His eyes narrow. “What?”
“Nothing.” It’s bullshit.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He growls.
I think his dirty look is the end of it, but no. His hand snaps out so fast I can’t react before my phone is already in his grasp.
I don’t know why I care about Bowie seeing the comment anyway. Let him look.
“Apparently, I can’t hang on to my teammate-slash-lover any better than I hung on to the puck in last night’s game.”
Gah. Except that he did rescue my brother, then drove halfway across the city to my apartment so he could bring me to the hospital where he’s stayed hours longer than he needed to.
Frowning down at the screen, he rubs the back of his neck and swallows hard. It’s the only tell Bowie has. The equivalent of saying ouch.
And while I give him crap like it’s my job— no matter how much friction there is between us —I really don’t like it when anyone else does.
I should change the subject. Say something nice. Ugh. Extend an olive branch and try to resist the urge to poke him in the eye with it.
“Hey, so I just want to say thank you.”
“For the ride?” he asks, waving a hand toward the open doorway of a room occupied with a few molded plastic chairs, a table with a chipped wood veneer, and a beast of a coffee vending machine that looks like it pre-dates my birth. “You already thanked me.”
I pull a couple crumpled singles from my pocket, but Bowie pushes them away with a grunt and extracts a few smooth bills from his wallet.
My wallet. Or at least the one I sent him that first Christmas after he went pro, before I realized things had already changed between us. The one with a faded “Grant Bowie” stamped into the worn leather.
Why does he still have that thing?
“Not like I was gonna leave you on the corner waiting for a Lyft in the dark in the middle of February,” he mutters, hitting the button for a coffee with creamer. “Your brother would murder me.”
Right. Ben.
He starts to hand me the cup but then scowls at it and sets it on the table. “Let it cool a minute.”
“Sure.” I watch as he selects a black coffee for himself. “Actually, I mean about the apartment.”
Those deep brown eyes lock with mine, the skin between furrowing. “The apartment.”
My stomach tenses. It wasn’t exactly a question, but I know this guy. And that sounded like confusion.
There’s no way Ben wouldn’t have asked him, is there? He said it was cool.
“Moving. Next week?” I feel light-headed. “Ben said you guys—”
“Right, riiight. He did.” He takes a swallow of his coffee, then deeming it cool enough, hands me my own. “Yeah, don’t mention it.”
I heave a breath and let out a nervous laugh.
Of course Ben cleared it with him.
It’s just early. Bowie’s got more important things on his mind. Like my brother.
“Excuse me, Piper Boerboom?” The nurse who updated us after the surgery is in the doorway, the look on his face not nearly so reassuring as the one he was wearing the first time we talked to him.
“Everything okay?” Bowie asks, his hand coming to rest at my back. A move so out of character, it sends my tension soaring.
I take an anxious step forward. “Did something happen?”
“Your brother is going to be fine, but there have been some complications.”
2
Bowie
Boomer’s having the shittiest week of all time. Starting with our Monday-night loss against Dallas, a team we should have beat soundly but somehow slaughtered us, followed by a pre-dawn, sirens-screaming, Tuesday-morning trip to the hospital for emergency surgery on his nut.
And then… complications.
The kind that meant a second surgery, being placed on IR for the next few weeks, and when they finally discharge him tomorrow, it’ll be to move home with his folks.
If anyone’s got something to whine about, it’s Boomer. But when I called after morning skate to check on him, the guy was cracking jokes and working on his list of “boner killer” TV shows he thinks will be safe to watch this week. Nothing gets this guy down.
I’m the one acting like someone pissed in my cornflakes. And yeah, having my lineman out isn’t great for my game. Losing my roommate for the next few weeks will be lonely. And not having my best friend around twenty-four-seven is going to suck. But what’s bugging me the most is her.
Generally speaking, I do a damn good job of avoiding all things Piper Boerboom. She and Boomer are close, so there’s no avoiding her completely. But we keep our distance. We don’t hang out alone. We don’t do heart-to-hearts.
This week, though?
There’s been no escaping her. Those first days at the hospital, it was just us. Waiting for news, updating April and Ben Sr. while they tried to get back stateside, talking to doctors, passing messages to the team, driving back and forth.
We’ve been up in each other’s business for days.
Even with an away game, we were touching base and checking in. For Boomer. Because the last thing he needs is to worry about his little sister while he’s laid up.
Which is why, even though the asshole didn’t bother mentioning he’d committed us to carting boxes for her, I’m standing outside Piper’s apartment, kicking at the clump of dirty ice by her stoop, waiting for her to let me up so I can help her move.
After this, I’m done.
Done sharing space and being forced to function as a team. Done thinking about what she sounded like on the phone and wondering if she’s overwhelmed. Done chasing her through the darkening corridors of my dreams.
That shit ends today.
I’ll get her moved into her new place, hopefully something better than this one with its weak-ass security door that looks like it’d give if I blew on it hard enough… and then I’m out.
The buzzer sounds, and I start up the cramped stairwell to her apartment. She’s waiting at the door, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, jeans ripped at the knees, and a bit of packing tape stuck to a T-shirt from a charity race the Slayers organization sponsored two years ago.
“Hey, thank you so much for this.” She wipes her brow with the back of her arm, and a dark smudge spreads, tempting me to brush it away. Coupled with the tape just below her shoulder— not above her boob, because I don’t think about her tits. Ever —and I’m struggling to keep my fucking hands to myself.
Just don’t look at her, asshole.
Eyes on the floor and then the chipped paint near the ceiling, I nod. “No problem. Where do you want to start?”
She stares from my periphery, letting the beat stretch. Then— “Um, my room. I don’t have that much, actually.”
I walk back with her, and when she opens the door, I try not to notice the fresh vanilla scent she favors enveloping me.
“This it?” There are five boxes, a duffel bag, and a laundry basket. We’ll have this knocked out in no time.
“I’ve been subletting and the furniture stays. I stored most of my bigger stuff at home, so this is it.”
She stored her stuff? I don’t get it, but I’ve already had more than I can handle of this girl, so I don’t ask for an explanation. No good can come from me knowing her whys and hows.