Chapter 4
Hunter
We ended up at a Texas barbecue place not far from the airport, the kind with dark wood booths, metal chairs, framed rodeo photos on the walls, and the smell of smoke and spice soaked into everything.
The hostess led us to a booth meant for four, then dragged a chair to the end because there were five of us.
Perfect. I reached for the chair automatically. “I’ll sit at the end.”
Jaden dropped into it before I could. “I want the end.”
Holland gave me an apologetic smile as she slid into the booth beside Cole. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said, even as the only open space left was beside CC.
She moved in along the bench, and I sat beside her because making a scene about it would have been more obvious than enduring it.
Enduring it lasted approximately three seconds.
Her bare thigh was close to mine under the table.
Not touching, but close enough that my body seemed to take inventory of every inch of space between us.
She smelled different than she had on the 4th of July.
Less chlorine and more vanilla mixed with something citrusy.
Her hair was loose over one shoulder, and the yellow tank top had ridden up slightly when she sat, revealing that maddening little diamond at her navel.
I picked up the menu like it contained classified information.
Cole, mercifully, started talking to CC about the elective. “You’ll meet a few of the development camp guys this week,” he said, resting one arm along the back of the booth. “Some of the rookies are already in town. Good kids, most of them. Excited. Terrified. Trying not to look terrified.”
CC smiled. “That sounds about right.”
“We’ve got a few forwards I want the staff watching closely. One defenseman with a history of shoulder instability, though he’ll tell you he’s completely fine.”
“He’s not?” she asked.
Cole snorted. “They’re never completely fine when they’ve played in the NCAA.”
Holland gave Cole a knowing look. They had met in college, and the rest was history.
I kept my attention on the menu. “Watch out for the rookies.”
CC turned her head toward me. “Why?”
Because they’ll take one look at you and forget their own names.
I didn’t say that. Instead, I kept my voice even.
“Young guys get excited about the new city, the new team, and the new pretty faces around the facility. Some of them think signing an entry-level contract means they’ve become irresistible overnight. ”
Cole pointed at me. “He’s not wrong.”
Holland leaned back, amused. “That sounds very specific.”
“It’s universal,” Cole said. “The young guys are always excited and always trying to flirt with anyone who stands still too long.”
CC laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I wanted to tell her to keep more than that in mind.
I wanted to tell her not to smile at them the way she had smiled at me, not to let some twenty-one-year-old idiot with fresh money and a new jersey think he had a chance.
The feeling moving through me was not friendly.
It was protective, yes, but not in the clean way it should have been.
I was being a possessive idiot. She could not be mine.
The waitress appeared, saving me from my own thoughts.
Cole ordered first, choosing brisket with jalapeno cheddar sausage, pit beans, coleslaw, and cornbread because retirement had apparently freed him from caring what a team nutritionist thought.
Holland ordered smoked turkey with sweet potato mash and grilled vegetables.
Jaden ordered a full rack of ribs, fries, mac and cheese, and a lemonade large enough to drown in, which earned him a look from Holland that he pretended not to see.
CC ordered pulled chicken tacos with avocado slaw and a side of street corn, plus iced tea.
I ordered grilled salmon with charred vegetables and a side salad because I still had a season to train for.
Cole looked at me after I handed my menu back. “Salmon at a barbecue place.”
“You say that like salmon isn’t food.”
“It isn’t, but I’m glad you’re still watching yourself on break,” he said. What he was really saying was that I wasn’t so young anymore. At thirty-three, I was reaching the end of my career on the ice.
“You’re eating enough beef for both of us,” I joked.
Cole shook his head and laughed. “Look at this guy.” He chuckled some more.
“I’m happy not to be playing anymore.” Cole leaned back, looking deeply satisfied with himself.
“You know what the best part of retiring from the ice is? Ordering what I want without some nutrition specialist telling me to consider quinoa.”
Holland looked at him with so much affection it made my chest hurt. “You hated quinoa before you knew what it was.”
“I hated it instinctively,” he agreed.
“That’s not a real thing, Dad,” CC cut in.
“I’m not a fan of quinoa either,” I admitted.
Holland laughed softly, and Cole’s whole expression changed when he looked at her. It was quick, intimate, and easy. The kind of look that came from years of choosing each other through all the hard parts.
I looked away. Beside me, CC shifted. Her thigh brushed mine.
Bare skin against bare skin. It was an accident, but my entire body went up in flames.
The contact lasted a second, but it was enough to drag me straight back to the pool house.
Water on her skin. Her breath catching. Her eyes locked on mine while neither of us moved.
CC stilled beside me. She must have felt it too.
Or was I reading into something that wasn’t there?
Something I wanted to see that was a figment of my imagination.
I stared down at my water glass and tried to remember how to breathe like a normal person. Across the table, Jaden was building a tower from straw wrappers and pretending it was not on the verge of collapse.
“Jaden,” Holland said.
He kept his eyes on the tower. “I’m doing architecture.”
“You’re making a mess.”
Every nerve in my body was focused on the place where CC’s thigh had touched mine. I needed air.
I slid out of the booth carefully. “I’m going to the restroom.”
CC did not look at me. That was probably for the best. The bathroom was empty when I walked in. I braced both hands on the sink and stared at myself in the mirror.
“You’re thirty-three years old,” I muttered. “Get a grip.”
I splashed cold water on my face, then gripped the edge of the sink again.
