’t lost on me that the bike fan wasn’t the only thing spinning out.
It was easy for the week to fly by, a blur of practice, travel, and games. What wasn’t easy was keeping my mind on hockey when all I wanted was to get wrapped up in Livia Young.
She’d come home with me the night of the party, neither of us satiated by the quick, frenzied claiming of one another against the side of Will’s house.
I’d kept her up until well into the morning hours, and it still hadn’t been enough.
And when she was leaving the next day, her lips swollen from me and eyes a happy kind of tired, I hadn’t wanted to let her go.
I’d kept pulling her back into me for another kiss, like everything we’d whispered to each other would disappear the moment she walked out the door, the spell broken.
And it was beginning to feel that way.
Here we were a week later, and I hadn’t seen her since that night.
It made sense. I’d jetted off to St. Louis and then to Jacksonville with the team, and as soon as we’d returned to Tampa, it was with just enough time to prepare for tonight’s game — which we’d lost. It was brutal, to be within reach of the playoffs, but also teetering on the edge of not making it.
Every loss felt dire, every win like just a Band-Aid trying to hold together a wound that clearly needed stitches.
And I knew I wasn’t the only one busy.
Livia had been struggling to keep her head above water even before the party.
It was the sole reason I’d taken her out to the springs, to clear her mind and give her a little rest. Even on our lazy day off together, she’d had to field calls from the office, as if they couldn’t function without her for even twenty-four hours.
Now, here I was on a bike in the team gym trying to flush out my legs after a grueling three periods, but it was my head doing all the sweating.
Livia hadn’t been at the game tonight.
It wasn’t unusual for her not to attend. She had work, a life, responsibilities bigger than sitting in an arena watching me chase a puck. But still… a part of me hoped she’d want to see me after I’d been away for our travel games, that she’d take any excuse to be with me just like I would with her.
I felt her empty seat like a bruise.
When I texted her afterward, she answered immediately, and for all I could tell, nothing was off. She met my humor with her own and eased a bit of my worry with her use of a kiss emoji, but I still felt a chasm between us.
I asked if I could see her soon, and she’d hit me with: Of course, Rook. Just give me a few days to get some things in order. I have some business to take care of.
Business.
A few days.
My legs pumped harder, the flywheel whining under the pressure.
Was I supposed to read between the lines? Was she pulling away? Or was she actually just busy and I was being the neurotic asshole who couldn’t handle space?
A few days wasn’t that long, but it felt like a decade after already not seeing her for a week.
Could she honestly not find a spare moment to see me?
And then there was the third payment. It had hit her account this morning — just like we’d outlined in the paperwork we’d both signed. Except this time, it felt dirty.
Was I supposed to stop sending it now?
Would she have my balls in a chain if I dared?
I wanted her to have the money, to use it for whatever she needed, but God, I hated how it felt now. I didn’t want her to think anything between us was transactional, that this was just some sort of business deal to me. It may have started that way, but it hadn’t been like that for a while now.
Then again, this was what she’d agreed to. We hadn’t technically said it was all over, but it was certainly implied. Therefore, she’d fulfilled her side of the agreement, and I was to fulfill mine.
She didn’t seem upset about that third payment hitting.
Then again, she hadn’t said anything about it at all.
And while it was perfectly acceptable that a grown woman with a demanding career would ask for a few days before she sees me, I couldn’t help but wonder if a part of that delay in getting together was because of the payment and her sorting through her own feelings about it.
Jesus, Carter. You’re a fucking lunatic.
Just shut your brain off and give the girl a few days.
I pedaled faster, sweat dripping from my hair and down my temples, and for a moment, I cleared my mind. It was all I could do to focus on my breathing, on the pumping of my legs, the oxygen burning my lungs.
But sixty seconds was about all I got before my asshole brain was at it again.
Because what were we now, anyway?
Was Livia my… girlfriend? Did I get to call her that? Or was that something only she was allowed to decide?
Fuck, did she even want that?
She called me Rookie like she had since we signed the contract, her little term of degrading endearment for me. Again, it was nothing I should read into, but I couldn’t fucking help it — because I didn’t want to be Rookie to her now. I wanted to be Carter, her boyfriend.
Do you seriously think a woman like that would let you claim her publicly?
You’re a fucking joke. She’s embarrassed of you.
She’s trying to think of a way to get out of all of this.
I hated thinking it, but my brain wouldn’t stop. The words came in Coach Leduc’s voice, and I visually imagined socking him in the jaw to shut him up, but those thoughts still echoed.
Could I tell people about us?
Did she want me to?
Or were the worst thoughts in my head right? Would that embarrass her? Was I just another secret she had to compartmentalize, something she’d never claim out loud?
I swiped sweat from my brow with the towel hanging around my neck, shaking my head at the thought.
I knew it wasn’t true. At least, I wanted to believe that part of my heart that swore it wasn’t. I saw the look on her face when I told her I wanted more. I felt the way she trembled against me when she told me she felt the same.
Still, she deserved more than stolen moments in the shadows. She deserved something real. A date. No, a gesture.
Something deliberate.
Instead, what I had was a brain that wouldn’t shut the hell up.
What if she woke up one day and realized I wasn’t enough?
What if she wanted someone older, steadier, someone who had his shit together instead of a man who still needed her guidance to please her?
What if she regretted saying she loved me back?
Technically, she didn’t ever really say it, did she?
She just said that she felt the same. But maybe it wasn’t as deep as what I was feeling.
What if it was just sex-high honesty, words spilled in the moment, not the kind that carried weight in the light of day?
My legs burned. My chest burned worse.
I couldn’t sit in this. I couldn’t just wait. I needed to do something. I needed something to offer her that wasn’t a groan against her lips in the dark or a confession ripped out of me while I had her pinned against the wall in feral need.
