Chapter 2
2
B rynn was up at six. Not because she was by nature an early riser, but because Tilly was—or at least her bladder was, and the only thing worse than getting up so early was the prospect of waking up in a puddle of dog pee.
And having to replace Jude’s five-thousand-dollar mattress would’ve sucked, too.
So she hauled Tilly off the bed, stumbled into the bathroom to take care of her own pressing needs, then put on her glasses, dragged on her leggings, and with Tilly running in circles ahead of her, headed for the front door.
Twenty minutes later she keyed in the door code, yawning so hard she screwed it up and had to key it in again. With the door open, Tilly—freed from the hated leash—ran ahead to the kitchen to dance impatiently in front of her food bowl. Moving slower, Brynn kicked off her flip-flops and started to follow, and then the faint sound of running water reached her ears. She frowned at the kitchen faucet, which was off, then realized she was hearing the shower in Jude’s bathroom. He was taking a shower, she thought, and tried unsuccessfully not to picture it.
Then Tilly gave her sharp, impatient, why-haven’t-you-fed-me-yet bark.
“I’m in hell,” Brynn muttered, and shoving her glasses up her nose and the image out a wet and naked Jude of her mind, went to attend to her highness.
She filled the water bowl and got out a pouch of the insanely expensive fresh, raw ingredient dog food from the fridge while Tilly spun in circles, scattering drool. By the time she’d cut open the pouch, dumped its contents into a bowl, and used a fork to break it up into bite-sized chunks, Tilly was dancing at her feet, jumping as high as her stumpy, five-inch legs would allow.
“All right, all right,” Brynn said, laughing. Tilly’s dads, Owen and Mark, called it her ‘dinner dance’, and it had quickly become Brynn’s favorite part of the day. Holding the food dish to her chest, she waited for the rest. As if on cue, the basset hound mix tipped back her head and let out a trilling howl.
Brynn set the dish down and Tilly dove in, her ears dragging through the puddle of water and drool on the floor.
“You’re so ridiculous,” Brynn said with affection and went to get the paper towels.
When the water and the drool and the chunks of dog food were cleaned up, and Tilly had submitted with the graciousness of royalty to the removal of the bits clinging to her ears and chin, she waddled off to sprawl in a patch of sunlight on the floor and Brynn turned to the coffee maker.
She brewed a double pot, figuring Jude hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had. She’d probably feel better if she’d just stayed up reading all night instead of trying to sleep in between his little concussion exams.
Mostly because when she finally did sleep, she had dreams where he’d say things like “Who’s the president of my penis?” and she’d say “I am,” and then she’d wake up to him asking her who’d won the fucking Stanley Cup again.
The pot was almost full when the bedroom door opened and Jude walked out.
He wore nothing but a pair of dark blue shorts, knee length and loose, with a drawstring waist and a faded logo on the right leg. His hair was wet from the shower, his eyes heavy, and when he smiled at her, soft and sleepy, his mouth looked like pure sin under his damp mustache. “Morning.”
She cleared her throat and tried to act like she didn’t want to tackle him to the floor and sit on his face. “Morning. Want some coffee?”
He yawned, reaching up with one hand to scratch his bare chest. “I can get it,” he said and shuffled into the kitchen.”
It wasn’t a huge space, but it wasn’t tiny, either. Designed as sort of an open galley, it was perfectly adequate for two people, with plenty of room to maneuver. But as he reached overhead for a mug, then past her to the refrigerator for the cream, it sure didn’t feel that way.
By the time he’d poured his cup and circled the counter to settle on one of the stools, she felt like she’d run the fifty-yard dash, shaky and breathless and sweaty. To cover, she poured herself a cup of coffee, then grabbed the sugar bowl off the counter.
“Oh, hey,” he said suddenly, and she looked up. He held up the cream he’d taken from the fridge. “This is probably yours, huh?”
“Oh.” She looked at the pint carton, store-brand, bought with the change she’d been able to scrounge from under the seats of her car. “Yeah, but it’s fine. Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” He poured in a generous dollop. “Can you pass me a spoon?”
She plucked one out of the drawer and passed it over.
“Thanks. So what’s up with your apartment?”
Her hand jerked, scattering sugar crystals across the counter. Heart pounding, she turned to the sink to dampen a paper towel. “What do you mean?”
“You said you needed a place to crash, so I figured something was wrong with your place.”
“Ah, yeah.” She squeezed the excess water out of the towel and tried to marshal her scrambled thoughts. “It was, um, a plumbing problem. A pipe burst.”
“In your apartment?”
