8. Xavi
Chapter 8
Xavi
T he more Annie rattled on quietly to me about what had happened between her and Elliot, the more I found myself seeing red.
I knew what it felt like to have people outwardly not believe in you. I knew what it felt like to be belittled, to be spoken down to like the things you wanted, the things you dreamed of, were nothing. I knew it in my bones, had it verbally beaten into me over and over as a child before my birth parents abandoned me and my adoptive parents decided they wanted to do more than just foster me.
Cole and Colton had slipped back inside in search of a glass of water for Annie, letting me do what I did best off the ice — talk people down, or distract them for long enough that they can start to feel okay about what happened.
But the more she spoke about what Elliot had done, the more her eyes glistened, the more her chest heaved, the more she shook beneath my hands on her shoulders. I’d never wanted to punch someone so badly as an adult as I did Elliot, and I knew that just a handful of soft spoken words weren’t going to cut it in helping her.
I let out a slow breath as I leaned back against the brick wall, keeping my eyes locked on her. “Are you shaking from the frustration or are you cold?” I asked. It wasn’t exactly freezing , but it definitely wasn’t warm either, and all she had to keep her warm was a thin, long-sleeved green shirt.
She shook her head, her jaw tight. “I’m fine.”
I didn’t believe her for a second. She was still rattled, her breathing uneven, tears still clinging to her fluttering lashes. “Annie,” I said, leveling her with a knowing look. “Do you want to go back inside?”
Again, she shook her head.
I sighed, shrugging off my zip-up hoodie and handing it to her wordlessly. She stared at it for a moment, the offer hanging in the air physically, before finally she wrapped her fingers around it and shrugged it over her shoulders, the fabric dwarfing her significantly shorter and smaller frame.
I looked at her for a long moment. “Wanna punch something?”
Her lips twitched upward a little. “That’s not healthy.”
“True, but it’s fun. And we can make a special exception.”
A little snort came out of her. “I don’t want to bust my knuckles open on the bricks.”
“Then don’t,” I smirked, locking my arms behind my back and pressing my shoulders into the wall, jutting out my stomach and pelvis. “Hit me.”
Her eyes blew wide immediately, her breath hitching. “Xavi, I’m not?—”
“Not in the dick, obviously,” I added. I adjusted my stance, spreading my legs a little wider for better stability. “In the stomach. Go ahead, I’m tensed.”
She blinked at me, her mouth parted in a cute little O, her gaze locking onto my stomach and her cheeks heating. “I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up my throat, couldn’t hold it back for the life of me. I wasn’t exactly the biggest of the guys on the team in the muscle department, but I was certainly stronger and more rigid than a standard man. I’d taken far worse blows than a throw from a shortstack like her. “Annie, baby ,” I chuckled, my grin far too wide. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
A flicker of something akin to determination twinked in her eyes, her brows coming together just slightly, her eyes narrowing. “You say that like it’s a challenge.”
I waggled my brows at her and took a deep breath in, my lower abdomen pushing out just a little more. “ Annie ? — ”
So quickly that I almost didn’t catch it, she clenched her fist and drew back before striking me just below my belly button. The punch landed with about as much force as a moth throwing itself against a window in search of light. I barely felt a thing, and I exhaled a breath through my nose, holding back a laugh at the way her whole body tensed, her fist lingering there like she was waiting for more of a reaction.
I quirked an eyebrow at her. “That’s all you’ve got? Come on. I know he made you angrier than that little punch felt,” I said, glancing between her stupidly sexy blue eyes and the knuckles resting against my stomach. “Come on. Throw a real one .”
A cute little scowl formed on her face, but she squared her shoulders as she reared back again, her fist clenched, inhaling deeply?—
Ouch .
The second punch hit me significantly harder, her aim a little off and almost colliding with my hip bone, but it was actually decent for someone of her size. It wasn’t nearly enough to damage me at all, but the dull little ache showed me she meant business this time.
“That’s more like it,” I chuckled lightly, readjusting my stance just a tad. “You’ve been… wait, what’s your last name?”
“Brent,” she huffed.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Brent.”
