8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Sarah
I wake up to sunlight stabbing through curtains that aren’t hanging in my apartment and a headache that feels like I’ve been using a cactus for a pillow.
For approximately three seconds, I don't remember where I am.
Then I remember everything.
Oh no. Oh shit oh fuck oh fucketyfuckingwhatthehellfuck.
I slept with Kevin St. Clair.
I'm in Kevin's guest room wearing his practice sweatshirt. It’s professional, supplied by the team and made by some top-tier athletic brand with a fancy NHL contract.
So basically exactly the same as my clearance rack hauls at Target.
The sweatshirt smells like dirty sweaty boy, but not in a funky kind of way, more in an oh my gosh when did you get hot kind of way — and I'm currently burying my nose in the collar like a complete creep.
Stop smelling your best friend, Sarah. You already crossed enough lines last night.
Ranger's not here in the guest room anymore. Which means Kevin's awake. Which means I need to get my shit together and go into damage control mode.
Actually, no. Not damage control. Care mode.
Kevin played through hell on that road trip. Came home exhausted and broken. And I jumped him instead of taking care of him properly.
What the fuck was I thinking? I even kneed him in the ribs. And that was after I asked — no, basically begged — him to “do that again,” not even coherent enough to realize that the reason his position changed so abruptly was because his shoulder gave out.
New plan: I'm going to fix this. Going to prove nothing's changed. That I'm still the responsible friend who takes care of Ranger and brings order to Kevin's life when hockey beats him up.
I'll make breakfast. Kevin loves breakfast. Something with protein, because Winston the nutritionist would approve. I’ll atone for last night’s greasy pizza.
Eggs. I can make eggs. There's probably sourdough bread in his pantry from the farmer’s market because Kevin St. Clair doesn't buy grocery store white bread like normal humans.
Then I'll check his shoulder. Make sure he's icing it properly.
That the compression wrap is positioned correctly.
Maybe I'll even find that fancy heating pad he's got. Although there’s probably some kind of science to when you do heat and when you do ice.
Maybe I should leave that to the professionals.
He’s probably got to go in and get checked by Quinn and get mandatory therapy, but I can still do my part before he goes to the arena.
Perfect. Professional. I’m just the helpful best friend who definitely didn't ride him like I’d gotten an invitation to compete at Rodeo Austin.
I full-on rode him last night. Hard. It was definitely not mutton bustin’.
But if I don’t get to the kitchen and start fixing this, I might permanently bust something in our friendship and I’m not willing to do that.
I find a spare pair of my jeans in the guest room closet.
Pull them on. My bra is somewhere in Kevin's living room because apparently drunk Sarah has no concept of "retrieve your underwear before fleeing to the guest room.
" There's no way I'm going on a bra scavenger hunt right now.
Kevin's team-issued sweatshirt will have to do double duty.
Five hours of sleep and a hangover are not my friends. Neither is the way my thighs are protesting as I stand. Apparently, sex with a professional athlete qualifies as a full-body workout for lesser mortals.
Worth it though.
No. Stop. Not thinking about that.
Just join a fucking gym, Sarah. Except that costs money. So, nope.
I pad barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen, mentally rehearsing my speech. Something casual. Breezy. "Hey, how's your shoulder? Let me make you breakfast. Everything's totally normal."
Then I round the corner and my entire plan disintegrates.
Kevin's already standing at the coffee maker, freshly showered and in gym shorts and a Stampede t-shirt that clings to his shoulders in ways that should be illegal before caffeine. The kitchen smells like rich, beautiful, dark-roasted coffee. Not the store brand I buy.
Ranger's food bowl is already out. Already filled. The heating wrap is on the counter, used and ready to be put away. There's even a protein shake blender bottle in the sink.
He's already taken care of everything.
My entire caretaker overdrive plan just crashed and burned.
"Morning," Kevin says, and his voice triggers a reaction in me that is highly inconvenient given that I'm supposed to be proving everything's normal.
"You're awake." Brilliant opening, Sarah. Really nailed him…I mean, it…
"Yeah." He pours coffee into two mugs. "Couldn't sleep."
The clear addition to that sentence — because we had sex last night — hangs in the air between us, unspoken but deafening.
"I was going to make you breakfast," I say uselessly, gesturing at his already-functioning kitchen. "Check your shoulder. Make sure you're okay after—"
"Already ate. Shoulder's fine. I’ll go in and let Dominic and Quinn do their thing later.
