Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHASE
But that didn’t mean she should have to.
I knew I was putting ten years of secrecy on the line by stepping in here, but I didn’t care. My mind had blanked to anything but Addison as soon as I’d walked in the front door from my PT appointment and heard five grown-ass men yelling at my girl.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spat, glaring at each of them.
“Excuse me?” Brady’s voice was deceptively calm, but there was no mistaking the hard edge to it.
“Cut the sheriff voice, Brady. I’m not twelve anymore.”
“Neither is she.” Beck leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Addison can handle herself.”
I dipped my chin in a nod because there was no denying that truth. “She can. But should she have to handle herself against her fucking brothers?”
That hit its mark, each of them shifting in their seats and exchanging wary glances as if just realizing how harsh they’d come off.
“Don’t try to pretend you wouldn’t hand someone their ass for speaking to her like that, so what in the actual fuck makes you think it’s okay for you to do it just because she’s your sister?
Shit, if I talked to my sisters like that, they’d have teamed up to beat the snot out of me and done it all with a smile.
But there’s only one pint-sized version of her and five of you fuckers, so how about you lay off? ”
There was a beat of stunned silence as they all stared at me. I met their gazes head on, arms crossed, mouth set in a firm line. They were in the wrong here, and they fucking knew it.
“Since when does Addison need someone to fight her battles for her?” Levi asked, his brows drawn down as he appraised me, and I really hoped I was imagining the suspicion in his eyes.
“He’s got a point,” Beck said.
Ford nodded. “Little D can handle shit on her own.”
“If she has a problem, she can speak for herself,” Aiden said.
Everyone’s attention swiveled to Addison’s chair. Addison’s empty chair. Apparently, at some point during our argument, she’d packed up her shit and bailed without a word.
I turned back to them, brows raised. “What do you have to say now?”
“She’s fine,” Beck said.
“Best to leave her alone when she gets like this,” Brady agreed. “She’ll be back to biting our heads off by noon.”
While the latter was certainly true, alone time was going to do fuck all for her right now.
How did they not know that? Solitude would only serve to spiral her further into her feels, and that was a recipe for disaster where Addison was concerned.
What my tiny tornado needed was a venting post, and I was all too willing to volunteer as tribute, just like old times.
Without another word to the assholes who’d run off my girl, I stalked out of the room, intent on finding where she’d snuck away to.
After searching the inn and coming up empty, I stopped dead in my tracks as realization hit.
If she wasn’t here, there was only one other place she’d be.
The same place I’d been taking her since we were both just kids.
Growing up, I’d spent nearly as much time at the resort as I did at my own home.
My parents considered Levi another son, and Levi’s mom had felt the same about me.
That meant I was usually around when Addison’s brothers pissed her off or when shit got too real with their dad.
It was during those times when Levi would order me to get her out of the inn.
Take her somewhere. Anywhere, so long as she didn’t have to witness their dad’s drunken fumblings.
Grabbing my coat, I headed out to my truck and drove the short trek to the other side of the property.
Though someone still plowed this path, it looked as though it didn’t get regular use.
This part of the resort used to be the talk of the town in winter months, being the only outdoor and recreation-exclusive ice-skating rink in Starlight Cove and home to a camp for kids over winter break.
But as I slowly drove down the overgrown path, it became all too clear it had been years—a decade, if I had to guess—since this place had been shown an ounce of love, and I hated that.
The Zamboni shack—aka Addison’s and my hideaway—was just that.
The building, if you could call it that, was in shambles, the wood splintered and faded, the roof sagging in the middle.
The whole thing needed to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
Same with the bunkhouses that appeared to be in similar shape and the main building that used to house the rentals, warming center, snack bar, and changing rooms. And I didn’t even want to think about the ice-skating rink.
Parking my truck, I glanced over at the open area, now covered with dead overgrowth and snow, and a pang hit me in the center of my chest. It was nothing but weeds and forgotten memories now, but that was the place where my dad had first taught me to skate.
Where I’d then taught Addison. Where Levi and I had played hundreds of pickup games while she’d skated circles around us, begging to play, too.
I’d spent thousands of hours of my childhood right there on the ice or in the bunkhouses, and I hated that it had sunk to this.
Hated that what was once a beloved part of Starlight Cove was now nothing more than a memory.
A million options flitted through my head.
Different things I could do or ways I could help get this back to its former glory…
As good as some of those ideas were—I’d definitely be reaching out to my agent about an endorsement deal that would hopefully boost interest in the resort and thus its bottom line—they weren’t my priority.
Addison was.
I followed her small footprints that led straight to the shack, scowling when I realized she’d walked all the way here rather than driving—no doubt in an effort to cool herself off. I’d bet money that hadn’t done jack shit.
