Dropping Gloves (4 page)

No insanity plea necessary.
Jamie Babcock
, bracketed by a couple of red emoji hearts, lit up on the screen in front of my favorite picture of him. Blue eyes smiling at me, light brown hair in his trademark faux hawk, both dimples peeking out, and the hint of a blush pinking up his cheeks. I’d had that image on my phone since well before he’d asked to take me to my prom. I’d found it on the Internet somewhere during his rookie season. It was one of those iconic pictures, the sort that sums up everything you love about a person in a single shot. This one had all his kindness, his shyness, the underlying confidence that never crossed over into ego. Looking at this shot always sent my heart pitter-pattering. I supposed Dad wasn’t the only one who could make me feel like I was a teenager again, although I didn’t mind it so much coming from Jamie.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to zap the agitation from my tone. I had no earthly idea why Jamie was calling me, though. He hadn’t done it in years—not since the day I’d told him I was leaving for Hollywood. At first, I’d looked for this picture to pop up on my phone more times than I could count. But it hadn’t happened, so I’d given up on the idea before too long. I could have called him, of course, but I had the impression that he didn’t really want to hear from me or else he would have called. “Hi, Jamie,” I said once I thought I had my head on straight. “What…?”

“Last night, your dad mentioned he thought you were going to be in town through the weekend,” he said after a minute, saving me from figuring out what I wanted to ask him.

“Yeah. I’ll be around for a while.” I would definitely be here longer than just the weekend, especially now that I didn’t even have an agent anymore. But seeing as how I hadn’t filled my parents in on all of that yet, I didn’t know if I should tell Jamie. Particularly since I wasn’t sure what he wanted.

“Can I… I mean, is there a chance I could get together with you sometime this weekend? I could take you out for coffee Saturday afternoon or something like that.”

He wanted to get together with me? Coffee wasn’t a date, but it was a heck of a lot better than the awkward conversations we’d had when I was in town over the last four years. I didn’t have the first clue where this was leading, but I’d be an idiot not to see it through.

“Sure. Coffee sounds good.” I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Dani while she was home, but she would understand if I carved out a few hours to be with Jamie.

“You’re staying at your parents’ house? I can come pick you up at three.”

“Three’s great.”

We finalized our plans and hung up, and I was in a much better mood when I called Dr. Oliver’s office. They were able to work me in for Monday morning—soon enough to appease Dad but not so soon that I would start panicking until after I’d gotten together with Jamie, an event that was likely to cause a bit of panic in and of itself. I should be able to push it all from my mind until after my sister left on Sunday afternoon. It should work out for everyone.

I was already confused about what I wanted before Jamie had called, though. Now… Now I feared I would never be able to separate
what I wanted
from
Jamie
.

Although I wasn’t so sure that was a bad thing.

The last time
I parked in this driveway to pick Katie up had been the night of her prom. Sitting here with the engine running and my hands in a death grip on the steering wheel, I couldn’t help but replay that night over and over in my mind. It was already at the forefront of my thoughts and had been ever since the game on Thursday, when she’d walked back into my life, as she had so many times before.

Ever since then, I’d been attempting to prepare myself for the moment she walked out of it again.

It was coming. It always did. She showed up here and there to visit her family, but her life wasn’t in Portland anymore. And that brought up a harsh truth: I wasn’t part of her life. Not really. I might have been at one point, but these days I was just one of the guys on the team her dad coached. She was friendly enough to me when she came. She smiled at me and talked with all the animation and enthusiasm for life that she’d always had, and she kissed me on the cheek the same as she would with just about any of the boys. But then she always returned to her other life, to the glitz and glam of Hollywood and the lure of a career doing the things she loved. The things she was meant to do.

I couldn’t blame her for that, for wanting to live out her dreams. I was doing the same thing here. There’d never been anything in my life I’d wanted more than to play in the NHL. When I was a kid, it had always seemed like a pipe dream, something that would prove to be out of my reach. Yet here I was, in my seventh season with the Storm and my first as the team’s captain.

I had a great life. I had a job that half the guys growing up in Canada wished they had, I got to play on a team with one of my brothers, another brother might get a chance to play in the league at some point this season—albeit with a different team—I had a fantastic family who loved me, I earned more money than I would ever know what to do with… The list of things that made my life seemingly perfect went on and on.

Yet the only thing I could focus on since Katie had showed up a couple of days ago was the one thing I
didn’t
have.

Katie.

I’d tried dating other girls in the last few years, but I couldn’t seem to put my heart into it. That wasn’t fair to them or to me. It
really
wasn’t fair when I was dating one of them and Katie would pop up somehow. I always got sullen and sulky at those times, enough that I could tell it for myself without someone pointing it out to me, and I wore my broken heart on my sleeve. It wasn’t their fault I was unable to love anyone but Katie, but I took it out on them. Then she would waltz back to Portland, like she had a few days ago. Sometimes she would have an asswipe boyfriend on her arm; other times it was just her. Either way, she would tell me she wanted us to be friends. She wanted us to go on like nothing had ever happened between us. Like she didn’t have her hand circled around my heart. Like she wasn’t squeezing the life out of it every time she left.

