Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
ANNIKA
I knock on Parker’s door, and he opens it in a tight, white tank top, exposing his arm muscles and even his abs through the thin material. His sweats are gray.
He’s barefoot.
Relaxed.
Dangerous.
“Hey,” he says, widening the door.
“Hey.”
He steps aside, gesturing for me to come in. The first thing I notice, after his body, is he’s ordered dessert with two spoons on the tray.
“You eat like this during the season?” I ask.
“Carbs are performance fuel.”
“Not the right kind of carbs.”
He digs his spoon into the skillet brownie. “Please don’t ruin this for me,” then attempts to stick it in my mouth.
I snap my head to the side and the glob of ice cream and caramel hits my cheek instead of my mouth. It drips down my neck like cold lava, slow as it melts.
At first, I’m in shock, then I tag his shoulder, hard. “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to tame a lion evidently.” His face is bright. “Messy looks good on you.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I jerk a linen napkin from beside the plate, wiping my face, but instead, I spread the stickiness.
“Why do hotels think these napkins are high class? They don’t absorb anything. At all.”
He chuckles as he strides into the bathroom, bringing a wet washcloth out. “Here, let me.”
Parker places his fingers under my chin, holding my face steady as he cleans the sweet from me. Then he picks up both spoons, handing me one.
“Eat one bite with me. It’s just sugar.”
“It’s not that I don’t like sweets, I do. It’s that this is…”
“Dessert. That’s all.”
“Okay, big guy. But you’re a giant and I’m … well, every bite of sugar goes to my…” I pat my hand against one of my hips.
“Every guy on the team would like to get his hands on your hips. On the count of three we both eat.”
Using his fingers, he counts down like he’s on the NASA lift off team.
With one pointer finger up, he says, “Scoop.”
On two, he says, “Cheers.” He hits his spoon against mine. I can’t help but smile at his playfulness.
On three, he says, “Now wrap those pretty lips around the spoon.”
It’s all gravelly and scratchy, making my panties damp.
And I want to do more than wrap my lips around the spoon, I want to wrap them around what I think would be his velvety head.
I swallow and close my eyes, enjoying the creaminess on my tongue and trying to talk myself out of the feelings I’m having.
I sit on the edge of the couch and he turns on the television, a sports channel, of course.
“…and the question remains whether Parker O’Ryan can live up to the legacy of his family—”
I freeze, not even glancing at him.
Parker doesn’t move.
“…some professional analysts are even suggesting he may have been better off sticking with hockey.”
The words hang in the room like a thunderstorm. Heavy. Rumbling.
When I glance at him, he’s staring at the screen, jaw tight. Dimples nowhere in sight.
This is what is weighing on him, but how can I turn it around? I need to find out more about his hockey and why he left the sport for football.
“Turn it off,” I say with more protectiveness than I intend.
Instead of hitting the off button, he lowers the volume. “I’ve heard worse.”
“Have you?”
Parker, by all accounts except mine, is easy going. His teammates in college loved him. The girls couldn’t get enough of him. Professors doted on him. His family obviously loves him, and his Armadillo teammates enjoy being around him.
He scoops up the ice cream and brownie as if it will magically make what he heard disappear. His tongue swipes over the cream left on his lip. Then he looks at me, really looks. “What do you want to know?” he asks, catching me off guard.
“What?”
“You’ve been analyzing me since the day we met. Go ahead.”
I wrestle with my words, thinking about where to start. “Why did you leave the Michigan hockey team?”
He sits his long body on the bed and leans back against the headboard.
“You tell me something about your past and I’ll tell you about mine.”
My stomach tightens. “That’s not how it works.”
“Tonight it is. We’re not in session.”
I should say no.
I should redirect and deflect.
Instead, I say, “Fine.” The worst word in the dictionary because when people say they’re fine, they’re not. “You first,” I add.
I scoot back on the couch and cross my legs.
Parker exhales a slow disciplined breath. “I had a girlfriend,” he says, running a hand over the back of his neck.
Already, I don’t like where this is going.
“Over a year. Thought it was serious.” His tone is flat. Even. “She cheated.”
What? Why would anyone cheat on this man?
“With one of my teammates.”
My heart rattles against my rib cage with empathy and concern.
In a soft tone, I ask, “That’s why you left Michigan?”
“Mostly,” he says after a pause. “I couldn’t skate next to someone who could betray a teammate. I considered him my friend.”
