Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Trademark Acknowledgement

About this Book

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Epilogue

Roster

Other Catherine Gayle Titles

About the Author

Excerpt

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

Dropping Gloves

Copyright © 2015 by Catherine Gayle

Cover Design by Kim Killion, The Killion Group

Published by Night Shift Publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

For more information: catherine@catherinegayle.com

For my Uncle John, from your green-haired girl. I love you more than you could ever know.

A special thank you to Kieran Plaizier for keeping me on my toes when it comes to his team.

Trademark Acknowledgement

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

NHL: National Hockey League

AHL: American Hockey League

Anaheim Ducks

Buffalo Sabres

Carolina Hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks

Dallas Stars

Detroit Red Wings

Edmonton Oilers

Florida Panthers

Los Angeles Kings

Minnesota Wild

Philadelphia Flyers

San Jose Sharks

St. Louis Blues

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

Vancouver Canucks

Washington Capitals

Winnipeg Jets

She left to follow her dreams, but came back to find her heart.

When Katie Weber decided to pursue her dreams in Hollywood, she left her heart behind in Portland. Now she’s back to make amends with Jamie Babcock, the only man she’s ever loved, but he isn’t willing to forgive and forget. Heartbroken, Jamie refuses to reopen old wounds—no matter how much he still loves her. At some point, he’s got to draw the line.

But Katie realizes she’s got the biggest battle of her life on the line—one she can’t win without Jamie by her side. In the game of love, all bets are off. Katie’s Dropping her Gloves to fight for both the life she craves and the man she loves. But is Jamie too proud to end the standoff so he can finally have the one he truly wants?

DROPPING GLOVES is Book 7 in the Portland Storm hockey romance series written by USA Today bestselling author Catherine Gayle. If you enjoy it, look for the other books in the series.

BREAKAWAY

ON THE FLY

TAKING A SHOT

LIGHT THE LAMP

DELAY OF GAME

DOUBLE MAJOR

IN THE ZONE

HOLIDAY HAT TRICK

COMEBACK

DROPPING GLOVES

HOME ICE

MISTLETOE MISCONDUCT

LOSING AN EDGE

GAME BREAKER

DEFENSIVE ZONE

POWER PLAY

There are also currently two boxed sets of books within the series, if you would prefer to purchase them in that way.

PORTLAND STORM: THE FIRST PERIOD (Contains Breakaway, On the Fly, Taking a Shot, and Light the Lamp)

PORTLAND STORM: THE SECOND PERIOD (Contains Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback)

Also, join Catherine’s mailing list to receive ICE BREAKER, a Portland Storm short story prequel that you can’t get anywhere else.

Want to join in the Portland Storm discussion? Join the Facebook reader group at Cat’s House.

Interested in buying your own customizable Portland Storm and Tulsa Thunderbirds jerseys, T-shirts, and more? Find out how here.

Like what you’ve read?  Keep reading for a preview of the next book in this series.

CANCER SUCKS DONKEY balls. Great big, ginormous, hairy ones. There’s not really a better way of saying it, and I’d long since stopped trying to come up with one.

If anyone should know how bad cancer sucks, it was me. I was diagnosed with leukemia when I was a senior in high school. That was why I was here, at the Moda Center, where the Portland Storm played, staring out the end of the tunnel at the crowd gathered for their annual Hockey Fights Cancer night. If I could do anything to help even one person not have to go through all the crap I’d had to go through, then you could bet I was going to do it.

It might not seem like much, singing the national anthem at a hockey game, but for me it wasn’t about the singing or the game. It was about awareness. It was about raising money for research and treatments. It was about being sure everyone in this building right now knew how important finding a cure was.

The teams had already skated out for all of the pregame ceremonies, and the arena crew had gone through all of their music and video programming to get the crowd pumped up for the game. Not that they really needed to do much for that. The Storm had finally made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season before falling to the Chicago Blackhawks in seven games, and most of last year’s key players had returned for this season. Expectations surrounding the Storm were high, regardless of the rough start they’d had. Tonight they were playing the LA Kings, one of their biggest divisional rivals for the last few seasons. With all that going on, the crowd didn’t need any extra pumping up. They were raring and ready to go, whether the team was or not.

But now, the lights dimmed and the music became more subdued, and a video started playing on the Jumbotron. Mom reached over and took my free hand, squeezing. The thing was, this video was about me.

It showed home footage and photographs that my parents and some of the Storm’s players had taken over the years, images of me at various Storm events I’d been part of, video of me skating at the team’s annual Christmas party, and other things like that.

A song by The End of All Things—a local band that had made it big, not to mention my favorite band of all time—played over the montage. I hadn’t heard this one before. It must have been from their upcoming album, which made me wonder how Tim Whitlock, the Storm’s in-arena entertainment director, had managed to get hold of it. Then again, there were connections between the team and the band. Brie Burns, one of the players’ wives, was a ballroom dancer who had worked with The End of All Things in the past.

The lyrics spoke of holding on to the best parts of life. That, combined with the images that represented some of the best parts of my life, had me getting teary-eyed. Not a good thing when I was about to have to get out there and sing in front of a crowd of eighteen thousand or so. Crying and talking was hard enough. Crying and singing? Pretty much impossible.

Now the video started getting to the point where my cancer came in. Me, bald-headed, wearing various scarves to hide the physical evidence of my chemo. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. This was why I was here. This was why they’d asked me to sing the anthem tonight instead of having the in-house singer do it. Looking away wouldn’t change anything I had been through. I’d already tried that in multiple areas of my life, and it hadn’t worked yet.

Dad put his hands on the backs of my shoulders and started to knead away some of my anxiety. Normally, at this point of the night, he would be behind the bench with the team. Dad was one of the Storm’s assistant coaches. He had been since the season after he’d retired as a player. He was my connection to the team, or at least he had been my first connection. But tonight was different. Tonight, he was with me. He’d take his spot behind the bench after this was over.

Just as he started rubbing my shoulders, an image flashed on the screen that choked me up like crazy and caused the whole crowd to ooh and aah. It was one of my prom pictures. There I was, in my ice-blue dress without anything covering my head, crying while Jamie Babcock kissed me.

I hadn’t intended to go to my prom. Not until Jamie asked me.

He hadn’t even been one of my classmates. He was one of my dad’s teammates at that point, a guy who I’d had a crush on since the first moment I’d seen him. But Jamie had asked to take me, and I would have done anything to be with him, and he’d made it perfect for me even if I was bald and felt like an alien. When I was with him, I’d felt like a princess.

But I’d beat cancer, and I’d moved on with my life—going off to Hollywood to star in an ensemble Glee-knockoff TV show called The Cool Kids—and he’d moved on with his. I’d broken my own heart when I’d left, and seeing that picture right now brought a torrent of memories and emotions flooding back to life.

“Why did you give them that one?” I hissed at my mom, trying to hold back the massive wave that was threatening to turn to tears.

She arched a brow and shrugged. “I didn’t.”

“Oh, sure you didn’t,” I said. I even rolled my eyes. My sarcasm knew no bounds. No one but my mother would have given the Storm that photo. Other than me, only Jamie and my family had copies of it. I definitely hadn’t given it to the entertainment people, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that Jamie would have done it. I’d broken his heart, too, not just my own. Why would he want a reminder of that flashed in front of his eyes right before he had a game to play?

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” she insisted. “Not about something like that. I wouldn’t have given them any of those pictures. They’re too personal.”

Which was precisely my point. My mouth was open to argue with her again when Dad squeezed my upper arms from behind. “She didn’t. Your mom’s telling you the truth.”

“Then who did?” I demanded.

“I gave it to them.”

“What?” Mom and I said in shocked unison. I spun around to glare at him. Dad had been opposed to every guy I’d ever dated, some of them more than others. He’d just about blown a gasket when Jamie had asked me to prom. Why would he put that memory, that relationship, right up at the forefront of my mind at a time like this?

Dad shrugged. “Tim asked us for pictures that meant something, that would have an impact on the crowd.” He nodded his head toward the open end of the tunnel, indicating all the people out there who were watching in rapt silence. “That one meant the most to me, so I thought it would get the biggest reaction from them.”

I swallowed hard.

The song finished, the video came to a close, and Tim’s familiar voice echoed over the PA system in the cavernous arena. He introduced the Storm’s starters for the night, who each skated out to take their positions. The Kings’ starting line went out, as well. Then he introduced the Little Starter of the game before taking a moment to talk about the military veteran being honored tonight. Both the Little Starter and the vet were also cancer survivors. They headed out on cue, and the vet stood on his mark. The boy skated over to stand next to Jamie, who patted him on the head and said something that no one could hear but the two of them.

Then Tim introduced me. “Katie Weber has been a member of the Portland Storm family for close to a decade now. Her father, David Weber, played for the Storm for a number of years before becoming one of our assistant coaches. Katie spent her teen years here, and it was here that she was diagnosed with—and beat—leukemia. Our organization was given the task of seeing her through her own personal storm. We watched her grow up, and we watched her leave to become a star bright enough to shine over a much bigger world than Portland. She will always be part of our family, no matter how far away life takes her. Now she’s returned, at least for this one very special night. Storm fans, please join me in giving Katie Weber a big welcome back to Portland.”

That was my cue. I white-knuckled my microphone with both hands and headed out of the tunnel to the purple carpet that had been laid on the ice. The entire arena was on its feet, applauding and screaming. I’d always loved being in front of a crowd, but I still got stage fright. Being on The Cool Kids hadn’t helped with that at all. If anything, it had made it worse. For the last four years, I’d been doing all of my acting and singing in front of cameras and crew. But these days when I did something in public, the audiences were bigger, and everyone seemed to think they knew me, not the character I’d played. That was clear enough from the number of people in the stands wiping tears from their eyes.

Most of the people in the audience wore the typical purple-and-silver Storm jerseys I’d come to expect during my years here, but a few people had the road whites on, and a smattering had on Kings black and silver. It was easy to spot the pink Hockey Fights Cancer version of the Storm’s jerseys in the crowd, like the one I was wearing. The whole crowd was holding up signs they’d been given when they’d come in tonight, bearing the names of people they loved who had cancer, or maybe people they’d lost to cancer.

Mom and Dad followed me to the carpet. Both of their signs had my name on them.

I smiled and waved, trying not to let the turbulence of my emotions swallow me whole, but it seemed like a daunting—maybe impossible—prospect. I felt as if I would fall to pieces the moment I opened my mouth to sing, but this was different from my usual stage fright. It was bigger and more confusing, like a giant ball made up of rubber bands, each one representing a new, massive, devastating emotion, and the bands were contracting in on themselves. It was squeezing the life out of me.

“Please rise and remove your caps,” Tim said, not that there was any need for his reminder. Everyone was already on their feet. The rest of his words were drowned out in the unending applause. He was in the scorer’s box, the small space across the ice from the team benches that separated the two penalty boxes. I caught his eye across the distance, and he gave me a nod.

Nerves or not, it was time. I took out my pitch pipe, blew into it to find my key, shoved it back into my pocket, and did what I’d come to do. Somehow I got through the anthem without completely shattering, which I considered an absolute coup. Now that I was done, though, all I wanted was to run off the ice and find somewhere I could break down for a minute. But it wasn’t time for that yet.

Tonight, the Storm had planned a ceremonial puck drop to go along with all of the other special events, and they’d asked me to do it. Dad took the mic and pressed the puck into my hands. He kissed my cheek before taking his spot behind the bench. Mom hugged me and headed down the tunnel. I wanted to go with her. I wanted to be anywhere but here, doing anything but what I was about to do.

Because it meant I would be inches away from Jamie.

Dustin Brown, the Kings’ captain, came out and took his spot on one side of me. He said something, looking right at me, but my head was filled with the buzzing of a horde of bees, and I couldn’t make his words out. I couldn’t pay attention to him with Jamie skating over to stand across from him on my opposite side. All my attention focused in on Jamie like a laser beam.

In his skates, he was even taller than normal, towering over me despite my Jimmy Choos. His hockey pads only emphasized his muscle, making him seem larger than life. Even with a bit of distance between us, I could see the creases in his cheeks where his dimples always came through. With every year that passed, he looked less like a boy and more like a man, but I hoped he would never lose those dimples.

If this had happened last season, it would have been Eric Zellinger coming out for the ceremonial face-off. He’d been the Storm’s captain for over a decade, but there had been an expansion draft over the summer, and both Zee and goaltender Hunter Fielding had been claimed by the league’s new team, the Tulsa Thunderbirds. That had left the Storm with an opening for a new captain.

Just before the start of the season, they’d held a press conference to announce that Jamie was it. I’d been in a meeting with my agent, Derek Hatch, in LA when it was all going down. We’d been discussing various auditions he wanted to send me on, the direction he thought my career should take after the end of The Cool Kids, but I hadn’t been able to focus on anything Derek had said. My phone had kept buzzing with updates about Jamie and the Storm until, eventually, Derek had sent me on my way and told me to get my head straightened out so we could make a plan.

Easier said than done.

So now, here Jamie was, looking at me with that same hurt look in his eyes that I’d seen every time I’d come back to Portland in the last four years.

The look I’d put in his eyes.

The look that ripped me apart.

The pain in his gaze might even be more intense than usual right now. Probably because of that damn prom picture Dad had given them for the montage.

Jamie glanced over his shoulder toward center ice, then looked back at me with a wink. “They’re ready, Katie,” he said, indicating the slew of photographers and videographers who had lined up opposite us.

I nodded, swallowing down my feelings, and dropped the puck.

He gathered it up while Brown shook my hand and gave me a friendly, cursory pat on the shoulder. Then Jamie handed the puck back to me and wrapped me up in his arms.

I almost let out a sob. Almost. He’d hugged me countless times before, but this was different. He had all of his hockey gear on, the pads and whatnot, and I could hardly feel him underneath it all. We were touching, but it felt distant. Cold. I shivered, wishing I could draw closer to him and feel the warmth of his heart.

He pecked me on the cheek, causing an excited titter to run through the crowd, but it was ice that skittered through my veins. I wasn’t sure if the coldness was from him or from me, or simply because of the mountain range that stood between us these days.

“I’m glad you’re here, Katie,” he said, his voice all rough like gravel crunching under Cam Johnson’s pickup truck. His words were so quiet I could barely hear him over all the arena noise. He sounded completely unlike what I was used to. He gave me a grin, just enough to make his dimples pop out momentarily, and then he skated away.

“Me, too,” I murmured to his retreating form, only I wasn’t entirely convinced that he’d meant it. None of this would have felt so detached if he really wanted me here. I was pretty sure—almost positive—he hoped I would be on a plane tomorrow, flying back to LA or maybe to New York like Derek wanted. It had to be easier for Jamie if I wasn’t here. I knew that, for me, it didn’t hurt as much without the constant, daily reminders of what I didn’t have. It was easier when we were apart.

My cheek tingled where he’d kissed me. I locked that up in my mind as tightly as I held the puck he’d handed me, while I walked across that purple carpet and back toward the tunnel. Several of the guys on the team skated over to shake my hand or kiss my cheek as I left, and Dad caught my eye and winked. I didn’t hear anything they said to me, though. My head was too filled with fading memories and a confused outlook on the future.

Derek hadn’t wanted me to come here at all. You’re bigger than this, he’d told me as he passed over a stack of scripts and another pile of travel arrangements. He expected me to get on a plane tomorrow, fly to New York, and make my mark on Broadway. To go to all the auditions he’d arranged for me. To follow the path he’d laid out for me, just like I’d done every step of the way for the last four years, despite that I’d hated so many of the things he’d asked of me and that I was still uncertain what I wanted.

Coming here might not have lined up with my agent’s plans for my future, but it had accomplished one thing: I was more confused now than I’d been in a long time, and that could only mean that there was something here worth sticking around for, even if I’d end up heartbroken again.

KATIE SPUN AROUND and flew past her mom like a flash, racing away from the ice like a winger on a breakaway. I was pretty sure that picture from her prom had hit her as hard as it had hit me, so it didn’t surprise me that she was running off like that. There was a chunk of me that wished I could do the same. I didn’t have that kind of freedom, though. I had a game to play, so I had to get my head screwed back on straight.

Not such a simple thing to do with the knowledge that Katie Weber was still somewhere in the building. She was close enough I could still feel her essence lingering around me and only hoped that she wouldn’t stick around too long on this visit. The longer she stayed, the more of me she would take with her when she eventually left again.

Because she would. Leave. She always left.

I’d told her years ago that she should go and chase her dreams, so I couldn’t really blame her for doing the very thing I’d suggested. But fuck if it didn’t hurt like a son of a bitch every time she showed up and smiled at me like nothing had changed.

She wanted us to be friends. There was a part of me that wanted that, too—being her friend would be better than not having her in my life at all, or so I thought—but it was hard to do when I saw the way she let her boyfriends treat her.

At the moment, she might not be dating one of the shitheads she’d hooked up with in Hollywood, but it didn’t matter. That didn’t mean she was kicking them to the curb and making room for me, for the way I really wanted things to be between us. The fact was, Katie wasn’t going to stay in Portland. She was an It Girl now, a Hollywood starlet with people clamoring for her attention, and that meant she needed to get back to Hollywood so they could keep fawning over her. Her show had been cancelled, but it was only a matter of time before she got cast in something else, and then she would be gone again. Out of my life. Probably dating some new asswipe. Leaving me to be the brooding bastard I’d become.

Enough years had passed that, as long as she was away from Portland and not on the news too much, I was able to push her from my mind. I hadn’t watched The Cool Kids because that was a wound I didn’t want to open, and sometimes TMZ left her alone for a stretch. As long as she didn’t hit the mainstream news too often, I could almost pretend she had only been a dream. It wasn’t too bad, then. Without having her around, I could be the same guy I’d always been instead of the miserable grump I turned into when she was here but I couldn’t have her.

Like now.

I tried not to be that guy, but it was hard to brush things off when it felt like someone was stomping on all the broken pieces of me to be sure they were a puzzle I would never be able to put back together.

“Hey,” my brother Levi said. He was a couple of years younger than my twenty-four—he and Katie were the same age—a defenseman in his second year with the Storm. He tapped his stick on my shins harder than necessary to get my attention. “Earth to Jamie. Game’s about to start. Stop chasing after her in your fucking head.”

I gave him a terse nod and took a quick lap around our end of the ice to refocus. We were only a couple of weeks into the new season, my first as the captain of the team, and things had started off badly for us. There wasn’t any good reason for it, either.

We’d had some turnover in personnel on the ice from last year, but not too much. Zee and Hunter were with the Thunderbirds now. A couple of guys had changed in free agency, and there’d been a trade involving a few of the younger guys who hadn’t fully found their spots on the team. But the core that Jim Sutter, our general manager, was building around was all still intact, the coaches hadn’t changed, the systems were exactly the same… Essentially, there was no good excuse for why we’d taken a slide in play to start the year. Tonight, we needed to get back on track, and as the captain, it was up to me to set the tone for the rest of the team.

It was time. The carpet had been removed from the ice, and all the photographers were gone. The officials were in place, and my linemates, Riley Jezek and Aaron Ludwiczak, were already skating to center ice for the opening face-off. I headed over to join them, pushing aside all thoughts not relevant to the game at hand.

The puck dropped, and the Kings won it cleanly back to Matt Greene, one of their defensemen. I was closest to Greene, so I went straight for him and laid a bruising check on him, dislodging the puck so that either RJ or Luddy could grab it and we could get to work.

The crowd went wild as Greene went down hard. He was a big body. Hitting him like that had been enough to rattle the teeth in my head, so I knew he’d felt it more than he’d been prepared for. Luddy stole the puck and cycled it with RJ. I shook off the impact and skated in to join them. After a hit like that, my head was fully in the game. I couldn’t afford to think about Katie Weber right now.

I had work to do.

“THAT’S A BAD fucking call,” Mattias “Bergy” Bergstrom, the Storm’s head coach, shouted as the ref who’d blown his whistle skated by our bench. “You fucking know it, too. Brown was diving.”

The ref turned his head and shouted a few choice expletives back in Bergy’s direction, neither backing down nor admitting he might have made a mistake. It was a mistake, though. We’d been guilty plenty of times tonight, but in this instance, it wasn’t our fault. Levi just happened to be near Brown when the guy lost an edge and went down. Guilty by proximity.

The basic gist of the ref’s response was that Bergy needed to stop complaining and get his team to play a clean game, or else. There were a lot of implications at play in the or else part of that equation. The team could be issued a bench minor and we would have to kill off yet another penalty. Bergy could get fined by the league for abuse of officials. They could probably kick Bergy out of the game if it came down to it. There were lots of ways for this to escalate, and none of them would be good.

“Fucking dive,” Bergy said under his breath, but at least he stopped there. He wasn’t the sort of coach to lose his cool with the officials, not like our former coach, Scotty Thomas, had always been. Scotty had been more than a little hotheaded. Bergy was the type who tended to calmly let everyone know what he thought, setting the example he wanted us to follow.

He usually reserved his yelling for specific moments and specific individuals. Zee had been on the receiving end of it a lot, but Bergy didn’t usually yell at me. He got his point across in other ways, like keeping my ass planted on the bench when I fucked up.

Regardless of all that, right now it didn’t matter if the other guy had dived or fallen or what. The only thing that really mattered was that Levi was on his way to the box for a phantom tripping minor, and we had to kill our seventh penalty of the game—a game that we were trailing by a goal. We were only halfway through the game, but we’d already been penalized more times than we should have been in a full sixty minutes, at least if we wanted to keep Bergy happy. Still, there was a lot of time left on the game clock, which meant there was a lot of time for us to either fuck up some more or get our collective act together.

“Keep your fucking head in it, 501,” Andrew Jensen shouted across the ice to Levi. “We’ve got this.” Jens clearly thought we were going to be able to straighten up and pull ourselves out of the hole we’d been digging. Or maybe that was just the impression he wanted to give off.

At times like this, there was a part of me that wondered if Bergy and Jim had made the right choice in naming me the Storm’s next captain. I never knew what to say to help the boys out. Guys like Jens and Keith Burns were a lot more vocal. They always knew the right thing to say, and Burnzie had even been an assistant captain already for a long time. Shouldn’t he have been the new captain? Or maybe Soupy, who had been the other assistant captain for the last few years. Any one of those guys would have made more sense than me, along with at least a half a dozen other players on the team.

None of them were wearing the C on their chests, though. I was, and I didn’t have the first fucking clue how to lead this team.

We went to a TV timeout, and I made the mistake of looking up at the Jumbotron. Through the whole game, every time there had been a break, they’d been making more tributes to cancer survivors and doing things to draw attention to the warning signs someone needed to be aware of when it came to their own health. This time, they had a camera on Katie up in the owner’s box. She was sitting with her mom and several of the guys’ wives, each of them holding up a sign with a symptom of leukemia printed on it. Katie looked like she was a lot more relaxed than she had been when she’d left the ice, but the last thing I needed was to start thinking about her again. Not right now.

I turned my head away to stare at the ice in front of me.

“You dated her?” Grant Wheelan asked me. Wheels was a guy Jim had brought in over the summer to mentor me. I wasn’t sure he could teach me how to lead this team any better than Zee had in all the years I’d been watching him, but maybe he would surprise me. Mainly Wheels just talked to me a lot. So far, the biggest thing I’d learned was to do things the way I wanted everyone else to do them. Lead by example. Wheels had drilled those three words into my head every chance he got. He also liked to remind me I was supposed to be having fun, not taking everything so seriously all the time. I wasn’t so good at that one.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. Then I shrugged. “Kind of. I guess so.” We’d never really technically been a couple, even though I’d taken her to her prom. I’d wanted to, but she’d been so young and had cancer, and then she’d left.

He made a grunting sound next to me. “Bet Webs would be happier if she was dating you instead of the guys she’s been all over the news with.”

“Fucking right, I would,” Webs said from behind us before he moved on to talk to Blake Kozlow about something.

That was definitely a change from all those years ago. I wasn’t sure I would agree with that assessment. I’d changed a lot in that time, and I wasn’t sure it was for the better. “Doesn’t matter what Webs would be happier with,” I grumbled. It pissed me off that Wheels was trying to make me talk about this right now when all I wanted to do was pretend Katie wasn’t even in the state, let alone in the building. “We aren’t together, and that’s not going to change any time soon.”

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, if I were you,” Soupy put in. His name was really Brenden Campbell, but everyone except his wife and the Storm’s GM called him Soupy—even his two adopted kids. I glared at him, and he shrugged and looked back at the ice. “Just telling you what I see, is all. Up to you to figure out what to do with it.”

He had always had a bad habit of doing that—telling me things I didn’t want to hear.

The TV timeout came to an end. It was about time. At Bergy’s signal, Wheels and Cam Johnson headed over the boards to take the face-off.

“Soupy, Babs,” Bergy said once they were gone, his tone returning to normal. “Be ready to go.”

I nodded, but I kept my focus on the ice.

“I’ve got Jonny,” Soupy said to me. At least he was back to talking about the game instead of trying to tell me how to handle my personal life.

The Kings had a potent power play this year, always dangerous. They moved the puck well, changing up the point of attack in an effort to get a clear shot in on our goaltender.

Our boys moved as a unit—one guy shifted to block a passing lane, and the other three adjusted their positions accordingly. Jonny dropped down to block a shot from the point, and our D managed to get their sticks in the way and clear bodies out from in front of the net so Nicky could see where the puck was coming from. Finally, after almost a full minute of being hemmed into our zone, Wheels poke-checked the puck and sent it flying down the ice, and those guys were able to get off for a change.

