Chapter 24
He was going to die.
Decker’s chest was so tight he felt like he was in a straitjacket hanging upside down.
His lungs refused to take in oxygen and his vision began to blur around the edges.
Decker hadn’t felt this kind of pressure in his chest since his last year in the NHL.
He’d felt his knee starting to give way, but his mind was still there, moving at full tilt.
He’d thought that would be enough to stop it before it was irreversible.
He’d wanted to quit hockey while he was on top, but the pressure from his team, his coach, his agent had been so strong—everyone had wanted him to finish out the year—so he had.
Then, three games into the season there was the crack heard around the world.
He’d gone from the best goalie in the NHL to the guy with the fucked-up knee spending more time in PT than with his team.
Soon the calls slowed down and the time with the guys became nonexistent, until it was just him, Taters, and these fucking panic attacks—which for the most part he’d gotten under control through therapy and medication. But man, he felt one coming on—fast and hard.
Telling Miles to go see Brian before he left, Decker waited until he was alone and then took a seat on the concrete. He let his head fall between his knees and breathed in deeply.
It didn’t help. All he could hear was his brother’s and Miles’s excited voices filtering through the garage door, talking about this project.
Decker could feel the weight of the disappointment Brian schlepped off on him, and the tightness of his chest threatening to crash in on him.
It was like a jackhammer was chiseling away at his sternum—and making progress.
Taters whimpered to alert Decker of just how close he was to a full-blown attack and that’s when Decker knew he had about three minutes to get somewhere he wouldn’t be seen having a breakdown. The bedroom.
Taters was at his feet whining his alert and Decker’s vision became more and more blurry around the edges. He made it down the hall and into the bedroom, barely getting to the mattress right as his vision closed in.
Taters did what he was trained to do. He stood in front of Decker and pressed his forehead to Decker’s chest, giving him gentle, soothing nose butts to the ribcage. The warmth and rhythmic pattern helped slow Decker’s heart rate into a steady beat that followed Taters’s. But it wasn’t enough.
Decker sank his fingers into Taters’s scruff and brought his snout to Decker’s mouth, then he kissed the dog on the nose.
“Good boy. Good boy,” he rasped out.
Before he knew what was happening, two cool hands slid at the base of his neck and ran their way all the way to his forehead and back.
He looked out of the corner of his eyes and found Poppy sitting next to him.
“Just close your eyes,” she whispered.
Too tired to fight, or be embarrassed, he did. She started her gentle stroking of his hair, back and forth, and by the third pass his breathing had evened out and his chest no longer felt as if it were hiding a pipe bomb ready to detonate.
His posture started to straighten.
“Not yet.” She guided him back until his head was in her lap and she ran her hands over his eyelids, closing them. Then she massaged her fingers from his forehead to his temples. Easy, therapeutic strokes that brought him all the way back to normal.
“How did you know how to do that?”
“My mom suffered from severe panic attacks after my dad left. So I learned how I could help.”
Of course she did. The more he learned about her, the more he realized just how selfless and caring she was to those around her.
“It doesn’t always work. You have to catch it at the beginning of one. So we were lucky.”
Lucky. That was a word that had never felt so right. Laying with his head in her lap. Talking about her life. Being gifted this rare insight into her past. Lucky indeed.
“How did you train Taters to do that?”
He snorted. “Found him as a stray on a work site. Brought him home and a neighbor had a cat who was nursing a litter of kittens. She took to Taters immediately. So he was raised with a litter of kittens. Still thinks he’s one.
Which makes him the perfect emotional support animal.
So I signed him up in a training class and he was a natural. ”
“I know he weaves in and out of legs and likes to scratch on cardboard, but thinking he’s a cat?”
“Oh, he curls up in your lap like a cat. Sleeps on the counter like a cat. Even tries to purr. Loves catnip and drinks milk.”
She laughed, then noticed she was still massaging his head with her nails. “I should probably stop touching you.”
“I like it.”
“It sends the wrong signals.”
“Like?”
“Like this could go somewhere.”
He looked up at her from the security of her lap. “Is that such a bad thing?”