“No, the one next door.” Improvising her ass off, she started moping the counter. “But they had to shut off the water to the whole building to fix it, so…”
“That sounds like a mess.” He lifted his cup to his mouth, then lowered it again, frowning. “Don’t they have to put you up in a hotel room for that?”
“Huh?”
“If they have to kick you out for essential repairs,” he elaborated, his frown deepening, “I think they do. It’s a state law.”
“Oh. They did,” she said, focusing on her task like the spilled sugar was an atomic bomb. Shit, shit, shit. “But they were having a hard time finding one that would take Tilly, and since you weren’t here…”
She trailed off and glanced up. “I’m sorry. I should’ve checked with you first.”
“It’s fine,” he said, waving it away. “You can stay here as long as you need.”
How does six months sound? she thought and turned to dump sugar in the sink.
“How’s your head this morning?”
“Fine.”
“No pain, dizziness, nausea?”
“None.”
“Who won the Stanley Cup last year?”
“The Baltimore Ravens.”
“Well, at least you’ve moved on to football,” he muttered. “You know the names of other hockey teams, right?”
She tossed the paper towel in the garbage under the sink and turned to lean against it, picking up her coffee. “I know them. I just don’t pay much attention.”
He set down his mug. “What do you mean, you don’t pay much attention? Don’t you like hockey?”
“I’m more of a baseball fan,” she confessed and felt her mood lift a little at his goggle-eyed shock. “No offense.”
“Offense very much taken,” he replied, rubbing the heel of one hand over his chest as though soothing an ache. “How can you not like hockey?”
“I like it fine. It’s just not my favorite sport.” She sipped her coffee and ignored the chest rubbing. Thanks to the where-am-I-going-to-sleep-tonight panic, it was easier than she’d expected. “You’re very good at it, though.”
“How would you know?” He scowled into his coffee. “Did I know this about you when I hired you?”
“You didn’t hire me, the agency did. Well, Chloe did.”
“Did she know?”
“I didn’t tell her, but probably. She knows everything.”
His mustache twitched as he smiled. “That’s true. So, how long have you been living in my apartment?”
Shock hit like a punch to the chest, stopping her heart and driving the breath from her lungs. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, not even a squeak. Her hand went limp, and her coffee cup would’ve fallen, but her thumb was hooked through the handle so the coffee just spilled out to puddle at her feet. It was the spatter of hot liquid on her toes that jolted her out of her stunned state, and she leaped back. “Shit!”
He pushed up from his stool, his forehead furrowed in concern. “Did you burn yourself?”
“I’m fine.” She grabbed the paper towels and knelt on the floor, mopping at the edges of the puddle before it could spread.
He crouched in front of her. “Let me see.”
She shook her head and concentrated on her task, staring so hard at the coffee soaking into the towels that her eyes started to burn. When they were saturated she tossed them in the sink and tore off a handful more.
“Brynn, the floor is clean enough. Let me check your feet.”
“I need to get some cleaner,” she said, swiping at the now dry floor. “The sugar in the coffee will make it sticky, and the last thing you want is ants.”
“We’re on the tenth floor,” he reminded her and took the paper towels out of her hand. “I don’t give a fuck about ants. Let me see your feet.”
She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see in his eyes the quiet pity she could hear in his voice. So she closed her eyes and shifted to lean back against the cabinets, extending her legs out in front of her. She didn’t think her feet were burned, at least not badly, but she was too confused and ashamed to fight him. So she sat quietly while he traced her toes with his calloused fingertips, his touch feather-light.
“They’re a little pink, but I don’t think they’ll blister,” he finally said, the warm weight of one hand on her ankle, as though he thought if he didn’t hold her down, she’d run away.
She kept her eyes closed. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said. “Are you going to open your eyes?”
“No.”
“Okay,” he said again, and he sounded so calm, like “no” was a perfectly reasonable thing for her to say, that she sighed and opened her eyes.
“How did you know?”
“Couple things.” He was sitting cross-legged on the floor by her feet, one hand on her ankle, the other resting on the floor. His body was relaxed, his pose non-threatening, and his eyes were kind. “There’s a jumbo box of tampons under my bathroom sink, your shampoo and conditioner have been on the shelf in the shower long enough to leave rings, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a pretty lousy liar.”
“I know.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Am I fired?”
His eyes were unreadable. “I guess that depends on why you’re squatting in my apartment.”
She winced, then sighed. He deserved the truth, no matter how humiliating it was. Besides, she really was a shit liar. “I had some…hiccups with my housing.”
“What kind of hiccups?”
