Chapter 9 – Seth
I glare down at my phone screen like it’s personally offended me, re-reading the text messages from Brianna.
Bri.
The woman who rocked my world when I was at my lowest with her wild, red hair.
The same woman who almost had me asking for a repeat two nights ago.
For some reason anytime she’s around, I can’t control myself.
And this time it could have had potentially career ending consequences given I had no idea her father was fucking Caleb King.
I wonder why she stopped dyeing her hair red.
It doesn’t fucking matter. Nothing about her matters except the fact that our paths will now cross at the Mayhem facility and during pick up and drop offs for Sawyer.
I look at my phone again and see the pictures she sent of Sawyer from earlier. She looks so happy it causes an ache in my chest. I wonder if that’s just her putting on a brave face.
Brianna: Hi Seth. We’re home from Sawyer’s practice. I made seafood pasta. Sawyer and I picked up the ingredients at the store on the way home. I hope that was okay. She’s fed, showered, and we’re playing a card game.
I didn’t respond to that one either.
Or the follow-up text five minutes later.
Brianna: Sorry again.
Brianna: For everything... I know I should have told you in the gym who I was.
That doesn’t make anything better because she doesn’t get it. She has no idea what we’d be walking into.
This isn’t about the fact that we had one extremely hot, unforgettable Halloween night together—one that I’ve jerked off to more times than I want to admit wondering where she was at, what she was doing, if she ever thought about that night and whether our paths would cross again.
And it’s not just because I kissed her in the gym when I had no idea who she was.
That I fucking initiated it when she was clearly trying to escape because for some reason, I’m the most controlled man in all of hockey, able to stop pucks flying directly at my face.
But when it comes to her, my hands, lips, and dick refuse to behave.
And it’s certainly not the reality that I didn’t recognize her until after she’d run away, like I’m some goddamn caveman, completely blind to everything but her. No, it’s none of those things.
It’s the fact that I can’t get her out of my damn head.
And that’s a problem because I know that I’d ruin her faster than her dad could ruin my career just like I ruin everything good in my life.
That’s the reason I have to fire her as soon as I get home from practice tonight.
Because if our lives weren’t already tangled enough, sleeping with the owner’s daughter, a woman I can tell is genuinely good, would be a sure-fire way to screw up my career and her life.
Yeah, I could argue that I didn’t know who she was at the time, that it won’t happen again, but the argument feels thin. Having her around—bonding with my daughter, embedding herself into my home, into my life—is going to be a problem when all I can think about is how good it felt to be inside her.
That’s the real problem.
I drag a hand down my beard as the train pulls into the Brookhaven stop.
Dammit.
I feel bad about it, but I don’t really have a choice.
She mentioned that she needed the money and something about her medical bills, but her dad’s got to be at least a multi-millionaire—probably a billionaire with how well the Mayhem have been doing since he purchased the team and his long career in the professional basketball league.
Whatever gap this job fills, her father can cover ten times over.
It’s just my luck that out of the thousands of people in Brookhaven, she’s the one who took the job.
I shake my head, sling my warmup bag over my shoulder, and slip my feet back into my slides. A short walk later, I’m behind the wheel of my lifted truck, navigating the winding road that curves around the lake my new town was named after.
I wasn’t sure I’d like living in Brookhaven after coming from a beach town on the West Coast. But I’ll admit it, it’s not half bad. It reminds me a little of Alberta, where I grew up. And having my brother and his wife nearby outweigh most of the long commute cons.
I pull into the driveway and cut the engine.
It’s dark now, a little past eight, but Sawyer should still be awake.
At least, I assume she is since her bedtime has slowly drifted closer to nine or ten these days.
Which is why I stop short the second I step inside the house.
The only light comes from the soft flicker of the TV in the living room.
And there, curled up on the couch, my daughter is fast asleep with her head resting against Brianna’s shoulder like they’ve known each other forever.
From across the room, Brianna catches my eye and gently lifts a finger to her lips, telling me to tread quietly. I move closer to them until I’m next to the couch and then gaze down at my daughter. My chest tightens instantly.
