Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Sixth encounter
“Lucas…you’re wearing two different socks! One has beer-drinking sloths on it and the other, dancing excavators.”
He frowned as he slowly ran his large hands up her bare legs, pressing his thumbs into the insides of her thighs. “And?”
She swallowed. “Nothing. Now that I think about it, it’s completely uninteresting.”
Why was she here?
Why the hell did she have to be here? Why couldn’t she stop provoking him? It hadn’t bothered him in bed — shit, on the contrary, he’d enjoyed punishing her for her words. But those days were over!
God, would it always be like this? That he couldn’t relax with his teammates anymore because she was there?
When he’d heard her laughing, he’d to be careful not to stare at her for too long. He couldn’t lose himself in memories that shouldn’t be so present.
“Oh, fuck, you’re right!” Leon exclaimed loudly, and Lucas forced himself to look at him.
“Moreau hasn’t even been framed for an affair or a sex scandal!
” He stared at him open-mouthed as if that were a crime punishable by five years without parole.
“Honestly, I’ve never seen you pick up a woman – or a man – or even express interest in another person! ”
Good God. Why the hell were they still talking about him? Usually, everyone just left him alone — but since Anna had established that it was okay to make fun of him and pry personal information out of him, others seemed to have jumped on the bandwagon. What a load of crap.
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him pick anyone up, either,” Dax said, playfully contemplative. “I’m not even sure he’s ever had sex. Maybe he’s not interested in sex?”
Lucas saw Anna swallow out of the corner of his eye, probably because she knew otherwise. He said nothing. He didn’t care what his friends thought about his sex life, and he didn’t feel he had to prove himself.
“Even though he gets the most underwear sent to him.” Lucy shook her head, feigning sadness. “What a shame.”
“Lucas receives the most underwear?” Anna asked, astonished, and he knew she was staring at him. He felt it in his abdomen, just like he had a few hours ago when she’d walked through the door.
“Lucas?” Lucy asked, irritated. “Nobody calls him Lucas. But, yes, his fan mail contains the most lace panties.”
He pressed his lips together. Anna had better exercise caution.
“So what’s his problem?” Leon asked loudly. “Moreau doesn’t pick up people in bars. He doesn’t talk about women. He doesn’t look at women. He’s never had a girlfriend, fiancée, wife, he…”
“You’re wrong,” Fox stated loudly, patting him on the shoulder with a grin. “There was a woman! I’ve never met her, but he has gone to see her at least once a week since last summer, and has always returned smiling.”
“Really,” Anna said slowly, and Lucas’ shoulders immediately tensed. “Moreau can smile? Maybe he doesn’t deserve the Innocent Cup after all. That sounds scandalous.”
Fox laughed loudly. “Yeah, right? All he said about her was that…”
Okay, time to intervene. “I’m sitting right here,” he replied gruffly.
“Then tell us about the mysterious woman who awakened your dormant sexuality.” Leon waggled his eyebrows.
“Alvarez,” he stated calmly, narrowing his eyes. “You like to shove your private life into the world’s face. I don’t. I’m focused on the playoffs — and Fox is talking crap. There was no woman. There is no woman. So, just keep talking about it and you’ll end up with a fist in your face.”
Leon shrugged. “All right, man, calm down.”
“Yeah, a guy who just won the Innocent Cup should look happier,” Anna agreed, and when he whipped his head around to her, she smiled sweetly at him.
His jaw cracked. The woman was irritating him. God, he needed space.
“I’ll pay for the drinks,” he muttered, standing.
“But the evening isn’t over yet!” Alvarez shouted. Lucas ignored him. Just as he would have liked to be ignored by the others.
“Man, Moreau, what socks are you wearing?” Dax called after him, laughing. “They’re pink and green and they don’t match.”
Melody had picked them out for him this morning, and she liked colorful things.
“Oh, his socks are always different,” he heard Anna say, amused.
His shoulders tensed because if he were Dax, he’d be asking…
“How the hell do you know?”
Yep, right.
Fuck. He gritted his teeth. Should he stay where he was? Turn and make up some stupid excuse or just disappear to the bar?
“I’m a doctor, Dax,” Anna said lightly. “I’m observant.”
Right. She’d provided the stupid excuse, so he could take the bar.
He kept walking, rubbing his strained neck, which not even two hours of physical therapy had helped.