Soupy and I piled over the boards as soon as they came off—me about a second behind him since Wheels moved about as fast as molasses in a Canadian winter—and we headed into position.

The Kings switched to their second power play unit and got set up in our zone. They moved the puck back to the point on my side. I dropped to a knee, ready to block a shot, but he passed it to the other point. Soupy tried to get into position to block the shooting lane, but his knee buckled under him, and he went down with an agonized shout.

The shot got past him. Jens got just enough of his stick on it to deflect it away from Nicky’s net. I let myself glance over long enough to see that, no matter how hard he tried, Soupy couldn’t get himself up.

The Kings cycled the puck back to the point again. I did my best to cover two guys who both had bombs for shots, but there was only so much I could do. One of them pulled his stick back to load up. I went down. A shot blew past my ear and went in the net.

I skated over to Soupy, pissed at myself even though I couldn’t figure out why. “You going to be all right?”

“Can’t put any fucking weight on it,” he said.

“Broken?”

He shook his head. “Felt something snap, but not bone.”

That made me think it was something like a ligament. Ken Archer, our head trainer, came over and talked to him for a minute before deciding it was safe to move him, at least. I gave Soupy a hand and helped him up, draping his arm over my shoulder while Archie did the same on the other side so we could assist him off the ice. The whole time, I was thinking I might have just witnessed the injury that would end his career. I hoped I was wrong.

Wheels clapped a hand on my shoulder as soon as I took a seat next to him on the bench. “You know,” he said. “You never know what’s going to happen. Watching what just went down with Soupy is proof enough of that. If you want something, you should go for it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I groused, more agitated than confused.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

I did. Apparently, I still couldn’t hide what I was feeling. Not only that, but I was just as messed up over Katie Weber as I’d ever been. What the fuck could I do about it, though? If she was going to leave, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her…and I knew she would leave.

She always did.

“I NEED YOU to cancel those New York auditions for next week,” I said to Derek on the phone.

“You mean reschedule,” he replied, not even attempting to hide his sarcastic tone. “I’ve already pushed them back once. If you change it again, you could get yourself blacklisted by Broadway, and that’s really not what you want to do. I promise you that.”

I couldn’t blame him for his aggravation. I’d already forced his hand in having him rearrange all sorts of auditions and other things so that I could come to Portland to sing the anthem—despite his repeated assertions that it would do nothing to further my career. Granted, he wouldn’t have had to do that if he had listened to me the first time around and penciled my Portland trip in on my calendar instead of brushing my plans off. He’d eventually given in and made the changes—not that he’d been happy about it—and he’d been letting me know just how unhappy he was about the “mistakes” he believed I was making ever since. I’d made plenty of mistakes over the years, and many of them had involved him, but I was one hundred percent positive that this would not be another one to mark down on the list no matter what he thought of it.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing that would relieve the headache I’d had for the better part of a week. It had to be a stress headache. It was one of those that started with tension in my neck and shoulders and worked its way up. I should probably get a massage soon—that would help it more than anything, most likely.

I had never been comfortable with disappointing anyone, and I was definitely letting Derek down right now. Heck, I’d been letting him down ever since The Cool Kids had been cancelled, when I hadn’t been able to tell him immediately and in no uncertain terms what I wanted to do with myself. I didn’t have a plan in place, thinking my career would take care of itself because the popularity of my show was off the charts. I had just been winging it, and he thought that made me flighty and not career-focused. Now I was about to really upset him, and it was doing a number on me, both physically and emotionally.

“I mean cancel,” I repeated as firmly as I could. “I’m not going to New York. I’m not going to audition for any Broadway shows. I just can’t do it, Derek. I need a break. I need to spend some time with my family. I need to figure out what I want to do next, but I do know that, whatever it is, it won’t be on the East Coast. I can’t be that far away from them all the time.” Being in LA had been difficult enough. My family might drive me bonkers sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

“You have to go to New York. You’re still riding a high after The Cool Kids, but if you let yourself drop out of the public eye—”

“I know. It’ll be harder to get back in. I know, Derek.”

What I didn’t know was if I wanted to be in the public eye anymore. I wasn’t sure fame and fortune were all they were made out to be, and I had been sincerely doubting that I was cut out for that kind of life for a long time. As long as the show had still been in production, I’d been able to push all those doubts aside and focus on my work. But seeing my parents and Jamie yesterday had only reinforced those reservations. Portland was my home; everything about Hollywood felt foreign, despite the fact that I’d been living that life for the past four years.

“Well, if you’re not going to take on work right now, you at least need to stay in the news. I could set you up with—”

“I’m not going out with anyone you think I need to be seen with.” Not ever again. Derek lived by the mantra that any publicity is good publicity, and I’d played by his rules for a while. Too long. I’d let everyone in my life that I cared about down by doing so, not the least of which was myself.

“So, what exactly are you saying?” Derek asked. In the background, he was furiously typing on his keyboard, probably already firing off emails to cancel the slew of auditions he’d lined up for me. “If you’re not going to New York, when are you coming back to LA?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“What the hell do you mean, you can’t answer that?”

“I mean I’m not coming back this week, and probably not next week, and I’m not even sure I’m coming back at all other than maybe to pack up the condo I’m renting and move everything out.” I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but—to my own surprise—I wasn’t in a rush to take those words back. There was some truth to it. A lot of truth, actually.

Derek fell silent for a long time, and when he spoke again, his tone was terse, his words clipped. “If you’re not going to actively pursue your career, our working relationship doesn’t have much of a future.”

I wasn’t sure what reaction I’d thought he would have, but I definitely hadn’t been expecting that. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but another one replaced it almost immediately. This made it feel permanent, as if the decision I’d made on the spur of the moment this morning because of a headache was going to alter the entire course of my future. Just like that. A snap of the fingers. Done.

“Are you firing me?” I finally choked out.

“I don’t know that I’d call it firing,” he bit off. “It’s more that you’re no longer willing to hold up your end of the bargain, so there’s not anything I can do for you. You’ve been indecisive for the last four months. You’ve bombed at the auditions you’ve gone to, and you’ve completely flaked out on the others I’ve managed to obtain. You aren’t taking your career as seriously as I am, and I’m not willing to work for someone who isn’t willing to work her ass off to have the kind of career you’re capable of having. I don’t think there’s much more to say about it.”

I was perched on the foot of my bed in my parents’ house, unable to do anything but blink back tears. He was right about everything he’d said, and there wasn’t any point in arguing with him about it. “No, I suppose there’s not,” I forced out, my voice cracking.

We stayed on the phone for a few more minutes, hammering out the details required to dissolve our contract. By the time we hung up, my head was pounding like never before. Had I just completely ruined my chances of having the career I’d always dreamed of? I mean, sure, my first go at it had been everything I’d expected and nothing I’d ever imagined in my worst nightmares, all rolled up in one. But did that mean I should just throw out the idea of ever pursuing it again? Derek Hatch was one of the best talent agents in the world, and now I’d walked away from him.

I tossed my phone on the bed, wishing I never had to pick the damn thing up again, and dug some ibuprofen out of my purse. Then I headed out to the kitchen. Dad was sitting at the bar with an iPad, watching film from last night’s game over his breakfast, and Mom was unloading the dishwasher. I took a glass from her and filled it with water from the fridge before tossing back the pills.

Dad glanced up, his brow furrowed. “You sick?”

“Just a headache.”

“You look tired.” His voice sounded like a bark, gruff and terse. I’d come to understand that meant he was worried. He had worried about me way too much over the years. I’d given him too many reasons to worry, but I wished he would stop.

Especially right now, when there wasn’t anything wrong but a stupid headache. “Thanks for saying I look like crap,” I quipped, scowling at him. “I am tired. I flew in yesterday and headed straight to the arena, and you know how late it was when we got back here.” I swallowed some more water and set the glass on the counter across from him, leaning on my elbows. And I grinned, hoping it would help ease his concerns.

“I’m not saying you look like crap. I’m saying you look tired.” He shut off the video and pushed the iPad aside. “You look tired like you did when you were sick.”

“Dad,” I said, hating the whining tone that came out of me. He was hovering, and it made me feel like I was a teenager again. I was twenty-two years old and already a multimillionaire in my own right, thanks to both my work on The Cool Kids and taking Derek’s advice to hire a financial planner as soon as I’d booked my first job. I’d made as much money in four years as Dad had made in two decades as an NHL player. It wasn’t about money, though. The fact of the matter was I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I hated that he still treated me like one.

“You’re due for your blood work and all that, anyway,” Mom said, sliding in next to me to put a cutting board in the cabinet. She gave Dad a look. “Why don’t you call Dr. Oliver while you’re here and set something up?”

Dr. Oliver was my oncologist. As much as I hated to admit it, Mom was right; it was time for me to get checked and be sure I was still cancer-free. Even though I knew there was no good reason to think there would be anything abnormal about my tests, the thought of going in for them always made me nervous—way worse than stage fright. Like, puke-up-my-guts-without-being-able-to-blame-it-on-chemo nerves. Getting anxious about something like that would only make my headache worse, though, so I decided not to let that happen until there was a good reason for it, like when I was walking into the doctor’s office and they were about to draw half a dozen vials of blood from my veins or something. That seemed like a reasonable time to get nervous.

“Yeah,” I said to make Mom happy and to get Dad off my back. And I supposed I would do it to ease my own worries, too. “I’ll see when he can get me in.”

“But not tomorrow,” Mom said, reaching overhead to put away a plastic mixing bowl.

“What’s tomorrow?” I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from asking. Knowing my mom, she might have set me up on a blind date or a speed-dating event, and anything along those lines was the last thing in the world I wanted. She would never set me up with any guy like the ones Derek had insisted on, but that was beside the point.

“Dani’s going to be here,” Mom said. “She’s coming down for the weekend and wants to spend some time with you.”

Dani was my younger sister. She was in her first semester at The Art Institute of Seattle studying fashion design. Our brother, Luke, was off playing college hockey at the University of Minnesota. He hadn’t been drafted by an NHL team, but he was starting to really come into his own there and was picking up the notice of a bunch of scouts. A late bloomer, Dad called him. Luke might just turn into one of those undrafted success stories someday. That was what he was hoping for, at least, and even if he’d driven me nuts for so many years when we were growing up, I wanted it for him, too. He was my brother.

It was a lot easier to enjoy my brother and sister now that we were all adults. I hadn’t seen either of my siblings in way too long, so there was no chance I would pass up the opportunity to spend time with Dani. “Got it. No doctor’s appointments tomorrow.” That would give me at least a while longer before the nausea-inducing anxiety kicked in, anyway. I took off down the hall, my glass of water in hand, to get on my doctor’s schedule.

My cell was ringing when I got back to the bedroom. Probably Derek. He had likely thought of something else he needed to hash out with me in voiding our contract. I answered it without even looking to be sure it was him.

“What now?” I demanded, sounding harried and harassed, not that I really cared. I felt harried and harassed, damn it all.

“Katie?”

It wasn’t Derek. I didn’t need to look at my caller ID to know that it was Jamie, but I looked anyway to be sure I wasn’t losing my mind.

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.

Now here she was, looking at me with those eyes, wanting to know what was wrong with me. And there wasn’t a goddamned fucking thing I could do protect her from whatever had put that look there. I couldn’t turn back time. I couldn’t go back to the day at Zee’s and Soupy’s weddings, when she’d told me she was leaving for Hollywood, and beg her to stay with me. I couldn’t bash the fucker’s face in for whatever it was he’d done to her. I couldn’t do anything but say, “I can’t do it anymore, Katie.”

She blinked a few times, and she shook her head, but her smile faded. “Do what?”

“This.” My voice cracked, which only served to piss me off. “I can’t keep trying to be friends with you when it’s not enough. It’s not what I want. I don’t want to be just your friend. And you keep dating these sons of bitches who—” I cut myself off before I told her they weren’t good enough for her. If she couldn’t see that, then there were bigger issues at hand. The light turned green, and I clenched my jaw, hitting the gas. “But then you leave, and you break my heart all over again every time. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t watch you with them and accept being nothing but your friend. Not when I still love you as much as I ever did.”

I don’t know why I told her I loved her. It wasn’t something we’d ever said to each other before, but it was the absolute truth. It was one of those simple facts of life: the sky was blue, gravity kept our feet firmly on the ground, and I loved Katie Weber even though she had trampled all over my heart more times than I could count.

I turned into the Starbucks lot and found a parking space, then put the car in park. When I looked at her, she had tears pooling in her eyes, which made me feel like as big of an ass as the guys she’d been dating.

“What are you saying?” she asked quietly. She didn’t turn away. A few years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to look anywhere but down at her lap, but now she was staring straight at me as those tears slowly spilled over.

“I guess I’m saying that I can’t handle trying to be your friend.”

“All or nothing, huh?” Katie’s expression was completely unreadable, but she stared straight through me, not even blinking. Tears were still wetting her cheeks but no longer fell from her eyes. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without attempting to take it all back, and she pursed her lips together. “All right. I understand. I may not like it, but I understand. It hasn’t been very fair for you, has it?”

“Do you want me to take you home now?” I asked in lieu of answering her. I hadn’t brought her here to point out all the places we might have gone wrong over the years, and I didn’t think it would do either of us any good to make it out to be all her fault. It was mine as much as hers. I’d allowed myself to fall head over heels in love with a girl even though we’d both known all along that she was going to leave. That just made me an idiot, I supposed, or maybe a masochist. At some point, I had to staunch the wound. I had to make the bleeding stop if I was ever going to move on.

She didn’t answer immediately, which took me aback. When I stopped studying my death grip on the steering wheel and faced her, it was to find her still staring at me, appraising me. It was such a different sensation from when she had looked at me in years past. Before, she’d seemed to think I was perfection personified. It was overwhelming, to be honest. No one could live up to the sort of image of me she’d seemed to have. She’d always seemed to think I was so much better than I ever could have been. Now, though, maybe she was starting to see I was human.

“You promised me coffee,” she said after a minute. “For old time’s sake? And then you can take me home, and we can move into this next phase.”

“One last cup?” A final moment to be her friend, to let myself think of all the things that could have been. And then I could hit the button on a restart. I could finally attempt to move on. I tried to force myself to smile, even though that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

This could be my closure, something that had been a long time coming.

I STILL HADN’T gotten used to going home and not having anyone there with me. I’d grown up as the oldest of seven boys, so there had been no such thing as having time to myself, let alone peace and quiet, in my childhood. When I’d gone on to play junior hockey, I’d lived with a billet family who had three kids of their own. As a rookie with the Storm, I’d lived with Zee. After that, I’d always had a guy or two on the team for roommates—Soupy, Liam Kallen, Luddy for a while, then Levi last season—other than brief stretches when one of them moved on, right up until this season.

Over the summer, I’d finally bought a house. I’d signed a big, new contract with the team, and Jim Sutter and Bergy had named me captain. With all that, they’d made it clear I wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, so I’d figured I might as well put down some roots. I’d offered Levi a room if he wanted it, but he had opted to go in on a swanky downtown condo with Koz, one of the new guys.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about my brother getting close to Koz. Mainly because the guy had come to us with a less-than-stellar reputation after his first few seasons in Anaheim. Living in So Cal had made it easy for him to get mixed up with the wrong people—kind of like what had happened with Katie—and he’d developed a reputation as a wild child who missed practices because of his hangovers, spending all his spare time at strip clubs and partying with porn stars. Everyone said that was the reason the Ducks had given up on him so easily, trading him away as a twenty-two-year-old center who had the potential to be a top scorer in the league. It was like Tyler Seguin, part deux, or at least I was pretty sure Jim was hoping for similar results to what the Stars got with the Seguin trade.

Jim was always giving guys chances that no one else would, so the fact that he’d pulled the trigger on that trade hadn’t come as a surprise to any of us in the Storm organization. So far, Koz had been settling in all right and hadn’t gotten into any trouble, but I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t before too much longer. Portland was the strip club capital of the US, and there were bars all over the place. Still, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as long as his behavior didn’t get out of hand. It was a reflection on the team, after all.

But my brother was a different concern entirely.

I’d always felt the need to look after Levi, but he was all grown up now. He and Koz were the same age, and they were both young guys getting their start in a new city, and so I supposed it only made sense that they would hit it off together. The only other really young guys new to the team this year were European and were hanging out together. Levi and Koz were two young North Americans striking up a friendship.

My hope was that Levi would be a good influence on Koz and help him straighten his shit out; my fear was that Koz would be a bad influence on Levi, and then I’d have to figure out a way to help them both climb out of the holes they might dig for themselves.

Anyway, the point was that Levi hadn’t come to live with me. I’d thought maybe there would be a young guy I could take in and mentor the way Zee had done with me, but that hadn’t happened, and here I was. Alone. And it was weird. Maybe I should get a pet. But if I did that, I’d have to figure out what to do with it when I left on road trips with the team. I couldn’t just leave an animal alone here for a week or more at a time.

After taking Katie home, I’d come back to my place and gone through my fridge to figure out what I would eat for dinner. I’d never been much of a cook. A few years back, I’d finally learned how to make coffee that didn’t burn, overflow the coffeemaker, or kill someone. That had been a first step. These days, I had a small arsenal of things I could make using one of four appliances—a Keurig, a microwave, a waffle iron, and a toaster oven. A couple of years ago, I’d asked Will Archer, the team chef, to teach me how to feed myself in the easiest ways possible. He’d tried to convince me he could teach me to use the stove and oven, but I figured it was safer to start small and work my way up. Those were the appliances we’d settled on, and he’d given me some lessons and basic recipes to follow. I actually ate pretty well, even if my cooking skills were limited.

The guys all laughed and teased me about why I’d bothered buying a house with a big chef’s kitchen if I was afraid of most of the things in it. If you were cooking for one, though, there wasn’t any good reason to heat up a whole big oven when the toaster oven could do the job.

I took out some fresh asparagus, a lemon, and a jar of already-minced garlic, grabbed a couple of tilapia fillets from the freezer and tossed them in the sink to thaw, and set to work preparing my meal. After I had the fish and veg in the toaster oven, I put couscous in a bowl under the Keurig spout and got that cooking. In less than twenty minutes, I had a full, balanced meal—and I’d made it all myself.

I’d just sat down in front of the TV with my plate, ready to eat while catching up on Black Sails, when my phone buzzed again. I dug it out of my pocket and swiped a thumb over the screen to find another text from Webs.

What the hell did you do? Why is Katie holed up in her room and crying?

Well, fuck. I’d known that telling her what I had would hurt her, and I’d been fully aware that it would land me on the wrong side of her father’s ire, but knowing it and being prepared for the guilt turning my stomach to lead were two very different things. It would have been easier to deal with if I didn’t know she was crying. Webs probably realized that. Hell, it might be why he’d told me, hoping to make my guilt match his helplessness. I wasn’t going to take back any of the things I’d said, though, regardless of her tears or anything he might try to do to punish me for whatever crimes he thought I’d committed against her.

I set my plate on the coffee table and typed a response on my phone.

Me: I didn’t do anything wrong. I swear.

Webs: You think I’m going to take that as an answer and be okay with it?

Me: Seriously. I just told her I couldn’t hang out with her and act like everything’s all right anymore. I’m not okay.

Webs: Well, damn.

Me: Well, damn?

Webs: I hoped she would figure out she wants to be with you before you decided not to let her string you along anymore. That’s all.

I didn’t have the first clue how to respond to that. Maybe it didn’t need a response at all.

My doorbell rang, and I tossed my phone on the coffee table next to my dinner before getting up to answer it.

Levi came in as soon as I opened the door. He sniffed the air. “Smells good. Have enough for me?”

“If you make your own.” I followed him down the hall.

He veered into the kitchen, opened the fridge, stared for a moment, shook his head, and then headed to the pantry to get the fixings for peanut butter sandwiches.

I left him to it and went back to my meal.

A minute later, he joined me with three sandwiches on a paper plate. He plopped down on the sectional and put his feet up before taking a bite.

“You should get Willie to teach you how to make a few things,” I suggested. “Peanut butter sandwiches are okay sometimes, but you need to get better food in you.”

“Koz and I go in early enough to get Willie to make us breakfast. We have lunch with the boys. It’s just dinner I have to worry about.”

“And you should worry about it. Your body needs more than peanut butter.” I’d been on him about eating better for at least a few years, once I’d started to really focus on my diet and seen the difference it could make on the ice.

“I know.” He scowled at me over the top of his sandwich, but he took another bite.

I went back to my tilapia and asparagus. “What’s Koz up to tonight?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was fishing for information even though that was exactly what I was doing.

“On a date. Some chick he met at Amani’s the other day.”

Amani’s Family-Style Italian Restaurant was where most of the guys went for lunch on game days. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place I would expect to find a date, but I supposed it wasn’t entirely out of the question. If he was on a date, maybe he was staying out of trouble.

“Oh, I love this episode,” Levi said, mouth full of bread and peanut butter. “It’s the one where Billy Bones—”

“Are you here for food or something else?” I interrupted before he could tell me everything that was to come in the show I was about to watch. I never managed to keep up with TV shows I liked when they were airing. I set my DVR to record them, and then I would try to watch a few episodes at a time when I got the chance. With this show, I was almost a full season behind. He knew that, but he’d always been bad about spoiling what was to come. It was one of his quirks that drove me crazy. I loved all my brothers, but we were definitely brothers in every sense of the word—able to get on one another’s nerves without even the slightest effort. It was a talent.

He raised a brow at me, but he took the time to swallow before answering, at least. “I’m here because you were with Katie this afternoon.”

“I was. And?”

“And I thought maybe it was best if you weren’t alone.”

I grunted in lieu of coming up with a coherent response. That was the other thing about being one of the Babcock brothers—I could always count on each of them to know exactly what was needed even if I didn’t know myself.

“Oh, this part is the best,” he said with his mouth full again. He kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the coffee table, settling in for the long haul. “I love it when Flint…”

He kept talking, but I didn’t take any of it in, too busy thinking how grateful I was to have a brother who would come over and annoy the shit out of me so I wouldn’t wallow in my own thoughts.

Levi might drive me crazy, but he was a pretty good guy when it came down to it.

I ALLOWED MYSELF an hour for my pity party, but that was all the time I could spare. Dani was only here through tomorrow, and I was wasting time I could be hanging out with her.

Once I got my tears under control, I headed into my bathroom. My tears had streaked my makeup, and I looked an utter wreck. I washed my face and ran a brush through my hair, trying to remove the traces of crying before I went back out to join my family. Not that I thought I could fool any of them. Mom, Dad, and Dani had all been in the living room when I’d come through the door and started sobbing before racing up the stairs and locking my door. They might not know what had caused my upset, but they knew something had happened. They could definitely deduce that it had to do with Jamie. I only hoped they didn’t expect me to tell them about it.

The thing was, I still wasn’t sure how to feel about it, myself. I mean, yes, Jamie had told me he couldn’t really bear to be my friend anymore. That sucked. It hurt. It made me want to punch my pillow as much as it made me cry into it.

But he’d also said he loved me.

Maybe he hadn’t realized he’d said it, maybe he hadn’t intended to let me know how he really felt about me, but I had definitely heard it come out of his mouth. It wasn’t me imagining things. It wasn’t me wishing for something so hard until I convinced myself that it was real. Not when I still love you as much as I ever did. Those were his exact words. They might as well have been branded on my brain because I doubted I would ever stop hearing them filter through my mind.

He loved me.

He loved me, but it hurt him when I kept leaving. Totally understandable. Completely made sense. I mean, hell, it hurt me every time I left, and it wasn’t just because I was leaving my family. It was because I was leaving him, too.

I’d dated a few guys over the last few years, and every single one of them had been a mistake. Derek had pushed me into it, and I’d told myself that if I couldn’t be with Jamie, I could still be with someone, and maybe I’d come to love one of them as much as I loved him. Or even more than I loved him. I suppose that was what I’d been hoping for, but what had really happened was so far from my ideal that it was laughable.

But Jamie loved me. And I loved him. And I was pretty sure I’d fucked up any chance I might have once had of being with him. Now I had to figure out what I was going to do about it. It was only fair for me to give him what he’d asked for, to stop trying to be his friend when it so clearly caused him pain every time I left.

But what if I didn’t leave again?

The idea was crazy. I mean, singing and acting were the things my life was supposed to be about. I’d been studying vocal technique since I was a child. I’d taken acting lessons starting in my early teens. My parents had put me in a private high school that was known for the performing arts. I’d gone to Hollywood, gotten the representation of the best entertainment agent out there, landed my dream job, and started what should have been a long and lucrative career.

Should have been.

Probably would have been, if not for the fact that I’d already screwed myself over on that front after yesterday’s conversation with Derek. I honestly wasn’t sure what I was going to do now, but I didn’t have to leave. I could stay here. With Jamie. I could do whatever it took to make this work, if he would give me one more chance. I could figure out a new direction for my life and be sure it included him.

Yes, it would mean leaving behind all that I’d thought I wanted. I’d been learning that sometimes life had a funny way of showing you that what you’d once thought you wanted and what you really wanted didn’t always line up. In fact, sometimes they were complete opposites.