I needed to show her I meant it. That this wasn’t a game. That she wasn’t a joke to me.
Maybe if I could figure out the right way to do that, I’d stop spinning out like this.
In an instant, I hopped off the bike, sprinting for the locker room and praying I wasn’t too late.
Most of the guys would be on their way out by now if not already long gone.
Vince had been up on the bike with me for a while, but had retreated half an hour ago, and I hadn’t seen the other guys since Coach gave us his post-game speech and released us.
But I held onto hope as I jogged through the arena, and when I slid into the locker room and found all of them there, I took it as a sign from the universe.
Jaxson was fresh out of the shower, a towel around his waist as he padded over to his locker.
Aleks and Will were locked in a conversation — likely about how Aleks got thrown into the penalty box when we really needed him on the ice — and Vince was on the phone, the device nestled between his ear and shoulder as he tugged on one sneaker and then the next.
“Damn, am I glad to see you’re all still here,” I said, wiping the sweat from my face before I hung the towel over my shoulder. “Boys — I need you.”
Will didn’t even look up from where he was packing up his bag. “We’re not going to Boomer’s.”
“God, no,” Aleks added with a scoff. “Especially after you shanked that shot in the third.”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who took a dumbass penalty with five minutes left,” Vince chirped, finally ending his phone call — which presumably was with Maven, since he’d said he loved her and would see her soon.
“Yeah, at least Carter didn’t put us on the kill when we needed him on the ice,” Jaxson chimed in, dropping his towel unashamedly.
“True,” Vince said, grinning. “Carter just managed to fan on a wide-open net instead.”
Aleks barked a laugh. “Seems to be his signature move. Should we name it after you, bud?”
“Oy, did you see number 41? He completely Fabio’d that shot!” Jax added.
“Hey, leave my number out of this,” Vince said with a snap and a point.
The chatter picked up, jokes flying, all of them wearing easy grins as they chirped me incessantly. And usually, I’d laugh with them. I’d dish it right back.
But right now, I was wound tight enough to snap, and that’s exactly what I did.
I slammed my fist into the metal of my locker hard enough to make the whole row rattle. The sound cut the room cold, every head whipping toward me.
“Goddamn it, guys, I am not fucking around!” My voice cracked on the words, raw and loud, my chest heaving. “I am in love with Livia.”
I panted in the silence that proclamation left in the locker room, the guys I was less close with giving each other weary looks before they excused themselves and left me with the core group.
“No, I’m not joking. And no, I’m not delusional either.
She and I have been…” How the fuck do I explain what we’ve been doing?
“Seeing each other. It was supposed to remain casual and just between us, but I told her the night of Chloe and Will’s party that I wanted more.
I told her I loved her.” I swallowed. “And she said she loves me, too.”
Vince’s eyebrows bolted into his hairline, and Jaxson smirked, tugging on a pair of sweatpants as he mused to himself. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“But now I haven’t seen her in a week,” I continued, my breath labored.
“And I’m losing my fucking mind. I need to do something.
I need to show her that I’m in this with her, for her, that I’m serious about us.
I can’t just sit here waiting for her to call me off the bench like some rookie desperate for scraps.
” My hands shook as I ran them back through my hair before letting them fall against my thighs.
“And I need you to take me seriously right now. I need all the jokes to stop. I need my friends to help me figure out what the fuck to do. Okay? I need you.”
The silence lasted only a second before Will stood, his brow in a hard line. “Of course, we’ll help. We’ve got you.”
“For sure,” Jaxson added with a nod, stretching a long-sleeve t-shirt over his head before working into it arm by arm. “And hey… sorry for the jokes before. We were just chirping.”
“I know, I know,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I just… I’m really fucking spinning out here, guys, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“I think we need you to catch us up a bit,” Aleks said, arching a brow. “Because last I knew, you were like a buzzing fly around Livia’s picnic.”
“Yeah, well, not much has changed other than she’s stopped swatting me away.”
Will smirked. “Seriously. Tell us what’s been going on, and then tell us what we can do to help.”
I blew out a breath. “Alright.”
But before I could launch into the whole story, Aleks nodded toward Vince, who looked green on the bench where he sat. “You okay over there, Tanny Boy?”
Jaxson answered for him with a bark of a laugh, clapping his hands hard on his best friend’s shoulders before he gave him a little shake. “Oh, he’s fine. Probably just hoping like hell Carter doesn’t remember what he said during our golf game last summer.”
I frowned, trying to remember.
And just as I did, Daddy P slapped his knee and let out his own baritone of a laugh. “Oh, how could any of us forget? How exactly was it that he phrased it?”
Aleks slid in, rubbing his chin like he had to think about it before he held up a finger and said, “I believe it went something like, ‘If you ever bag Liv, I promise you, I will literally get on my hands and knees and kiss your feet.’”
Vince shook his head, but I saw the smile spread on his lips before he buried his face in his hands as the rest of us threw him playful punches and chirps.
“It was just me razzing him!” he tried.
“Oh, no,” I said, holding up a finger. “It was quite literally a promise. Don’t worry, Tanny Boy — there will be plenty of time for you to act out your foot fetish...”
“I’d like to be there when this happens,” Jaxson piped in.
“Oh, I’m not missing it,” Aleks added.
Will nudged Vince. “I’ll record it. You know, just in case.”
“…but right now,” I continued on a laugh, the fist around my chest already loosening. “I’m less concerned about cashing in that bet and more so about how I keep the girl now that I somehow managed to get her.”
Will nodded at that, his usual serious demeanor sliding back into place. “Alright, Fabio,” he said, catching the gaze of the other guys before he folded his arms and looked back to me. “We’re with you. Tell us everything.”