Chapter 16 Gabe Thatcher
Chapter sixteen
Gabe Thatcher
The Bench Social Media Group
Patti Jensen: A blonde in heels just stepped out of a Lexus at Thatcher’s place. Anyone else see that?
Marge Calloway: She had luggage. Designer. That’s not a day visit. Trust me, she booked the suite at the Inn.
Riley Novak: That’s Liz. As in Jamie’s mom. As in the woman who once told me almond milk was “common.”
Marge Calloway: Well. This should be interesting.
Patti Jensen: Roe walked into The Blue Line with an attitude today. His jaw was tight, and he didn’t even flirt with Riley.
“He has a game, Liz,” I tell her.
I’d arrived at The Blue Line to get my mid-morning fix and meet Roe with a coffee before his morning skate. Instead, Liz is here.
I step forward in line, blessedly close to the front.
She shrugs. “But I’m here now, so I thought we could do an art class together or maybe a nature hike.”
I cut her a look. “His whole life is hockey. He can’t blow off a game; he wouldn’t want to.”
“I just thought—”
“Liz. He has his own life. Goals. Things that are important to him. You have to meet him where he is now. He’s not five anymore.”
Liz humphs. “But what about me?”
I say nothing, but the rest of the coffee shop goes deathly quiet, then picks up talking again, almost like they were all listening in. I almost smile, because for once the small-town gossip seems like it’s on my side, doing me a solid favor here.
It’s our turn at the counter and Riley’s look bounces between us.
“I need Monroe’s too. And please remember the oat milk so I don’t have to hear about it,” I tell him, since he knows my order but the new kid manning the machine got Roe’s wrong last week.
Liz hands him her stylish to-go cup and rattles off a complicated order I can’t follow.
Riley raises an eyebrow but just nods, his eyes watching the distance I keep between us.
It’s not like with Roe, where I have to keep myself from being too close.
I grab the two drinks as soon as Riley passes them over, leaving Liz to get her own. She follows me out to the sidewalk.
“I’m not saying you can’t see him or engage him in what you like. I’m just saying that you have to do it around his schedule. Hockey is mid-season. A few more months and he’s down to his speed and agility and specialized training. He has more time then.”
“Months, Thatchy? I’m here now. And I want to be more involved.”
I turn on the sidewalk, stepping to the side of the foot traffic.
“Then be more involved. All his activities are shared to your calendar. Let’s sit down and make a plan. That’s all I’m saying.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Always so practical. Don’t you ever just want to live in the moment? Just do what the universe puts in front of you that day instead of scheduling and planning every moment of your existence?”
I blink at her. “I have a twelve-year-old son. How does one do that without a schedule, exactly?”
“Easy, silly,” she giggles. “Quit taking it all so seriously.”
I feel myself bristle a bit at her words. Even without a kid, I was never one for spontaneity, and there have been those who found that to be a character flaw. I can feel the frown that falls onto my face.
I wonder what Roe thinks about my lack of impulsiveness.
I watch Roe make his way down the sidewalk, manifesting as if my thoughts alone conjured him up. The cocky walk he naturally has makes a smile rise on my mouth.
“What’s up with you two?” Liz asks.
“We’re seeing each other,” I say, not able to pull my eyes away from him for more than a few blinks. “It’s new.”
Monroe smirks at the second cup in my hand and stands way too close to receive it.
“Thanks,” he says, voice low. His eyes search mine, checking to see if I’m okay, and that makes my chest hurt. “Morning.” He nods to Liz.
“Morning,” she says, raising her cup in greeting.
“I’ll see you at the game, okay?” I tell Liz, then look at Roe. “Want a ride to The Keep? I’m delivering that bench today.”
“Alright.”
I nod to Liz and place my hand in the sexy small of Roe’s back.
It’s possessive and screams “he’s mine,” but the gesture is an unconscious one that I’ll sort out later.
For now I can’t stop it any more than I can stop the thoughts invading my mind lately, of my hands resting right there, holding him as I slide into his body.
A shiver of want races through me. No matter how much I get of Roe, I still want more.
The short drive to The Keep is mostly comfortable silence as we sip our coffee. In the parking lot, Roe steps close to me and I let him, smiling as he approaches me like I might run.
I back him up to the side of my truck, not worried about who might see. It’s not like the town gossip doesn’t already have us together. And in fact, I might like that it does. That it reinforces to him that I’m with him, not Liz or anyone else.
Roe’s eyes go dark and heated, and when our bodies touch, he groans a bit.
“Sending me to work hard will make an impression in the locker room for sure.”
I laugh, then end up resting my forehead against his.
“I’ll see you at the game later, okay?”
I nod.
“Liz is . . .” I start and notice how his eyes get sharper, and it makes me realize that I need to clarify her with him.
“She has these phases, like I said last night. Where she gets really into something, like it becomes her whole personality. It’s been yoga, or being a travel blogger, or she was going to write romance novels, or study massage, or—”
Roe’s thumbs rub across my hip bones. “I think I get it, Gabe.”