“So you left because you didn’t want to be around either one of them.”
He nods.
“Can we back up a little? Since you were good enough to start for Texas football, tell me how you decided to play hockey instead of football?” Maybe I can get to the root cause of his fear.
“I played football and hockey before college and I… I was tired of being compared,” he admits.
Now I have something to work with. “To your brothers?”
He nods once, fiddling with the string on his sweatpants.
“Hockey was mine and mine alone. Something different.”
His voice is as solemn as I’ve ever heard from him. Everything clicks into place so easily it almost hurts. My chest literally tightens knowing he’s hurting mentally, not just the physical part of dropping the ball.
His biggest fear isn’t failure, although it’s all connected.
It’s comparison.
Not being enough.
Not living up to the name on the back of the jersey.
But he also doesn’t trust easily. No wonder, his girlfriend cheated on him with his teammate. There is a lot to unpack.
“Your turn,” he says nodding with the expectation I’ll tell him something.
I stare at the dessert tray and set it aside.
“I came here for hockey.” I admit.
His brows pull to the center. “From where?”
“Novadia.” Admitting this part feels neutral. Safe. “It’s in Eastern Europe.”
He throws his head back. “The men’s team won gold in the Olympics, right?”
I scoff, “Yeah, fifty years ago. How did you know that?”
“When I was a freshman at Michigan, it was an Olympic year. I remember a graphic popping up with all the gold medal teams and one of the guys asked, ‘Where in the hell is Novadia?’”
He drops his head and his body sags. I can see that even the mention of Michigan and hockey still makes his stomach churn.
I slap his leg. “You have a good memory.”
“So are you here on a visa or do you have a green card?”
“No. My mom is American, so I came here to play at a prep school.”
His head bobs, and he swipes his tongue through the seam of his lips, mulling something over in his mind. “So, if you were good enough to play at a hockey prep school, why didn’t you play in college? Texas has a team.”
“That’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all night.”
I chew on my lip, deciding how much to say. “Let’s just say, I love the energy of America and there’s more opportunity than in Novadia.”
“Don’t you miss your parents? Are they in Novadia or here?” he asks, his brows creasing and causing his eyes to narrow.
Nerves race up my spine and I shrug him off. “They live in Novadia. My dad was my hockey coach, but a couple of years later the prep school reached out so I came here.”
“So that’s why you don’t have an accent?”
“I’ve worked hard to lose the accent. You know, to try to fit in.”
He tips his chin like he’s trying to arrange puzzle pieces. “Why do I feel like there’s more to your story?”
He gives me time to compose myself. “My dad…” I pause, trying to anchor myself, deciding whether to tell Parker my story, but I can’t force the raw emotion threading through my words. “Well, let’s just say I don’t get along with him.”
Parker tilts his head, twists his mouth causing the bridge of his nose to wrinkle. “Why? Obviously, he taught you how to play hockey at a high level.”
I can’t look him in the eye.
I can’t say what I want to say.
But I need to give him something, so I give him the quickest version. No details.
I decide to tilt the conversation. “That’s a story for another time.” I chew on my lip for a second. “But I did earn a scholarship to Michigan. Weird right?”
His eyes round and a wavy line creases across his forehead. “Michigan? So, we would have met?”
“That’s pretty safe to say, but I was just tired of it.”
“Is that the whole story?”
I shake my head no. That’s all I’m giving him tonight and maybe ever.
While thinking, he swipes his pointer finger runs over his lips, instead of finishing the dessert. “Why did you change your name?”
“Because once I graduated, I wanted to vanish and be someone different.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “That’s when you became Anna Morrow?”
“Yeah.”
“I like Annika better.”
My chest tightens unexpectedly.
“That name belongs to someone else.”
He shakes his head, his mouth drawn up as he moves to sit on the side of the bed. “I don’t think it does.”
I realize we’re in the same boat, being compared. Mine for horrible reasons. His for his family football greatness.
The walls close in as he shifts towards me.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Once again giving me time to say the magic word. Stop.
I don’t because I can’t. We’re connected like I haven’t been in years.
His hand lifts, fingers brushing along my jawline like he remembers and learned how to touch me without even knowing what I’ve been through.
“Thanks for sharing your story.” He presses his large palm on my thigh, squeezing and somehow it comforts me.
“I didn’t tell you everything.”