Chapter 9
MADDOX
Her words have my gut all twisted and sore. Diving into the past wasn’t the plan, and if I don’t move this conversation in a different direction, that’s exactly where this one will lead us.
It’s always been easy talking to Braxton; it’s why we got along so well when we were kids.
She would always lend an ear when I needed to vent, and I would have done just about anything to hear her problems in return.
Fuck, I would have solved each and every one if it meant she was happy. But this is different. We’re different.
The thought sparks a sharp pain in my chest. I shouldn’t have brought her here, but my other options weren’t great. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself since I offered up my place.
It hurts having her here—in my living room, on my couch.
Her perfume is a smell I never wanted to associate with my new home.
It already lingers in my parents’ house.
I’ve never admitted it out loud before, but it’s one of the reasons I refused to stay there after I was drafted.
I found my own place instead, despite the fact I was only nineteen and it would have been undeniably easier to just stay with my parents.
I needed a fresh start. A new place where I wouldn’t hear the sound of Braxton’s laugh whenever it got too quiet or smell her fruity perfume each time I entered a room. If only I could have extracted her from my fucking soul as easily.
“How is Noah doing?” she asks, a tone of caution in her voice. My hackles rise at the topic change.
“You haven’t gotten the rundown from your father?” I sneer.
“No. I didn’t really give him the chance to tell me about that.”
Interesting. “Noah is Noah. He’s figuring his shit out.”
“Dox. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
I actually flinch. Hearing the nickname on her lips again is like a slash through my insides. She sucks in a sharp breath at my reaction, no doubt, and I stare across the room, my jaw tight.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Okay.”
She doesn’t push further, and maybe that’s what has me blurting out more about my brother than I have in years, to anyone.
“Noah is having a hard time. He’s making stupid decisions and getting himself into dangerous situations. His relationship with Dad is in the shitter. He’s broke off his ass, drunk or high on the daily. I don’t know what else to do to help him.”
“It sounds like he’s lucky to have you on his team. Is all of this part of the reason why you were at my clinic today with a black eye and an NDA?”
“Part Noah, part my big mouth.”
“How does it feel?” she asks, and I glance over at her, my brows lifted in question. “Your eye. It looks painful.”
I shrug. “It’s fine.”
“Do you have ice? You should really keep the swelling down. Don’t you play tomorrow?”
“Tonight, actually. I should have been at the rink for practice, but I’ve been let off today to get this figured out.”
Before I have a chance to stop her, she’s shooting out of her seat and rushing toward the kitchen.
Craning my neck, I watch her from my place on the couch as she starts digging through the freezer and pulls out a bag of corn I didn’t know was in there.
After rifling through the drawers, she finds a dish towel and wraps it around the corn before bringing it to me.
I stop breathing when she stops directly in front of me, so close our knees brush, and bends over my lap to press the towel-wrapped bag to my eye.
She’s completely focused on her task, but I’m only focused on her and our close proximity.
Fuck, my breaths turn shallow when she leans closer and drops an innocent hand on my thigh—just a finger length from my knee—for balance.
I don’t flinch when the cold fabric of the towel touches my swollen eye, not when I’m too busy watching her start to nibble on her thick bottom lip in concentration.
My cock stirs as dirty thoughts flick through my head, like what would happen if I covered that hand with mine and dragged it up, up, up—
No. I know exactly what would happen if I did that. She would punch me in the balls and tell me to deal with all my shit on my own.
Hastily, I reach up and take the makeshift ice pack from her and release a tight breath when our fingers touch, and she jolts back, as if just coming back to her senses.
Those round cheeks rosy up as she pushes a loose curl behind her ear and darts out of view.
She’s fussing around in the kitchen again, but this time, I don’t look back.
Instead, I take the time alone to gather myself.
I need to get my shit together. This is going to be a long few months if I can’t even handle being in close proximity to her without popping a boner.
“We should make a plan. For the whole dating thing,” she says a minute later, still working away in the kitchen.
“I’m not great at plans.”
“You never were. But I am.”