This evening was exhausting, more tiring than explaining to a five-year-old girl why it was okay to eat chicken eggs but not hamster poop even though both came from an animal’s butt.
He smiled at the thought of Melody giving him that know-it-all, You don’t know anything, Lu!
look he usually received when he asked why she wasn’t eating her broccoli.
He leaned over the bar and told Carl, the owner of the Ice Lounge, that all the Hawks’ drinks were on him tonight. Since it seemed like a smart move, he headed toward the exit to get some fresh air and buy time. He wanted to avoid sitting back down across from Anna for as long as possible.
He ignored the groupies blowing kisses and the fans yelling at him not to screw up the playoffs this time because, in his experience, avoiding drama was incredibly simple: Just keep your mouth shut when it mattered.
Neither his parents nor Laney had ever managed that, but they had also loved drama and sought it out. Not him. Except for that one time…
Warm May air and cigarette smoke blew in his face, and with a sigh, he waved it away.
He walked around the next corner where he was no longer visible and leaned against the wall.
It was quiet, but that didn’t mean he felt at peace.
That had become…impossible. He had too many things to worry about: Melody, the playoffs, his contract extension, his parents…
There had only been one place where he could breathe a sigh of relief and that had been in Anna’s damned bed. Then she had to go and ruin it with her lies.
As if he had conjured her up with his thoughts, Anna stepped around the corner at that moment.
He smelled her before he saw her. The wind carried her sweet scent.
It was almost as familiar to him as that of an ice rink.
In the beginning, she’d always apologized for reeking of disinfectant, but he’d only ever smelled her.
“So, are you hiding?” she asked with a broad smile. “Because if so, I have bad news for you: You’re not very good at it.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her, but didn’t reply. Anna didn’t like silence. She grew restless when no one spoke for too long. And if she wanted to provoke him…
She sighed heavily. “No one has as much silent charm as you, Lucas,” she said theatrically, leaning against the wall next to him.
Oh, he could be charming. He just preferred not to use words.
“You know, I was given the task of finding you. Leon wants to play truth or dare and thinks you shouldn’t be left out. He says he’s fed up with you always being so secretive and he wants to change that.”
He snorted. She sounded like Fox. “I’m not secretive.”
“No, of course not, Mr. I have a child nobody knows about.”
He sighed heavily. God, he missed the days when he’d been allowed to silence her with a kiss.
“Why did they send you?” Because…why the hell?
Why? She was standing so close that he could feel her warmth on his skin — and his body was so used to being close to her that he caught his feet about to take another step toward her.
Strange how you could become addicted to the proximity of someone who upset you so much the moment they opened their mouth.
“Oh, my brother suspects that I upset you too much and told me that I owed you an apology. I’m supposed to show you goodwill.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Where’s my apology?”
“Obviously only in Dax’s imagination,” she replied dryly, her blue eyes so wide and innocent that she might have fooled her brothers, but not him.
“I think I deserve one,” he said stonily.
“Really? For what?”
“Well, for plotting to have Jack and Dax kill me, which you’re obviously doing. Because if you continue laughing at the wrong times or don’t stop with your stupid comments, they’ll find out.”
“Find out what?” she asked, feigning confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Because we have nothing in common, remember?”
Ah, so that was what was bothering her. “The socks…” he growled.
“Yeah, what about your socks? Important question. Why do you always wear different ones? You’ve never told me.”
He snorted and pushed off the wall. “Is that important?”
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t suit you. They’re colorful and so…vibrant. You’re more gray and stiff.”
He’d been about to walk past her back into the bar, but her words stopped him. Slowly, he turned to her and narrowed his eyes. He knew he should leave. The safest way to avoid drama was to just keep his mouth shut. But God, the challenge in her eyes… “Did I ask your opinion?” he asked quietly.
“You never asked me about anything, Lucas,” she said, unperturbed. “That never meant you could stop me from filling the evening with my chatter.”
No. And it had never bothered him. But right now, she was definitely talking too much!
“I’d be interested to know what you told Fox about me,” she continued.
“That you talk too much.”
“Everyone talks too much compared to you,” she said with a snort. “So that’s not really an insult.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, just upset you.”
“Lucky me,” she replied dryly. “But it’s nice to know that even though our time together wasn’t anything, at least I made you smile.”
“Why do you think Fox was talking about you?” he asked, interested, taking a step toward her. “Why are you so sure you’re the mystery woman?”