Chapter 4 - Dawson
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Dawson
It was the first night back after winning our last away game and I, of course, could not sleep.
It’s not like I wasn’t beyond exhausted; every muscle ached in that satisfying way that usually knocked me out cold.
My mind, however, refused to shut up. It wasn’t enough that our recent games went perfectly, and that the Gold Knights were on fire, with a fighting chance at making it to the finals.
In my world, if you weren’t thinking about how you could do better, you were obviously falling behind. And so, my brain would not let me rest.
Instead, I took to training, working myself past the point of fatigue in our home gym in the dead of night. Thank God my brother had crashed early, or I’d be getting an earful from him about the necessity of beauty sleep for luring in the ladies.
By the time I was finished running drills in my head and worked up enough sweat to drown in, the clock on the wall read ten past one. Tip-toeing through the house after that, barefoot with a towel around my neck, the place was silent. Dark except for the thin sliver of light at the end of the hall.
In the time it took my tired mind to register that Carissa McCabe was probably still awake, I was already in the kitchen brewing tea, because no doubt the mad woman was up studying and probably hadn’t had a sip of water all day.
I had noticed, in the few days I’d been home long enough to chat, that Carissa did a wonderful job of taking care of Henry, but did not extend the same level of care to herself.
She was always smiling, always presentable, and flawless to a fault, but she spent every one of her waking moments working.
Either nannying Henry or poring over her notes, and never taking a moment to even consider a rest.
I knew an overachiever when I saw one, and Carissa McCabe fit the bill like a glove.
So I padded down the hallway at ten past one in the morning with a cup of tea in hand and knocked gently on her door, hoping to convince her to go to bed before the sun rose.
My hypocrisy in that sentiment was not lost on me either.
My knock went unnoticed for a long while, and I wondered if she had simply fallen asleep with the light on. I knocked again and waited, listening. After another beat went by with no sound but the low hum of the air conditioner, I nudged the door open slightly.
“Carissa?” I called quietly, peeking inside.
The woman was asleep at her desk.
Slumped over in her chair, Carissa McCabe was fast asleep with her face buried in her books and study notes, one arm folded awkwardly beneath her and the other hanging limp at her side. Her short blonde bob was a tufted nest on her head.
I stood in the doorway, frozen for a second, debating internally what the hell I was supposed to do.
On the one hand, I didn’t want to wake her.
God knows she needed the rest, and I also wasn’t entirely thrilled about explaining why I was standing in her room in the first place.
On the other hand, she slept bent over like a shrimp, and leaving her there would do nothing good for her spine.
In the end, I decided to deliver the tea and leave, and hope the sound of the door shutting would be enough to rouse her. I got about halfway through that plan, reaching over her to put the cup on the desk, when Carissa stirred.
“Shit,” I jerked backward when she jolted upright, very nearly dropping the teacup in the process. I raised a placating hand when her frantic gaze landed on me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Dawson? I mean, Mr. Barnett,” Carissa blinked bleary eyes at me, and I winced at the formal title.
“Just Dawson is fine.” I stood there awkwardly for a moment while Carissa looked around, confused, rubbing at her eyes as she returned to consciousness. Eventually, I cleared my throat. “Uh, want some tea? I thought you might need it.”
Though her expression remained a question mark, her mouth curved up at the corners when she spotted the cup in my hand. “That’s so sweet, thank you.”
I rubbed a hand over the base of my neck, all at once uncomfortably aware of how inappropriate it was to be hovering in her bedroom in the middle of the night. “Sorry, again. I—uh, thought you were awake.”
“It’s okay.” Carissa took the teacup and blew steam from the top. “I was awake, until I… wasn’t.” She looked irritated with herself, scowling at her books like they had betrayed her. “I was supposed to be studying.”
“You probably shouldn’t be staying up so late to do it.” I tilted my head to the side, watching her yawn as she sipped her tea.
She raised a brow at me, hiding a smile behind her cup. “And what are you doing up so late, Dawson?”
She had me there; I had to admit. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Neglecting my body’s need for sleep, same as you.”
