15. Shannon
CHAPTER 15
SHANNON
“That was too much wine,” Emery whispers from her towel beside me on the dock.
“Shhh.” My eyes are closed under my extra-dark sunglasses, and it’s still too bright for this conversation. Or any conversation.
Especially with Emery. Because while we did have fun last night, and I am going to intentionally include her more, I can’t help feeling inadequate compared to her. She’s so young, but she’s competed at the highest levels of sport, she got a degree, she’s starting her own business. She can hold her own in any conversation, about anything.
When I was her age, I was a glorified hooker. And other than marrying well, nothing else has changed in my life. I have failed at everything I have ever tried—including, it feels like, my marriage.
It’s a hot, still day on the lake, the kind of muggy humidity that encourages naps at the best of times, and this isn’t even the best of times.
The guys haven’t returned from golf and picking up the boat yet. I really should take advantage of the gym being empty to crank out a run, but Emery attached herself to my side as soon as she woke up, and I don’t like exercise to be a group activity.
A low drone in the distance catches my attention, a buzz along the water that gets louder as it gets closer.
“Is that them?” I ask, not lifting my head.
I’ll let the eager youngster check.
“Looks like it, yep.” She jumps up and waves.
Water slaps against wooden pillars, splashing as the engine is cut. Someone leaps from the boat to the dock.
“Let’s tie it up. I need some lunch before we go out again.” That’s Max. “Hun, we’re back.”
I wave my hand in the air as Emery picks up her towel and announces that she’s on it, lunch will be ready soon.
More footsteps. Laughter.
And then quiet again, and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Just me and the sun, at last.
Me, the sun, and my thoughts about last night, a kaleidoscope of intense feelings. Frustration, reckless confidence, unexpected curiosity, and underneath it all, a persistent longing for something different, something I can’t even properly name, but something I know will cost me everything I currently have—all the safety and security I have carefully gathered the way a squirrel hoards nuts.
It’s all too much to make sense of. None of it is what I thought this weekend would be. I desperately wish I could smash a pause button and just…think.
This moment to myself is as close as I’m going to get to that.
But then there’s a creak, followed by heavy, slow footsteps approaching.
Not alone after all.
“Are you coming up to the house for lunch?”
I blink my eyes open as a shadow falls over me.
Russ is silhouetted against the sun, his broad shoulders and long legs stretching him endlessly in all directions, until he’s all I can see. Blotting out the sun.
I look up at him through my sunglasses. “Your girlfriend drank me under the table last night. I need a bit more sun and lake time before I consider food.”
“She has four older brothers,” he says apologetically. “It wasn’t a fair fight.”
“I’m not complaining. She’s lovely.” I gingerly sit up, since we’re apparently having a conversation.
He squats next to me, bringing himself closer to my level. “She said the same thing about you when she came to bed last night.”
I try to picture them having whispered pillow talk at the other end of the hall. Max was passed out when I came to bed, and I’d been relieved, because it meant we didn’t need to discuss Francois.
I change the subject. “How was golf?”
“Your husband won.”
Now it’s my turn to sound apologetic. “He does that a lot.”
Russ laughs under his breath. “Yeah.”
I roll onto my knees, then he helps me rise to my feet. Standing this close, he’s huge, and he makes me feel shorter than my five-feet-nine-inches. “I might have a swim, see how the water feels.”
He raises his eyebrows raise. “By yourself?”
“It’s not like it’s deep here.” I gesture at the lapping lake. “By swim, I mean immerse myself in the water and hold very still. And then climb out and lay very still on this towel again.”
“Okay, now you’re making me feel bad because my date gave you alcohol poisoning. I’ll stay and play lifeguard, just in case.”
“Oh God no, please don’t feel bad.” I sway my shoulder towards his. Not brushing against his skin, not that close, just being more inviting in my tone and body language. I don’t want him to think I’m whiny. “Seriously, I started it. My only regrets are of my own actions. Emery was a delight.”
“Still, as the homeowner, I’m going to insist on safety first.” From behind his sunglasses it looks like he winks, but I can’t be sure.
Arguing seems futile and ungrateful, so I decide to just be quick in the water.
Instead of jumping off the dock where the water is deepest, I go down the ladder on the side. Large, smooth rocks greet my feet on the lake floor, stabilizing me. The immersion feels good, even as the briskness of the lake takes my breath away for a second. I force myself to start moving along the dock until I get to the end, where I can just touch with my tiptoes and he can see me from where he’s sitting.
Since he insists on playing lifeguard, I might as well play by his rules.
“Haven’t drowned yet,” I say, infusing the words with bright cheer.
“I can see that. How’s the water?”
“It’s nice.”
“I can tell from your teeth chattering how nice it is.”