She sighed. “It complicates things.”
“Like what? We’re nearly done with the house. So what’s the problem?”
She shoved him to a sitting position, then moved next to him, crossing her legs under her. “I overheard you and Miles. And Vegas is an airplane ride or six-hour drive from LA, which is where my home base is.”
“What if I don’t want to go to Vegas?”
Her eyes met his and he saw something there that he couldn’t quite decipher. “It sounds like a great deal. Do you know how many companies would kill for a show to highlight their projects? It will up the value of your products by a quarter.”
“What if I say it’s not a great idea, at least not for me?”
“What would be a great idea for you?”
“I don’t know, but after hearing Miles, it changed something.
Miles is super happy about it. Plus, I’d get to work with him more.
I love where our relationship is going and I don’t want to go back to being the uncle he only sees on holidays,” he said.
“My brother wants this. My agent wants this. Miles obviously wants this.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “But what do you want?”
He was stunned. No one had ever asked him that except his dad. Maybe because of the rusty feelings that question brought up, his mind went blank. He was still trying to figure out who he was without hockey, how the hell was he supposed to know what he wanted?
The one thing he was sure of? It wasn’t another show in Vegas.
“I don’t even know. No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“Well then, you might want to start thinking about it before you agree to the next few years of your life. Because it would be awful to have to put your happy on pause.”
“I know what that feels like and I never want to feel that way again.”
She looked at him cryptically. “Are you saying you’re happy here, refurbishing this house with me?”
“You make me more than happy. You make me smile, you make me laugh, you challenge me. And for a guy who doesn’t do emotions, you light me up inside.”
“But my life is just as much in front of the camera as yours would be if you do what your brother is offering.”
“What you do in front of the camera is completely different.” Decker rubbed his temples, to ward off the residual throbbing.
“Do you want to talk about what brought on the panic attack?”
“Not really, but my therapist would probably tell me I should.” He didn’t mention his therapist as of late was Miles. “It’s a great opportunity. I’d be stupid to pass it up, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve passed on slam dunk projects because the timing wasn’t right, or they weren’t for me.”
“Really?” That was a surprise to him. Then again it shouldn’t be. The stuck-up, fame-hungry girl he’d made her out to be had been all in his mind. Poppy renovated houses for the stories and the pure pleasure of saving homes that would otherwise be torn down.
“A project is only successful if your heart is in it for the right reason. I know what Brian and Miles and Asher want. And I already know what Jack will say. But that’s a shame because your opinion is just as valid as theirs.
Especially since a lot of the pressure to succeed will be resting on your name. ”
And she got it. The thing that his brother, nephew, agent, and director refused to acknowledge. And a woman who’d known him a few weeks had identified it in a matter of minutes.
“I guess I imagined Brian and I working a midsized company here in LA like my dad, doing local construction and slowly growing the company. Not going balls to the wall and having the entire thing, successes or failures, being broadcast for the world to see.”
He’d done that before and failed epically. A year later, he was still the talk of the sports community.
“Did you tell Brian that?”
“Didn’t have time. Between his excitement, his dreams, and then his disappointment over my lack of enthusiasm, there didn’t seem a place for my feelings.
Plus, he’s already started meeting with architects and the planning commission.
” Under his voice he mumbled, “For a guy who seemed to have hated my fame a month ago, he sure seems to like it now.”
“Is that what really burns? Him wanting to use your name like everyone else?”
Decker nodded. “That’s a part of it. I get being taken advantage of by others. But by my loved ones? I didn’t see it coming.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. I’d never use someone for their fame or to get ahead.”
“I believe you.”
She looked up at him with those fathomless eyes and suddenly the air between them changed. It wasn’t the heat and lust from the other night. This felt safe and comfortable, like it had always been there, but he just hadn’t known how to tap into it—until her.
There was a lot of “until her” he was starting to realize.
Poppy was in serious trouble. A Decker-sized problem. And she wasn’t sure what to do about it.
So she did the only thing a woman in her situation could do—she kissed him.
Right on the mouth.
Gentle and tender, conveying just how special he was—not just to her but to everyone around him.