She lifted a hand to run it through her hair, surprised at how much effort the gesture took. She was suddenly exhausted. “My roommate decided to move back in with her parents to save money, and I couldn’t manage the rent by myself, so?—”
“Why not?”
She blinked. “Why not, what?”
“Why couldn’t you manage the rent by yourself?”
“Because rent is expensive, Jude,” she said, her cheeks heating as her temper spiked. She bit it back, forcing herself to focus on keeping her job. “I was supposed to move into a new place at the first of the month, but at the last minute, Cora decided to have her boyfriend move in instead. I already paid her but she hasn’t sent it back yet, and since she blocked me I doubt she’s going to, so that’s money I won’t see again. And well, you weren’t here, and I was coming in every week to clean anyway?—”
“Hold on, time out. You’re cleaning my apartment?”
Shit . “Um. Yes.”
“I thought you hired a cleaning service.”
“Yeah, well, I hired myself.” Her cheeks were burning, shame a roiling ball of nausea in her belly, but she forced herself not to look away. “I needed the extra money.”
“Why?” he said, baffled confusion in his pretty blue eyes. “You make plenty.”
Her temper spiked again, and this time, she couldn’t bite it back. “I know you’re a professional hockey player,” she began, trying to moderate her tone and failing miserably, the words slicing through the air like knives, “and your family has money, but for your information, five hundred dollars a week is not enough to live on.”
“What?” he began, but she wasn’t listening.
“Even if I didn’t have student loan payments, which I do,” she continued heatedly even while one part of her brain warned her to tread carefully due to the whole squatting/trespassing thing, “or a car payment, or insurance, or any of the other financial obligations that come with being an adult in late stage capitalism?—”
“Brynn—”
“—like needing to eat , with groceries costing three times as much as they did before Covid,” she fumed, yanking her ankle out of his grip and lurching to her feet—“it would still not be enough to live on.”
He stood a beat behind her. “Something’s wrong here.”
“And since I’m not even getting that because it’s the ‘off-season’,” she went on, throwing up her hands to put air-quotes around off-season, “that means I’m living on even less, while still doing my job , so yes, I’m cleaning your house, and yes, I’m dog sitting for extra cash, and yes, I’m squatting in your apartment, and you can take your ‘you make plenty’ and shove it up your?—"
“Brynn!” he shouted, a foot away from her face.
“What?” she shouted back.
“Are you telling me you stopped getting paid when the season ended?”
“Like you didn’t know that,” she snapped, sarcasm dripping, then the look on his face registered. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”
“And you’re only getting paid five hundred a week?”
“That’s what we agreed on,” she reminded him, all but spitting the words. He looked mad, and it was pissing her off. What right did he have to be mad?
“In Grand Rapids,” he said, his face like a thundercloud, “when it was only part-time. When you agreed to move to Detroit to work for me full-time, I raised it.”
“No, you didn’t,” she scoffed.
“Yes, I did. To one hundred thousand dollars a year.”
Her knees went so weak so fast she’d have fallen if the sink wasn’t right behind her. “What?”
“It took effect in February. And you don’t know anything about it, do you?”
She gave in and slid down, landing on the floor with a thump. “No.”
Tilly, her nap disturbed by the shouting, waddled over to climb into Brynn’s lap. Brynn lifted her hands automatically to stroke, but her eyes were fixed on Jude’s furious face as he dug out his phone. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling Grant.”
She swallowed. She didn’t want to ask, but she needed to know. “Because I’m fired?”
“What?” He stopped stabbing at the screen long enough to shoot her a furious look. “No. You’re not fired.”
“Okay.” The breath she didn’t realize she was holding whooshed out. “Thank you.”
“And don’t thank me, goddammit.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so kept silent as he began to pace.
Tilly, sensing Brynn’s stress, began to lick her arm, and Brynn realized she was close to hyperventilating. Recalling her therapy tools, she started box breathing and was holding her breath for the four-count when Grant’s jovial, used-car-salesman voice boomed through the phone.
“Jude! How’s my favorite client?”
“I’ve got a problem,” Jude said. He jabbed a finger at Brynn, barked, “ Stay here,” then strode out of the kitchen, disappeared into the bedroom, and slammed the door behind him.
She blinked at the closed door for a second, then looked down at the dog. “Hoo, boy. I know it’s a cliché, but he’s pretty when he’s mad.”
Tilly gave her arm a final lick, then laid her head on Brynn’s knee.
“Right, sorry,” Brynn said, stroking the dog’s velvety ears. “I’m not supposed to be noticing that. But I’m only human, you know.”
Then she sighed, remembering how he’d looked wearing only a pair of loose shorts and how warm his hand had felt on her skin. “And horny.”