“Well, Pot, meet Kettle.” She chuckled through another yawn, and I found myself staring.
Even half-asleep in her crumpled clothes, Carissa McCabe was gorgeous. With a pointed pixie face and warm brown eyes, one small glance from her could melt me. Lamplight caught on her long lashes and painted gold streaks in her hair, illuminating the faintest flush of pink in her cheeks.
Catching myself ogling at the same moment her eyes met mine, I wrenched my gaze away. “Anyway,” I tried not to sound flustered, but the gruff tone fell flat when my heated face betrayed me. “I should… go. Goodnight.”
“Wait, you don’t have to go right now.” She made a point of sitting up straighter, blinking a few dozen times to banish sleep from her eyes. “Look, I’m awake. And we’ve barely gotten to chat since you’ve been back.”
“So you want to do it now?” I said, incredulous. “At…” I checked the digital clock on her desk. “Almost two in the morning?”
She shrugged, pointing her chin at the spare chair in the corner and silently urging me to sit. “I have to finish my tea, anyway.”
It was, I’ll admit, easy to relent to her.
We were both well past the point of exhaustion, but hanging around for a while was appealing, nonetheless.
Maybe it was because I’d spent the past few weeks surrounded by sweaty, rowdy hockey players.
A few minutes talking to a pretty woman felt like a welcome reprieve.
“Alright, if you insist.” I dragged the chair into the lamplight and settled in with a sigh. “How has Henry been since we’ve been away?”
“Eagerly waiting for you to come back,” Carissa laughed. “When he’s not having lessons or playing helicopter, he’s got his nose glued to the TV watching your games.”
I smiled at that, but another thought still bugged me, like an itch in the back of my mind. I looked down at my hands, palms calloused from gripping a hockey stick all my life.
“Do you think he’s happy here…?” When I looked up again, Carissa was watching me with a thoughtful look on her face. “What?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she started slowly, carefully choosing her words. “What made you decide to foster Henry in the first place? It couldn’t have been an easy choice with the life you three lead.”
“You mean, why did I, an NHL star player, decide to foster a kid right before the start of the season with no prior experience with raising children?” I drawled, having asked myself the same question over and over again.
“It was a crazy decision, I know.” I ran my hands over my face.
“And Boone and Gage don’t go a day without reminding me. ”
“So…” Carissa tapped her finger to the side of her cup. “Why’d you do it?”
I considered lying to her, giving her the same load of bullshit I gave everybody else.
‘It looks good for the team. It shows people we care. It was the right thing to do…’ But I found I couldn’t bring myself to form the words.
Maybe it was the way she was looking at me, like she already knew the real answer.
Maybe because I saw no judgment in her eyes.
Even though she was little more than a stranger to me, I wanted to tell her the truth.
“Honestly?” I sank back in my seat, spearing a hand through my hair, still damp from a run through the shower.
“I just… wanted to take care of him. When we met, he was just a little kid who barely knew how to skate. But the way he looked at me, like I was some kind of hero just for taking him on a lap around the ice… I don’t know.
It felt good. Being his hero felt good, and I wanted to do more for him. ”
I expected a response from her akin to the one I always got from Boone when I worked above my skill set for no reason.
‘You’re doing too much, man. You can’t fix yourself by fixing other people.
’ In a way, he was right; I knew that. But there was more to it.
Boone may have been my brother in every sense of the word, but he still didn’t quite understand me.
I wasn’t doing this for me; I was doing this for Henry.
Carissa, however, said something else entirely. She said something I didn’t expect: “I think you’re a good man, Dawson Barnett.”
“I…” I blinked at her, thrown for a loop by the casual way she said it. “What?”
Carissa only shrugged, still sipping her tea. “Look, don’t get me wrong, I think you’ve definitely bitten off more than you can chew, but that’s what you have me for.”
I had to laugh, leaning my head on my knuckles. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is,” Carissa grinned at me, pulling one knee up to balance her chin on. “Henry’s doing fine, and he’s got the best helicopter models in town thanks to you. The kid couldn’t be happier.”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, dropping my eyes to the floor.
