22. Russ
CHAPTER 22
RUSS
We had such a good afternoon session on the ice with Thea and Foster. The rookies were happy to show off for the team leaders, and Max was in his element as their captain.
But the second we get back to the house, he hears something he doesn’t like and Shannon disappears with him upstairs.
So much for a final team dinner together before Kieran, Harper, Kiley, and Ty hit the road.
Everyone pretends like they didn’t see the start of an argument, and there’s no yelling from upstairs, so I try to ignore the way I feel like clawing my way up there and demanding for Max to treat his wife better.
When Shannon emerges, her expression is perfect. A bright smile, full of warm goodbyes for the departing guests. “Max fell asleep,” she says apologetically. “We’ll see you back in Hamilton!”
The way she wears that mask is incredible.
She doesn’t make eye contact with me, though.
It’s the denial of her gaze that is the real tell, because ever since she’s arrived, she’s had no problem looking at me. Holding my attention. Sharing glances that even felt private, which I know is just me projecting my desire onto her, but it was something. Friendship, at the very least.
I watch her carefully as she curls up with Becca, Ani, and Emery on the couch. She doesn’t really make eye contact with any of them.
And when it’s time for the rest of us to head out to the party, it’s almost like she lets out a sigh of relief.
“Go,” Shannon urges when I hesitate to leave her essentially alone. “By the time you get back, Max will be up and ready for a late night bonfire.”
Something tells me that if we leave, they’re going to quietly depart before we get back. But I can’t force them to stay. I don’t even know what they were fighting about.
I nix taking the boat, because it’s dark and dangerous. Emery offers to be a designated driver by road, because she’s happy to party on seltzer water, and Malik is happy to let her drive his SUV that sits seven, and then Becca and Hayden ride over with Ani and Jenson.
It’s a short drive down the road that winds around the lake, walkable even, and when we pull in down the lane, there are easily twenty cars lining the drive. Music pulses from a terrace that promises to be just as big as mine.
“Let’s go,” Hiro says, leaping from the car.
There are a few other hockey players here, local Ontario boys home for the summer, and their extended crew. I lose names in a blur of introductions, but it doesn’t matter, that’s how many people are here.
Emery tugs me along, dancing her way to the middle of the terrace. “I could do this all night,” she hollers next to my ear.
“Dance?”
“Yeah!” She beams at me.
I stick by her side for a while, then drift away to find a drink, but the line at the bar is long and nothing in the grab-it-yourself coolers looks good.
I wander back to Emery, who has found a group of girls to dance with now.
I love that she beats to her own drum. Little Miss I Can Do It Myself, she finds joy in everything. And one day she’ll meet the right Mr. Sit Down and Let Me Help You, but whoever he is, he’s going to have to like dancing a hell of a lot more than I do.
I glance around.
And suddenly, all I want is to go home. Maybe check on Shannon. But at the very least, I’d be happier climbing into bed and putting a movie on. I’m done with socializing. I’m done with the loud noise and the constant awareness of how everyone else is feeling at my own expense.
“Hey, I might…”
I don’t think Emery hears me at first. Her eyes are closed and she’s singing along to the music.
But then she blinks up at me and smiles softly. “Not your scene?”
“Not at all,” I mutter. “I’m going to walk back.”
“You sure? I can give you a ride.”
“It’s a nice night for a stroll. Plus you’re probably blocked in already, the way this place is filling up. Text me if you need anything or if the cops get called.”
She snickers. “Never fear. And I’ll get your teammates home safe and sound at the end of the night,” she promises.
I don’t bother to let anyone else know I’m leaving.
It’s a quiet forty-five-minute walk back to my cottage, just my heels scuffing along the gravel side of the road and the occasional distant owl hoot.
Max’s car is still in the driveway, but all the lights in my house are turned off, so I assume Shannon ended up turning in and they’re asleep for the night.
Since I don’t want to wake them, I head around the side, planning to grab a beer from the bar fridge next to the grill, but I pull up short when I hear splashing in the pool.
