Chapter Thirty-Two
Cooper
I don’t leave Broken Saddle at first. I just walk.
I make it halfway down the block before I pull out my phone. The street stays busy around me, cars passing, sirens echoing somewhere in the distance, but none of it really registers.
Staring at the screen, I replay everything about my conversation with Brinley before I hit the Call button to dial Talon.
He answers on the second ring. “What’s up?”
“Are you at the house?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Can you do something for me? Can you go into my room and see if my black notebook is on my desk?”
There’s a pause, and I hear the faint sound of a door opening. It’s been driving me crazy ever since I realized it wasn’t in my luggage on our last road trip. I need him to confirm it’s there before I go out of my mind.
“Yeah.”
“It’s a black notebook. It should be on my desk.”
I hear him moving around on the other end.
“Hold on,” he says. A few seconds pass before he adds, “Yeah, it’s here.”
My shoulders relax a little. “Does anything look off with it?”
“Off how?”
“I don’t know. Like someone was messing with it, or like any pages were torn out?”
I can hear pages shuffling over the phone. “Looks normal to me. All the pages are still here.”
“Nothing looks like it’s off in my room or anything?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“You want me to bring it to you? Where are you anyway?” he asks.
“No, just leave it there. I’ll be home in a little over an hour after Brinley gets off work.”
After we hang up, the weight that’s been sitting on my chest eases, but it’s not gone entirely. The notebook is still there, and the pages are still in it, which means no one took anything aside from snapping some photos.
I head back to my truck and climb in, shutting the door behind me. For a second, I just sit there, hands resting on the wheel, then reach for my phone.
Reed sent over a batch of files earlier. He told me to take a look and see if anything stood out. I pull them up and start flipping through them, scanning line by line.
I lean back in my seat, dragging a hand over my mouth as I stare at the screen, trying to make sense of the statements and transactions, with names I don’t recognize.
I get pulled into it, losing track of time. By the time I glance up, it’s almost the end of Brinley’s shift.
I text Reed next.
Me: You check the camera recently?
I don’t wait for a response before shoving my phone into my pocket and heading toward the bar. I’m not as frustrated as I was earlier. Now I’m just racking my brain trying to put the pieces together.
When I step inside again, the crowd has begun to thin out. Brinley is still behind the bar, moving around as she’s working on wrapping up her shift for the night.
As if she can feel me watching her, she looks up, and our eyes lock. But this time, she doesn’t smile.
“I’m back,” I say when I approach her.
She nods once and returns to closing out the register.
When she flips the lights and grabs her purse, I follow her down the hallway leading toward the alley and her place. I don’t ask her if she’s going to come with me, and the question quickly dissolves when she grabs her bag to pack up her things.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her while I wait.
“You don’t have to pack much,” I say.
She doesn’t turn to look at me. “I wasn’t planning on staying long anyway.”
I let that sit.
Outside, the lot is nearly empty. I spot the new cameras mounted out back, feeling relieved that if she refused to stay, at least I know I’d have eyes on her. Although she’d be pissed if she knew the lengths I am willing to go to make sure she’s safe.
I don’t care, though. Not when she’s quickly become the most important person in my life.
Before she can reach her car, I step over and check the handle.
She pauses. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure it’s locked.”
“It’s always locked.”
“I know.” My hand lingers on the handle a second longer than necessary.
I walk around it anyway. It probably makes me look paranoid, but I don’t care.
She watches me like she doesn’t recognize the version of me standing in front of her before unlocking the door to grab her backpack.
We get into my truck, and I don’t start driving right away.
“I truly am sorry about earlier. I don’t believe you took the photo,” I say finally.
She turns toward me.
“I questioned you because… I let those texts get in my head. I shouldn’t have. Not when it comes to you.”
“What is even in that notebook? I don’t even understand you’d think I care about hockey notes.”
“The photo wasn’t just hockey stuff. It was notes I’ve been keeping about your father.”
She goes quiet beside me.
“Last year, there was a huge scandal around money moving through the program. We’ve been suspicious of his involvement before you ever arrived here on campus.
And with the article dropping and word getting out that you’re his daughter, it’s brought more attention to our team. Attention he didn’t want on him.”
