Chapter 12 - Nate
I wake to heat and water and a red hair slipping through my fingers. My cock is so hard it hurts, and I can feel my precum soaking my boxer briefs. I shove my hand into my briefs, fisting my cock, tugging on it roughly, trying to relieve some of the pressure.
In the dream, she’s straddling my lap at the end of the dock, knees bracketing my hips, the lake licking at the boards below us.
Her mouth is salt-sweet and open, her laugh breathless against my jaw as I tug her closer, the curve of her ass fitting my palm like I’ve had it forever.
She shifts her hips, grinding on me, and I bury both hands in her hair.
“You going to be a good girl and take me?” I murmur into her throat, and she tips her chin, eyes bright, freckles lit like stars. “Please,” she says.
I grunt, "It's going to be hard and fast, Tessa, you've been a tease."
Her face lights up with a wicked smile, and she whispers on my lips, "I can take it, Captain, don't hold back."
I'm pumping my hips up in time with my hand when she moans into my mouth and I’m gone, gone, gone...
I come with a muffled, broken sound I don’t recognize as mine, fist tight around myself, muscles bowstrung, breath rough. For a few seconds, there’s nothing but the throb and the after-flicker, the sounds of the house around me and the taste of her skin on my tongue.
Then the cold pours in.
The fan ticks. The lake is a sheet of pewter under a pale July sky.
My chest hurts like I sprinted in my sleep.
I scrub a hand over my face and stare at the ceiling.
Jesus. I’m a thirty-one-year-old captain jerking off to a woman I barely know while half my team is drooling on guest pillows downstairs.
Real smooth, Nate.
I roll out of bed and make my way to my bathroom.
The tile shocks my feet awake. I step into the shower and turn it cold.
The water needles my skin, beats against the knot at the base of my skull, skates off last night’s noise.
Canada Day is a hangover that hasn’t decided if it wants to be a headache yet.
Behind my eyes, the street glows. Tessa laughing with Kenzie, dancing with Jensen, that wild red hair still damp from the lake, no makeup, no angle.
Something in me keeps reaching for that without permission.
I soap up, rinse off, and let the chill get almost painful.
When I finally turn the water off, the house is awake: a cabinet shutting, a muffled curse, McKenna’s laugh bouncing down the stairs like a puppy let loose.
I towel off fast, drag on broken-in jeans and a Kodiaks tee, pull a cap low, and shove my feet into old boots I haven't worn in years, but couldn't seem to get rid of.
I’m halfway down the hall when she corners me.
“Captain.”
I stop so short my boots squeak on the hardwood.
The brunette who wouldn't stop trying to hang off me all day yesterday is leaning against the wall like the hallway is hers, dress from last night swapped for micro shorts and a crop top that is closer to a bra in size. Glossed lips, cat-eye liner, hair perfect. She smiles like a camera’s already watching.
“Nate,” she purrs, sliding into my space, fingers catching my forearm.
The scent is club-sweet, familiar in a way that tightens my gut.
“I was hoping we could get a minute… to finish what we started. It has been so crazy since the last time we were together, and I just wanted to reconnect with you.”
Her voice has a nasally whine to it that is grating on my coffee less brain this morning.
There’s a beat where my brain glitches, looping back to what she just said.
.. what we started? and then the truth slams into me, hard and ugly.
Another hallway flashes sharper, louder.
Her hands on the sticky club wall, flashbulbs, a tabloid headline that has been threatening my career: CAPTAIN CARSON CAUGHT IN THE ACT.
The image I pretended wasn’t me because the person in it didn’t feel like me.
The morning Coach called and told me to get my shit together or lose the C.
Fuck.
I pull back, gentle but firm. “I'm sorry if what happened has confused you. But we didn’t start anything,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to the man I keep promising I’ll be. “We shouldn’t have been in that situation at all.”
Her mouth makes a pout she’s practiced in front of a mirror. “Why are you apologizing? It was amazing. I felt… so connected to you.” She slides her palm down my bicep. “You said...”
This girl is fucking killing me. She felt connected when we fucked in a public hallway in a dirty club, and I don't know her name. Ya real connected.
“I said a lot of things I don’t even remember,” I cut in, throat tight.
Shame is a taste; it sits copper at the back of my tongue.
For a second, I see my dad's eyes, when they still had pride in them, when he looked at me. I force myself not to flinch. “I’m not looking for anything. I have to focus on hockey.”