I didn’t yet have a plan as to what I would do from here, but there was no point wallowing in my bedroom anymore. I was on my way to join the rest of my family when there was a soft knock on the door and Dani’s voice saying, “Katie? Can I come in?”

I opened the door, pasting a smile on my face even though I knew she wouldn’t buy it. Sure enough, she furrowed her brow in concern.

There wasn’t any reason to let her worry about me, especially since we had less than twenty-four hours left before she’d have to drive back to Seattle, so I drew her in for a hug. “I’m okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Well, you’d better put some makeup on to hide your crying if you want Dad to believe you.” She stepped back and shut the door, then headed into my bathroom. When she returned, it was with a tube of concealer in her hand. “Let me help.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and allowed her to perform her magic tricks on me.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

I did as she ordered, and she smeared some of it on the sensitive skin all around my eyes. “Would you think I was crazy if I said I was going to stay in Portland?” I asked. “Instead of going back to LA?”

She took a moment before answering, going back into the bathroom for something else from my arsenal. “You’re not going to get any acting gigs around here other than community theater work,” she finally said once she returned and started putting foundation on my skin. “But would that make you crazy? No, I wouldn’t say so. I think it would just mean you’re reevaluating what’s important to you.”

I nodded and let her dust powder and bronzer on my cheeks.

“Are you thinking about staying because you’re over the whole Hollywood thing, though, or is it because of Jamie?”

I shrugged, popping my eyes open so I could look at her. “Maybe both? Is one a better reason than the other?”

“I guess that depends on you and what you decide to do with yourself, doesn’t it?” She added a bit of blush and handed me a tube of mascara. “A bit of mascara and some lip gloss, and you’re good as new.”

I got up and went into the bathroom so I could see myself. “Thanks, Dani.”

“Don’t thank me for that. It’s what sisters do.” She grinned at me in the mirror, hitching a hip against the doorjamb. “If you want to know what I really think, though, I think you would be crazy to leave again.”

“Why do you say that?” I tossed the mascara tube back in my kit and rummaged for my favorite lip gloss.

“Because if you can still get this worked up over Jamie, there’s something there worth fighting for, and you’re not an idiot. You know what’s really important in life.” She backed out of the bathroom. “You’ll figure it out. You’ll make the right choice. See you out there in a few,” she said just before leaving my room.

I was pretty sure I had already made my choice. Now I just needed to figure out how to implement it.

I SPENT THE rest of the weekend with my family. Dad had to leave for team practices and things like that, but otherwise he hung out with us girls. We had meals together, talking and laughing, all the while wishing that Luke could be here with us, too. Ever since I’d left for Hollywood, it was extremely rare that we were able to have the whole family together. It made me yearn for the old days, when we were kids and griped and complained all the time about being forced to be together.

The three of them were plainly curious about what had happened between me and Jamie, but none of them pressed for details. I would probably talk to Mom after a while, once I knew what I was going to do, but I wasn’t ready yet.

Late Sunday afternoon, Dani packed up her bag and gave us all hugs, and then she got in her car to make the drive back to Seattle. That was when I remembered about my appointment with Dr. Oliver the next day, and my panic started to creep back in. At least I’d been able to keep it in check while she was here. There was no good reason to let anyone else worry. Hell, there was no good reason for me to worry.

I couldn’t sleep Sunday night, even though I knew the results of my tests wouldn’t come back right away. Some of them might not come back for a week or more. That knowledge wasn’t enough to stop my anxiety from ratcheting up to the nth degree.

As I was coming to expect, I got up to find Mom puttering around in the kitchen while Dad sat on a barstool with his iPad propped up in front of him. Mom poured a fresh cup of coffee and handed it to me when I came in.

“Thanks,” I said, going to the fridge for some half-and-half.

Mom took out a pan and set it on a burner. “I can make a veggie omelet if you want.”

“I’d be happy with a bowl of Cheerios.”

“You should have a solid meal,” Dad said, glancing up from the video playing in front of him.

I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl and raised my brows at him. “How about oatmeal and fruit?”

He’d been insanely vigilant about everything I put in my mouth since my diagnosis years ago, thinking that maybe if I only ate organic foods, nothing processed, I could stay healthy. No doubt there was some truth to it, but he took it over the top sometimes. His mouth screwed up in something between a grimace and a scowl, but he went back to watching the screen.

Mom went into the pantry and came out with the oatmeal. “Want me to come with you today? I could—”

“I’m a big girl, Mom. I don’t need you to hold my hand when they stick the needle in my arm anymore.” As many times as I’d been poked and prodded over the years, I didn’t really feel the tiny pricks when they went in to draw blood and the like anymore. Or at least not as much as I would have before having cancer. They’d even put a port in me and left it for months, when I was getting chemo. I’d had to have surgery for them to implant it, and then they’d done another procedure to remove it once I was cancer free. A brief stick to give them some blood was no biggie compared to all that.

Mom looked miffed, though. She nodded and kept quiet, but that was only further proof that I’d hurt her feelings. If she wasn’t talking, there was no doubt it was because she didn’t trust herself to speak without blowing up about something.

I finished making my oatmeal and sat down next to my father.

He finished off his coffee and shut down the iPad. “Better get out of here.” He pushed back from the bar and kissed me on the cheek. “Tell me everything later.”

“There won’t be anything to tell for days.”

“I know.” He winked before heading over to kiss Mom, as well. “Tell me anyway.”

Once the garage door had closed behind him, Mom took down a wineglass and opened a bottle of her favorite merlot. “Want some?”

“At this hour of the morning?” I shook my head.

“Might help steady your nerves.”

Which was definitely the reason she was getting started this early. She had always loved her wine, and she tended to break it out for just about every occasion. I gave her a wry smile. “How about when I come home?” I suggested. By then, I would definitely need something.

“All right.” She swirled the wine in her glass, staring at the circular movements of the liquid.

I got busy eating my breakfast while ruminating. I still felt like an ass for hurting her feelings. And when it came right down to it, no matter how much of an old pro I might be at letting doctors poke and prod me, she was still my mom, and I would always need her to hold my hand. So I reached across the bar and took hers, squeezing until she met my gaze. “You want to come with me?” I asked.

“Are you sure?” she said, the words gushing out of her like a pent-up breath of air. “Because I know you’re an adult now, and I don’t want to invade your privacy or anything, but I really just—”

“Finish your wine and let’s get ready,” I cut in. “But I’m driving.”

Mom smiled so wide she could have been the Cheshire cat’s twin. “Good. Then I can have some more before we go.” She grabbed the bottle and topped off her glass.

I finished my breakfast, showered, and dressed. Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen by the time I finished getting ready, another glass of wine in her hands. She finished it off, and we left together.

My doctor’s appointment went exactly as it always did. The phlebotomist drew several vials of blood. I talked with Dr. Oliver about everything going on with my health. I didn’t think my headaches and stress and being tired lately were worth mentioning, but Mom interjected to let him know. I glared at her, and she raised a brow at me in return.

He just nodded and marked a few things down on my chart, not acting as though that were anything to be concerned about. Once we got through all his questions, he shook my hand and told me someone from his office would be in touch in about a week so we could discuss the results.

And that was that. As usual, it really wasn’t anything to have let myself get worked up about.

After I checked out at the receptionist’s desk, Mom and I headed home, and she poured us both a glass of wine.

“Thanks,” I said when she handed one to me.

She sat next to me on the sofa and tucked her feet up beside her. “Now that that’s over and we’re alone, want to tell me what happened with Jamie?”

I’d been afraid this was coming at the same time as I was impatiently expecting it. My tears started up almost immediately, and I settled in to lay out for my mother everything that had been going through my head since Saturday afternoon.

“Well,” she said once I’d recounted every detail, including my thought that I might stick around Portland. She refilled both our glasses and set the empty bottle down on the coffee table. “You know your father and I will be behind you, whatever you decide to do, right? Your dad may not always like the decisions you make, but he respects your right to make them, and he loves you no matter what. We both do.”

“I know that.”

She grinned and held up her glass. “Then you should also know that there’s no one who would be happier than your father if you stick around and give it another go with Jamie.”

“What?” My mother had to be on something to say anything of the sort. Dad had hated everything about the thought of me being with Jamie. If he could have his way, he would keep me and Dani both under lock and key until we were forty. Mom was losing her mind if she thought he’d changed his tune on that.

She sipped and lowered her glass, eyeing me astutely. “Why do you think he gave Tim that prom picture, Katie? Why that picture, when there were dozens—hundreds, even—he could have given them that would have elicited a big reaction from the crowd?”

That was an excellent question.

TO MY SURPRISE, Webs didn’t treat me any differently that week than he ever did, at practice, in games, or anywhere else. I must not have pissed him off as badly as I’d thought I had. I’d been bracing myself for the worst, whatever that might turn out to be, but he acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

He had always been full of threats as far as Katie was concerned, but he’d never actually acted on any of them. At least not with me. I was pretty sure he never had with any of the other asswipes she’d dated over the years, either, despite the fact that some of them definitely deserved it. Maybe I deserved it, too. But…nothing. Nada. No reaction at all.

That said, I would never put it past him to change his mind about torturing me. As soon as I convinced myself I was in the clear, he was bound to follow through, and then my dick and balls might not be where they’d started out anymore, or at the very least, they would no longer be in usable condition. To be safe, I’d been keeping my distance as well as I could manage, considering I still had to go to all the same team functions as him.

We had back-to-back games involving a short trip out of town, and we were going to be without Soupy for the foreseeable future. The doctors were still determining how serious his injury was, but the coaches had let us know we wouldn’t be seeing him for a while. They kept throwing around the term ACL, which could mean Soupy was done for the season. That meant we had a young guy called up from our American Hockey League affiliate, the Seattle Storm. Austin Cooper was the lucky twenty-year-old getting the chance to make an impression. I had volunteered to be Coop’s road roommate. I didn’t have to have one anymore, but I figured it would be a good way to get to know the guy and make him feel welcome. If he stuck around for a while, maybe he could come and stay at my house. I’d made the offer, but he still didn’t know how long he’d be with us, so nothing had been settled.

The first game was against the Panthers at home, followed by a match against the Wild on the road. We pulled off a hard-fought win against Florida, partially due to Coop scoring on his first NHL shot, and we came out of Minnesota with an overtime loss. Immediately after that game, we headed to the airport and flew to Dallas for the second and last game on this brief road trip.

After eating the chicken parm and salad the flight attendants served us, I spent the rest of our time in the air playing Texas Hold ’Em with RJ, Burnzie, and Ghost. Or maybe losing my ass to Ghost would be more accurate. The guy’s face never gave a fucking thing away. By the time we touched down at Love Field, I was pretty sure he had bluffed me out of at least a few hundred dollars, and both RJ and Burnzie were definitely lighter in the pockets, too, but there was no chance Ghost would admit to any deception.

“If you think I’m bluffing, call me on it,” Ghost said, slinging his carry-on bag over his shoulder before heading up the aisle.

Burnzie filed in behind him. “Every time I stayed in, you took all my money,” he grumbled.

Ghost laughed.

The second I stepped out on the stairs coming down from the plane, the heat hit me like a slap shot to the gut. It was about three in the morning, but it had to be close to ninety degrees out even though we were getting close to Halloween. I wished I had taken off my suit jacket and tie before getting out in the Texas air, but at least I didn’t have on a bulky coat.

Mom had texted me a day or two ago that it was already snowing back home. I imagined that for the guys who played on teams down south, there had to be a bit of a shock to the system. Well, at least for most of them. These days, there were starting to be guys drafted who’d grown up in Texas, California, Florida… They were still the exception, though, not the rule. Most guys in the league came from places where snow was a lot more common than triple-digit temperatures.

We all headed to the waiting bus, which took us to our hotel. I was on my way to the front desk to get the envelope with my room key when Webs came up alongside me and took my arm, hauling me to a stop. He didn’t say anything, only nudging his head to a quiet hallway off to the side of the lobby, but there was something familiar in the crease of his forehead that turned my dinner to concrete.

I followed him until he turned and faced me.

“Katie’s cancer is back,” he said without preamble.

He might as well have punched me in the gut. His words hurt as bad as that would have. Worse, even. Much worse. The concrete that had replaced my stomach had bubbled up into my throat. My lungs were collapsing on me, and that fucking cement block in my throat wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I swallowed.

“Laura left me a message to fill me in. She knew my phone would be off but I needed to know.”

Laura was his wife, Katie’s mom. I nodded, then wished I hadn’t because that small motion was all it took to melt the concrete and turn it to bile.

Webs’s voice crunched over every word, and his fists kept clenching and releasing at his sides. “They have to run a bunch more tests, figure out exactly what we’re dealing with this time. Figure out a plan. Katie didn’t—” He dragged a hand through his hair before punching the wall and pressing his forehead to the same spot.

I might have done the same if I thought it would help. I knew better, though. There wasn’t a fucking thing I could do that would make it feel better. Nothing I could do would help.

After a moment, he turned to me again with shining eyes. “Katie didn’t want me to tell you, but I thought you needed to know. I just— I thought you should know.”

I might have nodded. I couldn’t be sure because after the debilitating blow of his words, everything in me went numb. Maybe I was in shock. Maybe my body was shutting down my ability to feel because pain on that level was more than I could take, and something in my brain knew that better than I did. “Thanks,” I croaked out, but I didn’t know why I was thanking him.

Because I’d told Katie I couldn’t be in her life anymore.

Because loving her hurt too much.

And all this did was make everything else hurt worse.

“I’ll keep you informed,” Webs said. “Once the tests come back. Once we know.”

“Okay,” I forced through clenched teeth, but what I wanted to say was no. I wished he hadn’t told me. Not any of it. If I didn’t know Katie’s cancer had returned, then I would have been able to go on nursing my broken heart. Maybe one day it would have healed enough that I could have moved on.

But right now, all I could think about was going back. Back in time. Back to Portland. Back to Katie.

“She’s going to be all right.” His voice cracked over the words, the crunching giving way to emotion like water bursting through a dam. “Right? She’s beat it before, so she—” He couldn’t go on, but there was no need to.

I was torn between the desire to punch something until my knuckles bled and the feeling that I should try to comfort him.

Webs didn’t exactly give me the chance to figure it out, either. He muttered, “Fuck,” and closed the distance between us, tugging me in for a bear hug. He was just as strong as he’d been back when he was still one of my teammates. His arms were like a vise around me. There was no escape.

Out of instinct, I put my arms around him and patted his back.

That was when Burnzie and Ghost ambled into the hall, busting a gut laughing about something. Webs released me almost immediately, but I knew my face would give away my embarrassment at being caught like that. I had always blushed way too fucking easily, which only embarrassed me more than I already was. Pissed me off. Blushing was something that people normally associated with teenaged girls, like the ones who were always following me and Levi around and gushing over how cute we were. I was a twenty-four-year-old man, for Christ’s sake, and I still blushed as bad as I ever had.

“Shit,” Ghost said. “Sorry, we, uh…”

“We were just heading the other way,” Burnzie said, physically turning Ghost around and dragging him back toward the hotel lobby.

“What—” Ghost started.

“None of our fucking business is what,” Burnzie muttered right before they turned the corner.

“Sorry,” Webs said, clearing his throat once they’d disappeared.

“Don’t be,” I said out of habit.

He sniffled, and his facial muscles twitched as he tried to get himself back under control. “You should head up,” he said. “Try to sleep.”

“Yeah.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, wishing I had a rock to kick around with my toes. “You should, too. Sleep,” I clarified.

He gave me a wry half smile. “Not a lot of chance that’s going to happen.”

Not for me, either, but if anyone understood that, it was Webs. I nodded and shuffled off down the hall. Instead of turning for the elevator bay, I followed the signs to the hotel’s gym, stripping off my jacket and tie and rolling up my sleeves as I went.

There wasn’t a punching bag, which was what I really wanted now that I was here, but maybe that was for the best. Bruising my hands probably wouldn’t be my best move at the moment. Regardless of what was going on with Katie, I still had hockey to play and a team to lead. In the end, I got on a bike and tried to wear myself out to the point that I couldn’t think. Letting myself think only led me back to Katie. Should I call her or try to talk to her? The idea of taking back everything I’d said to her about no longer being her friend was weighing on me, and I was afraid I might end up doing just that. And then where would it leave me? She was still going to leave. She’d beat cancer again, and she would go back to Hollywood and date some asswipe who could never deserve her, and I would be left here to nurse my broken heart once more. That was the only sort of leaving I could let myself contemplate; the other possibilities threatened to rip my heart out just by allowing them to flit across the corners of my mind.

I cycled harder in an effort to rid my mind of any thought of her. I don’t know how long I was on that stupid stationary bike. Long enough that I had sweated through my clothes and would have to send them off for cleaning. Long enough that my muscles were screaming for relief. Long enough that I should have stopped thinking about anything but getting off the fucking thing, taking a shower, and going to bed, but I could still think of nothing but Katie. At some point, the gym door opened, and Levi, Burnzie, Ghost, Coop, and half a dozen of our other teammates came in. They should have all been in bed. I should have, too, but that was beside the point.

Levi picked up my tie and jacket from the floor, where I’d tossed them before getting on the bike. “Come on,” he said.

I shook my head. “Go up to bed.”

Ghost grabbed the handle of my carry-on bag, ready to haul it off. “Not until you come, too,” he said.

“Why the hell are you guys even down here?” It had to be four or five in the morning by now, and we had a mandatory meeting and film session scheduled for after breakfast. That was going to be here far earlier than I would want to be up.

Burnzie came over behind me and gave me a cuff on the backside of my head, something he’d been doing since my rookie season. “Because you are, you dumb fuck, why do you think? Ghost and I got Webs to tell us what was going on when he came through the lobby. We were still debating how long we should let you sulk when Coop came wandering around like a lost puppy and said you still hadn’t picked up your room key or headed up. That was when we all got together and decided to figure out where you were.”

“Well, you found me,” I bit off, wishing I had bothered to grab a towel. Sweat dripped down my forehead and got in my eyes, stinging. “Mystery solved. Fuck off.”

I sounded like an ass, and I knew it. I was reacting like a damn toddler, minus the kicking and screaming. It was definitely a toddler-worthy temper tantrum I was throwing, at the very least. My teammates didn’t deserve that kind of treatment, but I didn’t know how to stop myself when everything inside me was twisting into knots. I couldn’t very well kick and scream at the universe and expect it to do any good.

Jonny frowned at me, his arms crossed and his feet planted like two tree trunks making roots in the floor. “You boys go on up,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay with him.”

“Yeah,” Burnzie said, backing out of the gym while the other guys followed, Ghost and Levi hauling my shit along with them. Burnzie caught Jonny’s eye and nudged his head in my direction. “Feel free to bust his face in for being a dick.”

If there was anyone on the team who could—and would, considering I deserved it—it was Jonny. He grunted in response, which Burnzie and the boys seemed to accept as a suitable answer. They trickled out of the room.

When the door closed behind them, Jonny crossed over and sat backward on the weight bench across from me. He ran a hand over his shaved head and stared at me. “So you can keep cycling if you want, or you can talk if you want. Whatever. I’m not leaving until you do, though, and Sara will tell you I get really cranky if I don’t get my beauty sleep.”

“Beauty sleep, huh?” I couldn’t help but chuckle, and I raised a brow at the yellowish bruise around his eye and the fresh set of stitches on his cheek. I knew better than to think he would get up and go just because I told him to. I was pretty sure the only person I’d ever met who might come close to him on the stubborn scale was his wife, Sara.

“It takes a lot of work to look this good.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “Point is, I don’t think you need to be alone right now, and I don’t intend to let you be.”

I mimicked his earlier grunt.

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I guess I’m going up to bed so I don’t have to sit here with you staring at me like that all night.”

“I meant about Katie.”

Hell if I knew.

IN ORDER TO keep my mind occupied while I was waiting on the results of my latest barrage of tests, I had decided to go house hunting. Mom and Dad wanted me to just move back into their house, now that I didn’t have any good reason to go back to LA, and especially now that I did have a good reason to stick around in Portland. If I was going to have to go through cancer treatments again, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to do it under anyone but Dr. Oliver.

That didn’t mean I wanted to live with my parents and have my mother hovering over me constantly until I was cancer-free again, though. It only made sense, she said, because I was already living here at least temporarily. I hadn’t forgotten what it was like, going through radiation and chemotherapy and all that jazz. I remembered everything about it, not the least of which was the emotional toll it had taken on my family. I needed at least some space of my own, some distance between us without completely going away, if I was going to get through it again without going completely berserk. I wanted to be able to hang out with my mom when I felt like crap but to not have her watching me so she could pick out every minuscule change I went through before I noticed it. There had to be some sort of balance there, and I intended to find it.

I had more than enough money set aside that I could get a reasonable place of my own without it hurting my bank account, whether I was going to be working in the near future or not, so I didn’t see any reason to put it off. Chances were pretty high that I’d be starting some treatment plan or another pretty soon, and once that happened, I would have a lot less energy for things like house hunting.

When I headed into the kitchen for breakfast, Dad was there eating a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit, but this time he didn’t have his iPad playing video. I’d been at my parents’ house at breakfast more than enough times since Dad had started coaching to know that he always watched game footage on his iPad over breakfast, but the tablet was nowhere to be seen.

By the time he and the team had gotten in after their loss against the Stars last night, I had long since gone to bed. I’d still been awake, though. I’d heard him come in, his footsteps careful in the hall as he made his way to my bedroom and opened the door. Katie? he’d whispered. You awake? I hadn’t answered him, lying there with my eyes closed, hoping he would close the door and make his way to his own bed.

He hadn’t done that. He’d crossed over to me and sat down on the edge of the bed, and he’d kissed the back of my head. I could tell he was crying. That was what I’d been trying to avoid, the reason I’d pretended to be asleep. I wasn’t ready for all this again—to have everyone hovering and crying all the time. That didn’t help me. It just made me feel as if I was the one responsible for everyone’s lack of emotional well-being. I had hoped he would wait until the light of day before starting, but my hopes were in vain.

He’d stayed there for a few minutes, stroking my hair, and then he’d sniffled and shuffled out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Only after he was gone did I allow myself to break down in tears. I hated crying. I really fucking hated it, and I’d allowed it to go on so long that I ended up with a massive headache that kept me awake for hours after he’d left my room.

And now, here he was, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes over his breakfast, and it took everything in me not to break down again. We’d talked on the phone some in the last couple of days. He knew everything I knew at this point about my test results. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much. It was just enough to know there was something to worry about but not enough to know how worried we should be.

“What time did you get in?” I asked, pretending I didn’t know. I just needed to talk. To keep myself from bawling again. I took down a mug and brewed a cup of coffee.

“Late.” His voice was rough. “Your mom has a meeting with the women’s league this morning. You could go with her.”

Mom had been getting involved with all sorts of clubs and groups ever since Dani had graduated from high school. She’d been a stay-at-home mother the whole time we were growing up, but now that we had lives of our own to lead, she’d been getting restless. She’d always been involved in things with whatever team Dad played for or coached for, of course, but apparently that was no longer enough to keep her appropriately busy.

“I could,” I hedged. I’d already told Mom I didn’t want to go with her, but I hadn’t broached the real reason why I wasn’t going with either of them. “If I didn’t already have other plans.”

He set his spoon down and met my eyes. “What other plans? More tests?”

“Not today.” Hopefully not any time soon. They had stuck me more than enough over the last couple of days to last me for a while, thank you very much. “Actually, I have an appointment with a realtor.”

“A realtor?”

“Yes.” I took out a bowl and started fixing my own breakfast, copying his.

“Here in Portland?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I thought I’d fly to Timbuktu and go house hunting there. Yes, of course here in Portland.”

“So you’re going to stay? You’re not planning to go back to Hollywood?”

“Not in the near future, at least. Maybe someday.” Of course, if I was going to be able to return to Hollywood, I’d have to still be alive to do so. For some reason, airlines aren’t really fond of transporting dead people. And then there was the small matter of no longer having an agent or any real desire to live that lifestyle anymore. I wasn’t ready to close the door on that part of my life completely, but that didn’t mean I needed to walk through it any time soon. “Even when I’m working on a show, I still come back and spend quite a bit of time here. This is home. I might as well act like an adult and really make it home, right?”

“Did you tell your mother?”

I shook my head, biting my lip. Mom wouldn’t take it as well as Dad, so I’d been keeping it a secret, hoping maybe I could get him to break the news to her instead of me. I hated having to tell her things that she wouldn’t like. “Not yet.”

“And this has nothing to do with you not wanting Mom to be up in your business all the time, right?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Who’s your realtor?”

At least he understood. “Sierra Firth,” I said, letting out a breath.

Dad picked up his spoon and went back to his oatmeal with a nod. “She’s the one who helped us find this house.”

“I know. I remember. I was fourteen, you know.” With my breakfast prepared, I took the stool next to his at the bar. I’d been a teenager when we’d moved to Portland. Dad had played in Toronto, New York, Carolina, St. Louis, Edmonton, and Detroit before signing on with the Storm, so we’d moved around a lot. That’s just how it is sometimes for a pro athlete. It had been rough on me as a kid. As soon as I’d grown comfortable somewhere and settled on who I wanted to have as my friends, we were on the move again. Portland had been the one place he’d really stuck. It was the only place I wanted to call home.

He shoved the sugar dish in my direction so I wouldn’t have to reach for it. “Never thought you would have paid attention to things like that when there were boys to be ogled.”