That was why I’d asked to see her today. Not to get her back—that ship had sailed a long time ago—but to find a way to get my head on straight again. I couldn’t afford to have my focus divided every time she showed up in Portland or I saw her on TMZ and it took me by surprise. I needed to put a true end to whatever we had once been. I didn’t know if I could be her friend when something as simple as seeing her, talking to her, hurt like a son of a bitch.

My cell buzzed on the center console. I glanced down to see a text message from Webs.

You coming in, or are you waiting on a personal invitation? Should I send someone out to escort you?

I didn’t know if he had any idea why I was really here. He hadn’t said anything at practice about me taking Katie out for coffee. He’d acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Ours was a very different relationship these days, Webs and me. He never gave me shit about Katie anymore. If anything, he was always lamenting the fact that I hadn’t had what it took to keep her with me. The two of us tended to see eye to eye when it came to the guys she dated of late, particularly how they weren’t good enough for her. There wasn’t anything I could do about that, though.

If he knew I was sitting in the driveway, though, odds were high that Katie knew, as well. I shut off the engine and headed to the porch. Dani opened the door before I could ring the bell, throwing herself into my arms and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Home for the weekend?” I asked after disentangling myself from her.

“Drove down last night. Mom and Katie and I went for manis and pedis this morning, and Katie said she was going out for coffee with you this afternoon.” She peeked over her shoulder and dropped her voice. “She’s sticking around for a while this time, you know.”

I didn’t know that, actually. And while I was sure Dani thought I’d be pleased to hear it—maybe thinking that our coffee date was meant to be a
date
—instead it made my heart sink. How the hell was I going to tell Katie what I needed to tell her if she wasn’t going to leave soon after? I didn’t want to hurt her in any way, but especially not if I would have to see her every now and then.

Before I had a chance to come up with an appropriate response, Katie came down the stairs and smiled at me, and my gut twisted.

“Ready?” I asked, holding out a hand. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done anything that would lead to touching her without being able to really hold her.

Sometimes, I could be my own worst enemy.

She took it, slinging her purse strap over her other shoulder, and smiled at me. “Ready.”

Her palm was warm and soft against mine, her hand barely larger than a child’s. Katie was tall and slender, with blue eyes I could get lost in, if I let myself. But really, it was her hair that did me in lately. It was long and a rich mahogany brown that fell in silken waves down past her shoulders. These days, it looked exactly as it had before she’d had cancer, rich and full of life. When I looked at her hair, all I wanted to do was bury my nose in it, run my fingers through it, hold on to it with all I had in me as a reminder that she was still here. Even now, a light citrus scent wafted up to me, and I knew it was from her shampoo. She’d used the same kind as long as I’d known her. In my mind, that scent had come to be part of her.

Dani winked at me as I headed out the door with her sister, which only made me realize just how much I might be throwing away if I went through with what I intended. If I told Katie I couldn’t be her friend anymore, the whole Weber family would have it out for me. I could deal with Webs, even though he was the one I had to see the most often. I’d finally figured out he was all bark and no bite. Katie’s mom, Laura, had been like a mother of sorts to me since I’d first arrived in Portland, and Dani and Luke had treated me like I was a sibling.

I opened the passenger door and waited for Katie to get in before closing it and heading around to my side. Now I wasn’t sure I could go through with it at all.

“You look like you’re about to get sick all over me,” Katie said once I sat behind the wheel and shut my door.

I quirked a grin at her. “I’ll be sure to roll down the window and do it outside the car. Wouldn’t want to get anything on you.” I hit the brake and pressed the button to start the engine.

“If you’re going fast enough, the wind could send it all back in on us.”

I was gripping the wheel so tight that she reached over and touched the back of my hand. That touch made me flinch. She removed her hand, and I instantly missed the warmth of her skin.

“Spill it,” she said. “Whatever it is. It can’t be as bad as all that.”

I backed down the driveway and pulled into the road. “Spill what?”

“Don’t pretend you aren’t upset about something. I know you.”

She did know me. She knew me as well as just about anyone, which only made this worse, somehow.

“You don’t want to wait until we get to the coffeehouse?”

“Not if you’re this worked up about it. I want to know. Even if it’s something I’d rather not know.”

The huge knot that had started in my gut had worked its way up to my throat. I tried to swallow it down, but that didn’t exactly work out.

We came to a stoplight, and I glanced over at her. It was the first time since she’d been back that I’d really, truly looked at her, not just skimming the surface. She had grown up a lot in the years we’d been apart. There was a worldliness in her eyes now, a sense of having learned things both her father and I would have preferred she hadn’t. I knew bits and pieces of what that new knowledge might have been because of what had ended up splashed all over the gossip sites.

The first guy she’d dated in LA, Jesse Carmichael, had been busted for drugs more than a few times while they’d been together. Nothing too bad with the next couple of guys, other than pics of them on vacation when she was wearing a hell of a lot less than she should have been in my opinion. But it was the last guy who really set my blood boiling. Beau Brunetti. He was famous more because of family connections than anything he’d done himself. When she’d been with him, I’d started to notice a different sort of look in her eyes. It was a look that spoke of the kinds of knowledge that could only come from the wrong sorts of life experiences, and it was one that had haunted my sleep.