“This is going to look fucking weird no matter what we do. I don’t date. Everyone in the league knows that. Some hard-core fans too. They won’t believe that the first time I do, it’s with the daughter of the asshole spouting off about me.”
“Will it look weird because you don’t date ever or because you don’t date girls like me?” she asks, almost shyly.
Her question takes me by surprise in the worst way. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean . . . I know I don’t exactly have the figure of a hockey girlfriend. And that’s fine—I just don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position.”
My scowl is instant, and my response comes out growly. “No. That is not what I meant. At all. And there’s nothing wrong with the way you look. Nothing, Braxton.”
She’s quiet for a few moments before she says, “Okay. Then we can make this relationship look however we want, can’t we? We could have been dating in secret for years, or we could have something new.”
Her feet pad along the hardwood before she comes around the side of the couch.
She extends a steaming mug of what looks like tea to me, and I take it cautiously, not wanting the liquid to tip over the rim.
Once I have the cup in a steady hold, she opens her fist and exposes two white pills resting on her palm.
“Drink that and take the pills,” she orders when I continue to stare silently at the medicine. “It’s just Ibuprofen.”
I swipe them from her hand and toss them both back before gulping down the tea.
The familiar taste of honey is like a soothing balm over the wounds that have reopened over the hellish past couple of days.
Tea with honey has been a comfort drink for me since I was a child. I’m surprised she still remembers that.
Braxton sits on the opposite side of the couch and faces me, her lips twisted and legs tucked up beneath her. “Maybe I didn’t want to be swept up in the crazy of your life when you were drafted, so we kept it a secret? Who are they to know?”
I chew on that for a moment. “I don’t know if that will work. They’ll dig into your background. Your schooling over the past few years, your social media presence. One bad tweet from when you were fifteen and you’ll be the face of cancel culture.”
“Actually, cancel culture doesn’t really exist. I prefer looking at it as someone being held accountable for their past actions.”
I heave a sigh and rest my head on the couch back. “Braxton.”
“Right. Well, I don’t have much other than my Instagram and Facebook pages, but both of those are as private as possible.”
“What about while you were in university? Did you do or say anything that could come back to bite you?” Any bitter boyfriends? I leave that last part out, not sure I want to hear the answer.
Braxton’s eyes narrow on me for a brief moment before relaxing. “I went to a few parties and kissed a few boys, but that’s really it. I was too busy with my classes to make stupid decisions.”
I tighten my jaw. A few boys? “Great.”
“What about you? Anything I need to be concerned about?”
“You mean other than the fact I’m a heavy partier and an arrogant son of a bitch? No, I can’t think of anything else.”
She giggles, and the sound makes my heart skip. “Right. So, we haven’t been dating in secret. It’s new, then? A rekindled love?” She swallows as I stiffen.
“Yeah. Good enough for me,” I mutter, feeling uncomfortably awkward.
Braxton nods. “What do you need me to do as your fake girlfriend? Is it just going to be games and stuff? Because I can do that easily enough, although I haven’t been to a hockey game in years.”
“We’re about to enter the playoffs, so I’m assuming you’ll need to be there for most of the games. The award ceremony is coming up in June, and I’m up for a couple of them. You’ll probably need to be there for that too.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“How are you going to tell your family about this?” I ask, worry starting to fester.
“I don’t know. They won’t believe me if I tell them we’re suddenly dating, not after everything that’s just happened, but I can’t tell them the truth either. Dad can’t find out it’s fake.”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“I’ll avoid it for as long as I can. At least until we’re seen together for the first time.”
“When is that going to happen, anyway? Dougie, that fucking asshole, didn’t tell me anything about what we’re supposed to do.”
“I think we’ve talked about enough tonight. You and Dougie clearly need to chat before we do anything else. I don’t want to mess anything up with this.”
“It wouldn’t be you that messes this up, Braxton.”
Her expression turns quizzical. “You won’t mess it up either. Sure, we might not be friends anymore, but we’re both adults. I agreed to do this, and I’m not going to go back on that. We’ll get this cleaned up, and then we can both get back to our lives.”
“Right. You’re right,” I agree.
Yet for some reason, that sounds all wrong.