24. CHAPTER 24
Livia
The bar is called the Burnside Social and we’re here because it’s convenient, a mere three blocks from the arena.
The Wildfire team has effectively taken it over in the hour since the final whistle of our game against Quebec.
Someone claimed the back room and Boss has been running an unsanctioned bracket competition involving darts and a lot of trash talk.
Quebec flew in ranked and flew home with a loss, and the mood reflects that.
I’m at the bar with Molly, who came to watch the game and hang out with me after.
She’s nursing a whiskey sour and I’m sipping on a mule, listening as she fills me in on drama with Josh’s family.
It’s not new drama and because I’m aware of the fact his parents wanted him to date another surgeon like himself and not a nurse, I’ve only been half listening.
Ordinarily, I would never tune Molly out, but the other half of my attention is hopelessly stuck on Locke.
He’s at the far end of the room, drinking a beer and talking to Rome, Arch and Crosby, which seems to be his new little bro group.
I didn’t even have to push him into joining the team for the celebration.
He sent me a text from the locker room, his typical alpha scheduling that said I’ll follow you home after the post-game celebration.
That told me he was choosing to be social on his own and was once again going to be spending the night in my bed.
So yeah, I’ve got an ear on Molly and an eye on Locke and every once in a while, his pale eyes find me across the room.
“You’re doing it again,” Molly says.
I look back at her. “Doing what?”
“That thing where you’re pretending to listen to me but you’re actually somewhere else entirely.” She sips her drink and then her head turns Locke’s way. “Specifically somewhere about thirty feet in that direction.”
“I’m listening to you,” I insist. “Josh’s parents are unaccepting, blah, blah. My advice is the same as it always is… fuck them. Josh loves you and that’s all that matters.”
“That is true,” she says with a dopey smile. She sets her glass down and turns my way. “But let’s talk about what’s got you distracted.”
“Nothing’s got me distracted,” I say weakly and without conviction.
“Bitch,” she drawls playfully. “Who do you think you’re talking to here? I’m your ride-or-die.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, lamely this time.
She tilts her head, narrows her eyes. “Is it a player?”
I look at my drink.
Molly makes a sound. “Oh my God.”
“Be quiet,” I hiss.
“Which one?” she says, twirling on her barstool to look around.
“Molly,” I warn. “Don’t make a spectacle.”
She spins back to me, cuts a glance in the direction I’d been staring—right where Locke is standing with the guys.
“I can rule out Crosby because Juno has that fully covered and Arch is totally not your type.” She lasers her gaze, cutting it back and forth between the remaining two men, before turning back to me. “Locke?”
I say nothing.
“Livia Catherine Cross.”
“Please stop using my middle name.”
“He is the most closed-off human being I have ever seen in a social setting, and I work in an emergency room.” She lowers her voice to an appropriately private volume. “How did this even—”
“It’s complicated,” I say. “It’s also not your business yet.”
Her eyes go round with offense. “You did not just say that to me!”
Guilt sweeps through me. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. You’re the first person who should have known about it—”
“Someone else knows?” she says angrily.
“Only Juno, and that was just the day before yesterday and I hadn’t seen you yet.” The glare doesn’t lighten. “But I’ll spill it all now,” I assure her.
She studies me before lifting her chin and primly looking down her nose at me. “You may continue. And don’t leave out a thing.”
So I spill it, leaning close and talking in lowered tones so no one else hears. She attempts to look over at Locke a few times, but I nudge her back into submission.
I tell her everything I told Juno, and because she’s my best friend and I need the sounding board, I tell her even more.
“I really like him, Molls,” I lament. “And he’s so complicated, but he’s also a good man. I want this to work out. I really do.”
She covers my hand with hers, all forgiven now that she’s fully in the loop. “Then you go for it, bestie. You buckle down the way you know how to, and you figure out how to make it work. There’s nothing you can’t accomplish, Livvy, if you set your mind to it.”
It’s the exact pep talk I need—Molly’s undying confidence in my abilities. I reach out to hug her and she squeezes me back tight.
“You’ve got this,” she whispers in my ear.
“Yeah, I know.” And then my bladder starts speaking. “I need to go pee. Watch my purse.”
“Got you covered,” she replies.
I nab my phone and head that way, but a buzz has me turning it over to look at an incoming text.
From Grant. Please talk to me. I think if you could just give me an hour, you’d understand why I did what I did and we could work this out. I’m not trying to scare you. I just need you to hear me.
“What the fuck?” I mutter in anger, a small niggle of fear behind it.
My phone buzzes again and I stop in my tracks, reading the message.
Livvy… please don’t do this to me. It’s not fair and I don’t think I can handle this anymore. If you ever felt anything for me, please just give me some time.
I start to delete it but then another one comes in and says, Don’t do this to me.
A shiver runs up my spine and I turn off my phone, deciding not to delete the texts but keep them for… proof?
I start toward the bathroom but bump right into someone. It’s Locke, standing in my path like an immovable wall.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, concern etched on his face.