“They were at school, not in the empty houses we were looking at.”

“So where are you going to look? I just saw a For Sale sign on a house around the corner. The one with the blue shutters.”

I couldn’t help but grin at him. “Not around the corner.”

“Too close to your mom?” He finished off his coffee and pushed the cup aside. “Yeah, too close to your mom. I get it. Not too far away, though, okay? She—we—need to hover at least some.”

“I know.” That was going to be one of my biggest decisions—how close was too close, and how far was too far. “It’ll be in Portland. I don’t know where. Sierra said she had some ideas that she thought I’d like.”

“Fair enough.” He reached in the fruit basket for a banana and started peeling it before passing it to me and taking out another for himself. “I told Babs.”

I swallowed hard, blinking back tears. I’d told both Mom and Dad that I didn’t want Jamie to know. Jamie had made it clear that he couldn’t be my friend anymore, and I had no intention of doing anything to hurt him worse than I already had. I wanted to give him a clean break. No contact. Nothing more than the knowledge that we both existed and were in the same city. I could give him that, couldn’t I? I owed him that much. “I didn’t want—”

“I know you didn’t want him to know, but I thought he should, and I told him. You can be angry at me if you want. You can yell at me and curse me. Hit me, if you think it’ll help. But I told him, and I’m not sorry I did, so you’re just going to have to accept it.”

It wasn’t me accepting it that I was worried about, though. It was Jamie.

“NOT ONLY IS it a great location for you while you’re undergoing treatments, but it’s right in the heart of things for when you’re healthy again,” Sierra said, opening the door to the backyard and stepping aside so I could go out before her.

It might as well have been a private garden out there, with various trees, bushes, and flowering plants lining the fence, making it seem like a sanctuary. A swinging bench hung under one of the bigger trees on one side looking toward the mountain view over the tops of the greenery, and a pond was situated off to the side, with rocks and plants arranged around it so it looked as if it had always been there even though it surely must have been installed after the house was built.

My parents lived in a classic Tudor-style house in Grant Park on the east side of Portland. I’d asked Sierra to show me houses on the other side of the river, claiming it was because I wanted to be close to all my doctors downtown. She’d already taken me to more than half a dozen houses today, mainly in Beaverton and Lake Oswego, because they were close enough to downtown for what I needed but with enough distance to still feel as if I had some privacy. She’d caught on pretty quickly that privacy, a place where I could just be away from it all, was a big factor for me.

This house, though, was just outside of downtown in the Northwest District. It hadn’t been on the original list we’d discussed; she’d suggested it after we’d been out looking for a while, once she had a better sense of my likes and dislikes. I hadn’t seen any more than the front entry and the path through the house to the backyard, yet. It didn’t matter. Unless the place was completely gutted and would need a ton of work, I was pretty sure I wanted this house to be mine because of nothing more than the peace and solitude I would have in this backyard.

I strolled to the swing and took a seat, imagining being out here on a nice night at sunset. For the first time in days, a feeling of stillness settled over me, starting at my head and trickling all the way down to my toes.

Sierra sat next to me and cocked up a brow. “You want to take a look at the inside?”

“I should probably do that before making an offer, huh?”

“Might be a good idea.”

“Right.” I sighed and pushed myself up from the swing. “I guess we should do that, then.”

We went back inside and she took me on the grand tour.

“They recently renovated the kitchen and the master bath,” Sierra said as we moved from room to room. “All stainless appliances in the kitchen. Separate shower and a garden tub, which might come in handy when you aren’t feeling well. They also tore down a wall between what used to be two smaller bedrooms and turned it into a really good-sized home office with room for some built-ins and a nice view out back. I don’t know what you might use it for, but I bet you could come up with something.”

The second I stepped into that space, I had an idea. I could turn it into a music studio of sorts. Ever since I’d ended my representation with Derek, I’d been trying to think of what I could do to remain in the entertainment business but do it from Portland. The one thing that kept coming to mind, even though it sounded crazy, was songwriting.

I’d never written a song before. I’d only sung them. It seemed like something I should at least try, though, because it would give me opportunities to continue my career but do it on my own terms, not those of an agent who was going to push his own agenda. Having a studio in my house would be perfect.

I followed Sierra through the rest of the house, taking it all in. Even after the remodeling the owners had done, there were still two bedrooms and two bathrooms in addition to this big office. I didn’t need a ton of space, but it would probably be a good idea to have a guest room in case…well, in case I got so sick that I needed someone living with me to take care of me.

“Can I wander around for a few minutes and think?” I asked her.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. Take all the time you need.”

I did just that, moving from room to room and imagining myself living here. It wasn’t brand new, and there were a few things I would want to change right away, not the least of which were paint colors. The people who owned it were apparently fans of dark, bold hues. Not me. I wanted it to be light, warm, and airy, like the colors you’d expect to see in Tuscany or Greece. Paint was an easy fix, though, and there weren’t any major changes I could see needing to make as long as there weren’t any structural issues.

The real deciding factors for me were the oasis in the back and the studio. Between those two things and the fact that I would be far enough away from my parents without being too far, I knew—this was the house for me.

I meandered back to the kitchen and leaned against the bar.

“You still like it?” Sierra asked.

“Like it? Love it, more like.”

“I thought so, but it’s never a good idea to make assumptions.”

“So how does this work? How do I make an offer?”

“You don’t want to think about it? Bring your parents or a friend over to see it?”

“No need for that.” I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything change my mind. Not on this.

“Well, then.” She grinned and pulled out a file from her briefcase. “Let’s talk numbers.”

“YOU’RE NOT SERIOUSLY going to keep calling him Spanky, are you?” Levi asked. “Of all the things to name a cat…”

“Maybe? I don’t know. He already knows it’s his name.”

“He’s three months old, if that. He doesn’t know you mean him when you say that. He’s just responding to your voice. He seems to like you, for whatever reason.”

The scruffy silver tabby in question squirmed free from my brother’s grasp again and sunk his razor claws into my sleeve—and beyond—to climb up to my shoulder. The people at the shelter said they were pretty sure he was about three months old even though he was about half the size he should be at that age. He’d been rescued from near a dumpster at a convenience store a couple of weeks before, malnourished and sick, and they hadn’t been sure he would make it. He had a clean bill of health now, though, even if he was still kind of scrawny. This little guy was a fighter, in more ways than one, as he was reminding me at the moment. Now that he was up on my shoulder, he dug his claws into my skin so he wouldn’t slide off.

“Ouch. Can’t you hold him still for three more minutes?” We were almost back to my place, and the kitten was tiny. Levi was probably a hundred times his size. He ought to be able to restrain the kitten at least long enough to get home.

“You try making a kitten do what you want it to do,” Levi grumbled. “You should have taken them up on that cardboard box thing they offered. They said this might happen. Clearly, he likes to explore. And he likes you. There’s no explaining taste.”

Whether I should have or not, it was too late now. Once Spanky got where he wanted to be, he curled up in a ball, mewling in my ear with the same pathetic sound he made that had convinced me I needed to take him home with me. That’s where he’d hung out the most while we were playing with him at the shelter. Or at least he’d been up there a lot when he wasn’t otherwise occupied with climbing my pants and making flying leaps at feather toys and chasing balls and wrestling with the bigger kittens. But then after all that playing, he got tired, and he’d sought me out again to snuggle with during his nap.

I hadn’t really intended to come home with a cat. I’d been looking at a dog that was some sort of beagle mix when a huge chocolate Labrador had caught my eye. The second I walked over to the Lab’s kennel, this tiny kitten had pranced through the door from the cat area and sprinted up my legs and back to perch on my shoulder. When I’d tried to pull him down, he’d given me that pathetic mewl, and he’d dug in his claws, making sure he wasn’t going anywhere without turning my skin to ribbons. Then the purring had started, and I was a goner.

“What do you want a cat for, anyway?” Levi asked, his voice mixing with the kitten’s purrs in a very odd manner. “Do you even know how to take care of a cat?”

“Do you even know how to take care of yourself?” I countered instead of trying to explain that I was lonely without having someone to come home to. On our day off in Dallas, I’d offered a room to Coop since it looked like he’d be sticking with the team for a while. Apparently Wheels had gotten to him first, so I still had no roommate. Between that and the news Webs had given me about Katie’s cancer, I’d decided that I needed a companion of some sort, human or otherwise. I didn’t know a better way of making that happen than by bringing home a pet.

Levi shrugged and tried to pry the kitten free, but Spanky was having none of that. Those tiny claws dug into my neck again, and I let out a series of expletives.

Levi let go. “Guess he’s staying there until we get back to your place.”

“I guess so.”

Spanky resettled and started purring again, a warm, fluffy ball right where my shoulder and neck met.

“You should call him Tiger,” Levi said.

“Why Tiger?”

“Why Spanky?”

“Because I don’t know him well enough to know what else to call him.” I made the turn onto my street. There were two cars parked in the drive of the empty house next door to mine. Probably a realtor showing it. That had been happening a lot as long as I’d been living here. I pulled up in my driveway and hit the button for my garage door to open.

“Um, Jamie?”

I turned my head toward the cars in the driveway next door, since that was where Levi was staring. Then I wished I hadn’t because Katie was staring back at my car, standing next to one of the realtors I’d seen a time or two. She looked as thunderstruck as I felt.

“Fuck,” I muttered. This really couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t handle having her move in next door to me. And what the hell was she doing, looking at buying a house here? If she was going to stick around in Portland to go through whatever treatments she needed, she should stay with her parents. She’d need help, someone to look after her when she wasn’t feeling well, someone to take her to all her doctor’s appointments and hospital visits and God only knew what else. Cancer wasn’t something she should try to deal with on her own, and she knew that better than most since she’d already been through it once.

I would tell her so if not for the knowledge that she didn’t want anyone to tell me she was sick again. And then there was the small matter that I’d told her I needed her out of my life. Not to mention the fact that the second I opened my mouth to try to speak to her at all, I would probably break down and take everything back.

It was the only thing that had been racing through my head for the last few days—telling Katie that I hadn’t meant it, that I would be her friend, if that was what she wanted, or her boyfriend, or whatever the hell she needed me to be. That I needed her in my life and didn’t care what corner of hers she put me in, as long as I could hold on to some piece of her.

God knew I was a fucking glutton for punishment, but I couldn’t give in and do that. She’d flattened my heart so many times she might as well have run over it repeatedly with an eighteen-wheeler. Someday, I wanted to be able to give it to someone, and I couldn’t as long as she kept ripping it to shreds. I had to stick to my original plan and stay as far away from her as I could.

Levi opened his door and climbed out. He was crossing the lawn and heading over to talk to them before I could make up my mind about what I ought to do—like pull my car into the garage, go inside the house, and pretend I hadn’t seen her.

Katie had seen me, though. There wasn’t any doubt about that, based on the way her jaw had dropped when she’d looked at the car. I figured I had to at least go and say hello. Maybe once she knew I lived here, it would help her realize this wasn’t the house for her and she should move on.

I undid my seat belt and put a hand over Spanky’s back so he wouldn’t take a tumble, and then I followed my brother.

“So you live here?” Katie asked as soon as I reached them. She blinked a couple of times, staring at the fuzz ball on my shoulder. “You have a kitten?” As soon as she remarked upon that realization, her voice had gone all soft and sweet, like women tended to do around babies. She reached out for the little guy, and he surprisingly allowed her to pick him up without leaving me a bloody mess. The next thing I knew, she had him cradled against her chest and was cooing to him.

Which drew my eyes there. Where he was. Or really more to what was under him.

Her breasts.

Which were amazing.

They were perfect and perky, just the right size for me to cup in my palms. The top she was wearing had a vee at the neck, lining the small amount of cleavage she had showing with a bright turquoise fabric that lit up everything about her. And my kitten was hanging out there. Enjoying himself immensely, it seemed, based on the way he was purring. I could hear his purr motor working like crazy. The tiny bastard.

Levi cleared his throat, and I forced my gaze up to Katie’s face. She was watching me with a bemused grin, one of her brows raised in question.

“Oh. Yeah, the house. I bought it over the summer. Figured it was time to set down some roots. I’ve been here seven years so far, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be leaving any time soon.” Unlike her, which made the idea that she was looking for a house, not only in the city but right next door to me, fishy. Not that I said as much. Was she looking at houses near mine for a reason? Portland was plenty big enough that she could live any number of places that weren’t in my immediate vicinity. But that should be a private conversation, if we had the discussion at all.

The whole time I was talking, she kept petting Spanky, drawing my eye down over and over, and leading me to thoroughly inappropriate thoughts that had nothing to do with that kitten.

“I had no idea you lived here. I just put in an offer on this house,” Katie said, and I was pleased to hear that she did sound at least a tiny bit hesitant about making her revelation. Granted, I could barely hear her reticence over the sound of my jaw grinding. “If I had known…”

“Speaking of your offer,” the other woman said, “I’d better get back to the office and see whether we have a response from the seller yet. I know he’s anxious to get something done.” She smiled and nodded, and within moments, she’d climbed into her car and backed down the drive.

“Right,” Levi said. “Well, I should probably get out of here, too.”

His departure wasn’t unexpected since I knew he had plans for tonight, but I shot him a look anyway so he’d know I thought he was acting like a damn traitor. He didn’t have to leave for hours, and the guy never took longer than seven minutes flat to get ready for anything.

“Got a date tonight,” he said, winking at Katie and ignoring me. “Double date with Koz and some twins he met last week.”

She grinned at him. “Sounds like fun.”

“Fun doesn’t even begin to describe what I expect it to be.” He backed away, waggling his brows suggestively, and headed into my garage for his car before I could stop him.

“Don’t stay out too late,” I called after him. “And don’t let Koz—”

“Are you coming along to babysit us?” he shouted just before disappearing in the garage. “Who’ll take care of Tiger?”

“Aww, is his name Tiger?” Katie asked. The kitten was gnawing on her finger and making adorably ferocious sounds, as though trying to prove himself worthy of a name like Tiger. Instead of pulling her hand away, Katie gave him another finger to chew.

“They’ve been calling him Spanky.” Admittedly, I felt like an idiot saying that name, particularly saying it to Katie.

Levi backed his car down my driveway and waved as he turned onto the street. Asshole. He could have stuck around until Katie was gone. Now that we were alone, I wasn’t sure how to go about this. Not any of it. I hadn’t been prepared to run into her today. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to bump into her at all, other than maybe at the occasional Storm event, since she might pop in now and then. But here, at my house, when I’d just come home with a kitten who had a ridiculous name? Absolutely not ready for that.

Katie laughed. “Who would give him a name like that?”

I dragged a hand through my hair, realizing too late that I’d just messed it up worse than it likely already was. “They said he was always beating up on all the other kittens when they wrestled even though he was the smallest of the bunch. Runt-of-the-litter syndrome or something.” I shoved my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t fuck anything else up with them. “He’s an energetic guy.”

“I can tell.” She held up the fingers that the kitten had been chewing on, which were now pinkish on the tips. Not bleeding, at least. Just irritated.

“Sorry.” I don’t know why I apologized to her. Not really. I mean, she was the one who had given him her fingers to gnaw on, so it was her own damn fault. Still, sorry was one word that had been burned into me from a very young age. I grew up in Canada. Canadians tended to apologize for everything. It was a habit that seven years in the States hadn’t cured me of.

“It’s fine. Jamie, I—”

She averted her eyes for a moment, staring down at the kitten before raising her gaze again and looking at me full on. Her eyes were this clear blue, lighter than the summer sky and a hell of a lot deeper than the ocean. Her eyes fucking killed me. Always had. I was pretty sure I’d fallen in love with her eyes well before I’d fallen in love with the rest of her. And I had to stop thinking about how much I loved her. It would only do me more harm than good.

“I meant it. I honestly didn’t know that you lived here, or I never would have— Do you want me to see if I can take back the offer on the house? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

I had been growing increasingly more uncomfortable the longer we’d been standing here, but it had a hell of a lot more to do with thinking about moving that kitten away so I would have a better view of her cleavage than it did about the likelihood that she’d be moving in next door.

I shook my head. “If you want the house, buy the house.” It wasn’t like she would be living with me, just next door. I never really talked to my other neighbors, so she could be like the rest of them. We could wave in passing and leave it at that. Somehow, I could find a way to pretend I didn’t know the taste of her lips or the softness of her fingers when she would touch me. Couldn’t I? And even if I couldn’t, that didn’t mean I had to act on anything.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You’d tell me if you didn’t want me here, wouldn’t you?”

“Your father told me,” I blurted out instead of answering her question. Then I wished I could take it back. “That the cancer is back,” I finally added.

“I know. He came clean this morning.” She swallowed visibly and pushed the kitten back toward me, almost apologetically.

As soon as I took him, he scrambled up my chest and settled into his preferred position on my shoulder, purring up a storm. Katie crossed her arms in front of her. That pushed her breasts in and up.

I had to force myself to meet her eyes. “Why didn’t you want me to know?”

“Trying to keep that separation you asked for. That’s all.”

She shivered, and it was only then that I realized she wasn’t wearing a jacket or sweater. Then I felt like an ass.

“Come on,” I said, putting a hand over the kitten’s back again so I wouldn’t jostle him. “Come inside. It’s cold out here.” I turned and crossed the lawn, heading for my house.

“Jamie…”

“Come inside,” I repeated, glancing over my shoulder to find her exactly as I’d left her. “Please.”

She looked back at the house she was buying, but then her feet fell into motion, and she followed behind me, a frown creasing her forehead.

It was only once she came into my kitchen that I realized I was doing exactly what I couldn’t afford to do—I was letting Katie back into my life, welcoming her in with open arms, and inviting her to beat my heart to a bloody pulp.

NORMALLY, I DIDN’T have a tentative bone in my body. Yeah, I got stage fright, but that was a different sort of beast. It had never kept me from getting up on the stage and doing my thing. It was just that adrenaline coursed through me in those moments, and the sensation just made everything different in some way, more than anything. I knew that about myself, and I could recognize it for what it was, and so I just powered through whenever stage fright hit me. But right now, following Jamie into his house, my feet were as heavy as those Acme anvils that were always dropping on Looney Tunes characters.

Ever since Jamie had pulled up with his brother and I’d realized I was buying the house next door to his, I’d been in a state of intense emotional turmoil. It was like having vertigo; I couldn’t figure out which way was up, and everything was spinning, and I had no sense of my bearings. He kept looking at me the way a man looks at a woman he wants, but the only thing Jamie wanted from me was to get out of his life.

Supposedly.

I was pretty sure we both knew there was still more there, but it was buried underneath a lot of hurt, and I wasn’t sure he was willing to let me unearth it.

Yet here I was, walking into his kitchen while he brought his new kitten home.

He shut the door behind me, and I set my purse on the counter and took a glance around. It was a state-of-the-art kitchen, very similar to the one in the house next door. Jamie’s counters were covered with a few small appliances that were surprising, at least if you knew much about him.

“Don’t tell me you can use more than a coffeepot and a toaster now,” I teased. It wasn’t all that long ago that he couldn’t do more than make a peanut butter sandwich, at least without running the risk of needing assistance from the nearest fire department.

“Maybe a bit. Zee always told me a guy has to be able to feed himself. I guess I finally listened.” Jamie bent over and set the kitten down on the floor, not that it did any good. He’d barely let the kitten go when it let out a pathetic meow and raced back up to his shoulder, causing Jamie to hiss in a breath with his eyes pinched closed. “Those claws are intense,” he said when he looked at me again.

“I think he feels safe with you.” When I’d held the kitten outside, it had been shaking, and I wasn’t convinced that it was just because of the cold. Now he was in a big new house where nothing was familiar. Nothing but Jamie.

“I guess he’s going to be my parrot, then.”

“You should name him Blackbeard.”

“Better him than me.” Jamie laughed, and warmth bubbled up inside me. At least I could still make him laugh. “You’re sticking around for a while, then?” he asked. He took a couple of glasses out of a cabinet next to the refrigerator and filled them with water before offering me one.

“For a while.” I took a sip and eased onto one of his barstools. “Probably for a lot longer than a while.”

He nodded. “Because of your treatments.”

“Because I think I’m done with Hollywood,” I corrected. “At least done with everything I’ve tried so far.” Not that I was ready to go into the particulars. Some things, I wasn’t sure he ever needed to know—the things I’d been keeping buried so no one would realize just how badly I’d fucked everything up. They were all disappointed in me enough without knowing the full truth.

Jamie shook his head. “It’s what you’ve always wanted. What you were born to do. You can’t just give that up.”

“Already have. Derek’s not my agent anymore. I don’t have anything in the works, and I have no desire to be on a new show or audition for a film. I thought it was for me, but I was wrong.”

He bent over the island between us, resting his weight on his forearms. The kitten apparently didn’t like that angle, so he hopped down onto the granite countertop, dashing over to attack my fingertips again. Jamie wasn’t watching the kitten, though; he was staring at me. Through me. “You come alive when you sing, though.”

“Well, maybe I can figure out a way to sing but do it from here. I don’t know. I was thinking that I could use the office in that house for a studio, maybe write some songs.” I fluttered my fingers, and the kitten leaped for them, sinking a claw into one momentarily. I probably shouldn’t be teaching him that fingers were toys, but I didn’t have anything better on hand. “Something like that, anyway. Whatever I end up doing, I’m done with LA.” The finality of it, of saying it that way, felt good. It felt comfortable, and there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot that had given me a sense of serenity in the last few days. Nothing but putting an end to my career in Hollywood and settling on buying that house. It could only mean I was making the right decision.

“So you’re staying in Portland?”

I could tell he was trying to make it sound casual, but it came across as anything but. I looked up and held his gaze. “Yeah. I’m staying.”

While I wasn’t watching him, the kitten made a flying leap for some of my hair that was apparently swinging and looking like prey.

“Not so fast, little guy.” Jamie caught him midair just before he latched on to my face with all those razor-sharp claws, and the kitten squeaked in indignation. “I should probably bring in the box of things they sent home with me for him. Food, toys, all that stuff.”

“Tell you what,” I said. “You keep him in here and figure out something you can make me with one of your fancy new appliances, and I’ll go bring it all in so we can get him set up.”

“Yeah?” He smiled—a true smile, one of the ones that made his dimples pop out. It gave me hope that maybe—possibly—he would give me a chance to prove I wasn’t going anywhere this time.

Now that I had that tiny glimmer of hope, I knew there was nowhere I wanted to be and nothing I wanted to do unless he was there. I’d hurt him a lot, though. I knew it, and there was no easy way around it. I was going to have to fight and claw my way back into his life if I was going to have any chance at getting what I wanted. But at least now, I knew what it was.

I didn’t want fame and fortune.

I didn’t want Hollywood—the long hours, the intense scrutiny, the sense of never being able to be enough.

I didn’t want to live my life under a microscope and have every mistake I made blasted out to the world even before I could recognize the implications of what I’d done.

I didn’t want guys like Jesse Carmichael, who was more into the high-rolling life that fame could grant him than he was into me. I didn’t want guys like Beau Brunetti, who only cared how I looked on his arm when we were in public and who did things I would never be able to speak of when we were in private.

I didn’t want a life that would force me to be apart from my family, my friends, the people and life that I’d always known and loved.

I didn’t want any of that.

I wanted Jamie Babcock.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to impart with that single word all the things I was only starting to understand myself.

“All right, then.” Jamie put the kitten back up on his shoulder and headed back toward the fridge. “The box is on the backseat. Blackbeard and I have work to do.” When he turned around, he had his arms full with more ingredients than I would have ever imagined he could name, let alone use.

I bit my lower lip, a renewed energy making it next to impossible to keep from grinning. “Be right back.”

One thing life had taught me was that a person only had so many opportunities to get the things they really wanted. I didn’t yet know how I would do it, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I would let this one pass me by.

WHILE I SET up Blackbeard’s food, water, and litter box—all the while thinking he would have to have a different name, even though I’d been the one to suggest it, because Blackbeard was no better than Spanky—and played with him to keep him out of the way, Jamie made us a complete meal using nothing but a waffle iron and a toaster oven. I kept stealing glances at him and what he was doing while he worked, and in all honesty, I was both intrigued and impressed. He was actually cooking! Not only that, but there were enticing smells filtering through the air, and it didn’t seem as though the smoke detector was in danger of going off.

After about twenty minutes, he carried two plates to the dining room table. “Ready to eat?” he asked.

I unhinged the kitten’s claws from the front of my shirt, set him down on the floor, and joined Jamie. I couldn’t hide my shock when I saw what he’d made: ham-and-veggie omelets done in the waffle maker, waffled hash browns, and a cucumber and bell pepper salad. I looked across at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

He gave me a sheepish grin, one that revealed a hint of pride. “I thought breakfast for dinner sounded good. Hope it’s all right.”

I sunk down onto a chair and put a napkin on my lap. “It looks really good, Jamie.” It looked absolutely fantastic, actually, and smelled ten times better than it looked now that it was right under my nose. It might as well have been a full gourmet meal, considering only a few years ago he couldn’t make coffee without potentially burning down the building or causing a monumental flood.

Jamie had barely taken his seat when the kitten climbed up first his pant leg, then his shirt, and took up his favorite position. Blackbeard perched himself sitting upright on Jamie’s shoulder, staring down at the plate with blue-gray eyes almost as big as his head.

“I think he wants some,” I said.