Tilly, deciding that the crisis was over and her support was no longer required, heaved herself off Brynn’s lap. She waddled back over to the patch of sunlight she’d abandoned during the shouting, turned around three and a half times, and settled down with a wheezing sigh and a loud fart in a cloud of dog hair.
“Easy for you to say,” Brynn muttered. “You’re spayed.”
She sat there listening to Tilly breathe and the muffled sounds of Jude’s conversation from behind the closed bedroom door, trying to decide if she wanted to know what he was saying or not. On the one hand, knowledge was power. On the other, she’d already trespassed and lied, so eavesdropping was probably a sin too far.
With a vague idea about distracting herself, she got up off the floor and opened the fridge. She wasn’t especially hungry, but she needed something to do. So she got out an onion, cheese, and eggs and began to dice, shred and whisk.
She was pouring eggs into an omelet pan when the bedroom door opened again and Jude stalked back out, the phone at his ear. “Brynn? Who have you been dealing with in Grant’s office?”
“Um, someone in accounting. Adam, maybe?” She nudged her glasses up and shook the pan. “Or Aaron. Something like that, I think.”
“You hear that?” he said into the phone, pacing the length of the counter. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah.”
Brynn looked down at Tilly, who had abandoned her nap to perch at Brynn’s feet, hoping for a stray hunk of cheese. “This is a mess,” she muttered, keeping her voice low. “And I have no idea where we’re going to sleep tonight.”
“Okay, let me know,” Jude said behind her, and Brynn risked a glance over her shoulder. He dropped the phone on the counter and dragged a hand through his hair, then noticed her staring. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, grateful she could blame the stove for the heat in her cheeks, and flipped the omelet onto a plate. “Do you want an omelet?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Fresh basil?” she asked, reaching for the little plant on the windowsill she’d babied from a cutting.
“Sure.”
She began to shred the leaves, watching him. His jaw was clenched, his brows were drawn together in the fiercest scowl she’d seen since her father had heard about the Justin Verlander trade in 2017, and angry color slashed his cheekbones. “You look mad.”
A flash of reluctant humor lit his eyes. “I am mad.”
“I mean, really mad,” she went on. “Like, solid pissed. I haven’t seen you look like this since the Montreal game.”
“That son of a bitch March slew-footed me,” he said, his scowl deepening, then blinked. “Wait. You remember that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, I remember that. You broke his nose and got thrown out of the game. Your social media was bananas for a week and a half—I was hearing Instagram alerts in my sleep.”
“He deserved it,” Jude grumbled.
“What did Grant say to piss you off?” Brynn asked, sprinkling basil over the eggs.
“It’s the situation that’s pissing me off,” he corrected and sat on one of the stools lining the counter. “He thinks it’s a paperwork screw-up. Chloe is going to dig into it.”
She passed him a fork. “Okay.”
She told herself not to watch him eat. Surely she wasn’t so hard up she had to watch the man eat. To make sure she didn’t, she turned back to the stove and started on another omelet for herself.
Neither spoke for a few moments, the dog’s hopeful panting accompanied by the clink of his fork against his plate and the sizzle of eggs in the pan. When Brynn reached for the pile of shredded cheese to add to the eggs, Tilly let out a plaintive whine.
“Not on your life,” Brynn told her firmly. “Not after what happened last time.”
“Last time?” Jude echoed behind her.
“Her owners told me not to let her have people food, but I left a sandwich unattended,” she explained, glancing back. He’d finished the omelet and was watching her, blue eyes laser-focused. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. “Let’s just say there was extensive mopping and a thorough bath. For both of us.”
“Puked it up, huh?” he asked with a sympathetic wince.
“No, we visited a town a little south of Puke Up,” she said drily.
The sympathy turned to horror. “Oh, God.”
“Repeat that about a dozen times, throw in a few f-bombs, and you’ll be where I was,” she informed him and slid her omelet on a plate.
She shredded some basil onto the gently steaming eggs and with no good reason not to, circled the counter to take the seat next to him. Tilly followed, wiggling her way under the stool so as not to miss any falling scraps, and Brynn picked up her fork.
“You never answered my question,” Jude asked after she’d taken her first bite.
She swallowed. “Which question was that?”
“How long have you been living in my apartment?”
Her appetite was gone, but she forked up another bite anyway. It might be her last hot meal for a while. “A couple of weeks.”
His expression was unreadable. “Do you have somewhere to go tonight?”
The eggs were like sawdust on her tongue while shame burned her cheeks and fear turned her stomach to ice. “No.”
“Okay,” he said and nodded once. “You’ll stay here.”