She let out another small, barely noticeable chuckle, but she bounced slightly on her feet, retracting her fist and keeping her eyes locked on my stomach. “Can I?—”
“You want to test those waters, Annie?” I drawled, cutting her off. I didn’t move, though — didn’t give her any reason to believe she couldn’t. Nothing except my words. “Go ahead. See what happens.”
Her eyes flicked up to mine, still a little damp and shining with the reflection of Dad’s bar sign down the alleyway. I could see it, then, the little flicker of adrenaline and minor amusement in her stare. It was another challenge, and I was learning very quickly that Annie seemed to like those.
She hesitated for half a second before throwing another punch.
I caught her wrist before it could land.
Her breath hitched instantly, the proximity we’d had moments ago when I was holding her face in my hands and telling her to breathe and calm down falling completely to the wayside. This somehow felt more intimate, felt more charged. Her fingers twitched in my grip, and for a minute, a long and stretched-out breath of time, we just… stood there .
I swallowed and sank my rear back against the brick wall, abandoning the position I’d held primed for punching, and held her gaze, my hand tightening just slightly around her wrist. Something different appeared on her face then — an upset, an anger , but as her gaze drifted lower and went unfocused, I could tell it wasn’t directed at me.
“He was wrong, you know,” I said, my voice even. “Everything he said. The way he said it. The shit he spewed from his mouth. He was wrong.”
Her arm moved, pulling back slightly, and I let her go. She took a half-step back, her throat working like she was trying to find words to say but coming up short. I let her take her time. “You don’t know that. You barely know me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe,” I admitted. “But I know that look. Know it like the back of my fuckin’ hand. Sported it for years.”
Her eyes flicked back to mine, her hand cradling her wrist as if I’d somehow damaged it. Or maybe she was chasing the ghost of the sensation of my fingers wrapped around it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I exhaled a little dramatically, crossing my arms over my chest, welcoming the bit of warmth I gave myself. “My birth parents didn’t believe in me, either. Thought my obsession with being on the frozen-over lake behind our shitty house was a waste of time, thought I was dumb for begging to sign up to a local children’s league. They thought that my dream to play was something that was never going to happen, and they made damn sure I knew it. Pretty sure that was one of the reasons they stopped wanting to be my parents at all.”
Her eyes dropped to the ground.
“I got lucky, though,” I went on, taking a breath to keep my voice even. “Your boss, my dad, ended up becoming my foster dad. And you know him, Ans. Still living in his glory days of playing with the Calgary Caribou. He made me feel like I wasn’t fucking insane for wanting something grand for myself. So, yeah, I know that look. And I know that Elliot doesn’t get to decide what you are. You’re not just a bartender. You’re not a failure?—”
“My dad’s the same as Elliot.”
Shit. Her words cut through like a knife. I sucked in air through my teeth, my anger for her only starting to mount. “Fuck him, then. Fuck them both.”
Her lips pressed into a tight line, her head shaking just a little. “It’s not that easy . Elliot’s my boyfriend, I can’t just walk away after a blip.”
“You absolutely can.”
She let out a shuddering breath, bringing her hands up to her face, pressing her palms against her eyes before wiping the sudden tears away. Mascara smudged across her face, and I made a mental note to fix that before she went anywhere. “I just… he knows how much this matters to me. He does. And he’s usually good about it, but—” She cut herself off, her voice wobbling, and shook her head. Her shoulders curled inward, like she was bracing for impact or a rebuttal even though Elliot was long gone.
“Annie,” I said quietly, leaning forward and invading her space just a hair. “People like that? They think if they say it, we’ll believe it. But they don’t know how stubborn people like you and me are. And if you let this slide, he’ll say it again. I promise you that.”
Her eyes studied mine as if they’d find something I wasn’t saying behind them, as if she was fully expecting me to shit on her dreams too, and I ensured she found absolutely nothing to indicate that.
“Fuck him,” I reiterated.
A little grin tugged the corner of her lips up. “Okay,” she breathed, a light little chuckle backing her words. “Fuck him.”
