Alex (9 page)

“I’m pretty good next week. A few appointments, but I’m flexible.”

“Want to come watch our Sunday afternoon practice? Then we can go grab something to eat and start plotting how we’re going to save at-risk kids around the world?”

I throw my head back and laugh, because I’m liking this side of Alex. The one that can joke around even while discussing something serious. “Maybe we should start with Wake County, then we can build outward from there.”

With my eyes still crinkled in amusement, I see he’s staring at me, his head angled to the side a bit. “You know you’re extremely beautiful, but when you laugh you’re just stunning.”

My smile slides from my mouth and my eyes go round, even as my heart starts slamming inside my chest. His words are sweet yet his tone is slightly erotic, and it causes my skin to prickle with awareness.

“Alex—” I begin but he cuts me off.

“I told you I’m painfully honest,” he murmurs, his eyes coloring with dark intensity again.

“We can’t…this is professional. We can’t cross that line,” I say, with absolutely no conviction in my voice. I want him to tell me I’m wrong, and he sort of does.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Maybe, maybe not?” I ask, confused over this philosophical approach he’s taking. “How about ‘not’?”

“Maybe,” he says with a mischievous grin.

“Huh?”

Standing up from the bench abruptly, Alex takes from me the trash I had balled up in my hand and walks over to a nearby garbage can, depositing it all inside. Turning back to me, he says, “Come on. I’ll walk you back so I can get that binder from you and then I have to head home and pack. Are we good for Sunday?”

I just nod at him, not trusting myself to speak. Because I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I’ll spout some sort of nonsense like “We should only meet during office hours.”

Alex flashes me another huge smile, and again, it seeps inside and possesses me completely. I shouldn’t want that feeling, but God help me…there’s a part of me screaming to just roll over and submit to it.

And…my second date with Brandon goes a little something like this.

I arrive ten minutes late at the small Italian restaurant we had agreed on because my last counseling appointment of the day ran over. I had sent Brandon a text to let him know I was running behind, to which he responded,
I got here ten minutes early so I’m waiting.

Up until that moment, I had forgotten that Brandon was a stickler for punctuality. Not that that was a bad thing, but don’t add your early arrival time to my lateness to measure your discontent over having to wait.

Needless to say, that one text soured my mood, and by the time I follow the hostess back to our table, where Brandon is waiting for me, I’m ready for a fight. Brandon, ever the gentleman, stands when I approach and helps me out of the lightweight jacket I threw on because the air had turned cool.

“You look nice,” he says as he does a quick rake of his eyes over me. Sort of pales in comparison to Alex saying words like
beautiful
and
stunning
today.

“Thanks. So do you.”

And he does…with his khaki pants, blue button-down shirt. I think it’s the standard uniform for engineers or something, but he’s just so…tidy and put together. His hair is perfectly combed, he’s freshly shaven, and oh, God—he’s the exact opposite of everything that attracts me about Alex.

I peer hard at Brandon and try to remember what it was that attracted me to him. He was always so kind and considerate, a true gentleman to the core. That was sexy to me, right?

No answer pops out at me, and before the waiter can even arrive to take our drink order, I do something that I wonder if I will regret until the day I die.

I reach across the table and take Brandon’s hand in mine. “Brandon…I’m not really sure what it is we’re doing, but I don’t know that we can have a relationship again.”

Brandon’s eyebrows furrow in and his lips draw downward. “I can’t believe I’m ready to move forward with a relationship and you’re not.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling it. It doesn’t seem right to me,” I tell him honestly.

“Doesn’t seem right? Sutton, we spent almost four years together. We were good together.”

“
Were
being the key word,” I tell him gently…honestly. “That’s the past and I’m sorry…but you just don’t seem to fit into my future.”

“Is there someone else?”

“No,” I tell him firmly, because there’s not. Secret fantasies about another man don’t count. “I just think I’ve changed a lot since we were together, and I don’t know that you can give me what I need.”

“How do you know until you try? Please give us a shot, Sutton,” he says urgently, his hand gripping mine tightly. “Let me at least have a chance to get you back.”

Oh, God…I must have changed a lot. A year ago, Brandon begging me to let him woo me would have hit all my buttons. Now, the type of wooing I would like might involve a hot hockey player throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me to his bedroom. Which is so unrealistic but certainly a thrilling prospect. Maybe I should get to have my chance to sow my wild oats. I haven’t been trying very hard over the last year to do that, and as I reflect on why that is, it’s certainly not because I’ve been waiting for Brandon. He rarely crossed my mind.