“Not sure if I should give him any. Shouldn’t he stick to kitten food?” Jamie craned his head around to look at the kitten, who mimicked his action in reverse. In a flash, Blackbeard nipped the end of Jamie’s nose, growling something fierce and pulling back, like he was trying to rip the nose free from Jamie’s face.

I cracked up into uncontrollable laughter.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Jamie rubbed a hand over his nose and looked down at his fingers, as if searching for blood.

“Yes, actually. Hilarious.”

He was obviously fighting to hold back his own laughter, pinching his lips into a thin line, but his dimples were peeking out at me. Eventually, he gave in and chuckled, too, trying to re-situate the kitten so it wasn’t quite so close to his face. Every time he moved Blackbeard a few inches, though, the kitten just edged closer and dug in harder. There wasn’t a chance Jamie would win this battle of wills.

“You might as well just give up and try to eat,” I said. “He’s not budging.”

Jamie let out a beleaguered sigh and, with a final narrowed-eyed glance at his new companion, picked up his fork. “This should be interesting.”

It was, at least for me. I couldn’t stop myself from watching the show. Blackbeard focused in on Jamie’s plate, his nose working overtime as the smells wafted up to meet him. Each time Jamie moved his fork up to his mouth, Blackbeard’s head moved right along with it, his neck straining forward in a comical attempt to steal a bite.

Jamie didn’t seem inclined to talk, so I followed his lead, paying more attention to my food and watching the kitten’s antics. By the time we were about halfway done with our meal, the excitement of the day seemed to catch up with Blackbeard. He ended up lying down across Jamie’s shoulder, paws hanging down in the front and back, and his head dangling down Jamie’s chest.

“I think he’s going to sleep like that,” I said.

Jamie twisted his head around and snorted in laughter. That wasn’t enough to bother the kitten. Blackbeard’s ears twitched, but that was the only sign he wasn’t completely lost to the world. “I don’t know what it is about my shoulders.”

I knew exactly what it was about Jamie’s shoulders. They were broad and strong enough to carry more than just his own burdens. They were a safe place to lay your head. They were home. But that wasn’t something he would want to hear, at least not from me, so I ducked my head down and took another bite, trying to smother my smile so he wouldn’t ask me about it.

“Why are you buying a house?” he asked after a minute.

“Is it such a strange thing? You bought a house. It’s what people do.”

“That’s not what I mean. Why aren’t you staying with your parents while…” He let his voice trail off, apparently not wanting to speak the words aloud.

“While I go through whatever treatment I have in store?” I finished for him. There wasn’t any point in avoiding the issue. Whether either of us was prepared to deal with it or not, cancer was very much back in my life. I flickered my eyes up to find him staring through me again. He’d always had a way of making me feel as if he could see all of me, right down to the thoughts running through my mind so fast that I couldn’t catch them and make sense of them. “You remember how Mom was last time. I just need some room to breathe.”

“She’s just like that because she loves you. Like—” He cut himself off and shook his head. That jostled Blackbeard enough that he slid forward. Jamie didn’t reach out to grab him in time, so the kitten tried to slow his fall in the only logical manner—he dug his claws in to Jamie’s chest, eliciting a stream of curses and a thin streak of red blood staining his butter-yellow T-shirt.

Jamie went to the sink to clean himself up, leaving the kitten on the table. Blackbeard immediately went for the plate, so I scooped him up, Jamie’s words echoing in my head. She’s just like that because she loves you. Like—like what? Like your father does? Or had he been about to say, Like I do?

“I’d better put some Neosporin on this or something,” Jamie said.

I’d been paying attention to keeping the kitten out of our food, but I looked up when Jamie spoke. He had taken off his shirt to rinse the blood and clean the cut, and was standing there in nothing but his pants. I couldn’t make myself look anywhere but at his chest. I’d known it was muscled and defined, but there was no comparison to actually seeing it in person. I wanted to lick it, but I sincerely doubted he would let something like that happen, so I forced myself to look away. That didn’t do anything to slow my pulse or stop heat from flooding through my body.

“Probably a good idea,” I murmured. I hugged Blackbeard to my face so I could nuzzle my nose in his fur, hoping that would keep Jamie from discovering where my thoughts had gone.

“Careful,” Jamie said, winking when I allowed myself to look at him again. “He’s vicious. He might bite your nose off.” He flicked a finger over the end of his own. Then he disappeared down the hall, leaving me and his kitten to entertain each other.

Blackbeard didn’t bite my nose, though. He just purred and closed his eyes, getting comfortable to continue the much-needed nap that had been interrupted.

Jamie had a clean shirt on when he returned, much to my disappointment. He sat down and started eating again. “You can put him down, you know,” he said after a couple of minutes.

“I know.” I just didn’t want to. Blackbeard had fallen asleep in my arms. I carefully lowered him to my lap, keeping one hand around his back to support him so he wouldn’t slide. No point in both me and Jamie ending up bloody today. Then I finished my meal, eating with just one hand.

He didn’t say anything else for a long time, so I didn’t either. He kept staring at me in the way he had that drove me crazy, and I kept staring down at my plate and trying to figure out how I was going to convince him to give me another chance.

“I’m glad you’re not leaving,” he said quietly.

I lifted my gaze. His eyes were as warm and intense and perfectly serious as ever. “Are you?”

He chewed a bite and swallowed, taking his time. “I am. You should be with your family. You should be with people who love you at a time like this.” He set down his fork.

“People like you?” I asked before I could stop myself.

He didn’t answer. He just kept staring into my eyes so long that I got self-conscious and had to look away. After a few moments, he picked up his fork again and resumed his meal.

What was I thinking, asking him outright like that? I was still shocked that he was speaking to me and letting me into his house, allowing me to play with his kitten. I might not have a full plan in place for how I was going to earn that chance with him, but I was pretty sure I’d just skipped over steps two through seven hundred forty-three.

When he was done, Jamie got up and cleared away the dishes. “In the mood for dessert?” I couldn’t discern anything in his tone, couldn’t read anything in his expression. It wasn’t like him to put on a mask like that. Or at least it wasn’t like how he used to be. I’d changed a lot over the last several years, and Lord knew he had to have changed, as well. He was still Jamie, but there were so many things about him I didn’t know now. Things I didn’t understand and wasn’t sure I ever would.

“Don’t tell me you have that in your arsenal, too,” I said, trying but failing to keep my tone light and teasing. Instead, my voice cracked with emotion.

He didn’t let that faze him, quirking up a grin. “No one makes a microwaveable chocolate mug cake quite like mine.” At least that was still the same Jamie I remembered. Nothing ever threw him.

I did my best to return his smile. “Now this I have to see.”

He set to work, taking out flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and a half dozen other ingredients. He measured things out in two coffee cups, stirred it all up, tossed in a few chocolate chips, and set the mugs in the microwave. While they cooked, he took some fresh raspberries and a can of whipped cream out of the fridge. He rinsed and dried the berries, put them on top of the chocolate cakes when they came out of the microwave. A shot of whipped cream later, they were ready.

He brought mine over and set it down in front of me, then handed me a spoon. Our fingers brushed in the transfer—accidentally, I assumed, but before I could jerk my hand back, he closed his fingers around mine. They were warm and strong, not to mention familiar. I’d always felt safe in his hands, protected and cherished in his arms.

Right now, I only felt vulnerable. “Jamie?”

“You should be with people who love you,” he said, repeating his words from earlier, his voice as strong and sure as his touch. “People like your parents. People like Luke and Dani. People like your friends—your true friends, the ones who’ve stuck by you through everything, not the ones who just showed up when there was something they thought they could get from you.”

I couldn’t look at him when he was talking like that, when I felt so open and raw and exposed. I’d laid it all out there for him when I’d asked him my crazy question, leaving no doubt as to where I stood on things between us. On the fact that I still loved him. If I dared to look in his eyes, I would be able to see whether it was the truth or not, no matter what he claimed about his feelings for me. I couldn’t bear to know the truth if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It would hurt so much worse than anything I’d ever been through, and I’d been through a hell of a lot.

But he tipped my chin up with his other hand, and he waited until I looked up into his eyes. “And yes, people like me.”

There was no dishonesty in his eyes. They were painfully clear, as pure and sharp as ever. My heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder it didn’t burst through my chest, but it was more because of the apologetic tone of his words.

He loved me and he would never lie to me about that.

But he didn’t want to love me.

So while he might not ask me to cancel the offer I’d made on the house, and while he might be willing to spend an hour or two with me, cooking and talking and playing with his kitten, he didn’t want what I wanted. He didn’t want there to be an us. He didn’t want me. I knew better than to think that would have changed in such a short amount of time, whether I was sick again or not. But I’d still allowed myself to hope.

I eased my chin from his grip, removed my hand from his, and passed his kitten over to him, pushing the chair back so I could stand.

“Katie,” he started.

I shook my head, fighting back tears and heading for the door.

“Don’t leave. You don’t have to go.”

“That’s just it. You don’t want me to leave, but you don’t want me to stay, either.” I needed him to want me to stay. Needed it more than I knew how to handle.

I was already at the door, but I’d forgotten my purse. I turned around and grabbed it off the counter. Jamie put his hand on my upper arm, and that was when my tears started.

“I want you to be okay,” he forced out.

“I know.” I nodded, batting at my tears and backing toward the door. “I know you do.” There wasn’t a malicious bone in his body. No matter how badly I had hurt him—and I absolutely had—he would never hurt me in return. At least not intentionally. I reached behind me and placed my hand on the knob. “But do you know what I want? I want you to want me again. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but if it doesn’t, I don’t think I will ever be okay again.”

He cursed beneath his breath and pressed his eyes closed.

“I’m not telling you that to make you feel responsible for anything,” I said. “I just need you to know. I need you to understand exactly where I’m coming from and where I stand. I’m not going back to LA. I’m staying here, and I am as in love with you as I ever was. I want a chance. I want us to be like we were before.”

Blackbeard squirmed out of Jamie’s grasp and climbed up to his shoulder perch.

“It doesn’t work that way, Katie. We can’t go back in time.” His voice was rough, like Dad’s tended to get when he was all choked up. Jamie was as affected by all this as I was.

“Not backward,” I said. “You’re right. We can’t go back to what we had before. We’ve both changed. We’ve been through a lot. We aren’t the same as we were before. But I want a chance to go forward. With you.” I turned the knob and headed outside. “Think about it,” I said, moving toward the house next door and my car. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be around.”

I WATCHED KATIE get behind the wheel of her car, but the urge to stop her was one of the most intense internal battles I’d ever waged.

I want you to want me again, she’d said. I’d never stopped wanting her, no matter how hard I’d tried. I am as in love with you as I ever was. I might be more in love with her now than I was before, something I had never thought possible. I want a chance. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, that it was absolutely the wrong choice for me to make, I wanted to give her that chance. I wanted it more than my next breath, but I forced my feet to stay where they were, forced my lips to remain closed so I wouldn’t call out.

Blackbeard nipped my earlobe. I tried to jerk my head away from him, but he was having none of that. He put both his front paws up on my face and held me in position, making sure I didn’t move by digging in slightly with his claws, and then his rough sandpaper tongue rasped over my cheek repeatedly.

Katie turned her head and watched for a moment. The ghost of a smile came to her lips, probably because of Blackbeard and his antics. Even that wasn’t enough to keep her here, though. She backed out to the street, and I tried to dislodge Blackbeard’s claws from my flesh without ending up bloody again. But she didn’t drive away; she turned in and parked behind my car. She climbed out with the engine still running and left the door open, and she came up my sidewalk like a woman on a mission.

When she reached me, she plucked the kitten free and carried him through the door, setting him on the floor of my front entryway. I followed, bemused. When she straightened, she put her hands on either side of my face, pushed me back against the wall, and stretched up on her toes.

And she kissed me.

It wasn’t a sweet kiss, like the ones I’d given her in those months before she’d left to chase her dreams. It was hungry. Needy. Almost violent in intensity. Her lips surged against me. She angled her head, tugging on my hair. Her body fit with mine just like I remembered—breasts tight to my chest, hipbones bumping, my dick coming to life and pulsing against the softness of her belly.

I tried to keep myself from responding, from kissing her back, but it was no use. Touching her again, holding her, was as close to heaven as I would ever be. Her arms went around my neck. I wrapped mine around her waist, picked her up, spun around so the wall could help support her, and I kissed her the way I’d wanted to for years.

She drew her legs up and locked them around me. Her teeth nipped my lower lip. Hard. I sucked in a breath, and her tongue slipped inside to tangle with mine. She wriggled, edging closer, grinding herself against me in a way that felt so fucking good I wanted it to never end.

I ran my hands up her sides, grazing my fingers over her ribs. With the tip of my thumb, I stroked the underside of her breast. She urged me on with a mewling sound coming from deep in her throat.

An inch at a time, I shifted my hand higher, skimming that perfectly soft mound with my palm. Her nipple was a hard nub straining against the center of my palm. I wanted to close my hand over her. To squeeze and knead and mold her to fit my hand. To slip her shirt over her head and strip off her bra. To take her into my mouth.

She arched her back, driving her breast into my palm until I did close my hand over it. She was a perfect fit, just like I’d imagined. I squeezed her softness and nearly lost it.

“Jamie,” she said, her mouth by my ear. Just my name. Nothing more. Panting. Or was that me? She kissed my neck. Flicked her tongue along my jaw. Her hands went up under my shirt, and she splayed them over my abs. If she went lower, if the tip of her finger even so much as swept over my cock, I would lose it then and there. I was painfully hard, hard enough to cut diamonds.

But her hand didn’t slither any lower, and Blackbeard chose that moment to climb up the inside of my pant leg and sink a claw into my sac through the layers of my clothes. Then he squirmed to get free, which only made the claw go deeper somehow.

“Fuck,” I shouted. I mean, there was pain, and there was pain. This definitely belonged in the latter category. I lowered Katie and reached down to disengage the kitten that was dangling from my balls by a claw.

Katie looked dazed, at first, but then she glanced down and started giggling.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” I finally worked Blackbeard’s claw free and pulled him up so we could see each other, eye to eye. “Not okay, dude,” I grumbled, but I couldn’t put much heat behind it. Not when Katie was still cackling so hard. The kitten let out an annoyed meow and swatted at my face, so I figured I’d better not let him stay so close to his target. I lowered him to my chest, and he curled up in the crook of my arm, apparently content for the moment to stay there if I measured his comfort by the volume of his purring. I sure as hell wasn’t content, though. That wasn’t exactly the direction I’d intended for that to go.

“I guess I should say I’m sorry,” Katie said through her snickers. “At least for laughing, if nothing else. But I’m not. That was hilarious.”

“I doubt you’d think it was so funny if he’d been dangling from your—” I cut myself off before I said something so rude my mother would have washed my mouth out with soap. Using a word like pussy was not something I had any business doing around Katie.

She stopped laughing finally, but she was still grinning. “No, I don’t guess I would.” She leaned in, resting one hand on my chest, and kissed my jaw. “I should go. I just… I just needed to do that.”

I reached for her hand as she retreated. I needed to hold on to her even if it was only for a moment longer, which just served to prove that I’d already allowed her back in to my life far more than I ever should have. I was a fucking wreck. She let me hold her fingers for a moment before withdrawing them. Her eyes were filled with just as much heat and lust as her kisses and touch had been, but she was still backing away.

How the fuck could she do this to me all the time, and why in the hell was I letting her do it again? But I was, as sure as the sky was blue. I’d invited her into my house. I’d made her dinner and let her name my damn kitten and watched her play with him, all the while working her way back into my heart. I’d let her come in and kiss me like she meant it.

And now she was walking away again.

What kind of masochist must I be?

She headed out the door again, glancing over her shoulder at me just before getting in her car.

She wanted me to want her? Mission accomplished.

This time, I closed the door and locked it. I didn’t know what kind of game she was playing, but at the moment, she was winning. She had me in check. I was pretty sure she wasn’t far from checkmate. If I was going to have any chance at coming out ahead, I needed to pay more attention to both her moves and my own.

IT DIDN’T TAKE long at all before I got word that the seller had accepted my offer on the house. Sierra called to fill me in on my way back to Mom and Dad’s place after I left Jamie’s. The seller wanted to move quickly, and I was paying for it outright instead of taking out a mortgage, so the rest of the process was going to happen fast. “You can start furniture shopping whenever you want,” she told me.

We didn’t talk long this time, as she needed to get some paperwork started to push the sale through. We were disconnecting the call by the time I parked in front of my parents’ house. They were in the living room when I came in, Dad with his feet up on the ottoman, looking as relaxed as could be, and Mom beside him, sitting straight as an arrow and already working on her wine. It was only about seven o’clock, so that probably meant she was seriously upset about something. Dr. Oliver’s office would only give my test results to me, not to her, so I had a feeling it was because I’d been out looking for a place of my own. Dad must have filled her in, which was what I’d wanted, but it still made me feel like a chicken coming home to find her like that.

“So?” Dad said when I flopped down on the chair opposite them. He sounded downright chipper. “What did you think about that house in the Northwest District?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know I looked at a house over there?”

“Because I suggested it. I knew the house next door to Babs was empty. I texted Sierra and tipped her off that there was a house you might be interested in. Gave her the address and the MLS listing number just so she wouldn’t misunderstand exactly which house I meant.”

That had Mom leaning away and giving him an oh-no-you-didn’t look. I completely understood the sentiment behind her look. “Why would you do that?” Mom demanded, setting her wineglass on the coffee table. There was a lot of hurt in her voice. “She should stay here with us. So we can help her. And you’re trying to make it easier for her to leave us? What if she needs—”

“I’m not leaving town or anything,” I argued. “You can still help me out.” I’d known she would be upset that I wasn’t going to stay here, in this house, where she could hover over me constantly, but it seemed to be hitting her even worse because of Dad’s involvement. Maybe I shouldn’t have filled him in on my plans this morning. I could have told both of them about it now, together, after the fact.

Granted, I probably wouldn’t have looked at the house that was soon to be mine, seeing as how Sierra likely wouldn’t have thought to show it to me today if not for my father’s interference.

“But that would be easier if you were here,” Mom insisted.

“I did it because I thought they needed a bit of a nudge,” Dad said, totally deadpan, redirecting the conversation back to where he wanted it.

“A nudge,” I repeated. And he’d said they needed a nudge. Not just me. This clearly was not about a house.

“To get back together.”

My father was matchmaking. Christ on a cracker, what the hell had gotten into him? “You never wanted us together before.”

“Better the devil you know…” Dad let his voice trail off, as though that should be a sufficient answer for his complete about-face. “What I want,” he said emphatically after a long moment, “is for my little girl to live a happy, healthy, long life. I want you to have everything you want. I want you to love and be loved, and not just by your mom and me. I want you to know the love of a good man.”

He was tearing up, and Mom and I were both openly crying, but he didn’t let any of that stop him. “Now we all know that no one can guarantee you the healthy, long life part of it. But you can damn well have love. You love him. And I know, whether he likes the idea of it or not, he loves you. I might not have liked the idea of him a few years ago, but you’re an adult now and can make your own decisions. Your heart decided on Babs. That happened a hell of a long time ago. There aren’t many men in this world better than him, and there are a lot of things I can overlook if it means you have a man like Jamie Babcock in your life.”

I wasn’t so sure he’d still be singing that tune if he knew I’d basically just mauled Jamie in his front hall, but it was probably better if I didn’t mention things like that. What Dad didn’t know wouldn’t hurt Jamie, and I had no doubt Dad meant things of that nature when he mentioned the things he could overlook. He had threatened every guy I’d ever dated to within an inch of his life over things as simple as chaste kisses and holding hands. I knew it had been hard on my father when TMZ and the other paparazzi and gossip sites had followed me around with the guys I’d dated in Hollywood. Every time I’d come home to Portland, I’d gotten an earful of it myself, Dad griping about everything from the clothes I wore in public to why I would allow any man to objectify me in the ways that some of them had. He didn’t even know the worst of it, and it was best if it stayed that way.

The fact was, Jamie couldn’t be more different from those guys. He was kind and sweet and thoughtful. When he’d touched me a while earlier, and I’d put my hands on his flesh, that had been the most intimate we had ever been together. Years ago, he’d never done more than kiss me, and even then, his kisses had often been of the tender and chaste variety. Everything had been aboveboard and proper. He never would have touched me like that before, putting his hand on my breast. Even today, he’d been cautious about it, at least in comparison to me. If Blackbeard hadn’t interrupted us like he had, I might have attempted to take things a whole lot further.

At least I knew Dad and I were on the same page when it came to Jamie now. I got up for a tissue, and I brought the box back with me, passing it over to Mom. She took the box, but Dad plucked out a couple of tissues for himself and settled me against his side, the way he used to hold me when I was a little girl. I tucked my feet up alongside him, resting my head on his shoulder.

Dad’s shoulders were safe, too—like Jamie’s—but they weren’t home. Not anymore. They were still a comfort, though.

“Are you mad at me?” Dad asked.

I shook my head, still crying too hard to speak.

Mom didn’t let him off so easy. “David Weber, I have been underestimating you. That’s the kind of move I would expect to come up with myself. Not you.” She wasn’t kidding about doing things like that. Mom tended to use a heavy hand when it came to getting people to do her bidding, always sticking her nose in other people’s business and convincing them she was right. She usually was, but that was beside the point.

I was still stuck on the fact that my father was butting in to things that he would normally steer clear of. I dried my eyes and blew my nose, and then I inched back enough that I could look him directly in the eye. “Did you know anything about that house other than Jamie lived next door?”

“Not a thing, until after I’d looked up the listing,” he said, grinning like a proud papa, despite the tears still making his eyes glisten. “The pictures online are nice. That home office could be fun. Did you like it?”

“Loved it,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “I put in an offer for it.”

“Did you?” he replied, not even attempting to hide how pleased he was with himself.

“I did. And it’s been accepted.”

“Imagine that.”

THE NEXT FIVE games on our schedule were all at home. We came away with a divisional win against the Vancouver Canucks, almost solely due to our goaltender, Nicklas Ericsson, standing on his head through the whole game. We only managed to put up two goals, one of them seriously flukey, and we gave the Canucks more opportunities to score than they should have had in a week of games. Nicky didn’t bat an eye, though. He stopped every shot they sent his way, and he came off the ice with a smile on his face, telling us all what a good job we’d done in front of him.

It was a bald-faced lie, and he knew it, but I was just glad he was keeping his head on straight. He’d been in and out of the net over the last several years, even getting sent down to the minors for a full season, because of some addiction problems. That all seemed to be a thing of the past, or at least he was being diligent about his sobriety.

Lately, he had been a rock in goal. Good thing, too, because the rest of the team? We had been an utter wreck all season, and in particular tonight. We’d been lucky to come away with any wins so far this year, considering how we’d been playing. We couldn’t let it keep going like this, either. The luck that had been following us around would eventually give out, and we would start losing, maybe even in some games that we ought to win. That was just how it went in the NHL.

Players-only meetings tended to happen after a really bad loss, usually in the middle of a stretch of other bad losses. It wasn’t common to call for one after a win, especially when it seemed like the team just hadn’t found a groove in the new season. But we were a team with a lot of expectations for being a contender for the Stanley Cup this year—from ourselves, our fans, the media—and we couldn’t afford to fall into a slump. Tonight, the Canucks should have won by a mile. At this point, something needed to be said, and nothing the coaches or team executives had to say to the guys had been getting through.

So after we left the ice and everyone bumped heads with Nicky, congratulating him for his shutout that saved our bacon, I went over to Bergy. He was about to give his postgame speech to the boys, but what I had to say needed to come first.

“Can you give me a few minutes with them?” I asked.

He gave me one of his intense appraisals that used to make me twitchy. The guy had a hell of an evil eye, but I’d come to understand that he wasn’t trying to kill me with laser beams or anything when he looked me over like that. Instead, it was more that he was attempting to get a read on my thoughts. Kind of like he was discerning the things I didn’t say so he could piece the whole puzzle together. “It’s your team,” he finally said. “You do what you think is necessary.”

He gave Webs and Adam Hancock, the other assistant coach, a nod, and all three of them filed out of the locker room. Webs had an odd look in his eye, and his lips were pursed together all wonky, and I didn’t have the first clue what that was about. I wasn’t really in the mood to explore it, either, considering it likely had something to do with Katie. Had she told him how I’d had my hands all over her? He might be plotting my death at this very moment, or if not that, something equally unpleasant. Still, he left with the other coaches, so I figured I had at least until I was done talking to the boys. After that, I might need to get Levi to act as a lookout for me. Or maybe Coop. Coop was still a wide-eyed rookie, so he was easier to boss around. Levi always acted like I’d lost my mind for thinking he would do what I told him to. That was the problem with brothers.

Time to get on with it. I closed the door behind the coaches and locked it.

When I turned around, Wheels caught my eye and nodded, similar to the look Bergy had given me. I glanced over at Burnzie, who gave me a get-on-with-it wave, and then I caught the eye of Marc “Danger” d’Aragon. Danger was another older guy, like Wheels, who’d been with the Storm for a few seasons now. He’d been wearing the other A since we’d found out Soupy had definitely torn his ACL and wouldn’t be back the rest of the season. Danger’s face was an expressionless mask right now, which I knew meant he felt exactly how I did about the shitty way we’d played this game. He was always joking and smiling, unless things weren’t going well. Checking him for a grin was the easiest way to tell where he stood.