“Atta girl,” I smirked, lifting my hand to her cheek and wiping away a bit of the smeared, wet mascara with my thumb.
She moved, then, and I wasn’t prepared for it in the slightest. My breath hitched as her arms wrapped around me, her head burying itself in my neck, and I stilled. The scent of her invaded my senses, spiced cherries and some kind of nut, and I burned it into my sinuses, committing it to memory.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled from her hold on me, and god dammit, I couldn’t help myself.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her curves flush against my body and lifting her up effortlessly, her feet dangling between my knees. “For letting you punch me?” I teased, huffing a breath into her hair.
“For not being a dickhead,” she chuckled, kicking her feet like a toddler asking to be put down.
“ Annie ,” I pushed, her name half growled playfully.
She kicked a little more insistently. “Fine, fine, and for letting me punch you.”
I laughed as I set her down, half because she was practically begging and half because my blood was starting to pool between my hips and it would only be seconds before she felt something poking into her thigh if I kept holding her like that.
But god, the way she looked up at me as her arms unhooked from around my neck almost made me kiss her right there and then.
Damn Colton for being right about her — she was fucking gorgeous, with those big eyes and pouty lips and the curves that were mostly hidden by my hoodie. That coupled with the fact that she clearly hadn’t had things easy made me want to connect with her in ways far more than physical.
It shouldn’t have frightened me.
But it did.
The door swung back open and almost on instinct, I wrapped my arm back around her, bringing her flush against my side but keeping my hips angled a little bit to avoid contact. I relaxed a little as Cole and Colton stepped through, the worry of someone else ending up out here fading instantly, and I almost, almost released her again — but she tucked herself right in, her arms curled into her chest, her cheek against my pec, and I couldn’t let go. Not with her so comfortable there.
“Hey,” I said to them, plucking the water from Cole’s outstretched hand and holding it up to her. She took it without question, barely moving from her spot with me as she gulped down the water.
Colton stared at me with the heat of a thousand suns, but oh well.
“You all right?” Cole asked her. He took a napkin from Colton’s fisted hand and passed that along to her, too.
She nodded. “Yeah, I think so.” She raised the glass to her lips again, emptying it halfway. “I think I need to leave him. I just… I don’t want to have to end another relationship, you know?”
Cole huffed, that tough exterior of his cracking just a bit. “Yeah, I get that,” he said, the faintest smile pulling at his lips, the sides of his eyes crinkling. “It’s hard walking away from things. I had to leave my ex-wife. I promise it’ll feel like the right decision at some point, even if it doesn’t fully right now.”
I stilled, my hand gripping her shoulder lightly. Cole didn’t talk about Jenny often, and especially not to people he’d just met.
Annie swallowed. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“Don’t be. Just know you’ll be fine.”
She nodded tightly before downing the rest of the water. Cole took the glass back without her asking or offering. “Thank you,” she rasped. “And thank you to all three of you. Honestly, I don’t think any of that would have played out the way it did if you hadn’t been here. I’d have let him drive me home and cried myself to sleep.”
I chuckled lightly, my hand rubbing her shoulder for reassurance. “Nah, I know you’re stronger than that.”
“You overestimate my ability to fight for myself when it comes to dickhead boyfriends.” She glanced up at me, a little grin cracking before she rested her head back on my chest.
Her ability to just… slot herself into me as she felt like it made my chest go tight, my hands instinctively wanting to flex and close, but I held it at bay. I knew she was in my grasp right now, but looking at Cole and Colton, seeing the way Cole actually chuckled at her words and the way Colton had seemed to relax just a little even with me holding her, told me everything I needed to know.
Both of them liked her.
I liked her.
I’d spent most of my life using hockey and friendship and the occasional short-lived relationship to fill a void in my heart that I knew came from being abandoned by my birth parents — I’d done enough work in therapy to unpack that. But I still couldn’t help but feel like this would be a problem, like I’d get pushed to the wayside again, like I wouldn’t have a place. There was a worry, there, too, that this would be what eventually split Cole, Colton, and me up, my family outside of my family, and not the eventual possibility of us getting moved to different teams.
But she was in my arms.
She was in my arms.