This was bad. Worse than bad. It was reckless.
CC was not some woman I had met at a bar.
She was Cole’s daughter. Holland’s daughter.
Isla’s former babysitter. A medical student about to spend months around the Blaze facility in a role connected to the team.
I needed to stay far away from her. That would have been easier if my body had not decided one accidental brush of her thigh was enough to make me feel eighteen and stupid.
I dried my face and stepped out of the restroom, only to be stopped halfway back to the table by a group of fans near the bar.
“Hunter Russell?” a guy asked, his eyes widening. “No way.”
The shift was automatic after years of being recognized in public. Shoulders back. Smile polite. Make people feel good without giving too much away.
“Hey,” I said.
The guy asked for a photo. Another man wanted a napkin signed. Two young women came over next, one holding out a pen while the other looked me up and down with a smile I recognized too well.
“You’re even hotter in person,” she said.
I signed the napkin without encouraging her. “That’s nice of you.”
“My friends and I are going out after this.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You should give me your number. I can show you a really good time while you’re in town.”
I lived in Dallas, but that was not the point.
The point was that her attention crawled over my skin in a way that made me want to step back.
It wasn’t her fault, not really. She was young and bold and probably used to men reacting exactly how she wanted them to.
Years ago, maybe I would have been flattered.
After everything with my ex, after Monique, after Isla, after a decade of building walls around my life, that kind of attention only made me tired.
“No, thank you,” I said, handing the napkin back. “Have a good night, though.”
Her smile slipped. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I looked up. CC was watching from the booth. She had turned just enough to see the interaction, her expression unreadable, her fingers wrapped around her iced tea. For some reason, that made the whole thing feel worse. I nodded once to the fans and headed back to the table.
The food arrived a minute later, filling the table with plates and steam and enough distraction to make me grateful.
Cole glanced at my plate. “I remember the healthy days.”
Holland swatted his arm. “Leave him alone.”
“He’s at a barbecue place eating salmon,” Cole noted.
“I respect his discipline,” Holland said.
Cole grinned at me. “She used to say that about me.”
“I still do,” Holland said.
Jaden pointed a rib at me. “What does it feel like to be famous?”
“Ask your dad,” I said. “He’s famous too.”
Jaden glanced at Cole, then shrugged. “He’s my dad, so it’s different.”
Cole clutched his chest. “That hurt.”
CC laughed, and the sound moved through me before I could stop it.
Dinner followed an easy rhythm after that, with Jaden keeping a running commentary on everything from hockey camp to why mac and cheese counted as a vegetable because pasta came from wheat and wheat came from the ground.
Holland corrected him without missing a beat.
Cole talked through the rookies CC would meet.
CC listened with her whole attention, asking smart questions, her expression focused and bright.
This was the part of her I could admire safely, or at least more safely.
The part that was brilliant and driven and clearly made for this work.
She was a woman building a career, and I could see both of her parents in her.
Cole’s intensity. Holland’s precision. Her own quiet fire underneath both. That should have made me want her less.
By the time dinner ended, I was exhausted from the effort of not looking at her too much.
Outside, the evening sky was turning purple over the parking lot.
We said goodbye near the cars, only to realize we were all heading to the same building in the city.
Cole and Holland kept a condo there for convenience during the season and for the kids’ school and activities.
I lived in the same building several floors below, which usually felt practical and neighborly.
Tonight, it felt like the universe had a sick sense of humor.
The drive back was quiet. I called Quinn through the car speakers because Isla had basically assigned it as homework, but my sister didn’t answer, which left me alone with my thoughts and the echo of CC’s laugh.
At the building, we rode the elevator up together.
Cole and Holland talked about camp. Jaden leaned against the wall, half-asleep from ribs and sugar.
CC stood across from me, one hand wrapped around the strap of her bag.
The diamond at her navel was hidden now by the way her tank had settled, which did absolutely nothing to help because my brain already knew it was there. The elevator stopped on my floor first.
I stepped out and turned back. “Night.”
“Night,” Holland said gently.
CC’s eyes met mine for one charged second.
“Good night, Hunter,” she said.
My name in her voice followed me all the way down the hall.
Inside my condo, the silence hit hard. No Isla’s shoes by the door.
I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door and stood there, listening to nothing.
For ten years, everything had revolved around Isla.
Practices, games, travel, meals, rest, choices, women I didn’t date, risks I didn’t take.
I had never regretted that. But with her gone for two weeks and CC Davis suddenly under my skin, I felt like someone had taken the structure of my life and shaken it hard enough to loosen bolts I hadn’t even known were there.
I pulled out my phone and called Quinn again. Voicemail.
“Traitor,” I muttered.
The condo felt too small for my body and too big for my thoughts.
I changed into workout shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed my headphones, and headed back out.
The building gym was three floors down. I needed to move and sweat.
I needed to exhaust myself until I stopped seeing CC in the shower, or in a yellow bikini, or watching me turn down a woman who had offered me something easy when it wasn’t easy that I wanted. What tempted me was impossible.
And that was exactly why I needed to run until I forgot her name.
The problem was, by the time I stepped into the empty gym and started the treadmill, I already knew there was no chance in hell that was going to happen because CC walked up to the gym door wearing a gray sports bra and black short shorts, her brown hair in a high ponytail.
I noticed her before she noticed me. Then she walked in, and her green eyes met mine. I licked my lips and told myself not to screw this up. But chances were that I would.