I cleared my throat, and the boys all focused in on me. Once the guys realized the door was closed and it was just us, all the talk and laughter died off pretty fast. Everyone took a seat at their stalls, still stripping off their gear but doing it without the usual chatter. Some of the guys looked sheepish, probably because they recognized their own shitty play. Others looked rebellious. Koz, in particular, looked like he wanted to blame someone else even though he’d been one of the biggest problems out there tonight. Yes, he had a ton of offensive skill, but he’d completely ignored the idea of helping out on defense.

“We won tonight,” I finally said, choosing my words carefully. “But we shouldn’t have, and I think every guy in this room fucking knows it.”

Koz let out a snort, and a few guys, including Levi, shot him looks from all around the room. I kept going, doing my best to ignore his interruption.

“The whole fucking season so far, we’ve been playing sloppy hockey. We’re making stupid passing through the middle without looking up to see the forward from the other team who’s streaking in. We’re trying to make pretty plays with the puck instead of just dumping and chasing or trying to get a greasy goal. We’re getting completely away from Bergy’s system. We’re putting too much pressure on our goaltenders, and we’re forgetting the idea of five guys playing as a unit in every zone. Turnovers in the neutral zone. Forwards hanging out up high waiting on the D to get the puck out of the zone instead of backchecking. D giving the other team too much time and space instead of playing them hard. And there’s no fucking excuse for any of it. It ends now. Everybody pulls his fucking weight. We’re going to forget all about playing a pretty game and just focus on the basics. Anyone who can’t do that, who tries to get too fucking fancy and screws things up for the rest of us, is going to have to answer to the room.”

“Answer how?” Koz demanded, as surly as I’d ever heard him. Probably because he knew he was one of the biggest offenders. At least half the things I’d listed, he’d been guilty of tonight. “You might be captain, but you’re not God. You can’t make us do shit.”

“If you were paying more attention to what’s happening on the ice than flirting with that girl in the front row, maybe we wouldn’t be having this talk,” Burnzie shot back at him. “If Babs says you’re going to answer to us, you’re going to fucking answer.”

“Says who?” Koz demanded. “You? Yeah, let’s see you make me.”

“Come on over here. I’ll be happy to.” Burnzie cracked his knuckles.

Jonny stood up, slowly taking off his gear. He could have done that sitting down, but I got the sense that he was trying to send a message. I wasn’t sure who he was sending it to, though—Burnzie or Koz.

I should have thought this through better before speaking up, and I needed to figure things out fast, before animosity completely took over the room. Should I have guys put money in a till? A set amount would hurt some more than others because of the huge differences in contracts from one player to the next. Extra reps in the gym? That could end up helping the team even if it sucked for the guy having to do them, I supposed. But no matter what I settled on, how was I going to enforce any of it? The whole thing was going to fall on my shoulders, since I was the one instituting it. I was still racking my brain for the best solution when Wheels spoke up.

“Suicides after practice, ten percent of your earnings for that game to the charity of your choice, and taking over rookie duties for a week sounds fair. Maybe on a sliding scale, depending on how many times you fuck up in a game.”

Sounded brutal to me, but maybe something brutal was called for before our season went down the drain. Suicides—skating from one line to another and back repeatedly—were guaranteed to make your thighs and lungs burn. Ten percent of a guy’s pay for a game, no matter what kind of salary he earned, was enough to make a dent in his wallet. And most guys were glad to be done with being a rookie as soon as possible because of how much they got razzed. When it came right down to it, we put them through a bit of hazing. Nothing horrible. They had to carry bags for the veterans, pick up pucks after practice, things like that. Once a guy got past his rookie season, though, he never wanted to be stuck handling those tasks again. In fact, the idea that Wheels was the one suggesting it made me do a double take. He had to be willing to do those things himself or he would never have suggested it as a blanket rule. He wasn’t perfect; he fucked up in games just as much as the rest of us.

“No fucking chance I’ll do any of that,” Koz said. He laughed, too, and nodded at Levi with a cocky grin. “Right, 501? That’s bullshit.”

“What’s bullshit is the way you played tonight,” Burnzie said. “If you would stop prancing around out there—”

Koz jumped to his feet and was halfway across the room, eyes bulging. “Who the fuck is prancing?”

Burnzie was on his feet in a flash. Fists flew before I knew what was happening. I rushed in to break them up, but everyone else had the same thought and someone landed a punch right on my nose. Well, not quite everyone. Wheels and Danger grabbed me and dragged me back, with Wheels saying, “Let them go at it. Koz needs to have his ass whipped.”

I put a hand to my nose. No blood, at least, but it was fucking sore.

Everyone was shouting over each other to be heard. A few more guys than just those two started throwing punches. This was absolutely not what I’d had in mind. Not even close.

But then someone whistled, high and loud, and guys started to back off. Jonny was in the middle of the room, standing over the Storm logo, with both Burnzie and Koz trapped in headlocks, one under each arm. They were still trying to get at each other, but Jonny wouldn’t let go until he was good and ready to. “You two dipshits want me to crack your skulls together? There’s nothing I would enjoy more, I can promise you that. Cool your fucking jets.”

The rest of the guys helped him separate the two, and everyone gradually settled back into their stalls. Koz had a red welt over one eye that was bound to leave him with a nasty shiner. Burnzie was holding his hand funny like maybe he’d hurt it when he’d busted Koz’s face.

I turned to Wheels and Danger, hoping for some wisdom. “Now what do I do?” I asked, keeping my voice down.

Danger grinned. He fucking grinned, like he was enjoying this. “Let it work itself out. Teams need something to bring them together. Sometimes it’s bonding on road trips. Sometimes it’s overcoming a bunch of injuries. And then there are the times like this.”

“This doesn’t seem like something that’ll bring anyone together,” I muttered. “Seems like something that’ll drive a wedge in the middle of us. Guys’ll pick sides. I don’t know.”

Wheels just crossed his arms in front of him and nodded. “Maybe. There’s always that risk. But I’ve seen it happen. Let things settle down, and we’ll see where we’re at.” He reached overhead and tugged his shirt up and off from behind. “I bet that was all it’ll take to keep from having guys skate suicides and all, though.”

My stomach soured. Maybe he was right, but I had a strong sense that he was wrong and I’d just fucked everything up for the whole team. I should have just kept my damn mouth shut.

Jim and Bergy never should have made me the captain. The guys deserved better than what I was able to give them.

I’D BEEN LYING in bed, thoughts racing through my mind, for almost an hour when my phone dinged. When I shifted to grab it off the nightstand, I dislodged Blackbeard. He gave me an irritated meow and a sleepy scowl before circling his spot three or four times and resettling on my pillow. Even when he slept, he liked to be curled up on my shoulder, or more specifically, on the pillow, nestled in the space where my neck and shoulder met. I waited until he was cozy again and then unlocked my phone screen to see who was texting me at this hour.

It was from Ray “Razor” Chambers, a guy who had been my best friend since our rookie season, even though he could be an ass. We’d been nearly inseparable in the early part of our careers. After two years, though, he’d been traded for a draft pick—the same pick that Jim Sutter had used to select Levi. Razor had gone off to play for the Sabres, and over this past summer, he’d been picked up by the Thunderbirds in the expansion draft. The only reason he would be up this late was that the T-Birds were on the road right now, playing on the West Coast. They’d be here in Portland in a few days. I had promised to buy him dinner when they got to town.

I debated ignoring his message until morning, because it was probably just about that dinner, but decided against it. With everything that had happened after the game tonight, plus the fact that I couldn’t get Katie and the way she’d kissed me out of my mind, there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be sleeping any time soon. I opened his message.

What the fuck kind of captain are you to call a meeting and then let the guys come to blows?

I’d hoped that we would be able to keep all of that in the room. Bergy and the other coaches hadn’t said anything when they’d come in, although there was no doubt they knew something was up. But the media had been just outside that door, waiting for it to be opened up for their scrum. They must have heard.

Me: What do you know about it?

Razor: Polanski and a dozen other reporters were live-tweeting while it went down, whatever it was. It’s bad, Babs. It’s all over the blogs. Mom said TSN talked about it on-air tonight. What the fuck is going on in there?

Me: You know I’m not going to tell you. These things stay in the room.

Razor: It’s me, Babs. You know I won’t say a fucking word to anyone.

Me: Exactly. It’s you, and you’re not part of this team anymore. No fucking chance.

Razor: Fine. But if there’s anyone you want me to go a round with when we get to Portland, you just say the word. I’ll gladly bash someone’s face in for you.

Me: You’re my fucking hero.

Razor: Apparently you need someone to play the hero. Can’t keep your team in line. Jim should have tried harder to keep Zee around. No chance anyone would pull that shit with Zee as the captain, and then I wouldn’t have to deal with him here.

Me: Ha fucking ha.

Razor: Seriously, I will break someone’s face for you. Just say the word. It’d be my pleasure to sort out your team’s personality issues since you can’t seem to do it. Think about it.

Me: Yeah, playing the martyr. Shocker.

Razor: Hey, it’s not like anyone’ll think anything’s out of the ordinary. Since we can’t seem to fucking score, let alone keep anyone else from scoring, guys are fighting every game. Trying to prove their worth or some shit. Hunter’s about to go ballistic.

Me: I’m sure all that fighting’s helping you score more.

Razor: I’m scoring more with the ladies.

Me: Never would have thought that was an issue for you.

Razor: Because I’m not fucking hung up on a girl? One who isn’t just as hung up on me as I am on her?

Me: You don’t know anywhere near as much as you think you do.

Razor: You going to deny the fact that Katie Weber has you completely pussy whipped? I bet you still haven’t been laid. Jamie Fucking Babcock, the millionaire fucking virgin All-Star who all the girls are ga-ga over. They don’t even know they’d be breaking you in.

Me: Like I’d tell you if I was? Besides, I meant you don’t know as much about Katie as you think.

Razor: You think Katie’s still a virgin? Not fucking likely. Anyone with an Internet connection or a smart phone has seen her plastered all over TMZ with all sorts of douchebags, and I promise you, she’s been tapped. Multiple times. Who the fuck do you think you’re saving yourself for?

Me: Shut your fucking mouth, talking about her like that.

Razor: If that’s not it, then what the fuck did you mean?

Me: I meant I’m not the only one still hung up.

I don’t know why I would tell him that. Hell, I don’t know why I’d ever let him in on the fact that I was still a virgin years ago. He knew, and Levi knew, but that was it. I was just lucky he hadn’t said anything about it to the guys, and I had to skate a fine line with Levi all the time to be sure he didn’t open his big mouth and blab. Things like that get around a locker room really fast, and I had always taken enough heat from the guys just because I had a baby face that girls liked. I had dimples, I blushed easily, girls screamed for me at games and whatnot like I was in a damn boy band… Add virgin to that, and they would torture the ever-living shit out of me until I buried my head in the sand and retired.

Regardless of all that, there was no reason for me to tell Razor about Katie. About how she wanted to be with me again. No reason to let on about any of it. I wasn’t planning to act on her suggestions, and I’d already allowed her to take things further than I should have. What purpose would filling Razor in serve?

Razor: She still wants you? If she’s sticking around and you don’t figure out a way to put a ring on her finger, you’re a bigger fucking idiot than I thought you were.

Who knew Razor could be philosophical?

TODAY WAS TURNING into one of my busiest days in recent memory. It was barely after lunchtime, and I was already exhausted. In the morning, I’d gone in for the closing on my house. I was officially a homeowner now, and at the moment, I was sitting on the empty floor of my house. I had a bunch of stuff being delivered tomorrow morning, and I wanted to have a plan in place. I was trying to get a good visual formed in my mind for furniture placement when my phone rang, interrupting my solitude.

I dug my phone out of my purse. Dr. Oliver’s office was calling. Nausea swamped me almost immediately upon seeing his name flash up on the screen. I pressed my eyes closed, flopped down to lie on my back, and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Katie? It’s Dr. Oliver.”

Not one of the nurses or a receptionist, even. He was calling me himself. That couldn’t bode well for whatever he had to tell me. Every part of my body tensed in preparation to hear the worst, even though I knew there was no chance he’d tell me over the phone. That wasn’t how doctors worked, typically.

“I take it my test results are back?” I said, sounding a lot more put-together than I felt.

“Just got the last of them this morning. I need you to come in so we can discuss what we’ve found and come up with a treatment plan.”

That definitely wasn’t a surprise. We already knew it was cancer, so at this point, any result would be in-person-appointment worthy.

“Okay. Tell me when, and I’ll be there.”

“Can you be here at two? I’ll have my receptionist move my schedule around.”

Two o’clock. Meaning today. I glanced at my watch. Meaning in just over an hour.

Meaning no time to prep myself for the news I’d been dreading.

“Yeah,” I said, my tongue thick from the effort of holding back my tears. “Two o’clock. I’ll be there.”

We hung up, and I pressed my hands to my stomach, wishing it would make the churning stop.

I probably should have someone go with me in case I had an emotional breakdown and couldn’t drive. That seemed like the smart thing to do, but who?

Dad was still up at the practice facility, surely. He rarely got home before mid-to-late afternoon these days. He had a job to do, so I shouldn’t call him and ask him to go with me.

I should call Mom, but I wasn’t sure I could handle her being with me for getting the news, whatever it might be. It would be easier to deliver it to her if I knew what was going on and decided how best to fill her in. At home. On my terms. Nope, definitely not calling her right now.

For a moment, I tossed around the idea of looking up one of my high school friends. They all had jobs, though, and couldn’t just take off in the middle of a workday with no notice. They had their own lives to lead, and they couldn’t just drop everything to come with me and hold my hand for a doctor’s appointment. This wasn’t an emergency. It wasn’t life or death…well, not immediately life or death, at least.

In the end, I decided I’d just go alone. If it was too much for me to handle by myself, I could call someone to come and get me or take a cab. Something.

I dragged myself up from the floor, grabbed my purse, and headed out the front door. I’d just put my key in the lock when Jamie’s car stopped in his driveway. Not only that, but he opened his car door and got out instead of driving into the garage. Under normal circumstances, I would be glad that he’d gotten out instead of pretending he hadn’t seen me. This wasn’t normal, though. This was as far from normal as possible.

My hands were shaking so badly that I fumbled with the lock. I tucked the stray hair that had slipped out of my ponytail behind my ear and tried to slow my breathing and my pulse so I could get the shaking under control. No go. The keys dropped out of my hand and hit the porch. “Damn it.”

“You all right?” Jamie asked. He was right behind me, close enough I’d step on his foot if I took a step back. Close enough I could feel the warmth of his body all along my backside.

“Fine.” I bent down to get the keys.

When I straightened, he reached for them. Or for me. His hand closed over mine, steady and strong. “You’re shaking,” he said. He put his other hand on my waist, drawing me back toward him. “You’re not cold. What’s wrong?”

“Why does something have to be wrong?”

“Because I know you.” He said it so matter-of-factly. And it was the truth. He knew me, maybe better than I knew myself sometimes.

His body heat enveloped me, even though we were barely touching. He was like a protective shell around me, guarding me from whatever life might throw at me. Or maybe that was just what I wanted him to be, and he was letting me believe in the fantasy for a while. I wanted to lean back against him. I wanted to press my length against his and allow myself to pretend, for a little bit longer, that he could be my harbor in the storm I was about to face.

“You’re crying,” he said, his mouth just behind my ear. “It kills me when you cry.”

“Would you believe they’re happy tears? I just bought a house.”

“But you’re shaking too hard to lock the door.”

I supposed that meant he didn’t believe my excuse.

He released my hand, easing the keys into his grip. Then he locked the door for me and nudged my arm until I faced him. His eyes were deep wells of concern, searching me, and he brushed a tear from my cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “Tell me. Whatever it is. You said you want another chance. You want me to want you. So tell me.” He chucked me under the chin with his other hand, keeping me from turning away again. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t even know if it’s anything worth crying over.” That was a lie. Cancer was definitely a cry-making kind of thing, and saying even that much only made my tears kick into overdrive.

Jamie’s eyes traveled over me, probing as though he could ferret out the answers he wanted with nothing more than his gaze. I couldn’t handle the scrutiny. I felt as though he were peeling away all the layers of secrecy I’d built around myself over the years. If there were ever anyone I could feel safe opening up to about it all, someone I could trust to share my fears with, it was Jamie, but I couldn’t bear the thought of what he might think of me when he knew the truth.

I tried to shrug away from him, but he slipped an arm around my waist and held me close, and his lips pressed against my temple. And I was toast. I was putty in his hands, his to mold in any way he saw fit.

“You’re not shaking anymore,” he murmured, his lips still touching my skin. “Tell me, Katie. Let me help.”

It just wasn’t in me to deny him anything. Not right now. “I have to go get my test results from my oncologist,” I forced out.

He nodded, his jaw brushing my forehead, and both his arms tightened around me, cocooning me and giving me a safe haven, at least for the moment. I let my head fall forward, nestling it on his shoulder, even though I would make a mess of his shirt with my tears.

“When?” he asked.

“Now. He’s fitting me in at two.”

“Is your mom meeting you there?”

I shook my head.

“Your dad, then?”

I tried to answer, but another sob came out instead.

“Damn it, Katie. You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

“No.”

“You can’t do this alone.” He smoothed a hand over my hair, brushing it back from the tears on my cheek. “Come on. I’ll take you.” He took my hand and led me to his car. I let him because right now, I needed someone to take over. Someone had to take charge, tell me what to do, and make sure I did it. I allowed myself this moment of weakness because conserving my strength was an absolute necessity right now, and would continue to be for a long time to come.

Kicking cancer’s hairy ass out of my life the first time had taken more than I’d thought I had to give. I didn’t get the sense that this would be one of those things that got easier with practice. I was going to need every bit of strength I could muster and then some if I was going to come out on the other side of this.

Jamie opened the car door and waited until I was situated. Then he closed the door and crossed to the driver’s side. He put his key in the ignition and started the motor, but instead of shifting into reverse, he reached for my hand.

I shot my gaze up. His expression was fierce and caring at the same time.

“I do want you, you know,” he said. “I want you more than I know what to do with. I’ve never stopped wanting you. I don’t think I ever will, either, and I can’t handle losing you again.”

I blinked back a couple more tears. He was going to give me another chance. “I’m not going anywhere, Jamie,” I said. “I already told you that.”

“No, you’re not leaving. And you’re not going to die on me, either. You got that?” He squeezed my hand so hard it almost hurt. “I’m not going to let you. So you just need to get it in your head right now that you’re going to fight this with everything you have and then some. Anything less isn’t going to cut it. All right?”

I sniffled and put my other hand over the top of his, my insides tingling from all the feelings racing though me. I nodded, never breaking eye contact. “I’ve got it. I’m ready to fight.” If he stayed by my side, I could do anything.

“Good.” Then he kissed me so hard I felt it all the way down to my toes. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth briefly before breaking off and putting the car in gear.

My face was still drenched from my crying. I dug around inside my purse to find some tissues. “How is it that I’m always crying when you kiss me?” I finally fished out my tissue pack and took one out to blow my nose.

He quirked up a grin, glancing at me with a heated expression before backing out of the drive. “Not always. I seem to recall a recent kiss that didn’t involve tears.”

“Well, there was that one,” I conceded. Still, there needed to be more kisses and fewer tears. It looked like I might finally get my way, too.

“THYROID CANCER,” KATIE repeated after the doctor.

I clutched her hand tighter, unsure if I meant to reassure her or myself. Now that I’d made up my mind that I couldn’t not have her in my life, the last thing I wanted to do was sit here in a doctor’s office and listen while he told us all the things that might take her away from me. I’d rather be at home with her. Holding her. Showing her how much I wanted her in ways that proved how words failed. That was going to have to wait, though.

I was just glad she’d let me in to meet with her doctor. This was something she shouldn’t go through alone, not any part of it.

Dr. Oliver nodded. “Right now, the tumor is small. It doesn’t appear to have spread at this time, but we won’t know for certain until we get in there—”

“Get in there,” she interrupted. “In my throat.” Her panicked gaze flickered over to me and back to the doctor. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears again. She’d had all sorts of procedures before, so I wasn’t sure why she was freaking out so badly this time.

He gave her an appraising look. “Yes. You know how this works. We have to remove all traces of the cancer or it will only grow and spread.”

“I know, but… How close is the thyroid to the vocal chords?”

Fuck. It hadn’t crossed my mind. If anything went wrong…

Over the next hour or more, the doctor answered all Katie’s questions and mine as well as he could. Yes, there was a possibility her vocal chords could be damaged in the surgery. No, it wasn’t likely. They eventually settled on radiation first, then chemo, hoping to shrink the tumor as much as possible in order to minimize the risk of complications during surgery, even though that wasn’t standard procedure for this type of cancer. I got the sense that he was changing it more to appease her than anything. No, he couldn’t guarantee that she would be able to sing again.

With every question we asked and with every answer he gave, Katie’s tension grew. She was close to falling apart at the seams, and I was the one who would have to catch all the pieces and stitch her back together again.

I tried to absorb everything the doctor was telling her about the treatment plan he thought was best and the time frame for each component of her care. No matter how clearly he laid it all out there, I doubted she was taking much of it in. She kept going back to the thyroidectomy that would have to be performed. Back to the thought that she could lose the ability to speak or sing or do any of the things that had been her dream since well before I’d met her. Back to the notion that she might lose herself, or maybe the idea of herself that she’d been holding on to for so long.

We finally finished up. Dr. Oliver handed me a manila folder full of paperwork detailing the treatment plan. I tucked it under my arm and shook his hand, and Katie headed up to the receptionist’s desk to pay for today’s visit.

“She’s going to need help,” he said once she left the meeting room. “Going through radiation and chemotherapy isn’t easy for anyone, but it seems to be more debilitating in cases like this, when the patient has already been through it before. She thought she’d put it all behind her, but now it’s happening all over again. She’s going to need people to keep her spirits up.”

I nodded my understanding, still processing everything that had happened in the last few hours.

“Depression is common in cancer patients,” he added. “And if it becomes severe, it can derail any treatment we can give her.”

“Are you telling me I need to keep her happy? Because I don’t know if that’s something I have any control over.” In fact, I would wager the opposite was true. There were a hell of a lot of things I didn’t know about life, but I did know that no one could force anyone else to be happy. Life just didn’t work that way.

“I’m telling you that you need to keep a close eye on her emotional health, not just her physical health. It’s just as important, and just as deadly.”

“All right.” That I could do. I was already going to be doing it, but it wouldn’t hurt to have it spelled out explicitly like that. “And if she needs help?”

“Make her get it.”

Those words were still echoing in my mind twenty minutes later when I parked in front of Webs and Laura’s house. Katie had asked me to come with her and help her explain everything to them, and I didn’t think it was the best idea to let her drive herself anywhere right now, anyway. She kept spontaneously bursting into uncontrollable tears, which I doubted would make for easy or safe driving.

It felt weird walking up the sidewalk and going through the door with her hand in mine. Weird didn’t even begin to cover it when her parents both looked up from the living room.

Laura took one good look at her daughter and was instantly on her feet and crossing to us. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She reached for Katie to draw her in for a hug, but Katie inched closer to my side. She shook her head, her eyes flashing over to me in a plea, and Laura visibly blanched.

“Katie met with Dr. Oliver,” I explained. I worked my hand free and held Katie’s waist, drawing her in as if I could shield her from the world. If only it were so simple.

Laura’s eyes filled with tears as Katie nestled into my arms. She crossed her arms in front of her since she couldn’t put them around her daughter. “What…” Her voice cracked, and she looked away and put a hand over her mouth.

“Why don’t we all go sit in the living room so we can talk about it?” I suggested.

Webs was still in there, his feet up on an ottoman. He shut down the iPad he’d been watching game film on and followed me with his eyes every step of the way as we joined him, Laura trailing behind me and Katie. I was pretty sure Laura had gotten her feelings hurt when Katie had chosen me for comfort instead of her. Maybe because I’d been the one with Katie at the doctor, too. I never wanted to hurt Laura, but I had to admit that it had made my chest puff up a bit when Katie had burrowed in to me.

Katie and I sat on the love seat across from her father.

Webs had his eyes zeroed in on me. I suppose it was more us than just me. He focused on how she leaned into me. Was he back to trying to intimidate me? I had gotten past that years ago. Katie was shaking again, like she had been when I’d gotten home from practice this afternoon, so I put a hand on her waist and nestled her closer to my side. When I looked up, I thought Webs gave me a nod. But that couldn’t be. Could it?

Laura’s banging kitchen cabinet doors drew his attention away from me, at least for the moment. She had gone in there before joining us, and when she returned, she had a bottle of wine and a bunch of glasses on a tray. “Figured we might need it,” she said. “Or at least I will.” She poured a couple of glasses and offered them around, but no one took her up on it. I figured she would need it more than I would, knowing her as I’d come to over the years. Laura wasn’t an alcoholic. She tended to have a glass or two every evening, for the most part, nothing excessive. But there were definitely times that she used wine to help keep her calm. Once we’d all turned her down, she curled up on the sofa next to Webs, both wineglasses still in her hands. “More for me, then.”

Webs put an arm around her shoulders as she drank from one of them. Once she was settled and had guzzled about half a glass, he nodded across at us. “All right. What’s the deal? Do we have a plan?”

Katie swallowed hard enough I could hear it, and her entire body tensed at my side.

