Chapter 24
MATT
Maddie was quiet tonight. She sipped on her beer pensively as we had dinner at Local Hangout.
“What’s wrong?” I asked between bites of my burger. I shouldn’t have been bad about my diet, but I did a fuckton of weight training with Benny today, and I deserved it.
She rested her cheek on her hand. “I think Dinah knows.”
I swallowed my food. Oh, yeah, that. I was pretty sure she knew, too. Especially since she cornered me when I was on the way out the door. Noah told her to lay off me, but her questions about my girlfriend were oddly specific.
I didn’t want to sneak around anymore. I wanted to sit Noah down and tell him I loved his sister, that I’d never do anything to hurt her, but there were a couple of things wrong with that. One, I hadn’t said those three little words to the woman in question. And two, she wasn’t ready to tell him yet. I didn’t want to keep pushing her on it. The puck was on her stick about this.
“Is it bad if she knows?” I asked.
“She tells Noah everything.”
I took a sip of my beer and thought carefully about my words. “But Dinah likes me, so she’ll help us.”
“Okay, fair…”
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “I want to be with you, no matter what that looks like. I’d rather not have to continue to lie to your brother, but if you need more time, that’s what we’ll do.”
Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry. I’m so scared about what he’ll think. He never likes any of my boyfriends.”
“Well, he already likes me. And so does D. Maybe if we tell her, she can help us warm him up to the idea of us?”
She seemed to ponder that for a moment as she took another sip of her beer and a bite of her sandwich. “Maybe,” she whispered after a few seconds had gone past. It was so loud in the bar, I barely heard her.
“Sweet pea…”
She pulled her hand away from me. “I don’t want to think about it tonight. I missed you so much.”
I grinned. “I missed you too.”
“I didn’t realize how much it sucked to be a WAG.”
I laughed.
I changed the subject to ask her how work with Dinah was going. I smiled as her eyes lit up and she told me about the secret project Dinah was working on. I loved the look of excitement in her eyes when she talked about her passions. I worried I was taking up too much of her time, but I wanted to savor every moment I had with her.
When the check came, we fought over it, and I let her win. This time.
“What now?” she asked.
Before I could answer, I heard my name being called. Then, like the whirlwind he was, Ty ran over to us and slid into the booth next to Maddie. She had whiplash from his movement while he stole one of her last fries and gave me a grin.
“Well, look who it is!” he exclaimed.
I gave him a head nod. “Hey, Ty.”
He pointed between me and Maddie. “You two ran out at the Halloween party, and I couldn’t grill you about this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fuck you, man.”
He cackled like the dick he was. Maddie looked amused. He nudged her. “Your boy’s so sensitive. You”ve been chaining him up in your bed? Is that why he’s been ignoring me?”
Maddie”s cheeks went red at his joke.
“Ty,” I warned.
“What? There’s nothing wrong with a little bondage. Don’t be prude.”
“He’s not,” Maddie managed to squeak out while trying hard not to laugh. God, if only Ty knew.
Ty waggled his eyebrows. “Oh, really?”
“Stop it. What you want, asshole?” I asked.
“Come to the hockey house and party with us tonight.”
I looked over at Maddie, silently asking her, and she shrugged.
“You can bang each other later. I haven’t seen you in weeks,” Ty whined.
I shook my head at him. “Dude, you’re needy.”
“I am. Hey, Lu-lu said she’s coming to visit soon. This is practice for when she gets here.”
I gave him a stern look. “You’re not, under any circumstances, taking Luna to a kegger. You got me?”
He nudged Maddie. “He’s so easy to rile up. Come on, you fools, let’s go!”
He whirled away as quickly as he came.
I stared at the empty space where he had just been sitting, and Maddie giggled. “Is he always like that?”
I groaned. “Unfortunately. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
She gave me a bright smile. “I’m down. Could be fun.”
“Alright, then let’s go.”
Truth be told, I felt like a dick ignoring Ty, and he kept hounding me after seeing each other at the Halloween party when I collected Maddie. He put on that party boy front, but Ty was still hurting over his breakup. People assumed because of his personality, he was a douchey athlete who fucked anything that moved, but Ty and Elsa had been together forever. He’d never admit it, but he had really loved her. No offense to Elsa, but I don’t think she ever felt the same way.
“Let’s go,” Maddie insisted. “We never hang out with your friends.”
To be fair, we didn’t hang out with hers all that much either.
“Okay, let’s roll.”
I helped her with her coat and slid her hand in mind. We found Ty outside waiting for us, and we walked together to the hockey house.
We could hear the house from a mile away. I did enough partying as a hockey player that I don’t think I missed much from not having the college experience. We walked inside, and Ty screamed at the top of his lungs that the party had arrived.
I shook my head.
“Him and TJ would get along really well,” Maddie said.
I had thought the same thing multiple times. Probably why I easily brushed off TJ so much. Ty was my practice run.
I took our jackets into the hall closet but lost Maddie at one point. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed us some beers.
“I thought she was off-limits,” Ty said from behind me, making me jump.
“She is.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re sneaking around? You? Really?”
I grimaced. “Her idea.”
“She’s cute. You look happy.”
“I really like her.”
“Then you’ll figure it out, man. But it explains why you disappeared on me.”
I took a sip of my beer and glared at him. “You know I’m on the road a lot.”
He grinned. “I know. Just yanking your chain.”
I shoved him. “Dick!”
“You down for some Pong?”
“Yeah. Where’d my girl go, though?”
