Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Len
My stomach squeezes as I wait for Zaiah and his teammates at Richie’s. The restaurant had a facelift when I was a freshman, so now it looks like a nostalgic diner from the 50s. Bright red-and-white striped booths and a black-and-white checkered floor are highlighted by neon everywhere. A throwback to a period when the owners weren’t even alive.
My phone vibrates, and I stare down at a text from Zaiah. Almost there.
I rub the back of my neck, wondering what the vibe will be when they arrive. The Bulldogs lost. Sixty minutes of sloppy play and missed opportunities. Plus, the other team performed better. The Bulldogs got beat off the puck and on the puck. It was a hard game to watch.
My dad used to take the losses home with him. He’d be miserable, and he wasn’t even a player. The disappointment would bleed into our everyday lives. Hockey dictated everything.
I don’t know if I can take more of that.
A peal of laughter makes me jump, and I peer over to the other side of the diner where the football players hang out, their tables packed with girls and teammates. I recognize the starting lineup because of all the research I did for the exposé I wrote. The tall one is the quarterback, and the big one—West, I think his name is—is touted as an All-American and expected to go pro shortly after he graduates.
They look like they have it all.
The bell over the door rings, and I look up to find Zaiah, Adam, and a few of their teammates walking in along with a lone girl. I scoot out of the booth to greet Zaiah, who’s staring at the floor.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey, sweetie.” He offers me a small smile before wrapping his arms around me, his fingers curling into my back.
“Tough loss,” I murmur into his ear, echoing what the other men in the box used to say to my dad after a defeat. They would line up to give him placating pats on the back, and afterward, I would hug him like this, but he didn’t squeeze me like Zaiah does.
“Thanks,” he replies, sighing into my hair. He steps back, frowning when he takes me in. “No jersey?”
“I wouldn’t want to wear your jersey either after you fumbled that puck in the corner,” Adam teases.
Zaiah laughs it off, but the stress lines around his mouth deepen and a furrow in his brow starts.
I reach up onto my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “I didn’t want to get anything on it. It’s right there. Do you want me to put it back on?”
He shakes his head quickly and then waves his hand in the direction of the booth, so I slide in again. “Did you order yet? Sorry we took so long.”
“No, of course not. I was waiting.”
The tension in the air hangs heavy. The teammate and his girlfriend are pushed all the way inside in the opposite booth, talking softly to one another while Adam sits next to them. Zaiah follows after me so we can fit another teammate on the end of our side. These booths are big when normal-sized people are sitting in them, but not stuffed with large hockey players.
No one talks when the waitress brings over the menus. Our sad party is such a contradiction to the ruckus that’s happening on the other side of the room. Cade, the wide receiver for the football team, is telling a story animatedly, waving his hands in large gestures that has everyone in stitches.
Zaiah peeks over, and the tension on his face increases. He turns away, the vein in his neck protruding.
I lean into him, pretending to look at the menu. “What are you getting?”
“Not sure if I’m hungry,” he states, shutting the menu and sliding it away from him.
“A big guy like you just expended all those calories. You have to eat, Zaiah.” I place my hand on his thigh. “Don’t make me call your mother.”
A smile plays over his lips again. “What did they say?”
I shrug. He probably wants a play-by-play of what we thought during the game, but I’m not going there. The sooner he forgets the loss, the better. “They said they’d see me next game. I bought some clothes earlier. Your sister helped me pick them out.”
“Oh Lord.”
“Did you know she’s into fashion? I had no idea.”
“Yeah, she has a sketchbook.”
“So cool. She put outfits together that I would’ve scoffed at on a hanger, but I was so impressed.”
His grin stretches a little, even though it still looks fake and his eyes are hollow. “Can’t wait to see them.”
Acting like Positive Polly isn’t getting to him, so there’s nothing I can do to make it better. I sit back, order, and talk when I’m talked to, but the next hour goes by excruciatingly slowly with only Adam attempting to make this a social gathering.