“It’s thyroid cancer this time, not leukemia,” I answered for her, and she softened so much that she melted into my side. Dealing with her parents—her mom in particular—about anything to do with cancer had always been hard for her. I could do it, though. I could take that responsibility from her and let her save her energy for the much bigger fight she had ahead. “Dr. Oliver wasn’t surprised it was a different type of cancer than before. He said that isn’t uncommon after chemo.”

Laura finished her first glass and set it on the coffee table, bringing the rest of the bottle back to her lap. I kept going, laying out the finer points of everything the doctor had told us. Surprisingly, Laura still had half a bottle left by the time I finished my recitation.

“So radiation again, then more tests, then maybe chemo, then more tests, then surgery,” Webs said, boiling it all down to the basic parts.

“And probably more radiation after surgery,” I said, nodding.

Laura sat up, placing the wine bottle back on the table. “How long are we looking at before surgery?”

“Not long enough,” Katie choked out.

“Too long,” her father countered.

“But what if—”

“What if, nothing,” Webs cut in. “The tumor has to come out. From what you’ve told us, they’re going to try to shrink it first with the radiation and lower the risk of complications.”

“Which are rare,” I added. “Less than two percent, so you have a ninety-eight percent chance that everything will be perfectly fine with your vocal chords after the surgery is complete and you have time to heal.”

Katie turned her head to look up at me, mountains of hurt forming tears in her eyes. “You’re supposed to have my back on this.”

“I do have your back.” Which meant I would do everything in my power, including gang up on her with her parents, to make sure she had the best chance at living. She could be mad at me all she wanted, but I wasn’t going to budge on this. Katie was too important for anything less. “You remember what you promised me?” I asked, dropping my voice so her parents wouldn’t overhear.

She pressed her lips into a thin line instead of answering.

“You promised you would fight with all you had,” I reminded her, “and I promised I would do everything I could to make sure you came out of this on the other end. I meant it. Did you?”

This time, she glared at me, but there was some heat behind it. It was a bit of the fight she would need to get through this, I hoped, and not just Katie putting up her back and digging in her heels.

Webs straightened himself, taking his feet off the ottoman and setting them on the floor. He bent over his knees, his fingers laced together, and met Katie’s eyes. “All surgeries come with risks. The risk of leaving the cancer in there is so much higher, though, baby girl.”

She turned to face her parents again, extracting herself from my arms. “I don’t want the surgery. I’ll do the radiation and the chemo, all of that. I’ll do it as many times and for as long as it takes, but I don’t want the surgery. Maybe we can shrink the tumor enough that it just disappears.”

That seemed like a huge leap to me, but she was holding on to the idea with both hands, not letting go.

“I can’t— I can’t lose that part of myself.”

“You can if it means you’ll live,” Laura said.

“What kind of life will it be if I can’t do the things I love?”

My gut twisted at the anguish in her voice. I pressed my thumb and fingers to my temples, trying to imagine a future in which Katie couldn’t sing. Just the thought of it was as bad as a future without hockey for me.

But a life without Katie was so much infinitely worse that it was unfathomable.

“It would still be a life,” I argued.

For what felt like an eternity, Katie didn’t say anything. She looked from one of us to another, seemingly searching for an ally to support her argument. But we were her allies. We were on her side.

She just couldn’t see it.

“Well, there’s time before we have to worry about it,” Laura said. She got up and took her half-full bottle of wine and all the glasses back to the kitchen, putting the kibosh on the rest of the discussion. “I’m going to start dinner,” she called out from the kitchen sink. “Jamie, will you stay?”

Webs nodded at me. Whatever he thought was going on between me and Katie, he was on board with it. Laura was, too, but she had always been agreeable. I angled my head so I could see Katie. She was so mad she might as well have been fuming like a cartoon character with smoke coming out of her ears. I supposed that meant she wasn’t quite as amenable to the idea of me staying as her parents were.

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” I said loud enough for Laura to hear but never taking my eyes off Katie. “Thanks, Laura.”

If looks could kill…

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the three of us—her parents and I—were in agreement with Katie’s doctors. She needed the surgery. The tumor had to go, even if it meant that she couldn’t sing anymore. The benefits far outweighed the risks.

Now we just had to convince Katie.

She’d found a bit of scrappy attitude, at least, which she was definitely going to need for the battle that lay ahead of her. I just wished her visual daggers weren’t all aimed squarely at me.

FEAR IS AN ugly thing. It eats at you from the inside, gnawing away organ and muscle and bone, leaving nothing but skin behind, the shell of the person who’d previously inhabited it. Fear makes you do things you would never do under normal circumstances, makes you say things you don’t mean, makes you lash out like a wounded animal.

Right now, it was coming at me from multiple directions.

I didn’t want to die. Absolutely. Did. Not. Want. To die. But I also couldn’t bear the thought of no longer being able to do what I’d been born to do. Yes, I had decided to walk away from Hollywood, but that was the sort of decision I could change my mind about at any moment, should the right opportunity present itself. I didn’t think I would ever go back and act again, but that didn’t mean I ought to close the door completely.

Acting had never been my true love. It was just one of those things that I could do in addition to singing. All through the years when I was a kid, I’d done musical theater because it kept me busy all the time. When I’d first gone to LA, I’d tried to convince Derek that singing was where my heart was, that it was what I wanted to devote myself to, but he’d convinced me his plan was better for my career in the long run. There’s this show, he’d told me. Like Glee or Fame, acting, but also lots of singing and dancing. You can make use of all your skills at once, and if it takes off like I think it will, it’ll pay you better and open more doors for you.

He’d been right about the show taking off and it opening doors for me. And maybe, if what I’d truly been after were fame and fortune, starring in The Cool Kids would have been worth it. But it had come at a great cost, too. It had introduced me to Jesse Carmichael and his crowd, who had introduced me to drugs and partying and the uglier side of fame. It had put Beau Brunetti into my path, a man who had been silky and seductive, trapping me into thinking he cared for me as much as he cared for the image we presented to the world. A man who had introduced me to the sorts of depravities I wished I could burn from my mind. There was no erasing these things from my past, but I could damn well keep them from being part of my future.

If I was going to have a future at all.

I wanted one. I didn’t just want any old future, either, but one with Jamie. I’d probably always loved him, from the moment I’d first met him, but other things I’d thought I wanted had proven to be far different from what they’d been in my dreams. Maybe I was incapable of knowing what I truly wanted. Maybe I didn’t understand myself well enough to make these kinds of decisions about my life. That was yet another fear that was closing in on me, squeezing the life out of me. What if it was just a ginormous gaffe, another one to add to the long string of errors in judgment I’d already made? But it was Jamie, so could it really be as bad as all that?

All of these fears kept growing and expanding, overwhelming me with their intensity and mass. They made me feel small and inconsequential. Like I was sinking in quicksand, and darkness was surrounding me, enclosing me. Suffocating me. I didn’t know how to climb out of it. I didn’t know if I would ever be free from the memories of the massive blunders I’d made over the years in the name of furthering my career.

All of this was racing through my head as I cleaned up after dinner. Jamie had offered to help, but I’d waved him away and told him to stay with my parents, preferring to have a few moments to myself. The monotony of rinsing plates and putting them in the dishwasher was a perfect escape, allowing me to sort through the uncomfortable reality my life had become.

I added some detergent to the washer and set it to run, then put some soap on a wet cloth to wipe down the stove and counters, nearing the end of my peace and quiet. For a moment, I debated cleaning the fridge or the oven, just to prolong my respite, but Jamie walked in before I could start on either of those projects.

“Hey,” he said gently.

I glanced up, brushing my hair behind my ear, to find him leaning his hip and shoulder against the doorframe and looking good enough to eat. “Hey,” I replied, scrubbing the countertops hard enough to wear a hole in them.

“I should…uh… I should go. Get out of here. Let you have some time with your parents.”

“You don’t have to go.” I didn’t want him to leave. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to stay, either. I was as confused about him all of a sudden as I was about everything else, and all because he wanted me to have the surgery that we all knew I had to have or else I would die. I was a damned mess. I rinsed my cloth under the faucet, wrung it out, and hung it on the rack under the sink to dry, then turned to face him.

He had his arms and his ankles crossed, his head cocked slightly to the side. It made me wonder what he thought when he saw me. Did he undress me in his mind the way I did with him? But every time I did it, I felt as if I were using him the way Beau had used me. In my head, I knew there was a ton of difference between the two. I was just an object to Beau; Jamie was as good as salvation to me. My heart was having a hard time catching up with my head, though, and I felt unclean for thinking about Jamie in that way.

“I mean it,” I said. “You can stay, if you want.”

“What I want is to clear up what’s going on between us.”

My heart went all fluttery. It had been a long time since I’d felt anything like that—nerves zinging and everything turning floaty and light as air, but there was nothing solid for me to get a grip on. No man had ever been able to do that to me but Jamie. I backed up to the counter, gripping the edge of it to ground myself. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning I want to put words to it. I want to give it a name. I’m not okay with kissing you and holding you, being by your side for all the things a boyfriend would be there for, without it being understood in no uncertain terms that that’s what I am to you. I want us to be a couple. I want to be by your side through everything that’s coming, to hold your hand when you’re scared and pick you up when you’re weak. I want to know that you’re not going to run to some other asshole when we disagree or when I try to make sure you do what we both know is for the best for you. I want you to run to me, even if I piss you off. Because I will piss you off. Because I love you. And because you love me. And because I can’t go one more day without being able to tell you that as often as it comes to mind, which is about a dozen times a minute.”

Somewhere around the second or third word out of his mouth, my legs had felt like pudding, so it was a good thing I was already holding myself against the counter. If I let go now, I’d probably end up on my face instead of in his arms, which was the only place I wanted to be.

“I do love you, Jamie,” I said, gripping the counter so hard my fingers hurt. “I love you, and I’m furious that you would go along with my parents against me even if it’s for the best, and there’s no one else I would rather run to, and I’m scared. God, I’m so scared.” The last bit of that came out through blubbering tears, but it didn’t matter because Jamie crossed the room and put his arms around me. I rested my head on his shoulder, tucking it into that special space that seemed to have been designed to carry burdens, big and small. And he held me.

“I’m scared, too,” he whispered in my ear. But then he held me tighter, and some of my fear lifted because he was there. With me.

I STUCK AROUND for a few hours after dinner. We watched Dancing with the Stars because Zanna McQuaid, one of Katie’s co-stars from The Cool Kids, was competing and paired up with a Russian dude who acted like he was God’s gift to women. Judging from the reaction of the women in the audience, not to mention Laura, maybe he wasn’t the only one to think so.

I wasn’t so sure about that. He came across as a demanding ass to me. One look at Katie when the guy yelled at her friend for screwing up in practice was all I needed to know we were in agreement on that. She visibly cringed and burrowed more fully into my side. That only made me wonder what, exactly, had gone on with the guys she’d dated over the years. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to bring it up in front of her father, though, whatever it might have been. That was something that we could talk about when it was just the two of us. And we would. Soon. There were things I needed to know, even if hearing it ripped me to shreds.

Zanna and her partner danced a rumba to the same song that had played over Katie’s video that night she’d sung the anthem. It was a sensual dance, full of sexy moves that looked like they belonged in a bedroom more than on live television. At first, I watched and wondered how Zanna could dance with him like that when only days ago he’d been berating her, but then my thoughts shifted. To the song.

Or more specifically, to the band. It was by The End of All Things, one of the biggest rock bands in the world these days. They were Katie’s favorite band, too, or at least they had been a few years ago. But they just so happened to be based out of Portland. Not only that, but I had a connection with them. Burnzie’s wife, Brie, was a ballroom dancer who’d starred in one of their music videos and had helped to choreograph a few dances for their latest tour. My thoughts took off in a thousand directions at once, trying to come up with something I could do for Katie to make her decision easier. Maybe if she could do something with them, one final big moment when she could see some of her dreams come true…maybe then she would be willing to go through with the thyroidectomy. It was certainly an idea worth exploring.

I’d been lost in thought for a few minutes when Katie elbowed me in the ribs.

“Ouch,” I said, rubbing the spot she’d hit. Considering I got slammed into the boards and worse on a regular basis by guys easily twice her size, you’d think I would be immune to something like that.

“Get your phone out and vote,” she said. She rattled off the number. “Seven times,” she added once I’d disconnected the call. “And then seven texts, and seven votes on the website with your email address.”

“Got it.”

Webs chuckled to himself, but I couldn’t help but notice he was doing exactly as Laura had ordered him to do, too.

Once I had sufficiently voted according to Katie’s instructions, she settled against me again, tucking her feet up under her and letting me put my arm around her. It felt cozy and perfect, and I didn’t want it to end. Before long, though, the show was over and I needed to get home. We had practice tomorrow, and then I had to do a couple of radio spots and things like that. Plus the Thunderbirds would be getting into town, and I was buying Razor dinner, and Katie would be moving in to her new house. It was going to be a busy day, to say the least.

All I wanted to do was stay right where I was. Or maybe take Katie home with me, but I didn’t think that was going to happen. Not at the moment, at least. I didn’t want to rush anything, particularly not since she had so much on her mind right now. Some things were worth waiting for and doing right.

“I should get home,” I said, straightening myself away from her. “Don’t want to show up to practice tomorrow without getting enough rest.”

“You probably need to go play with Blackbeard, anyway,” Katie said.

Webs popped up a brow. “Blackbeard?”

“Jamie got a kitten.”

“And named it Blackbeard?” Webs’s shoulders shook with the effort of containing his laughter.

I shrugged. “He perches on my shoulder.”

“You two realize Blackbeard was the pirate, right? Not the parrot?”

“Nobody remembers the parrot’s name,” Katie said defensively.

Webs snorted and turned to me. “The boys will give you shit when they find out.”

Considering how much shit they’d give me if they found out other pertinent information, I wasn’t too worried about the teasing I’d get over a kitten’s name.

“Well, they don’t have any reason to find out about that, now do they?” Laura said with a meaningful look at her husband.

“Guess it depends.” He eyed me as I stood. “Depends on how you treat my little girl.”

And we were back to the threats I’d come to know and expect from him. I nodded, holding back a grin. We were on familiar footing again, and that made me a hell of a lot more comfortable with the situation.

“See you in the morning,” I said to him, but he was already pulling up his iPad to look at more game film. He just nodded and gave me a brief wave. Then I turned to Laura. “Thanks for dinner.”

“You’re welcome anytime. It’s nice to have other people over. Feels more like when the kids were growing up, like we’re a family.”

I thought she might be skipping a few steps, saying it felt like family, but that was definitely the direction I wanted things to go.

Katie followed me to the entryway, taking my hand to slow me when we reached the hall. I stopped just inside the door, pivoting to face her because it seemed as if she had something she wanted to say. Her hair was down, obscuring her face, so I tucked it behind her ear. I wanted to see her clearly, see everything going on in her eyes.

There was a tumultuous storm there. Understandable, given the events of the day. Hell, the last week or more, even. She nibbled on her lower lip before finally spitting it out. “Sometimes in life,” she said cautiously, “you think you know what you want, and you want it with a fire that consumes you to the point that you’re willing to give up just about anything to get it. So you do. You give up everything, and you work, and you sacrifice and compromise, and then you get it. You finally get your hands wrapped around that elusive thing that has been eating you alive. But then, only after you have it, you realize that it’s not what you thought it would be. It’s empty and hollow, and what you really wanted—what you needed—is exactly the thing you gave up to get it.”

“Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” I said, cracking a grin.

She smiled, too, but the smile wasn’t as bright as usual. There was a sadness to it that might bring me to my knees if I wasn’t careful.

“Right. Exactly,” she said.

“I know you gave up a lot to go to Hollywood. I understand it. I always did. I might not have wanted to let you go, but I understood why you had to. But now you’re back.”

“I am.” She wrung her hands together, giving me a moment’s pause. “Because it wasn’t what I really wanted. What I really want is you.”

She’d already made that clear, so I wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain it again. I nodded for her to go on.

“But I need to be able to sing, too.”

“Ah. I see.” I wasn’t enough. Not that I wanted her to give up everything for me. I needed to remind myself of that and not let it hurt my ego. I loved Katie because of everything about her, all the disparate parts that made up the whole. I didn’t want her to give up pieces of herself in order to be with me. I would hate it if she felt she had to. If she wanted to, that was another story entirely. “Will I see you tomorrow?” I asked.

“Furniture’s coming in the morning. Mom’s going to bring me over and then I’ll be there getting settled most of the day. You could come over whenever you have time.”

My time was definitely going to be limited tomorrow, but that didn’t matter. “Want to come to dinner with me and Razor? We can celebrate your new house.”

She laughed. “You’re still friends with him, huh?”

“He’s good for me. Keeps me from being too serious all the time.”

The arch of her brow underscored her laughter. “Okay. Dinner it is.” She stretched up on her tiptoes, putting both arms around my neck to draw me down for a kiss.

I was completely on board with kissing her again—as often as possible—but after a moment, I remembered we were in her father’s house. I separated myself before things got too heated. “I don’t think your dad would be very happy if he came around the corner right now and saw this going on.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” she asked. “He’s been trying to set us up since the day I came back to Portland.”

“He might be all right with us getting together, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s setting us up.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention. The prom picture. My realtor showing me that house. Dad telling you about my cancer being back even though I’d told him not to. That was all him, and it was all done to give us a nudge.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Not at all.

“Better the devil you know,” Katie replied. I shook my head, not following. She quirked up a grin. “That’s his explanation. He likes you. He wants me to be happy. To be loved.”

That might be, but I still doubted he would be very forgiving about seeing me with my hands on his daughter. It’d be best to save that for times when we were alone, or at least not in his foyer. “Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll kiss you all you want tomorrow.” When we were alone.

“Promise?”

I met her gaze and held it. “Promise.” Not that it would be a difficult promise to keep. “Spend some extra time with your mom,” I added. “She needs it.”

Katie nodded. She kissed me again before I left, and it was all I could do not to beg her to come with me now. But I didn’t. She needed some time with her parents, and maybe some time by herself to sort out how she felt about everything. And I had something I needed to do.

I got in my car and headed across the river. I wasn’t going home, though. Not yet. The lights were still on at Burnzie’s house when I drove up, and Jonny’s pickup truck was there. I probably should have called before coming over, or at least texted to be sure it was all right, but I didn’t think of that until I was getting out of my car. Too late now.

I rang the bell.

A chorus of barks sounded almost immediately, followed by, “Shut the fuck up already.” The porch light flipped on right before Burnzie opened the door looking harassed, his three large dogs barking excitedly behind him. He glared at me. “What the fuck do you want at this hour?”

“Actually, I was hoping I could talk to Brie about something.” I dragged a hand through my hair.

“Your hair’s a fucking mess. What do you need to see my wife for?”

“It’s about Katie.”

Burnzie eyed me for a second. Then he stepped back, body-blocking his dogs to give me room to follow. “Come on. She’s in the living room.”

Jonny and his wife, Sara, were there, along with their three-year-old son, Connor. Sara was in the late stages of pregnancy and had her feet up. Brie was apparently pregnant, too, not that you could tell it yet. Burnzie had filled us in during training camp. Jonny was on the floor acting as a jungle gym for his son. As soon as the dogs returned with us, though, Connor decided to climb the German shepherd instead of his father.

Based on how calm the dog stayed, I got the distinct impression that he was used to it. Not that it should surprise me. A lot of the guys had kids around that age these days, and Burnzie’s house was so big that he often hosted parties for the whole team. It made more sense than trying to rent somewhere that could accommodate us all.

They all looked up when I came in.

“Babs thinks he needs my wife more than I do,” Burnzie said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Connor said. Then he cackled, and Jonny glared at Sara.

“What?” she said. She pointed at Burnzie. “He’s the one who said it.”

“This time,” Jonny mumbled.

“He needs to stop saying it so much,” Brie said, patting a hand over her belly.

Burnzie threw his hands up. “I’m working on it. I have time.” He picked up an ice bag from the counter and held it to his hand before sitting next to his wife. Not a good sign.

Jonny was about to open his mouth when Sara said, “I’m working on it, too.”

“He’s three years old,” Jonny muttered. “I think you should have figured it out by now that he’s going to repeat everything you say.”

“Obviously, since that’s how I learned it all,” Sara said. “I spent my whole damn life surrounded by hockey players who think fuck can be used as every part of speech.”

“Fuck fuck fuck,” Connor chanted.

Brie shook her head, trying to stifle a laugh. She nodded in my direction. “You wanted to see me about something?”

I took a seat in an armchair. The smallest dog jumped into my lap almost as soon as I was down—possibly because I was as far away from the toddler as possible. Calling her the smallest wasn’t really saying much. She was still way too big to be a lapdog, making me appreciate more than ever before how tiny Blackbeard was, even if he did have some wicked claws. She licked my face, and I petted her out of instinct. Then Brie’s fluffy white cat jumped up on the back of my chair, purring.

“Right,” I said, overwhelmed by the menagerie I’d walked into and how fast my world had changed today. “I need a favor.”

THE FURNITURE I’D ordered was all in position. I’d brought my suitcases from Mom and Dad’s house with me when Mom drove me over so I could meet the delivery guys. After that, I went to the grocery store and stocked up, so now my fridge and pantry were fairly well sorted out. After I’d returned from that, Mom came over with a few odds and ends—lamps, framed family photos, some vases and fresh flowers. She hung around for a while, letting me show her around. We talked about the colors I wanted to put on the walls, what kinds of artwork I was thinking about putting up, and who to call if I had various problems that sometimes come up for homeowners. But then she left, claiming she had a women’s league meeting even though we both knew that was a lie. I was pretty sure it was just that she was trying hard not to butt in too far, trying to give me some space.

But now she was gone, and it was just me and this empty house, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Dr. Oliver had scheduled my first radiation session for Monday, so I had a few days to figure things out before it all started.

In LA, I rented a condo, but I was almost never there. I was on set, or out with Zanna and some of my other friends from the show, or doing something with whomever I was dating at the time. My place was just a place to store my things. It wasn’t really somewhere I did anything other than sleep. Hell, I barely had more in my kitchen than coffee and cereal since eating at home was something I only did in extremely rare circumstances.

Now I had a house of my very own, and no job, and no friends who were home in the middle of the day. I had a boyfriend, but he had a life that kept him busy a lot of the time. I couldn’t count on Jamie to keep me from boredom at all hours of the day, so I was going to have to figure out a way to occupy myself a lot of the time.

I flipped through a few channels on the TV, but nothing really caught my attention, so I turned it off. I dug my phone out of my pocket and checked my email. There was another long one from Derek, griping about how the perfect audition for me had just come up—the kind of gritty role he’d been grooming me for by having me hang out with guys like Beau—but he’d had to tell them I was no longer his client. That was exactly the sort of thing I didn’t need to see at the moment, so I shut it down, tossed the phone on the coffee table, and headed into my office space.

I hadn’t bought any furniture for this room yet. I was still trying to get a feel for it and settle on exactly how I wanted to use it. The idea of a writing and recording studio was still very appealing, but I needed to figure out what sort of equipment I’d need before I did anything else. The late afternoon sun was pouring in through the windows looking out over my backyard, casting everything in warm light that spoke to my soul.

I lay down on the floor in the middle of the room, soaking it in and making plans. The wall of windows would be perfect for a desk on one side and some sort of cushy chair on the other. I’d need to build in some soundproofing. Not that it was loud around here, but I didn’t want to be in the middle of recording something and have a car horn blare in the background. I could do a wall of built-in shelving on one side, and the other could have all my recording equipment. Once I decided on what I would need, at least.

My eyes were getting droopy from lying there for so long with the sun shining on me. If I didn’t get up and move around, I’d end up falling asleep down here on the floor, and I would definitely regret that. The view out that window was fantastic, though, so I pulled on a sweater against the chill and made my way into the backyard to my swing. I don’t know how long I was there—long enough that the sun was starting to set behind the mountains and the only thing keeping me awake was the back-and-forth motion—but then Jamie’s voice startled me out of my ruminations.

“There you are.”

I swung my head around and found him smiling at me across the fence. Blackbeard was perched on his shoulder, nibbling his earlobe.

“Here I am,” I replied.

“I rang your bell and tried calling your phone when you didn’t answer. Thought maybe you’d changed your mind about dinner with me and Razor.”

“Not a chance. Just forgot my phone inside when I came out here.”

“Mind if I come around?” he asked.

I shook my head.

With Blackbeard in position, Jamie went through his gate and then mine. He took a seat next to me on the bench, and the kitten jumped from his shoulder to mine before coming down to settle on my lap. Not to take a nap, though. His little sniffer was working overtime. I couldn’t blame him. All these sights and smells must be new for him.

There was a lot new for me, too, like the way Jamie casually put his arm across my shoulders and drew me closer to him. The way he treated me was so different from any of the other guys I’d dated. With them, every touch was possessive and done for an audience to see or to send a message of sorts. With Jamie, every touch was gentle and meant for only the two of us. I could get used to his kind of touches.

We sat there for a while, telling each other about our days and chitchatting. It was easy to imagine doing this every single day, coming home to one another and sharing the ups and downs, however large or small, we’d experienced since the last time we’d seen each other.

Before long, Blackbeard was antsy to move. I set him down on the ground, and he raced around the yard, leaping at invisible enemies and wrestling a blade of grass.

“It’s not fair, leaving him to play all by himself,” I said.

“You think I need another kitten? A playmate for him?”