I look at him, really look, with my eyes bouncing from each of his to his gorgeous face, and I breathe in his grounding spicy scent. “I never thought it would be better—for Jamie or for me—for me and Liz to be together in some way. We were never going to last.”
His arms wrap me up and we share a kiss that warms me to my toes for the rest of the day.
What I don’t say is that Roe already knows me better than she ever did, or will, or cares to. And the same is true for me. I want to know everything about Roe Monroe. I could become obsessed with the man, if I let myself. With Liz, my concern is whether she’s hurting Jamie in some way.
That afternoon, Jamie and I get to the rink early, mostly because I can’t stand being late and Jamie likes to be the first one on the ice. Liz wasn’t at pick-up and hasn’t called, which is fine. I was there anyway, just in case. A good thing.
There was no excuse, no explanation for her not being where she said she would be today. Same old Liz.
I find a spot on the bleachers while Jamie heads to the locker room.
I’m halfway through scanning the program when Marge Calloway settles beside me as if she’s been waiting for the moment all day.
“He’s good for you,” she says, as though we’re in the middle of a conversation and I just missed the first ten minutes.
I glance over. “Excuse me?”
“Monroe,” she says, sipping from a thermos that definitely doesn’t have just cider in it. “You don’t scowl as much anymore.”
I blink. “I wasn’t aware I scowled.”
She hums. “You were the town’s most eligible grim reaper for a while. Now you’ve got a little warmth in you. We would hate to see that derailed by any new arrivals.”
I don’t respond.
She leans in slightly. “You think people haven’t noticed the way you look at him? The way he looks back. We want to see you happy, Thatcher.”
I stare at the ice.
Because I do look at him.
And when I think back—road games, carving wood in the quiet, the sound of his laugh echoing off the kitchen walls—I realize I haven’t really stopped.
There’s still a part of me that wants to keep him at arm’s length, but that’s getting hard to do.
Marge moves off, and before I can get any thoughts together, Roe slides next to me and hands me a cider.
“How was the skate today?” I ask.
“Good. Benji got called up for at least three games due to injuries. He could go in fourth line.”
I blink. “I forgot how fast that happens.”
“He was on a plane within two hours of the call. It was wild. I didn’t realize it either, until I saw it.”
I nod. “First game’s tomorrow? We should have the guys over and watch. Cheer on Benji.”
“Yeah?” Roe smiles. “That sounds cool. They’d love that. Especially if you’re cooking.”
I feel my cheeks burn at his easy compliment.
“Would be great if we had a bar for those kinds of watch parties too,” I add, knocking my knee against his.
He gives me a smile that feels like a secret shared just between us. “Yeah. The town could use one.”
“Hey, guys,” Liz says, standing awkwardly in the aisle, but Roe leans into my side and I slide down the bench to make room for her.
Roe smiles at her, but he keeps a knee pressed against mine, our thighs together. We might as well be holding hands.
I see Liz’s eyes flick to us, and to where Roe’s hand is subtly teasing under my knee or detouring to run down my calf. My feet are resting on the bleachers in front of us, so I doubt anyone else can see. I like it, though. Just like his closeness.
Again, I wonder about Roe now that Liz decided to just show up. Does he need some sort of added reassurance from me? Liz and I were never a long-term thing, but we have a kid together, and slowly the ways in which this all got complicated makes sense.
“Tell your friends, Roe,” I tell him, leaning in to whisper in his ear in a way that makes no doubt there’s something between us.
Fine. Let the gossip about me and Roe drown out any ideas people may have about me and Liz. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if she heard about us from everyone in town, that old possessive streak rising. “About tomorrow night.”
He looks at me, staring into my eyes so hard I’m about to promise him anything. “Alright. What if we come by at six?”
“Six is great.” I lean forward enough to see around him. “Liz, if you want to come to dinner—a loud dinner with too many grilled meats and hockey players yelling at hockey players on a screen—we’re hosting any of the Iceguard who want to come tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay.” She nods, and then the kids hit the ice and like me and Roe, her focus turns to Jamie.
They win the game with a solid 2–0 shut out, but also, I watch Liz’s face as she takes in what it means to play at the level Jamie is at his age. This is serious, competitive hockey. These kids have national rankings and stats to back it up. Maybe she had to see it to get it.
For his part, Jamie is back on his game, the top scoring player for his team.
Later, when we all converge on the parking lot, Liz suggests pizza.
“I have to FaceTime with my group on a project for class tomorrow,” Jamie says. He’s a little put out with his mom just breezing back into his life, and he’s incapable of not showing it.
“Why don’t you take Jamie back to the house, Liz?” Roe suggests before anyone can say anything else. “Thatch and I will grab pizza and meet you there. That way Jamie can shower—”
“Which is not negotiable,” I gently remind my son just in case he tries to get out of something with his mom in charge, and Jamie rolls his eyes. “Same with putting all the hockey gear in the laundry. You know the drill.”
Jamie sighs. “Fine. But I want extra cheese.”
“Deal,” Roe says quickly. “But you will also eat the salad I know your dad already made.”
Jamie wrinkles his nose. “Fine.”
I smile at Roe, grateful for making that all somehow work out for everyone.