“Oh. Right.” Her smile goes brittle. “I was worried that what they were saying was true and that you’re not over Brielle. But honestly? I don't blame you! She’s goals.”
I almost laugh because if I don’t, it might be something else. “Yeah,” I say, dry and done. “That must be it.”
Her face flickers with something unsaid, but she steps aside, so I take the out.
The kitchen smells like coffee and toast and something warm in a pan. Jamie, the PR kid with a dusting of beard that refuses to connect, has his laptop open on the island, eyes bright with caffeine.
“Morning, Cap!” he chirps. “Uh, heads up, socials are… moving. The photos from yesterday are everywhere. The wholesome ones. Your mom slicing watermelon, your dad with Reeves, Kenzie teaching Olivia to cannonball. Tessa on the dock with the kid? Gold. I got permission from Kenzie to repost her shot of Tessa braiding Liv’s hair, with Reeves in the background.
Comments are...” He turns the screen to me.
The feed is a stream: hearts, Canadian flags, family emojis, “this is the team we love,” “more of this,” “family-first energy,” "Shipping Reeves and the redhead. "
I don’t trust myself to speak. I just clap him on the shoulder. He lights up like I handed him a bonus. “Reeves texted; he and Liv are already at your parents’. Eli says be there by eight if you’re serious about helping.”
“Perfect,” I say, even though it’s barely seven and my body would prefer to be a rumour until noon.
Anders shuffles in shirtless, hair a wreck, eyes alive. “Are we doing this, Captain?”
“We’re doing it.”
McKenna staggers after him, yawning so wide I see his soul. “I thought farmers slept till ten,” he says, and someone hands him a mug he nearly kisses. Jensen is already composed, coffee in hand, watching me with that quiet mirror-of-a-look like he can hear the gears I’m grinding.
“Woke up early,” he says mildly. “You good?”
“I’m fine.” I lie with the reflex of a man who’s trained that muscle.
We rally. The guys in jeans and tees, hats turned backward, boots if they brought them, sneakers if they didn’t.
The girls, some stayed, some bailed, appear in athleisure that looks allergic to dirt.
One, still glossy from the hallway, corners me with a pout.
“So, what’s the plan after? We coming back here? ”
“Take your cars,” I say, voice flat. “I don’t know how long I’ll be out at the farm. Might be late.”
They huff in chorus about civilization. I don’t explain that civilization is the exact thing I’m trying to step out of for a minute.
Outside, the morning is crisp. The lake’s gone from pewter to glass, and the sky is a high, obedient blue.
We pile into our vehicles, engines revving awake, gravel spitting under tires.
The road to my parents is a tunnel of green, sun shouldering through spruce, fence posts flicking by in a metronome.
The Carson farm shows up the way it always has: honest. The gravel crunches like a flare gun, signalling our arrival.
The big maple out front throws shade over the porch.
Mom’s already out with a dish towel over her shoulder; she waves with her whole arm.
I swallow around the pinch that hits my chest and lift a hand back.
Reeves stands near the shop with my dad, both of them bent over a toolbox. Olivia is on tiptoe beside them, chattering. Every once in a while, Dad hands her a bolt just to make her beam.
Then I see Eli, and my mouth pulls into something that tries to be a smirk and fails. He’s got a clipboard and a don’t-piss-me-off-you-city-idiots look that makes McKenna gulp audibly. It would be funny if I didn’t deserve it. We all start to pile out, everyone following my lead.
“Absolutely not,” Dad says the second he clocks the convoy, voice carrying. “We don’t need a circus.”
Kenzie bounces onto the porch in overalls and a white tank, curls strangled into a top knot, grinning like this is the part she’s been waiting for. “Relax, Dad! We’ve got waivers.”
“Waivers?” Colby echoes, blanching.
“Not a big deal,” Kenz sings, waving a stack of forms. “Standard ‘if you’re dumb and get hurt, that’s on you’ kind of stuff. Tessa suggested it.”
I can’t help it; I look for her. I don’t find her at first, but when I do, the sight steals my breath.
A big bay horse trots out from around the far side of the barn, ears flicking, and there she is on his back like she was born there.
Ball cap shading her eyes, braid roped down her spine, denim snapped over a white tank, jeans fitted to those hips like the manufacturer was in love.
Boots in the stirrups, posture easy, hand loose on the reins.
The horse moves like he trusts her more than gravity.
Olivia spots her and squeals. “TESSA!”