" Kevin hands me a mug. Black coffee with exactly the right amount of cream.
Not fancy hazelnut creamer or some expensive oat milk situation.
Just cream. Because he knows how I take it.
Because we're friends who've had coffee together approximately eight million times.
Friends who are now standing in his kitchen after having drunk sex and I'm wearing his sweatshirt and no bra and if I’m reading this correctly, neither of us knows what to do with that information.
"Thanks." I take the mug. Sit at his kitchen island because my legs feel unsteady. So I’m being sensible. Even though I’ve seen everything in this condo a hundred times, I look around.
There are eighty-four games in the hockey season, which means forty-two road games. I practically live here part-time. I know everything here. Well, almost everything.
Nope, after last night, I know everything.
I solved the last remaining mystery and explored the last frontier somewhere between his recliner and his bed and everywhere in between.
I can still feel where his hands gripped my hips and how everything between those hips and down lower through my thighs is highly aware of my discovery activities.
I now know where the coffee mugs are, how to work the remote, and what my best friend sounds like when he comes.
"You didn't have to do all this," I say, waving at the clean kitchen. At Ranger's food. At the evidence that he's already taken care of himself. "I was going to—"
"I know." Kevin cuts me off, almost as though he doesn’t want me to say something stupid. Which is fair. Because at this point, I probably would.
I absolutely would.
Especially since I’m trying to deny that the look in his eyes makes me worry about drowning in them. I am completely unsuccessful. So back to babbling about plans that aren’t going to happen. "But I wanted to."
Silence stretches between us. Ranger appears, tail wagging, completely oblivious to the emotional warfare happening in his dad's kitchen. He nudges my knee and I scratch behind his ears, grateful for something to do with my hands that isn't reaching for Kevin.
"Sarah—" Kevin starts.
"Is that hazelnut creamer?" I interrupt, pointing at the coffee. "That's new."
His jaw tightens slightly. "Yeah. Thought I'd try it."
"It looks good." I take a sip of my own coffee, swirled with the plain cream. I don't taste a thing. My tongue is currently on strike from doing its job.
More silence. I'm dying. This is how I die. Death by awkward morning-after small talk with the guy I've been crushing on for eighteen months on the down low and finally slept with and now everything's ruined.
"About last night—" he tries again.
My phone buzzes. I grab the lifeline like drowning people grab flotation devices.
Paige Can you come by the arena? Want to show you the calendar photos. They're AMAZING.
Thank you, Paige Campbell. I owe you my firstborn child and possibly a kidney.
"That's Paige," I say, already standing to relocate my mug to the kitchen sink. "She wants me to see the calendar photos. I should go."
"Sarah." Kevin's voice stops me. Just my name, but the way he says it makes me freeze halfway to the door. I almost made my escape. But nope. "We should probably talk about what happened."
"Absolutely. Definitely. We will." I'm backing toward the door. Ranger's watching me and can’t believe I’m running away like a chihuahua in a rainstorm. "Later though. I really need to go. The rescue… Volunteers are probably waiting."
It's Wednesday. The rescue doesn't open until noon. He knows this.
I watch something flicker across his face. Disappointment maybe. Or resignation.
"Right," he says, and something in his expression makes me feel like the world's biggest basic bitch. "Later."
I grab my shoes from near the door. I shove my feet in without untying the laces like some kind of disaster human who's forgotten how footwear works. Kevin walks me to the door like he always does, except nothing about this is like always.
His hand brushes my lower back as he reaches past me for the deadbolt. Just a casual touch. The kind of touch friends do.
Except friends don't know what it feels like to have those hands digging into their hips. Don't know the rough scrape of those calluses on bare skin. Don't know the sound he makes when—
Stop it.
"I'll text you," I say.
"Okay."
I stand there for a second, trying to figure out the appropriate goodbye for "I know what you taste like but let's just pretend like I don't." I settle for kissing his cheek — totally normal friend kiss, except that got me into trouble last night — and then I'm out the door before he can say whatever was clearly hovering on his tongue.
I didn’t change out of the sweatshirt. I didn’t grab my suitcase.
I run my tongue across my front teeth.
I didn’t even brush my damn teeth.
How much more can I fuck up?
The elevator ride down is absolutely a descent into my own personal hell of poor life choices.
I slept with Kevin.