Fuck.
I’m transported back to the first time I ever held her in my arms—just hours after she was born, her tiny body swaddled in a blue and pink striped blanket, her face barely visible beneath the little striped hat they stuck on her head.
I remember my first thought as I looked down at her sleeping face: What the fuck am I doing?
I was just twenty years old. A rookie still with the San Diego Suns.
Barely able to take care of myself. Financially, I had plenty of money, but in every other way I still felt like a kid.
I didn’t know how to cook a single meal for myself.
Didn’t know how to be a husband to my new wife let alone a good dad.
But her mom had promised we’d figure it out together.
She was two years older than me. Wiser, steadier.
A good mother. And maybe that’s part of why I married her.
I felt like she would always make up for what I lacked.
And then three years later, she was gone.
I shake my head, shoving the memory down. I didn’t come home to get lost in the past; I came home to fire Brianna.
I step back from the couch, catching her eye again. I jerk my chin toward the kitchen, silently telling her to follow me. She quirks an eyebrow, then motions something back at me—a little flick of her hand that makes no fucking sense.
I narrow my eyes. “Just talk. She’s a deep sleeper.”
She exhales, a long, noisy breath, like she’d been holding it in the entire time Sawyer was curled up next to her. Something about that makes me huff out a quiet laugh.
“Should you help her to bed?” she asks in a hushed voice, looking up at me.
“Yeah.” I step around the couch and scoop her into my arms.
The weight of her hits me instantly. It’s heavier than I remember, solid and warm against my chest. The ache isn’t just in my muscles now; it’s deeper than that, something raw and unspoken that’s clawing at my ribs. She’s so damn big.
When did this happen? No matter how much she grows, when I look at her, I still see the little two-year-old who used to sprint toward me the second I walked through the door after a stretch of away games, arms up, eyes alight with joy as she would shout out daddy!
Now she’s all limbs and soft angles, her once-round cheeks are hollowing out, her features shifting into something more mature, something that terrifies the hell out of me because it means I’m running out of time.
Time to influence her to make smarter choices than I have.
Time to teach her that all men are shit and she shouldn’t trust a single one of them.
I carry her upstairs to her room and tuck her in, watching as she melts into the blankets without so much as a twitch.
She’s always been like this—able to fall asleep anywhere, dead to the world until morning.
I’m jealous of it, wish I was able to relax that easily.
It’s unusual for her to knock out this early, though.
Which means she must have had a lot of fun with Bri today.
I hesitate for a second before smoothing her hair back, then turn and head to the bathroom off the primary bedroom to collect myself before I go downstairs and face Bri. The moment I flick on the bathroom light, I catch my reflection in the mirror.
Yikes. I look rough.
Practice drained the hell out of me today, and we’re only a week out from our season opener, a home game next weekend. I can’t afford to be dragging ass now when the whole team is depending on me to somehow shine as the newest Tremblay brother to the team.
I splash some water on my face, rake a hand through my already-messy hair, then freeze when I realize what’s happening. What the fuck am I doing? Am I... primping for my talk with Bri?
I stare at my reflection, my jaw clenches. Why am I fixing my hair before going back downstairs?
Because you can’t stop thinking about her naked, dumbass, and your dick thinks you’re about to walk into her pussy again.
I grip the counter, exhaling sharply.
Get your shit together.
Just go down there and fire her.
It’s not personal. It’s business. Well, it’s a little personal too.
I yank at the drawstring on my sweatpants as if I can somehow tighten them to the point of cutting the blood supply off to my dick then stand up taller and roll my shoulders back.
When I make it downstairs, she’s in the kitchen, busying herself like she belongs here.
Wiping down countertops, pressing the start button on the dishwasher.
I should say something. But instead, I just… watch her.
Like a fucking creep.
The tight jeans she’s wearing hug her ass in a way that makes it impossible to think about anything but her out of them.
And her soft brown hair is currently spilling out of the bun she had it in this morning and down over her shoulders.
Even though she’s probably exhausted, she’s moving about with a smile on her face like she’s thinking about something happy which makes what I need to do now ten times worse.