“I keep thinking I’m going to screw things up somehow.
Like I’m going to say the wrong thing or miss something important.
Like I’m not going to be… good enough.” The last part came out quieter than expected, and I hurried to hide the moment of vulnerability under another forced laugh.
“Captain of the Vegas Golden Knights, terrified of a kid.”
Carissa’s brows knit together, and I had the uncomfortable feeling I was being analyzed like a bug under a microscope. She tilted her head, frizzed bangs falling over her eyes. “Do you often feel like that? Like you’re not good enough.”
To say her words hit me like a battering ram would have been an understatement. She may as well have shot me through the heart. I straightened up immediately, alarmed at just how quickly she’d disarmed me.
“That came out wrong,” I backtracked, reaching for the cloak of cool composure I usually carried with me during conversations with others. “I’ve just been worried about Henry, is all, what with us being away and—”
“Dawson,” Carissa was still smiling. A sad sort of smile, like she understood all too well. “It’s alright. I think you and I have a lot in common.”
I let out a breath and seized the opening she gave me, steering the conversation around before I landed in uncharted territory. “Yeah?” I tilted my head toward the books on her desk. “Like an excessive and unreasonably strong work ethic?”
Carissa aimed her empty teacup at me. “That and an insanely high tolerance for Boone’s bullshit.”
“It does come in handy,” I nodded along with her. “The guy is extremely annoying.”
“Hey, dude, you’re related to him,” Carissa was quick to point out with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Tell me what that says about you.”
“Oh, please,” I rolled my eyes skyward. “The only thing Boone and I have in common is that we came from the same womb. If we didn’t look identical, I would suspect he was adopted.”
“It’s actually pretty easy to spot the difference.” Carissa suddenly leaned forward, reaching to touch a finger to my nose. “Aside from the hair and the height difference, Boone’s nose is wider, and your smile is completely different from his.”
“My smile?” I crooked a brow, leaning closer despite myself. “Now there’s one I’ve never heard before.”
She didn’t pull her hand back right away; instead, she traced her finger down the side of my face. “Your jawlines are different, too, if you look closely. Your cheekbones are higher.”
“Go on…” I was surprised to find I was enjoying myself, captivated by the curve of her lips.
“Boone smiles like he knows how handsome he is,” Carissa mused, finger running along my jawline to tilt my chin up. “You smile like you don’t.”
I let her angle my face upward, aforementioned smile quirking my lips. “Is that a roundabout way of calling me handsome?”
Her grin was conspiratorial, like we had a secret between the two of us. “Take it however you please, Captain.”
The title of Captain had never done the things it did to me in that moment. The hot spike of attraction that burned through my body, culminating at the point where her fingers brushed lightly along my jaw, was strong enough to snap me back to myself.
Back to reality, where Carissa McCabe was my employee, and I had far too many responsibilities to be flirting on the fringes of arousal.
I’d given Boone hell for thirsting after her, and now there I was, one step away from crossing the line I’d so painstakingly drawn in the sand.
‘Hypocrite’ didn’t even begin to cover it.
I pulled back abruptly, and Carissa did the same, and the sudden silence between us felt weighted. I could still feel the flutter of her fingers, like the sensation was burned into my skin.
“I should—” We said it in unison, both of us laughing sheepishly to cover up the subsequent awkwardness.
“I’m gonna go,” I said hurriedly, when Carissa motioned for me to speak first. “Thanks for… it was… yeah, goodnight.” I waved through that horrendous goodbye and quickly backed out of the room.
“Goodnight!” Carissa called after me, nearly falling out of her chair as she struggled to stand up. “See you tomorrow…?”
“Yeah, of course.” I gripped the door handle, risking one last glance at her before closing the door. “Sleep well, Carissa.”
I didn’t wait to hear her reply; I was halfway down the hall in mere moments, head reeling like I’d speed-ran through another training set, and certain of one thing and one thing only. Carissa McCabe was as charming as she was intriguing, and I would have to tread carefully.