Tessa swings down in one smooth motion that makes half the team go very quiet. She murmurs to the horse, palm on his neck, then heads for my family first, eyes scanning Dad and Eli like she’s reading a chart.
“Calf checks were good,” she tells them, voice all business with a thread of warmth. “I’ll stay near the herd when we move them, just in case.”
Dad’s eyebrow does a thing I haven’t seen since I was fifteen and actually impressed him. He nods once. “Good.”
Olivia barrels into Tessa’s legs. “Can we ride today? Pleeeease?”
“Maybe,” Tessa says, kneeling to eye level. “Depends on how the big guy settles and how the morning goes. But Mrs. Carson said she'd love your help in the garden this morning, while we get some of the harder stuff done. But we’ll eat lunch together. Deal?”
“Deal,” Liv says, then tips her head back to whisper, “I brought the sparkly clips.”
“Then we are unstoppable,” Tessa whispers back.
Behind me, hallway-girl snorts. “Ugh, she already looks like she's been rolling in the muck.”
Eli doesn’t bother looking at her when he says, “Hard work isn’t for everyone. She's been at it since five.”
Kenzie claps her hands. “Okay! Orientation!” She points at the girls’ sandals. “No. If you don’t have boots, we’ve got a few pairs in the cattle barn that might fit. Long pants unless you want your legs to look like a cat fought you.”
Hallway girl, fuck, I need to figure out her name, flicks her hair. “I can run sprints in these heels.”
Tessa turns her head, that even gaze landing without heat. “Suit yourself,” she says. “Just don’t say we didn’t offer.”
Jensen hides a smile in his travel mug.
Eli flips the clipboard and starts assigning.
“Fence line on the south pasture took a beating this spring. We’re loading posts, T-post drivers, spools of wire, buckets of clips, and gloves.
The water line needs checking before we move the herd.
If you half-ass the fence, the cows find the road, and my day goes to hell.
Which means I make yours hell too. Clear? ”
A chorus of yeahs. He eyes Colby. “You know what a post driver is?”
“A… driver for posts?” Colby tries.
“It’s a metal tube you slam on a rod until your shoulders hate you,” Eli says. “Congratulations, you just volunteered.”
Reeves saunters over with Liv’s hand in his, already dressed to work, hat, worn jeans, boots that have seen things. He bumps my shoulder. “Morning, Captain.”
“Morning.”
He tips his chin toward Tessa, who’s leading the bay to a patch of shade, talking low and easy to him. “You play your cards right,” he says quietly, “you might learn something today.”
I don’t trust my mouth, so I grunt. My eyes won’t leave her, as she ties the horse, checks the knot, and rubs under his forelock where he can’t itch. The lucky animal closes his eyes and leans into her touch.
Kenzie leans into my side. “Don’t be weird today,” she whispers, not unkind. “Just work.”
“I can do that,” I say, and for once it feels true. I hate that this is what they think of me. I grew up on this farm, and it's like I am now somehow an outsider.
Jamie appears with a camera and a smile. “Do you mind if I grab a few shots? ‘Kodiaks give back’ content. Promise I’ll keep it real, no staged stuff.”
Dad hears that and mutters, “We aren’t a zoo, or a charity,” but Mom softens it with a smile at Jamie. “We don't mind. Just make us look good.”
He beams. “Yes, ma’am.”
We move. Loading the truck is muscle memory I didn’t know I still had.
The guys help me load everything into the back of one of the work trucks.
Eli talks to the guys about who should be on the side by sides, then his eyes shift, and he watches me for a long second, and I work like I need to earn air.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Tessa again, no, feel her, and when I look, she’s already looking back, a quick, unreadable sweep that lands and leaves. It hums under my ribs like the start of a song I haven’t learned yet.
“Nate!” Eli barks. “You daydreaming or driving?”
“Driving,” I say, stepping up to the driver's side and hopping into a truck I grew up in.
Somewhere behind us, Olivia squeals at something in the garden. Mom’s laugh floats through the air. Tessa is back up on her horse, now holding the reins for Eli's mustang, with Kenzie hopping on a side-by-side, hollering at McKenna to hop on or he's walking.
I follow Dad in his truck and settle in for what I know will be a brutal day.
But maybe this is what I’ve been missing: the heat, the work, the part of me that only wakes up when my hands do something useful. Maybe it’s the woman who walked onto my parents’ land like she’d been there the whole time. Maybe it’s both.
All I know is that for the first morning in a long time, the negative noise in my head has a rival.
And I plan to let this one win.