He waved me off. “Oh, Ari’s here. Let the girls chit-chat.”
I took his word for it and followed him to the makeshift dining room, where a bunch of guys in backward baseball caps were playing a round of Beer Pong. They nodded at us as they finished their game.
Ty and I were up next, and we dominated like we always did. I had been so focused on hockey and staying in Philly that it made me realize I needed to make time for my friends, too. Maddie and hockey had been all I had time for lately. Not a bad thing, but making time for the other people in my life was important.
As I sunk my last ball and won the game, Maddie sidled up to me. I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Hey, there you are.”
She leaned up on her tip-toes, and I bent down to give her a quick kiss. “Sorry. Got lost chatting with the girls. Did you win?”
“Fuck yeah, we did!” Ty told her.
She sipped on her beer, and I felt like a dick because I got her one, but then Ty drank it while we were playing Pong.
“You play?” Ty asked her.
“Sure.”
“I’ll be your partner, and we can get their asses,” a female voice called out.
I turned and saw the blonde from the night I told Maddie I wanted to be more than friends. She looked a little tipsy and had her arm around Maddie’s roommate, Ari.
“Yeah! Kiira and I are gonna crush you!” Maddie cheered.
Ari leaned up and gave Kiira a quick kiss. Huh. Interesting.
“Okay, you’re on!” Ty said, and we reset the cups.
A little friendly competition never hurt anyone, and since we were all hockey players, we were extremely competitive. The girls proved to be even more than Ty and me, and they completely kicked our asses.
Ty looked at me in disgust as I had to chug another cup, but I shrugged.
“Man, Cally, your girl’s showing you up!” Ty teased.
Maddie beamed at me.
“She’s lucky she’s cute,” I teased.
“I heard that,” she shot back but gave me a wink. I blew her a sarcastic kiss, and she pretended to catch it.
Ari laughed.
After the game, I refilled our beers, and Maddie dragged me to the dance floor. I ground against her perfect body as she moved to the beat of the music.
As much as I loved our nights in, watching action movies or getting tangled up in the sheets, coming out tonight and hanging with our friends had been fun. We didn’t have that opportunity with our relationship being a secret. If she got over her hangups about her brother disapproving of me, we could have this all the time.
I brushed her hair behind her shoulder and bent to her ear. “Tonight was fun.”
She turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck. “It was. I love spending time with you, but we don’t get to do this often.”
Neither of us said we couldn’t hang with my teammates without her brother finding out. It was why I always came to her since there was little chance of her brother showing up on campus. Franklin U was like our little bubble where we didn’t have to worry.
I slid my hands down her sides and gripped her hips, moving along to the music with her. “We should do it more often. Kiira seems fun.”
She nodded. “She’s the first of my teammates that really made me feel welcome.”
I squinted at her. “Is she the goalie?”
She busted up laughing. “How could you tell?”
“Because the goalie’s always weird.”
She leaned up, and I met her in a searing kiss on the dance floor. Here, with my girl, was all I cared about at this moment.
“You want to get out of here?” I asked when we pulled away.
She ran her finger down my chest. “You know I do, baby.”
“Such a dirty girl.”
She shook her head. “Nope, we both know I’m your good girl.”
“Damn straight.”
* * *
Maddie lay naked and spent across my chest, curled into me like she had been for the past fifteen minutes. She needed extra cuddles after the intensity of being together tonight. She brought out the wild man in me, but we both loved it. I was never that growly or demanding in bed with any other woman. It was like her desires to be taken by a big brute made me transform into it.
I ran my fingers through her hair. “Was that too much tonight?”
She shook her head. “No. I loved it. I couldn’t touch you at all, being completely restrained, and you were such a tease. It was so hot.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Good.”
“I’ll tell you if it’s too much,” she said, swirling her finger around my chest. “But I love how willing you are to try new things. I wasn’t sure I”d like my ankles bound too, but I did.”
“I want to make you happy.”
“Baby…” she sighed.
“What?”
She lifted her head up. “You do make me happy, even without all that stuff. Even if we had boring, vanilla sex, you’d make me happy.”
I laughed. “Okay, even when we do have vanilla sex, it’s not boring.”
She giggled. “No. It’s not. Did I tell you I’m glad it was you? After wanting to lose my virginity to anyone, I’m glad it was you.” She pressed a hand against my heart. “That you were my someone special.”
Her touch set shivers down my spine. Or maybe it was how her words made me feel. Those three little words were on the tip of my tongue, but it was too early for me to say them. She was nowhere near ready for that.
So I changed the subject before my heart took over my brain and I spilled it out. “Hey, are you going to Dinah’s brother’s for Thanksgiving?”
She shook her head. “Yuck Thanksgiving in November.”
I laughed. “You’re the weirdo who does it in October.”
“No. I’m not going. Why?”
“Because…we’d have the house to ourselves. I could have you in my bed for once.”
She grinned up at me. “You have all the best ideas!”
“Tell me that again when we argue over where to go to dinner,” I teased.
She rolled her eyes at me, but then she settled back down against me. It would be so nice to cuddle in my bed instead of squeezing into this tiny one. It was getting harder to explain to the massage therapist why my neck was so sore when I hadn’t taken big hits in games.
“Wow, it’s late,” she said when she checked her phone. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for, sweet pea.”
We got out of the bed and changed into pajamas, each doing our nighttime routine. Then we crawled back into bed to go to sleep. Having her in my arms was one reason being on the road sucked. If I didn’t love hockey so much, I’d give it all up for her.