I laugh in surprise at the dry tease in his voice.
When nobody else is around, Russell Armstrong has an unexpected edge to him. It’s not bad. It’s just…dangerous for me. Poor Russ is just caught on the periphery of my secret life crisis and he has no idea.
“It is both cold and nice,” I insist.
“Sure.” He’s laughing now, too.
So I splash him.
“Hey now,” he warns. And the slightly stern rebuke practically demands that I send a spray of lake water his way again.
He stands and puts his hands on his hips. “There’s no splashing in the lake, young lady.”
I laugh out loud. “Emery called me old last night, you know.”
He groans.
“She called you old, first. Then apologized to me, and I made sure to explain that I’m not nearly as old as you are.”
His mouth falls open. “All right. Okay. I see how it is. Hungover Shannon is quietly sassy, huh?”
“What? Me? Never.” I tip my face up to the sun, grinning.
Which is a mistake, because I don’t notice him peeling his shirt off. I only see the blur of movement as he launches himself in the air like a cannonball.
The lake erupts, a shockingly cold wave splashing over me. I lose my footing and sink under the dark surface.
I grab at my sunglasses, making sure they stay on as I try to find my footing again, straightening up. Gasping.
And when I’m finally balancing on a rock again, Russ is right in front of me, grinning broadly. Water droplets slide over thick, freckled shoulders, and big hands slice through the water, treading with ease.
“Why’d you do that?” I gasp.
His smile widens even further. “I’m a big fan of natural consequences. Splashers get splashed back.”
“I’m in a very delicate condition,” I point out. “That was dangerous.”
He laughs so loud it bounces across the lake surface. “You seem okay.”
“Do I?”
He tilts his head to the side, his own water-dappled sunglasses obscuring what I’m sure is a mocking gaze, and then comes closer, his hand catching my elbow under the water. “Do you need a rescue?”
Yeah. From the feelings that his teasing fingertips are eliciting from my traitorous skin.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
“That’s what I thought.”
“My sunglasses got wet, though.” I take them off, flicking the droplets everywhere. He takes them from me and swims back to the dock, setting them carefully on the boards. He puts his own next to them before diving under the water and swimming past me.
When he finally stands again, he’s out where it’s deep enough that it’s just his head above water. “You never know what’s going to happen on the lake.”
“Good to know,” I murmur back.
I should get out. I should go wrap myself in a towel, and then head up to the house.
Instead, I swim out a bit, tentatively testing my ability to tread water. Turns out, my hungover body doesn’t mind that at all. The cool flow of lake around me feels…nice.
Russ watches me for a beat, then heads out to a buoy, his long, thick arms slicing through the water.
I wait for him to return, but instead he turns and swims toward the neighbour’s wooden swim raft.
After glancing at the dock, I take off after him, cutting diagonally through the water, so I reach the ladder shortly after he does.
“Some lifeguard you are,” I tease when I climb out of the lake.
“You told me you were fine.” He shrugs, his big shoulders bunching and rolling.
It’s a pretty wide platform, but he takes up a lot of space on it anyway. I’m not sure where to sit, so I take a page from his book and jump off, canonballing into the lake. Splashing him again.
Natural consequences for looking the way he does. For making me notice how huge he is, with that reddish blonde hair dusting his chest. It narrows down the centre of his heavily muscled core, a fiery path of curls that disappears into the low slung waistband of his swim trunks.
I’ve never seen him without his shirt on, I realize dimly. He’s jacked in a super solid kind of way. Totally different to Max, who’s all lean, whipcord muscle.
I stay under the surface until my lungs burn, swimming all the way to the ladder in the quiet. When I burst back into the air and climb the rungs, he’s moved over.
I flop down on the other half of the floating dock.
“How do you think it’s going this weekend?” I ask. Changing the subject. Reminding myself of why we’re here.
He looks out across the water. At first, I think he might not answer. Then he shoves a hand through his hair. “It’s been good. Necessary. We aren’t as cohesive a team as some others I’ve been on.”
“How many has it been, seven?”
“This is my eighth team.” He says it matter-of-factly, but there’s something in his voice that grabs at me.
Like maybe he knows it’s his final team. “That’s a lot.”
He nods. “Max has only had the two, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Every team is different. Twice, I’ve done what Ty did last year, and join a team right at the trade deadline. Both times they were really gunning for the playoffs, and they were tight dressing rooms.”
I hear that same tension in his words again. “How far did you get in those playoff runs?”
“Conference finals both times. Lost both times, but they were good runs. I want to do that again.”
“Of course you do. And you will.”
He frowns and swipes at his beard.
“Are you going to shave for the season?” The question bursts out of me.
He did last year, most of the time. The beard didn’t come in until the playoffs. And even though they were only in it for one round, he kept it over the summer.