No, I realize that I’ve done no sowing because it just hasn’t been a priority for me. I’m twenty-two, have a new career that I adore and that takes up all of my time, and I’ve had no real desire to fall back into a relationship again. I’ve done some casual dating, but there’s not been anyone that has rocked my world. Not the way that I bet Alex Crossman could.

Get your mind out of the gutter, Sutton.

“Brandon…I don’t know,” I hedge, because maybe I need to give him some sort of shot. We were happy together, and maybe I’m just stuck too deep in this odd attraction to Alex that probably will go no further than a mutual business relationship.

“Just stay for dinner…let’s talk. Get to know each other again. We’ll take it slow, be friends if that is what you want.”

I rake my eyes over Brandon’s face. It’s sincere, no doubt. He wants a chance at me, and while he broke my heart, he did it in about the most honest, upstanding way a man can. He never asked me to wait, and I didn’t. But I didn’t move on. Maybe I was still in the same place because this is where I’m supposed to be, and maybe Brandon is an opportunity that I’m supposed to consider.

Trying to push thoughts of Alex firmly to the back of my brain, I remove my hand from Brandon’s and pick up my menu. “Okay, I’ll stay for dinner and we’ll try to start out as friends and see where this goes.”

Brandon beams a sparkling smile my way and says, “You won’t regret it, Sutton. I’ll make you fall for me again.”

I take another pull on my beer and place the bottle on the bar. Looking down at the brunette that’s been attached to my arm all night, I try to figure out how to ditch her—politely, of course, because, dammit, Sutton is apparently inspiring the good in me.

What started out as me and Garrett hitting a local hole-in-the-wall bar in downtown Toronto has turned into an orgy waiting to happen. We hadn’t been in here two minutes before he had a swarm of women all over him, and of course, he didn’t mind pawning the brunette off on me. But I didn’t come out tonight to get laid, which is odd, because it would be nothing for me to pick up a one-night stand during an away game. I have no formal commitments to anyone and I have always been up front with Cassie that she wasn’t the only woman to warm my bed. I remember her laughing at me when I said that, to which she responded, “Yeah, but I’m the most frequent.”

That was true enough, so no need to argue.

At any rate, I signal for the bartender to cash me out. Dislodging the dark-haired beauty’s hold on my arm, I spin around and clap Garrett on the back. He’s bent over, his lips pressed near a blonde’s ear, most likely whispering sweet nothings that are so not needed to get him laid tonight. When he turns his eyes my way, I say, “Hey, man, I’m heading back to the hotel.”

His eyes flick to the brunette and then back to me, so I add, “Alone.”

Garrett’s eyebrows go sky-high and he steps away from the blonde to turn fully to me. “What’s the deal, man? Your dick broken?”

“No.”

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“So why not take that chick behind you? She’s willing.”

Shrugging my shoulders, I notice the bartender approach with my bill and I hand my credit card over to him, not even bothering to look at the total. I only had two beers and I think I bought the brunette two drinks as well.

“Just not interested,” I tell him.

“What’s bothering you?” he asks, and I actually flinch at the question. I’ve never had a teammate ask me something personal before. Most take my surly, introverted character to heart, which means they stay just as guarded as I do. I look hard at Garrett and try to figure out what his game is.

But he just returns my stare, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a touch of concern in his eyes.

Fucking weird.

“Nothing. Just a shitty night” is all I offer.

“We fucking pounded Toronto and you scored a hat trick tonight. How can that be shitty?”

The bartender returns with the credit card ticket and I scrawl a tip and my signature, handing it back to him while I pocket my card.

Turning to Garrett, I look him dead in the eye and say simply, “My dad showed up. Nothing good ever comes of that.”

I turn away before I can even gauge the expression on his face from my admission. I’ve never talked about my dad to anyone, and I’m surprised I let that out. But I’m definitely not about to talk about it further, so I walk away from Garrett, the brunette whose name I’m not sure I even got, and the half empty beer I hadn’t bothered to finish.

I easily hail a cab within just a few moments, and then I’m in the back with my head resting on the seat, eyes closed. I hate playing in Toronto. It’s only about an hour away from my hometown of Hamilton, which means my dad will be at the game.