Shannon is doing laps. I don’t want to startle her. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I stay in the shadows on the edge of the terrace.
It’s dark enough that I shouldn’t even know who’s swimming. All I can see is a long slim body slicing through the water. But I know it’s her in the same way I know when she enters a room even if my back is turned.
And right now, I can pretend for a second that she’s my wife, and this is our cottage. That I’ve come back from an evening skate or running an errand, and I’ve found my woman taking a late-night swim.
If she were mine, I’d strip down and join her. Catch her in the water and wind her around my body, tangling us together until it’s hard to tell where she ends and I begin. I’d taste her mouth and find out if her choice tonight was white wine, or gin, or apple cider for a change. I’d kiss her until she was breathless, and then?—
“That you, Shannon?”
Max steps out onto the terrace. He’s shirtless, wearing shorts and nothing else, his feet shoved into slides.
She swims to the side of the pool and hauls herself out of the water. “How was your nap?”
“Long, since you didn’t wake me up.”
“You said you were tired.” She sounds resigned, and a bitterness starts to churn in my chest.
Max watches as she wraps herself in a towel. “Everyone else is at the party?”
If I were in his shoes, I’d be drying her off myself. Every last inch getting careful attention.
He doesn’t appreciate his wife nearly enough.
“Yeah, they’ve been gone an hour and a half.”
“You didn’t want to go talk to the podcast kid?”
“Don’t start again. I told you it’s just an idea I’m working on.”
“One you kept from me.”
“Because you never support me in anything I do.” Her voice raises at the end, sounding frustrated.
“It’s not that I don’t support you. It’s that I think we need to work together and have shared goals. If you’d asked me, I’d have pointed out why a podcast isn’t a good fit for you. I support you in good ideas, hun. That’s just not one of them.”
I ball my fists at my side, waiting for her reply. He’s fucking playing her. Saying things that sound reasonable until you actually listen to the words themselves.
But silence is her only response.
“Hey, so…” He clears his throat. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about this, but there’s some exciting stuff happening with a new league.”
Again, he waits for a reply. And even in the moonlight, I can tell she’s not going to say anything. She’s gone very, very still.
“My agent thinks I should consider a move at the end of this season, if the timing works out. If I can jump to the Ice League, get announced as the first star player, it could be a real legacy statement.”
What the fuck?
We share an agent, and I haven’t heard fuck all about this—but this isn’t a contract year for me, and I’m not really at the level to have any kind of legacy beyond being a legend to the two hundred people in my hometown back in Scotland.
“It’s just…it would need to be the right deal. Something that would justify the reputational risk.”
“Is anyone else going to the new league?” Shannon asks.
Max snorts. “Kieran won’t let them even discuss it. He shut it down as soon as the news broke. Says he doesn’t want anyone to get burned, but you know that guy just sucks the commissioner’s cock.”
You fucking idiot , I think. Kieran fucking tried to stop the chatter for this exact fucking reason. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
Blood roars in my ears and I miss the next exchange, but whatever they said, Shannon isn’t happy. “I don’t think?—”
“Hear me out.”
“It has nothing to do with me,” she whispers. Not to keep quiet, because there’s nobody else here. It sounds defensive and shocked at the same time, and raises my alarm.
“Well, it has something to do with you, doesn’t it?” Max sounds…smarmy. “When was the last time that you talked to Dumas?”
The billionaire? Confused, I lean forward, trying not to miss anything.
“I haven’t, Max. I don’t. I wouldn’t.” She puts a heavy emphasis on the last word.
“Maybe you should.” He closes the gap between them and tugs on the ends of her towel, pulling her against him. He lowers his head, hovering his mouth over hers. “Maybe you should go and visit him, for me.”
“What are?—:”
He cuts her off, kissing her roughly.
“Max, no.” She twists her head away and he kisses her temple next. I stake a step forward, my fists drawing up. Ready. I miss what she says next, the words carrying in the wrong direction, away from me.