I don’t tell her about him blackmailing me.
“So they were trying to make it look like it was me?”
“Yeah.” I glance over at her. “They wanted me to think you took the photos and gave them to Coach. The text came through right after he told me I was benched.”
I shift the truck into gear and pull away from the curb, the road humming beneath the tires as we head toward the hockey house.
“It sounds like whoever it is, they wanted you not to trust me,” she says after a minute.
“I shouldn’t have believed them, though,” I say. “I let them get in my head, and I won’t let it happen again.”
She nods once. “I believe you. I probably should’ve said that earlier too.”
She exhales and leans her head against the headrest, staring out the window.
“I guess it worked then, huh?”
She glances over at me.
I shake my head. “Not in the way they wanted.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not letting anyone get between us or turn me against you, just because someone tries.”
She studies me for a second, like she’s deciding whether to believe that, then looks back out the window.
The rest of the drive passes in quiet. The streetlights flicker across the windshield as we pull into the driveway, and I shut off the engine. The lights are on inside, and judging from the vehicles out front, Kade and Owen are home.
I lead her inside and up to my room. My phone dings in my pocket before I even shut the door behind us.
Brinley drops her bag on the floor near my dresser and glances toward it.
She doesn’t say anything right away. Instead, she leans against the side of the desk and stares out the window as my phone pings again.
“You’re in demand again tonight.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, hitting the button on the side to turn it on silent.
She looks at me like she doesn’t believe me as I set my phone face down on the nightstand.
I don’t want the screen lighting up the dark. I don’t want whoever is on the other end of those messages in this room with us.
She’s still watching me.
“You seem on edge,” she says.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
I step closer to her and take her wrist before she can keep analyzing me. I tug her toward me and take a seat on my chair.
“Sit.”
She narrows her eyes, like she’s debating whether to keep pushing me away, but then lets me pull her into my lap instead. The chair creaks beneath us.
Her legs drape over mine, her back settling against my chest, molding us together like she never stopped.
I log in to the game without explanation. The screen glows blue in the dim room.
“You’re serious?” she asks when I hand her the controller.
“You told me you play,” I murmur.
At first, I expect her to make a joke or hesitate. Instead, she adjusts in my lap and starts playing like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
If I wasn’t already hard when she shifted against me, seeing her now would’ve done it. Within minutes, I realize she’s not just playing.
She’s good. Damn good.
I lean forward slightly, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Since when?”
She shrugs like it’s nothing. “I told you I play Dead Zone.”
“I thought you meant casually,” I say, a smirk pulling at my mouth as she wipes out one of my teammates’ avatars without even blinking.
I laugh quietly, my hands finding her waist. She trembles against me, dragging her lip between her teeth, trying to play it off like my touch doesn’t affect her.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand behind us.
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “You wanna check that?”
“Not right now.”
She studies me for a second, then turns back to the screen.
I shift in the chair, my thigh pressing between hers more firmly this time. She inhales, just barely, but her hands don’t stop moving.
“You’re distracting me,” she whispers.
“Doesn’t look like it’s affecting you too much. You’re still winning.”
She takes out Owen’s character next. I can almost picture him in his room across the hallway, swearing at his TV.
I can’t help but smile. “He’s never gonna let this go when I tell him.”
She tilts her head slightly, eyes still on the screen. “You didn’t think I could?”
“I should’ve known never to underestimate you.”
There’s something about watching her like this. All focused and competitive, but in a way that doesn’t feel forced. She’s not trying to prove anything.
My mouth brushes along the side of her neck, and she tenses right as my phone vibrates again.
I ignore it.
I let my hand slide slowly along her hips, then lower. She shifts in my lap, grinding her ass against me. It’s enough to make the move feel intentional.
“Cooper,” she breathes, but it doesn’t sound like a warning.
“Keep playing,” I urge her.
Her breathing changes, but her thumbs keep moving.
She clears another level as my hand slips beneath the hem of her shirt, my hands cool against her heated skin.
Her thumbs slip for a second on the controller, but she recovers quickly.
“You’re beating all of them.” I snicker.
She smiles faintly. “Maybe they’re just not as good as you think.”