I have to suffer through his voice mails after every game, criticizing and cutting into me with all of my faults. Then I have to suffer while he drones on and on about what I need to do to improve. I have to suffer when he calls me lazy, arrogant, worthless—all things I heard growing up, but fuck…it wears thin on a man, especially when it was practically beaten into me when I was younger. My dad can’t use his hands on me anymore. He has no say-so on how I train or what I do. So the only way he still tries to have power over me is with those fucking phone calls, and I hate them with all my soul.

Yes, I have to suffer that all year long, but it’s still nowhere near as bad as having to see my dad in person those few times I play in Toronto.

I had my obligatory ticket waiting for him at Will Call this afternoon, so I knew exactly where he’d be seated. I didn’t even need to look over at him when I’d scored my third goal and hats came raining down on the ice, to know that he’d just be sitting in his chair, his face stony. He never cheered me on. He expected the best, but was never happy when I gave it. That boiled down to the mere fact that he was jealous of the creature he had created.

My dad drowned his sorrows in vodka for as long as I can remember. Those sorrows included losing his wife and my mother to cancer when I was just three years old and Cam was eight, as well as not being good enough to make it into the NHL. He floundered around the minors for a few years before he was released from his contract. That was about the time good old Dad decided Cameron and I were going to be professional hockey players.

Fortunately for Cameron—yes, fortunately—he had no natural talent, and after playing only one season, he was promptly forgotten and Dad turned all his attention on me.

Beyond getting my dad a ticket to the game, the other obligation I had to fulfill was meeting him for dinner. I could have come up with some excuse or another to bag out on him, but I made myself go. I made myself suffer his presence for an hour, so I could remind myself why I would never let him completely into my life again.

Dinner started off as well as could be expected. We talked about his part-time job delivering newspapers, which was okay for about five minutes. Then that turned into a bitch-fest, during which he sucked down a double vodka tonic. This led to him complaining that I wasn’t sending enough money to live on, despite the fact that I pretty much pay all of his bills. His part-time job was to buy his liquor, because I wasn’t about to support that habit. I held firm in my refusal to send him some extra cash each month, which made him angry and caused him to suck down another double shot.

By the time our food and his third drink arrived, we got down to brass tacks and talked about the game.

“Your ‘C’ cuts are looking sloppy,” he told me, his words clear and sure. He wouldn’t start slurring until about the sixth drink, and hopefully we’d be done with dinner before then.

“Duly noted,” I said, because it didn’t do any good to argue with him.

“And your wrist shot is weak. You’re not transferring your weight quick enough.”

“That’s exactly what my coach said,” I agree, even though Coach said no such thing. My wrist shot is fucking perfect. Got me a hat trick tonight as a matter of fact, but I didn’t bother pointing that out either.

“Stop humoring me,” my dad growled. “Fucking man up and admit your weaknesses.”

I watched my dad for a moment as he glared at me. Red spider veins shone angry against the pale skin of his nose, his cheeks flushed cherry from the vodka and his temper. He was a fucking alcoholic who was angry at the world and angry with me because he wants what I have.

These meetings between my dad and me never ended well, because there would always come a point where I would get tired of his harassment and let him have it.

Leaning across the table, I spoke quietly for only his ears. “You want me to man up, Dad? How about this—I’m fucking tired of you taking out your woes on me.”

“What?” my dad sputtered. “I’m not taking my woes out on you. I’m making you a great player. I made you what you are today.”

“Yeah, Dad,” I said urgently, leaning in a little farther. “You did make me what I am today. A fucking professional hockey player who fucking hates playing hockey. But imagine what you could have created if you’d given a little bit of praise…a little bit of affirmation. You made me hate this game. You and you alone.”

“You love the game as much as I do,” my dad scoffed, slurping heavily on his fourth double vodka.

“No, Dad, I don’t. You made me despise it, the way I despise sitting here listening to your drunken shit.”

My dad had never been one to take criticism. His already red cheeks blistered hotter and he seethed, “You should be thanking me for all I’ve done. You’d be nothing without me.”

I looked at my dad and tried to find an ounce of sympathy for him, but my heart was black with bitterness and rage. Standing from the table, I threw a couple hundred-dollar bills down. “I
am
nothing, Dad. And that’s solely because of you.”

When I make it back to my hotel room, I strip down to my boxers and crawl on top of the bed. Our flight to Montreal leaves early and I’m exhausted. Not from the game, not from the beer and a half I had, but from dealing with my dad. He takes it out of me like nothing else can.

Reaching over to the nightstand, I grab my iPhone where I had left it charging prior to the game. Turning it on, I see there’s already a voice mail from my dad. I hit the “Play” button and listen.