“Aye.” He tugs on the short strands. “I’m going to be an ambassador for Hockey Fights Cancer and grow a moustache for Movember, so I’ll have to shave at the start of that.”
“Are you superstitious about it?”
“My beard? No. I’ve never found any correlation between superstitions and success on the ice.” He pauses. “Well…”
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
But his expression, staring hard across the late, his brows tight, says otherwise. “Tell me.”
He chuckles. “No.”
“Come on. I’ve been around hockey a long time. I promise it won’t shock me. It can’t be weirder than needing to talk to your gear privately before the game. Or the year that two players both needed to put their jerseys on last.”
His eyebrows jerk up. “I missed that one. How did they settle that?”
“Simultaneous dressing. On the count of three. And then one of them got traded at the trade deadline.”
“It’s nothing like that.” He wipes his hand over his mouth. “I, uh, have just been thinking hard about how this my last chance at the Cup, and I got distracted last year. I’m not fooling myself about my role on the team or anything, I know I’m not the reason we lost, but I wasn’t the reason we won, either.”
“You want to make sure that you give it absolutely everything.” I’m nodding along. This isn’t a weird superstition at all. This is standard hockey player devotion. “That makes complete sense. That’s normal, Russ. It’s okay to put other priorities on hold. Is this about Emery?”
He jolts. “No. Not… No.” His brows pull tight and he takes a deep breath. “It’s not?—”
I wait.
He’s gone still, all of his muscles tense.
Slowly, he turns his head just enough to glance sideways at me.
I smile encouragingly. It’s okay. I know all about soothing the frustrated beast inside a hockey player.
“I have to give up the idea of something, something I want very much.” His gaze is careful, barely looking my way, but I feel his words in my chest. They’re loaded with frustration. “And it’s proving harder than I thought.”
“But if you give it up, it will free your energy to focus on this upcoming season?”
Without hesitating, he nods. “Aye.”
My heart squeezes for him. I try to think about what I know of this man. Not as much as I wish I did to give him the best guidance here. But at the end of the day, all hockey players are the same. Nothing else is as important as the ultimate prize. “You won’t regret giving the team everything you have.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
I shift my hand over so I can bump my fingers against his. When I touch him, he takes a big, deep breath.
“I know it’s a hard position to be in,” I say. “Are you thinking about the what ifs of the road not taken, maybe?”
His shoulders relax, and he nods again.
“Well, I’ve done it, and I can tell you that once I made the decision, I only felt relief. So one way to test yourself is to make the hard break, and see how it feels.”
He shifts to give me his full attention. “You’ve done what?”
“I’ve given up something I wanted—or what I thought I wanted—in order to get something else that I needed.” I hesitate. I never talk about the choice to trade my Single Girl Life for Married Life. Some of the details feel too raw, still, after all these years. And it feels like betraying Max to tell anyone that I had to change myself to seal the deal on getting married.
“What did you give up?”
I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does.”
I take a deep breath. “Actually, I think my whole life has been a cycle of giving up one version of myself to discover a new one. And all that matters is that I’ve never regretted it.”
Russ makes a thoughtful sound, then looks back out across the lake. “Was Tilman what you needed?”
All the air in my lungs punches out of me.
He snaps his gaze back to my face. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” I whisper. “And yes. He was.”
His finger nudges mine, in the same way I’d poked at him. “What was the previous version of yourself before him, then?”
“A party girl whose career never got off the ground. And that career had an expiration date, anyway.” I say it as lightly as possible, but I can feel the rest of the truth barrelling in fast and furious behind those words. “But she also had an incredibly wild social life. It was an intensely me period, where I got to fly my freak flag as high as I wanted.”
It’s bittersweet now to admit that I gave up my entire identity for the safety and security of being Max’s wife, when I’m on the cusp of what feels like another turning point where I’ll give up that reward that I sacrificed so much for in the first place.
And I’m so focused on that feeling that I don’t even realize I just told one of Max’s teammates that I miss being freaky.
Damn it.
I tense.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Russ says. “That’s just between us. It…helps, really.”
I exhale in relief. “Thank you. And I’m glad to hear that. Because if you don’t give it absolutely everything, I really think you’ll always wonder what could have been. Just focus on what you need right now. Don’t worry about what you wanted in the past.”
He bends his long legs, wrapping his arms around his knees. I miss the warm press of his finger against mine. I try not to stare at his freckled shoulders or the light dusting of hair on his chest, now disappearing into the shadow of his thick thighs.
We’re both silent for a good long stretch.
Then he looks at me again. “I should focus on what I need right now.”