“Just a friendly dinner,” he says. “A weekend in New York. Do some shopping?—”
“I’m not going to New York.” She ducks out of the towel, leaving it in his hands, and she paces away from him. Her long, bare limbs are visibly shaking, just like her voice. “I can’t believe you would think?—”
“It’s nothing you haven’t done before.”
“Fuck you,” she snarls.
My spine snaps straight up. Have I ever heard Shannon Tilman angry?
She turns on him. “I am not for you to trade away.”
Max sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did. I’m not stupid.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“Yes, you do. You wouldn’t ask me to do this if you hadn’t already talked about it with someone. Who was it? Your agent? Or did you speak to Francois directly? What did you tell him? Shannon would love to catch up with you. I’m sure I can arrange for her to come to New York.”
When he doesn’t reply, she laughs. “Damn it, I’m right, aren’t I? For fuck’s sake, Max, it wouldn’t even help you, don’t you see that?”
“How do you know it wouldn’t help?”
“Because I know him!” She throws her arms wide. “I know his world! I know my value in it, and I promise you, it’s not what you think. Definitely less than when I was young and beautiful.”
“You’re still beautiful.”
“Fuck off.” She resumes pacing, then stops again. Furious. “ Who the fuck are you to whore me out?”
“I’m your God damned husband,” he roars. “Treat me with the respect I deserve. I’m fighting for our future.”
“Our future is set , you selfish bastard.”
“My next contract isn’t going to be as good?—”
“You have more money than?—”
“I have nothing compared to him.” Max’s voice has taken on a sulky tone that I recognize from the end of the last season. He’s not a good loser at the best of times.
But I can’t make sense of what I’m hearing.
Max thinks the Ice League is a better bet for the next stage of his career? He is fucking stupid if that’s the case.
And the way he’s treating Shannon is unacceptable. I’ll stay in the shadows as long as she seems to be holding her own and getting some kind of cathartic release out of yelling at the dipshit, but the second he makes her cry, I’m intervening.
“Him, who?” Shannon gives Max a look I can’t quite decipher in the moonlight. “Francois?”
“Do me a favour, wife, and stop being so fucking familiar about him if you won’t spread your legs for him one last time.”
She gasps.
I take a big step forward out of the shadows, but they don’t notice me.
He hangs his head. “Fuck.”
“I hate you,” she whispers.
“Don’t say that.”
“I want a divorce.”
He laughs. “Fuck. Definitely don’t say that.”
“We’re broken beyond repair, Max.”
“Come here.” He drops the towel and moves to her.
I freeze, wondering if he’ll spot me, but he’s focused on her—and from the look on his face, he knows he’s truly fucked up here.
He catches her hand and pulls her in against him.
“Max, don’t…” She sighs, and I tense, ready to charge to her rescue, but then he’s kissing her, and she brings their hands up, their fingers tangling.
She’s not stopping him.
She’s deepening their kiss, because of course she is. She’s his wife and this was just a fight.
Being married to Max Tilman probably means a stupid divorce-threatening fight once a month, followed by make-up sex.
Pain burns in my chest.
I need to walk away, now .
He pushes his hands into her hair, their kiss turning desperate. Then he picks her up, her legs going around his waist, and he carries her to one of my wide sun beds the girls got so much use out of this weekend.
That’s my opportunity to leave.
I don’t take it. I’m frozen to the spot, furious and unable to look away, as Max unties her bikini top, freeing his wife’s breasts.
I can’t see them, her back is still to me, but…
Fuck.
Fuck .
He fills his hands and groans, then he dips his head and gives her tits attention until her head falls back.
In the still of the night, I can hear her panting.
“I’m sorry, hun. You know I’m sorry, right?”
“Show me,” she whispers up to the night sky. “Show me that you’re sorry.”
Her breathy plea is the jolt I need to leave them alone. I take a step back—right onto a twig that snaps louder than a gunshot.
Max jerks his head up, looking past Shannon’s shoulder to make undeniable eye contact with me.
He wipes his mouth. “You looking at my wife, Armstrong?”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” I grind out.
“It’s fine.” He cups his hands possessively over her arse, keeping her straddled over his lap as he smirks at me. “You want to join us?”