With a stomach full of mac and cheese, I walk out hand in hand with Zaiah, his teammates in front of us. We all break apart, going to our respective vehicles, and I drive Zaiah back to Knightley in silence. At a stoplight, I peer over to find him drawing hockey pucks in the fog of the window.
I seal my lips shut, reminding myself that he’s allowed to take the loss in whatever way he sees fit. What I don’t understand is why he invited me out with his teammates if he was going to wallow in his own misery, bringing up what they could’ve done better in the game over and over. Adam seemed to be the only player who wasn’t taking it like a knife to the chest.
After parking, I push the button to turn off the car and hesitate. Zaiah reaches to release his seat belt and gives me another distant smile. I return it, and we both get out and walk to the suite the same way we endured the ride—lips tight and unmoving.
Once we step into our suite, I head for my bedroom. It’s late and I’m tired, and Zaiah obviously needs some time for himself. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.
“Hey,” he says when I’m in the doorway to my room. I stop, turning slowly.
“I’m sorry I’m no fun.”
I shrug, not knowing what to say. All these new feelings and old feelings are mixing, and I’m not sure if the anger bubbling up inside me is directed at Zaiah or my dad. Or both. “You have every right to be sad.”
“I’m not sad, I’m disappointed.”
I sigh. I don’t want my life—my emotions—to be dictated by hockey anymore. I don’t want to have to walk on eggshells after a loss, wondering when the person I live with will return to normal. “It’s fine, Zaiah.”
My stomach tumbles over when my response sours like a lie inside me. I don’t want to be the person who takes it anymore. I don’t want to be the person who needs to write letters years after because they felt like they couldn’t say what they wanted to, and I shouldn’t feel that way around Zaiah. I take a deep breath. “Next time, please don’t invite me to eat if you’re going to stick me in the corner, barely talk, not introduce me to your teammates I haven’t met before, then sulk the whole time.”
He lifts his gaze, and for a few seconds, he isn’t bleak anymore. A storm fires in his eyes. Like thunder, he glares my way. “You’re mad at me?”
“A little, yeah.”
He breathes through his nose, nostrils flaring. It’s the same look he had on his face the whole game.
Old Len would’ve backtracked to keep the peace, but I can’t. Not with him. He deserves the best of me. “It’s not all you. My father would take losses hard, and it bothered me. I would get ignored or have to listen to tirades for hours—sometimes days—and I despised it, okay? I realize you’re allowed to take the loss however you want, though, so I’ll be in my room. If you want to talk about it, I’m here. I promise.”
A shiver runs through me, the memories crashing like glass shards from the sky that splinter at my feet. No one knows what having to hide from your own family member is like unless you’ve been through it. Or having to walk on eggshells so you don’t poke the beast.
Immediately, his gaze softens. He moves toward me, grabbing my hands. “You’re right. Adam wanted to go out and I didn’t. I really only wanted to see you. Hold you. I’m sorry.”
I lift my shoulders because I really don’t know what to say. Zaiah isn’t my dad. I know that. Closing my eyes, I lean my head on his chest. His heartbeat thumps, reverberating through me until it’s all I can hear. “Losses happen in your line of work. We can figure something out. We have to.”
“We’ll make a new tradition. Something happier.”
His hands filter through my hair, and I smile against his shirt. “I like that.”
“You’ll have to help me come up with one because everything that springs to mind revolves around me taking you to bed.”
“Typical hockey player,” I tease, leaning back to look at him.
He bands his arms around my body, not letting me get too far away. He traces the lines of my face with his stare like he’s imprinting them to memory. “No, that’s not it at all. I’m addicted to you, Len.”
“Zaiah…”
“It’s true. I played like shit because I kept thinking about you in the stands wearing my jersey. Sneaking glances at you in my number when I should’ve been listening to Coach. Imagining your thighs wrapped around my head while I tasted you. You don’t understand what it did to me seeing you wear my name across your back. I wanted to stop the game and take you in the locker room.”