“How do you know anything’s wrong?” I ask, tucking my phone into my back pocket.
“Your face,” he says. “I’ve apparently gotten good at reading your emotions.”
I rub the back of my neck, glance around to see if anyone’s looking at us. Not that we’re doing anything wrong. Just two work mates having a conversation. My eyes go to his. “It’s Grant. Text messages begging for a chance. It is… unsettling.”
“Get the order of protection,” he says.
“We’ve had this conversation.”
“We’re having it again.”
“He’s in LA, Locke. I’m in Portland. That’s nine hundred miles and—”
“He showed up at the team hotel.”
“Because we were in LA.”
“He knows where you live.” His voice is level and somehow that makes it worse than if he were angry about it. “He knows where you work. He found your new number and your new address after you moved, and he showed up drunk on a sidewalk and put his hands on you.” He pauses. “Get the fucking order.”
I know he’s right. I know it with the part of my brain that does assessment for a living, the part I have been steadfastly ignoring when it comes to my own situation. I also know that if I take this seriously, it means I have to acknowledge the danger, which makes things scary.
As it stands, I have too much other shit on my plate to worry about.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Livia.”
“That’s the best I’ve got right now.”
He looks at me for a long beat, trying to decide whether to push. Ultimately, he nods his acquiescence. “Fine.”
Then he surprises me by stepping in closer, dipping his head.
“Do you want to get out of here?” I ask.
“Yeah… I do.”
The Willamette River moves dark and quiet with the city lights breaking across its surface. We’re on the esplanade east of the arena and without a second thought, my hand finds his as we meander. His fingers are wrapped around mine and it feels so right.
“What do you want to do after hockey?” I ask. “Do you have an endgame plan?”
His head twists to look out over the water, then back to me. “I’m not sure. I don’t really have any outside skills or education, but I’ve often thought about coaching.”
“I think you’d be great at that,” I say with a smile.
The corner of his mouth moves. “I don’t know. Given my history with authority, it’s probably an ironic choice.”
“I don’t think it’s ironic at all,” I say.
“No?”
“People who understand from personal experience make the best teachers.” I watch the water. “Any particular skill level?”
“Youth, ideally,” he says without looking at me, which means he hasn’t said it out loud often. “There aren’t enough good coaches at that level. The ones who actually know the game and who understand kids… there aren’t enough of them.”
His tone tells me that it’s more than just a dream. That it’s a need to be involved, and I know in my gut it’s got everything to do with what’s eating at him.
“You’d be good at it,” I say confidently.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know how you read a room,” I say. “I know how you watch people. You already coach, Locke. You just don’t call it that.”
He doesn’t answer, but he does squeeze my fingers, which means he likes what I said.
“I have been working on my general contractor license,” he says, and my head whips his way in surprise.
“Really?”
“Yeah… on and off for the past few years. Close to finishing it.”
I look at him. “You want to build.”
Locke shrugs. “I want to build my own place, eventually, but that could be a career I could move into.”
“Where would you build?”
“I’ve been looking at property. Couple acres outside the city, enough trees that you can’t see the neighbors, close enough to not feel remote.” He lets his gaze pan the horizon. “I like Portland. I could see staying, if the team keeps me long term.”
I think about it. Locke Donovan in Portland. Locke Donovan with a piece of land and a house he built himself and a youth hockey program somewhere outside the city with kids who have no idea they’re being taught by someone who has spent his whole career being told he’s unmanageable.
I think about myself in that picture and then I think about the fact that I’m thinking about myself in that picture and I redirect.
“We’ve only got one more session,” I say.
He exhales. “I know.”
“And you know I’m going to push.”
He stops walking, turns to face me. “I know you’re going to try, and you’re probably not going to be happy with what you get.”
“I don’t want to fail you,” I admit. “I want you to keep your place on this team, and my experience tells me that whatever is eating at you…” I reach out and tap his chest with my palm. “Right here… you have to deal with it.”
“Livia.” He says my name almost sorrowfully. “You’re right. There is something, but it’s contained. It does not need to be excavated in someone’s office. It’s mine and I carry it and that’s how I deal with it.”
“Contained isn’t the same as resolved.”
“No,” he says. “It’s not. But it works for me.”
I want to push. I have the words ready—the language about ceilings and pressure and management strategies that stop working, but I tamp them down.
I have our session on Monday to pull out all the cannons.
Tonight I’m with this man on a romantic walk by the river and talking about building a home here.
So I let it go.
We’re at a spot where the esplanade bends and there’s a railing at the water’s edge. It’s chilly but impossibly beautiful and I’m falling for the man holding my hand.
Maybe Locke feels it too because he cups his free hand against my cheek.
And then he kisses me.
It’s soft. The softest he’s ever been. It’s without hurry, no intended destination.
Just a kiss that we both get lost in until oxygen forces us apart.
“Come home with me,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says.
We walk back along the water, the city lights shifting on the Willamette beside us.