The loud creak of the battered door’s old hinges announced my arrival, and I found her right where I thought she’d be.
Facing away from me, she sat in the Zamboni, her back ramrod straight, her posture screaming fuck off and never come back.
She didn’t even shoot a glance over her shoulder at the interruption, as if she’d been expecting me.
At some point in the Zamboni’s incredibly long life, the standard seat had been replaced with a wider bench that could accommodate two people, so I climbed up and sat next to her.
Hundreds of times, she’d sat right where she was now, keeping me company as I cleaned off the ice.
And hundreds more had been spent just like this…
the two of us tucked away in this private, quiet place of our own, no one the wiser.
Not even Levi knew this was Addison’s and my place.
I glanced over, studying her features. Her nose and cheeks were flushed a deep pink, probably because she’d walked her sweet little ass all the way over here in twenty-five-degree weather.
Beneath a bright-red wool hat, her brow was creased, her mouth set in a firm line, and those eyes…
Anger and indignation burned bright in her gaze.
A lesser person would’ve run for the hills when she leveled that furious glower on them.
But her scowls didn’t scare me, so I just met her stare head on.
When it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere, she blew out a long-suffering sigh and turned away, bringing her attention back to whatever was so fascinating on the wall. “What are you doing here?”
I could’ve lied to her. Made up some reason for why I just happened to be out here, at an abandoned ice-skating rink, but what was the point? Whether she meant here in this shack or here in Starlight Cove, it didn’t matter. “I’m here for you.”
If I hadn’t been paying attention, I would’ve missed how her breath caught and the way she darted a quick glance at me before averting her gaze once again. And though it had been quick, I’d seen surprise and…hope? swimming in her eyes. I was all too ready to encourage that.
But instead of showing me an ounce of that hope, she leaned into her anger, her default coping mechanism.
“I’m fine,” she bit out. She was clearly anything but fine.
Her hands were curled in her mittens, little balls of fury buried in fleece, and the pink of her cheeks darkened, having nothing to do with the chill in the air.
“Okay.” I leaned back on the seat, propping my feet up and getting comfortable.
“I am,” she said, more adamant this time. “It’s my brothers who are the problem.”
“Okay,” I said again, ready to wait her out as long as necessary.
After several long moments of silence, she huffed out an irritated breath and turned to glare at me. “Why are you being so fucking quiet?”
I lifted a single shoulder in a shrug and tipped my head toward her. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I know you, Addie, and I know what you need. You don’t need to be left alone like your brothers seem to think. You need someone to listen while you lose your shit.” I shrugged, my shoulder brushing against hers. “Well, I’m here now. You can lose your shit on me.”
She was quiet for a second…two, three…and then she threw her mitten-covered hands in the air and huffed out a frustrated breath. “They still treat me like I’m a child! Like they have to protect me from everything, and it’s complete bullshit. I’m twenty-eight years old, not six, for fuck’s sake.”
If she were at a place where she was open to listening, I would’ve told her that while I didn’t agree with her brothers’ methods, they were probably doing it because they wanted to save her the heartbreak they’d gone through themselves.
Their dad was a piece of work, and I was old enough to remember all his failed attempts at sobriety.
Old enough to remember just how badly it tore her brothers up, too.
But Addison didn’t need me to try to fix this for her.
She didn’t need me to get involved or tell her what she should do instead or offer her any advice.
All she needed was for me to listen.
“They think I can’t handle it.” She barked out a humorless laugh.
“I’ve handled everything. Everything they throw at me, I’ve taken care of.
The resort…them. And then they try to keep this from me because they don’t think I can deal?
Well, fuck them and their dumb boy brains and their stupid, idiotic misconceptions.
They’re acting like jackasses, and they can all suck my dick. ”
My lips twitched, but I didn’t dare smile. Instead, I sat silently, making sure she’d gotten it all out of her system. When her hands were no longer balled into fists and her shoulders weren’t hiked clear up to her ears, I finally said, “Feel better?”
She pursed her lips and shot me a look out of the corner of her eye. Then she exhaled a weary sigh. “Yes.”
“Why don’t you sound happy about that?”
She fluttered her eyes closed and whispered, “I hate that you know what I need.”
There was so much happening in my life right now that I had absolutely no control over and so much shit I couldn’t do—like play the game I was getting paid millions to play—thanks to the injury that kept on giving.
But this? This, I could do. All day, every day. As long as she needed me to. For the rest of my life, if I was lucky.
I wanted desperately to pull her into my lap and kiss away that angry pout on her gorgeous mouth. Wanted to sweep her hair back, kiss along her jaw, and allow her to use me in a different way entirely in order to get out all that aggression.
Instead, I bumped her shoulder with mine and leaned into her, keeping our bodies pressed together. When she glanced over at me and our gazes locked, I murmured, “I don’t.”