I nod, a weird lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
His gaze is piercing. “You’re happy, right?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I dig deep and think about the last time that I was genuinely happy. “Moving from New York was scary. But I’ve found the best of friends here. I don’t regret any of that.” Then I think about the season to come, and I’m genuinely excited for them. “And now I get to cheer you on to victory this year.”
I don’t add that I think it’s better to go down a path, no matter what, even if you find out later it wasn’t the right one to get you where you want to go. That’s the kind of bitter realization that doesn’t taste any better if you’re pre-warned.
Standing, I stretch my arms over my head. “Is it deep enough to dive in here?”
“Aye,” he says, slowly rising, his gaze carefully tracking me.
Lifeguard, back on duty.
“Race you back to the dock,” I say lightly before launching myself into the air.
Even with the headstart, he catches me halfway. I splash at him, but it’s ineffective, and he reaches the shallow-enough-to-touch area first.
He’s grinning when I join him. “Nice try. Oh, watch?—”
A boat rips past.
Russ grabs my hand, hauling me past him, putting himself between me and the incoming big wave. I freeze, trying to grip the stone lake floor with my toes, and when the wave arrives, that doesn’t help at all. He surfs the big roll of water, but I flail and get pulled under.
The next thing I know, he’s lifting me back up to the surface, holding me against him, and all I can feel is his chest pressed against mine, his arms looped around my body. Plastered together, hearts pounding.
“You’re all right,” he says. A statement.
Lake water splashes all around us, cold and sharp.
I gasp and nod weakly.
“Shannon?”
I close my eyes and squeeze his shoulders. Smooth, tight skin. “Yes,” I whisper.
He lets me go, and I let myself get caught by the next wave, grateful for the cold now on my overheated skin.
He sinks, too, until we're both submerged up to our necks.
I bob along for a few moments, until my breath settles down, then climb out and wrap myself in my towel. I curl up on one of the chairs on the deck, which gives me an accidental front row seat for Russ hauling himself out of the lake, decorated with water droplets that glitter like diamonds. He looks wild and rugged and golden.
“How about now? Are you hungry yet?”
I lift my gaze to his face and shake my head with a nervous jolt. “No. Still need more sun.”
And some air.
He runs the towel over his head, making his damp hair sticking out and up in funny ways. His gaze lingers on my face, his brows tight. And then he grins, the concerned expression evaporating. Or maybe I imagined it, projecting more into a conversation about hockey than rightfully deserves to be there. “All right. See you up there. Or back here after, if you’re still recovering. But don’t forget to put on sunscreen if you stay out, okay?”
I nod mutely.
At least I didn’t ask him to put it on my back for me. I could hear myself saying that, too.
It’s like all the normal social bounds I’ve taught myself over the last eight years are falling away at lightspeed this weekend.
Once he’s gone, I focus on the hot, still air and the buzz of insects where the vegetation meets the edge of the lake. I close my eyes and I push away every single thought that threatens to intrude.
Freckles and big hands and thoughtful, careful watching.
He has a girlfriend.
It’s a major red flag that I care more about that than the fact that I have a husband.
But even more unsettling is how unbothered I am when that same husband appears not five minutes later, holding a smoothie.
“Emery says that you're feeling a bit hungover. She wanted me to bring you this,” he says.
I squint and take it from him. “Thanks.”
“Where are your sunglasses?” He glances about, and spies them still sitting on the dock.
I wait for a guilty lurch when I realize they aren’t alone. Russ’s sunglasses are with them, very close together. Touching, as if they were put down at the same time. Max frowns. Leaning over, he picks them both up and wordlessly hands mine over.
He doesn’t ask who the other pair belongs to.
I don’t volunteer the information.
“Maybe don’t drink that much again tonight, hmm?”
“Yeah.” I take another fortifying sip of smoothie. It’s delicious. I need to ask Emery for the recipe.
“Shan—”
“Don’t scold me, Max.” I stand up. I know that’s the main reason he agreed to bring the smoothie to me. I’m not being social enough. He’s paranoid I’m going to reflect badly on him somehow. That, and he never passes up an opportunity to impress a pretty girl who isn’t his wife. “We got a little carried away last night because we were bringing Emery into the fold. As Russ’s new girlfriend, there was a lot to discuss. The bonding was worth the headache, and now that I’ve had a good swim, and this delicious smoothie, that’s fading.”
I refuse to be chided. I haven’t done anything wrong.
Or at least, the mistakes I’ve made aren’t the things my husband wants to chastise me for.
He looks like he wants to say something else, but thinks better of it. We walk up to the house together in silence. The kitchen is quiet now, people upstairs and in their various corners. The house sounds busy, though, and when I see the pile of hockey bags at the front door, I remember that the plan was to go into town for the afternoon.
The real reason Max doesn’t want me to be hungover is that I’m expected to be a cheerleader today.