He definitely must have had his sixth drink before calling because his voice is slurred and almost unintelligible. But I’ve had years of listening to drunk John Crossman, so I was able to translate.

Alex…buddy. I’m sorry. I tried the best I could. You know that, right? I only wanted you to be the best. And you could be, if you just tighten up a little bit. Put more hours in—

I hit the delete button without listening to the rest. That zebra will never change his stripes. My dad was never good enough, no matter how hard he tried or how much he practiced. Now he’s projected that on to me. I’ll never be good enough for my dad’s expectations, but that’s his cross to bear, not mine. I just wish Dad realized I was good enough.

I mean, hello…NHL career here.

Flipping over to my texts, my heart starts hammering when I see one from Sutton. It’s actually a series of three texts.

I just learned what a hat trick was. Congrats!

Just for good measure, I ran into my bedroom, grabbed my Durham Bulls baseball hat, and threw it at the TV.

You were amazing tonight.

I read back over the texts two more times, my mouth involuntarily pulling upward in a smile. I can just imagine her throwing her hat at the TV to celebrate my hat trick.

Hilarious.

My thumb idly grazes over her words on the screen and I take stock of the warmth they bring to me. It’s the first time I’ve had a friend who has taken pride in what I do. I’ve certainly never had a family member do it. I don’t recall my dad ever handing out praise and I’m not even sure if Cam has seen one of my games.

And Sutton…well, I suppose she may be the first friend I’ve ever had. Even though my thoughts where she’s concerned stray far past what would be considered friendly.

It’s getting late and I have no clue if she’ll see this tonight, but I go ahead and text her back.

Thx. So it appears you’re a real hockey fan now, huh?

I hit the send button then swing my legs off the bed to grab a water from the mini-fridge. Before I can even stand up, I get a text back.

Yup. My fav player is #67.

Leaning back onto the bed, I forget the water and decide to engage in some conversation with the lovely Miss Price. Before I can respond though, she says,

I dont understand why that goal was disallowed.

Ah. She wants to learn some hockey but that’s too complicated to do by text. So before I can talk myself out of it, I pull up her name in my contacts and hit her number.

She answers on the second ring. “Hey, Mr. Hat Trick.”

“Hey, Miss Curious About Hockey.”

“You played awesome tonight,” she gushes. “I was so confused when people started throwing hats on the ice. I had to go Google what in the hell a hat trick was.”

Chuckling, I say, “Then I’m surprised you didn’t Google your question about that disallowed goal.”

“Nah. Why would I do that when I have an inside connection to a real live professional hockey player.”

“Good point,” I tell her. “So, you can normally deflect a puck off your stick into the net, but it won’t be allowed if you raise your stick higher than the crossbar on the net.”

“What’s the purpose behind that?”

“An attempt to keep players safe…keep sticks away from faces. They put in rules to make us keep our sticks down low to help prevent facial injuries.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” she says softly. “So, what are you doing right now?”

“Lying in bed. You?”

“Same,” she murmurs and my imagination takes off. I can see her clear as day, lying naked on a bed of satin with her red hair splayed out all around. My cock twitches at the thought and I wonder if I could carry on a conversation with her while jacking off to that image in my mind.

Sutton interrupts those lewd thoughts though when she says, “Teach me something else.”

“Like what?”

“How about…teach me about the various penalties,” she suggests.

I settle back against the headboard of the hotel bed, masturbation forgotten, and we talk for the next thirty minutes about hockey penalties and the resulting consequences. It’s only when she yawns into the phone that I realize it’s just past midnight and I have to be up in about five hours to get ready for my flight.

“It’s getting late,” I tell her. “We should catch some sleep.”

“You’re right. I can’t believe we talked that long.”

I could keep talking all night with her,
I think to myself, and all of a sudden, I wonder for a fleeting but desperate moment, what it would be like to have someone like Sutton all to myself. To have someone who was mine, and I was hers, and we’d stay up for hours at night talking on the phone. I wonder because, sadly, I’ve never had a serious relationship with a woman in my entire life. I’ve never even had a five-minute conversation on the phone with a woman, much less a half-hour conversation.

“You still coming to watch our practice Sunday?”

“I’ll be there. Did you finish reading the binder?”

“Most of it. I’ve jotted down some ideas we can talk about when we meet.”

“Awesome,” she says. “Thanks for doing that, Alex.”

“No problem. Thanks for not bashing me over the head with that binder. I’ve given you a few reasons to do that.”