“And then?”
“No, take you, sweetie. Drive inside you until it felt as if we were the only two people in the world.”
All thought leaves my body.
“You’re blaming me for your poor play.”
“I’m blaming you for this feral need inside me.”
“No wonder you were slow off the puck.”
He grins. “Keep talking hockey to me and see what happens.”
He lowers his hand to my backside, pulling me to him while he rolls his hard cock into me.
The contact makes me shiver. This is all so surreal. That I could conjure up any of these feelings in Zaiah emboldens me. With his hand still pressed to my back, I wrap my legs around his hips. He lifts me effortlessly, as if I’m weightless, and carries me to the closest wall, positioning me on it as he once more proves how hard he is, his stiff length rubbing against my leggings.
“Penalty for high sticking,” I eke out, my mind a complete mess while it’s trying to process all of these emotions.
“God, I love your brain.” He moves in, claiming my mouth. Somehow, his lips and his hips work in tandem until I’m flooded with heat, arousal lapping at me. My own body moves with him until he pins me to the wall, breaking the kiss. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
He changes up the pace, using his fingers to circle my clit while I gulp in breaths. Slowly, he lowers me to my feet, but continues dropping until he’s on his knees. His hands inch upward, grabbing my waistband and pulling down.
Suddenly, Zaiah’s between my legs, kissing a trail up my thigh. “ Oh .”
“Is this okay?” he asks, eyes heavy. He pushes my thin panties aside, revealing more of my hip and kissing so close to the inside of my thigh where it meets the inferno currently firing.
I nod, my hips bucking into his mouth, and he moans deep, the sound near animalistic.
He hooks his fingers around my panties, tugging them out of the way. His hot breath hits my center. “Two minutes with this pretty pussy and I might die and go to heaven.”
He dives between my folds, licking straight up the middle, then curling his tongue around my clit.
“Zaiah,” I whisper, body moving of its own accord.
He tears himself away, staring at my center like a foodie drooling at a spread in front of him. I wiggle at his attention, and he pulls my leg and places it over his shoulder before surging forward once more.
I’m open to him. Bared. He takes his time, unlocking me like a puzzle, trying new things, but going back to the ones that curl my toes and the most unholy sounds leak out of my mouth.
“You taste so good, sweetie.”
Every time I attempt to move my hips against his face, he pushes them back to the wall. “I want to make you come all on my own. I want to hear you scream my name.”
I groan when he returns, working my body like he has the playbook in his back pocket. His lips, his tongue placed perfectly where I need them, molding me until I’m living for the moment.
“Zaiah,” I whisper as he brings me higher and higher. It’s like climbing a cliff in anticipation of the actual jump.
My limbs shake. I fist his hair while he flicks his tongue across my clit.
“Oh, baby. Come on my face.”
Holy shit. He works me higher, my body barreling forward. “I’m going to—”
He sighs and moans, and my lungs return the favor. The pants coming out of me would make me die of embarrassment if it wasn’t with him.
I pull his head closer until my nerve endings explode, and I shout, “Zaiah!” My scream echoes so loud it startles me, but the feeling is quickly replaced by undeniable pleasure.
His tongue slows as my body jerks into his mouth.
“Fuck, sweetie. I need you to wear my jersey every day.”
I laugh, my body convulsing, and then he moves my panties back into place before getting to his feet, his arm sweeping underneath my knees and carrying me to my room.
He lays me out on the bed, and it takes a while for my heart to return to normal. Zaiah’s wrapped me in his arms again, holding me.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
“If you say so.”
He kisses the top of my head. “It’s a new law of physics. When Lenore Robertson orgasms, flowers within a hundred-mile radius bloom.”
I chuckle. “You’re delusional.”
“Mmm,” he muses. “At least we found a new tradition.”
Lord help me, but I might’ve just wished he’d lose more often.