I laughed and shook my head. “I was thinking maybe we should get down there, too.”

I should have moved the second the words left my mouth, but I didn’t, and then it was too late. Jamie picked me up and dragged me to the ground, rolling us over until I was on top of him. My breasts pillowed between us. My lips were only inches from his, close enough I could smell his cinnamon breath mints.

“Like this?” he asked, breathless and laughing.

I answered him by bracing my knees on either side of his waist, resting my arms on the ground beside his head, and kissing him with every ounce of love I possessed. His lips were spicy and sweet when my tongue traced the seam. He opened, inviting me in, and his hands settled on the small of my back. Tender. Tentative. I could feel how much he wanted to be with me—his erection came to life in about 0.28 seconds—but he was still so cautious about caressing me. It was as if he was worried my father would walk up at any moment.

I kissed the line of his jaw, moving down to his neck. “Touch me, Jamie. I want to feel your hands on me.”

He lifted one hand, sliding it up to my head. He threaded his fingers through my hair, drawing it down to his face. “Did I ever tell you how much I dream about touching your hair?” He sniffed a few strands, letting them fall in waves against his skin. “It’s so soft. Like silk.”

With all the things he could choose to touch, he chose my hair. I didn’t know what to make of that.

But then he rolled us over until he was on top. A layer of leaves blanketed the ground beneath me, and he had me pinned below him, his weight supported by his arms. I drew my knees up, holding him between my thighs. Breathless, heart pounding, I waited for his next move.

And waited.

He stayed like that, gazing down at me in awe, as if he was memorizing every detail. The colored light of the setting sun outlined his face above me, a wash of pastels painting the sky. Finally, he lowered his head, placing a kiss on the bit of exposed skin on my chest.

I sucked in a breath, squeezing my eyes closed in anticipation of his next move.

His phone rang in his pocket, and he raised himself away from me again.

“Don’t answer it,” I said. I wasn’t ready for this to end.

“It’s Razor.”

I pouted. We’d been getting so close to a moment I’d been dreaming about for years, and now he was going to pass it up for his buddy. “Can’t you tell him you’re busy? I’m sure he’d understand.”

But Jamie was already getting up and taking the phone out. I supposed that answered my question.

Blackbeard loped over and replaced him, curling up right over the spot where Jamie had just kissed me. It was sweet, but he was a poor replacement.

“Hey,” Jamie said into the phone. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I was just picking up Katie first.” He fell silent for a minute. “Just working on doing what you told me to, asshole. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He hung up the phone and reached down to help me stand.

“What did he tell you to do?” I asked, brushing the leaves from my butt.

Jamie blushed, and his dimples popped out. He didn’t answer me, though. He just took my hand and tugged me in for another kiss, the kind of kiss that made my toes curl. “Come on,” he said when he broke it off. “Let’s drop Blackbeard off at home and go pick up Razor.”

He might have tried to deflect my question, but I went along with him. For now. I was almost positive I knew someone who would answer it for me, and we were on our way to see him.

WHEN KATIE AND I got to the Thunderbirds’ hotel, we walked hand in hand into the building. It was unreal how easily we’d fallen into doing what felt natural—talking about our days, holding hands, playing around with each other. I could get used to this really fast.

Razor was waiting for us in the lobby, along with Hunter and Zee. As soon as she saw them, Katie raced across the foyer and kissed Zee on the cheek. That was just Katie. She’d known Zee longer than she’d known me, and all the guys who’d been part of the Storm over the years had become like older brothers to her. Well, all except me, but I was glad she didn’t think of me that way. She did the same with Hunter and was moving on to Razor by the time I got there.

He was apparently anticipating it, and he swept her up off her feet and planted a kiss on her cheek before she could kiss him. By the time he set her down again, she was trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard.

I held out a hand for Zee’s.

He shook it but with his eyes narrowed at me. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine.” I had no doubt his curiosity came down to the leaked reports of the locker room incident after the last game. Not that he wanted dirt on us or anything like that. He had been part of that locker room a long time, and he still had a lot of friends there. Most likely, he just wanted to offer up some advice or something else of that nature. I wasn’t going to involve him, though. I meant what I’d told Razor. Those things needed to stay in the room, and no matter how long Zee had been part of it, he wasn’t now.

He had always been the kind of guy who would respect that sort of decision, and sure enough, he let it go. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Katie. “Dana sent me with these to show you.”

She raised her brows in question but opened the envelope to find three photos, one of each of Zee and Dana’s two kids, and a sonogram. “Again? You’re having another baby?”

“Another boy. He’ll be here in May.” Zee didn’t even attempt to hide his pride.

We spent a few more minutes catching up with Zee while Razor cracked jokes here and there. Hunter didn’t really say much. He just sulked a lot, occasionally interjecting something slightly more coherent than a grunt. I wasn’t sure what was going on with him other than maybe feeling like his talents were being wasted on a team he didn’t want to play for—he’d made that much clear over the summer when he’d found out he’d been claimed in the expansion draft—but he didn’t seem inclined to talk about it.

“Do you guys want to come to dinner with us?” Katie asked when we were getting ready to leave.

Zee shook his head. “Soupy and Rachel insisted on a family dinner for me tonight.” That didn’t surprise me since Dana was Soupy’s younger sister and Zee had been his best friend since they were kids. “Rachel’s picking me up on her way home.”

“And Hunter’s going to a meeting of the goalie guild,” Razor put in cheerfully, ignoring the glares coming from Hunter’s corner. “Nicky, Bobby, and Jacks are planning to spend time with his hostile ass, for some reason, so we might as well go.”

Katie handed the photos and sonogram back to Zee, and we headed out to my car.

I got on the highway, heading toward the Old Town-Chinatown District. “What’s under Hunter’s skin?” I asked Razor.

“You mean besides his wife?”

I did a double take as I exited the highway. “He’s married?” The last I knew, Hunter hadn’t even been dating anyone.

“Yep. Miss Oklahoma or something. They’re fucking disgusting together, nonstop PDA and shit, but he’s surly all the time now. Well, surlier than normal. You’d think that if they’re all over each other like that, he’d be getting laid all the time. And you’d think that getting laid all the time would improve his disposition. I don’t see that one lasting, but what can you expect when a guy marries a piece of ass he’s only known for five seconds?” He looked over his shoulder at Katie, in the backseat. “Sorry. Language.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I can promise you, I’ve heard worse.”

That wasn’t the point, but I decided not to say anything about that. I was just glad Razor had corrected himself this time before I’d had to. Maybe he wasn’t always going to be a complete asshole. I scanned the side roads, searching for a place to park. “So he met this girl and married her? Just like that?” I finally found a spot not too far from the Davis Street Tavern and took it before someone else could come along and snag it out from under me.

“As far as I could tell. And he’s been a fucking bear to deal with ever since. Well, more so than normal.”

I took Katie’s hand as we crossed the street to the restaurant. When we got to the front door, she surprised me by stretching up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. I was almost positive I was blushing, but I didn’t give a shit. Not only that, but I wasn’t satisfied with a kiss on the cheek. That might be good enough for Zee, Hunter, and Razor, but I wanted more. I drew her in for a real kiss.

“Fucking surrounded by it everywhere I go,” Razor muttered when I let her go. “You two should get a room.”

The hostess seated us in a booth almost immediately. I slid onto the bench next to Katie, and the hostess passed around menus. Once she left, Katie set her menu down in front of her and focused in on Razor.

“So, what is this advice you gave Jamie?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, shooting daggers in his direction in case he thought it would be a good idea to give her a solid answer.

“Advice?” He quirked up a brow and cocked his head to the side, eyeing me. I shook my head. He chuckled and turned back to Katie. “Oh, that advice. I just suggested Babs listen to the words of one of the greatest thinkers of our time.”

“And who’s that?”

“No o—”

“Beyoncé,” he said, cutting me off. “You know. The part in ‘Single Ladies’ about what he should do if he likes it.”

“Put a ring—” Katie stopped short as soon as she understood, her cheeks turning almost as pink as mine. She picked up her menu again and hid her face behind it, but there was no hiding how embarrassed she was from me. “I see.”

We’d barely decided we were dating again, so it was way too fucking soon to start talking about getting married, no matter how much I might want that to be the end result.

The waitress dropped off glasses of water and took our orders, scratching things down on a notepad before collecting the menus.

“And I think we all know he likes it,” Razor added as soon as she walked away.

I kicked him under the table.

“What? It’s not like it’s a secret.” He shifted down the bench so he was across from Katie instead of me, not that it would do him any good. I could still kick him if he deserved it, and chances were high that he would. He caught Katie’s eye and winked. “Maybe once he’s getting laid on a regular basis, he won’t be so tetchy. But then again, he might end up like Hunter and be more unbearable than ever.”

I was already pulling back my foot to deliver another solid kick when Katie smiled and said, “I guess there’s only one way to test your theory.” Her eyes flickered over to me for a fraction of a second before fluttering away, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I could have missed the invitation in that glance.

I froze.

The waitress returned with a bottle of wine and a basket of bread, and Razor caught my eye during the exchange. The corners of his lips twisted up in a shit-eating grin.

Holy hell.

WE ENDED UP spending hours hanging out with Razor before taking him back to the hotel, but Katie didn’t seem to mind. Actually, with the way she talked and laughed with him, the two of them ganging up together to tease me, I was pretty sure she had enjoyed it immensely. So had I. Today was the first time I’d spent quality time with Katie since she’d come back to Portland that had been free from either her tears or us talking about cancer. I just hoped we were going to be able to keep it up without him around, because he definitely would not be around for this next part.

We had barely left the hotel’s parking lot when Katie turned in her seat and asked me, point blank, “Do you have condoms back at your house?”

I nearly lost control of my car in shock. “No. Why?” Then I mentally berated myself for coming across as an idiot.

“We should stop at the drugstore and get some,” she said, ignoring the most senseless question to have ever crossed my lips.

“Are you— I mean, aren’t we… Don’t you think we’re rushing into things?”

“We don’t have to use them tonight if you think it’s better to wait,” she said, as calm and collected as ever. “I think we should have some on hand, though. For when we are ready. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of things and having to stop to go to the store because no one has a condom on hand.”

“Nothing worse,” I repeated, hating myself for it. But I couldn’t stop myself. There were things I needed to know, and Katie had been the one to broach the subject to begin with. She’d opened the door. I might as well go through it. “So you’ve had that happen? You’ve been about to have sex with some guy and had to stop so you could go buy condoms?”

There wasn’t any way to hide the jealousy in my tone. No way to mask the fact that it hurt me that she’d been with someone else. If she had stayed in Portland, I was sure we would have been together by now, and God knew the girls I’d dated since her had done their best to get me in their beds. I wasn’t even entirely sure why I hadn’t slept with them other than it hadn’t felt right. I’d wanted them plenty bad enough, at least from a purely physical standpoint. My body had responded. My heart just refused to catch up. With Katie, my body was there, and my heart was fully in it. The only problem was my head kept telling me I needed to slow everything down.

We were coming to an intersection, and the light turned yellow, so I braked and stopped. Then I turned so I could really see her when she answered me.

“Yes,” she said. “I stopped him because we didn’t have condoms, and I went to the store to get some.”

“He didn’t go? Why didn’t he go with you?” Or better yet, instead of her.

She shrugged and looked down at her lap, where she was toying with the bottom of the zipper on her jacket repeatedly. “He was mad I made him stop over something like that. He said I should have thought to be sure we had condoms before things ever got as far as they did. So I went and got them, and I brought them back. And we had sex.”

“Which one was this?” I asked, trying to keep my anger in check. I wasn’t just mad at the asswipe who’d treated her like that; I was mad at Katie for letting him, for not standing up for herself and refusing to let anyone act that way toward her.

“Does it matter who it was?”

The light turned green, so I adjusted my hands on the wheel and eased onto the gas, chewing on my frustration. “I don’t know,” I finally said. “You tell me. Does it matter who he was?”

Katie spun her head and stared out at the city as we passed it by. “It was Beau. With Jesse, his drugs were more important to him than I was, but he at least bothered to…to take care of me when we were in bed. The other guys I dated, it never got serious enough for me to sleep with them.”

“But Beau acted like the ass he is when you were alone together,” I finished for her.

“You have no idea.”

There was a part of me that wanted to leave it at that, to stop probing for more information when everything she told me made me want to drive to LA so I could force these guys to answer for how they’d hurt her. It might not have been them, though, but something had put that haunted look in her eyes. I couldn’t go hunt them down, anyway, and it didn’t have a thing to do with thinking I needed to know every detail of what had gone on in her life. Katie didn’t owe me anything. She didn’t need to explain herself to me. But I had a sinking suspicion that she felt the need to tell me, before we took things further.

The drugstore was about a block away. I changed lanes to turn in.

“Do you hate me?” she asked quietly, once we were in the parking lot.

“There’s nothing you could ever do to make me hate you.” I shut off the engine and sat there, waiting for her to look at me. When she finally did, I said, “I might not always be happy with every decision you make, but I love you. That’s enough.”

“But you don’t— I know how TMZ and the other gossip sites made me seem. They made me out like I was easy. A slut going from guy to guy. It was what Derek wanted. He wanted me to have some edge, so I could get different sorts of parts, and I just…I went along with the publicity stuff. I trusted him to know what was best for my career, and I shouldn’t have. When something felt wrong, I should have put my foot down and said I wouldn’t do it.”

I agreed wholeheartedly, but telling her so wouldn’t solve anything. “You can’t go back and change things,” I said. “It happened. What matters now are the choices you make moving forward.” Like the fact that she wanted to buy condoms to use with me. My hormones had been working in overdrive since she’d kissed me in her backyard earlier, and thoughts like these weren’t helping to cool things down.

Her hair had fallen into her eyes again, so I brushed it back, letting my fingertips trail over her cheek before I tucked the tendrils behind her ear.

“Promise me something,” I said.

“What’s that?” She blinked a couple of times, as if she were trying to hold back tears again. I didn’t want tears to have any part of things when I finally took her to my bed.

“Promise me that if I ever treat you as anything less than the princess you are, you’ll break my nose and then be sure your dad finishes me off.”

“How can you possibly think I’m a princess, that I deserve to be with someone as good as you, after—”

“Promise me,” I interrupted. “Don’t you fucking dare sell yourself short. Not ever again. I can live with a lot of things, Katie. I can accept that you did things you regret, that you made choices I would rather you hadn’t. But I can’t handle you thinking you’re not good enough. For anything or anyone. That’s not even close to all right. That’s the kind of thinking that leads to you accepting the kind of treatment those guys gave you. So you promise me you won’t ever put up with me treating you as anything less than perfect, because that’s what you are. At least to me, and if anyone thinks otherwise, then they need their thinking adjusted.”

I didn’t know where these speeches kept coming from when I was with Katie. There was a part of me that wished words would come to me like that when I was with the team because that was what they needed from me as their captain. It never seemed to happen with them, though. Only with Katie, who at the moment was looking at me with the most thunderstruck expression I’d ever seen.

“So are we buying condoms or what?” I asked. My face felt hot. I had to be fucking blushing again. I opened my door and got out, slamming it behind me because I was so damn pissed at my own embarrassment I could hardly function.

By the time I got around to Katie’s side, she’d already gotten out on her own.

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Losing my temper with her over something that was my own damn problem would never be okay. “That’s one of those things you’re not supposed to let me get away with. You should be breaking my nose right about now.” I shut her door and pressed the button on my remote to lock the car.

When I turned around, Katie stretched up on her toes to kiss me.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“Because you can’t even imagine half the ways I’ve screwed up, and you still think I’m perfect.” She reached for my hand. “Come on. Let’s go buy some condoms.”

“DO YOU HAVE a type you prefer? Or a brand? There are those condoms that claim they enhance sensitivity. That could be good.” A box caught my eye, and I picked it up, holding it out to Jamie. “Ooh, or those super thin ones. They’re supposed to feel like they aren’t even there. That’s what the advertising says, at least, but I can always tell there’s something there. Can’t you? Or we could go with colored, flavored, magnum…” I intentionally left that last query hanging between us to see if he would bite.

He didn’t.

I’d seen him blush a lot over the years, but I had never seen him as bright red as he was right now. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but here, which made sense when I thought about it. Jamie had always been a private kind of guy. He never seemed to have a hard time talking to me about anything when we were alone, but I doubted he wanted his private life spread all over the news. I couldn’t say I blamed him for that. I’d had enough of the paparazzi to last a lifetime, and then some. That was another good thing about staying in Portland. I doubted TMZ would be hanging around here to catch me doing something they could twist into a scandal.

“Whatever you want,” he said quietly, keeping his head down. “You choose.”

I raised my eyebrows, a grin stealing over my lips. “You sure? I’m not terribly particular as long as it’s covered.”

“Same for me,” he said through gritted teeth.

If he wasn’t going to be picky, I might as well be adventurous. I grabbed a few boxes, just for fun: flavored, glow-in-the-dark, and another that claimed to be ribbed for her pleasure. I’d never known a condom to enhance my pleasure before, but for the most part, they didn’t diminish it, either. The diminished pleasure I’d experienced tended to fall squarely on the shoulders of the man wearing the condom, instead of the protective gear itself. Beau had never bothered to see to my needs, worrying only about his own. Every aspect of our relationship had been like that, but nowhere had it been more pronounced than in bed. We did things when he wanted, how he wanted, and as fast as he wanted, and tough if I didn’t enjoy myself.

There was no chance it would be anything like that with Jamie. He was so caring in everything he did, I knew without a doubt that it would carry over into the bedroom.

Once I was satisfied with my selections, we headed up to the checkout counter. I reached in my purse for my wallet, but Jamie beat me to the punch, handing over a wad of bills. The checker bagged everything up, doing his best to hide a knowing smile but constantly peeking up at me, and handed over the receipt. We left the store and got back into Jamie’s car.

Jamie didn’t start the ignition, though. He had put on his seat belt, but he was staring at the guy who’d rung up our purchases. When I glanced up to find out why, I could see him through the store windows with his phone in his hands as he leaned over the counter.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Jamie asked.

“Texting his friends that he just saw us buying more condoms than we could use in a month. Maybe tweeting it, but hopefully texting. And he could be adding something else to our purchases, like blindfolds and handcuffs. Something to make it seem worse than it is. That’s just what people do.” They always exaggerated the truth, whatever the truth was. I’d come to accept it as simply part of being somewhat famous.

“You think he knows who we are?”

“You think he doesn’t?” I gave Jamie a dubious look. “Maybe he doesn’t watch hockey, so you might be in the clear, but he definitely knew who I was. You saw the way he was looking at me.”

Jamie undid his seat belt. “I’m going back in there.”

“What? No.” I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Why would you do that? Going in there again will only make things worse.”

“Because someone needs to tell him that what he’s doing is wrong!”

I flinched and let go of his arm, folding my hands on my lap. “Fine. You’re not the one who’s been dealing with this for four years, but surely you know best. Go on. I’m sure it’ll make everything better if slutty Katie Weber’s latest man goes in and threatens the guy who’s just letting the world know how slutty Katie still is.”

“I wasn’t planning on threatening him.”

“No? Then what? Skipping that step and going straight for the throat punch? Sounds like something Dad would do, not you, but maybe you’ve been paying attention and taking a few notes about how to be sure you draw more attention to the things you want to hide.”

A few more moments passed in silence. Then he put his seat belt on again and started the car. “I’m sorry,” Jamie said, driving out of the parking lot. “I wanted to make things better for you, and what I had in mind would have only made it worse. You’re right. I didn’t think it through.” He pulled up at a stoplight and held out his hand between us, open to take mine.

I hesitated, but then I put my hand in his. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I’ve done things to make you think I’m a slut. But I’m not, Jamie. I’m really not. I know how things seem, but that’s just what they wanted the world to see. For some reason, it’s easy to believe the worst of people and hard to believe the best, but no one is either as good or as bad as the media paints them. No one.”

Jamie dragged his other hand through his hair, mussing his faux hawk so some of it was standing on end. “I don’t think you’re a slut.”

“No?” I still sounded pouty and petulant. “Well, you’re one of very few, then. Even Dad fell for everything the media tried to sell about me.” And thanks to how well Derek cast me in that role, it hadn’t even been a hard sell.

A couple of minutes later, Jamie parked the car. He closed the garage door behind us.

I grabbed my purse and the drugstore bag, ready to go home. To my house. Alone, because I wasn’t really in the mood to fool around with him after the argument we’d just had. I wasn’t used to disagreeing with Jamie, and I didn’t like it. There was a hollow ache in my stomach that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with conflict. I really fucking hated conflict.

“Come on,” Jamie said as we got out of his car. He waited by the door leading into his kitchen, holding out a hand for me. “Blackbeard’ll be frantic for company by now.”

“You sure you want me to come in?” I hedged. “I could go home if you’d prefer that. Since…” I wasn’t sure how to put into words that maybe he wasn’t in the mood right now after we’d been arguing and talking about what a slut the world thinks I am. And honestly, even though he said he didn’t think of me that way, the only thing he had to go on to the contrary was my word. Maybe he needed more time to think about all of this.

He gave me an overblown suspicious look and pointed to the bag in my hands. “You sure about that? Because it seems wasteful not to put those to use.”

“You think you can use them all, huh?” I laughed. “They do have expiration dates, but I think they’ll last a while. We don’t have to rush into anything.”

His whole face dropped. “I’m not going to rush you, Katie. Not ever.”

That much was painfully evident, since I was the one making almost every move. I smiled and crossed over to take his hand, kissing him on the side of his jaw. “I meant I wouldn’t rush you.”

A frisson of hope flitted between us, and I couldn’t tell where it started and where it ended. It just was. Tangible. Nearly physical.

He threaded his fingers through mine. “So you’ll come in?”

I stepped ahead of him and opened the door. Blackbeard raced through it, making a flying leap straight for Jamie and landing halfway up his thigh. Within seconds, he clawed his way up and made himself at home on Jamie’s shoulder, amid a stream of curses.

I tried to stifle my laugh. “Just be glad he only weighs about a pound right now. Wait until he’s a full-grown cat and still doing that.”

Jamie sent a half-hearted glare in the kitten’s direction. “We’ll see if he makes it that long.”

Blackbeard nipped Jamie’s nose in response before licking all over his face.

I went inside and tossed my purse and bag on the kitchen counter. A moment later, the door closed, and I felt the heat of Jamie’s body behind me. He touched my upper arm, his strong fingers gently circling my skin. I leaned back, allowing myself to sink into him.

“You’re not rushing me,” he said. “And I meant what I said. I believe you. I don’t think you could possibly be all that they would have the public believe. But there are things I need to know first. I need to know where that line falls between what’s true and what’s not. I need to know if any of them…if they hurt you. I need to know that you believe what’s going to happen between us will be…untainted, I guess I mean. Not dirtied by things that someone else has done to you or by all the things you’re afraid I believe.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself the courage to tell him everything he was asking for. “I know. It’s only fair for you to know exactly what you’re getting into with me before…well, before.” I allowed myself to revel in the shelter of his embrace. He would still want me once he knew, wouldn’t he? I had to believe it or I would never be able to tell him. I hadn’t told anyone the worst of it, not even Dani or Mom. There was too much shame, because like Jamie had said—there was a line between the truth and the fabrication. The media hadn’t made things up out of thin air. They’d taken what I’d given them and run with it to make up their wild stories, to cast me in a light that wasn’t true but wasn’t wholly a lie.

“And there’s something I need to tell you, too,” Jamie said.

I really didn’t want to hear about the girls he’d dated while I was in Hollywood, but I supposed it was only fair since he was about to hear a whole lot he likely didn’t want to know. I just hoped he didn’t feel the need to give me too much detail. “All right,” I said. “Whatever you need to tell me, I can take it. I’m ready.” It couldn’t be any worse than what I had to tell him.

He backed away and went around the kitchen island, heading for the living room with Blackbeard enjoying the ride. “Come on. Sit with me.”

I followed, sitting beside him on the sofa but with a bit of space between us. He might want that distance once I started talking about what life with Beau had been like.

“You first,” I said once we were both settled.

Jamie reached up and petted the kitten’s back, looking thoroughly nauseated. Maybe it was worse than I’d imagined? But he was still Jamie, so it couldn’t be that bad.

Finally, he took a breath and blurted out, “I’m a virgin.”

I FELT LIKE I might puke after admitting that to Katie, but she didn’t laugh or do anything to make me feel like I was a sad, pathetic excuse for a man. Not that I believed that about myself over something as stupid as still being a virgin, but still. People could be weird about a man having never proved his virility by doing the deed. That was why I tended to keep it a secret. It was a total double standard, too. Me being a virgin? Pitiful. Katie not being a virgin? Somehow that made her a slut, according to everyone with a social media presence and an axe to grind. Pissed me off, but I didn’t know what I could do about it.

But Katie didn’t react. She didn’t crack a joke. She didn’t get up and run out. She didn’t do anything at all, actually, but sit there and stare at me, one brow slightly raised in question.

I didn’t know what she was asking me, so I followed her example. I sat there exactly how I was and waited for her to respond.

“That’s it?” she said after one of the most pregnant pauses I’d ever lived through. “That’s what you needed to tell me? That you’ve never had sex?”

“Well, you don’t need to sound so underwhelmed.”

She blinked a couple of times. “I don’t— I just thought you were about to tell me all your deep, dark secrets about all the girls you’ve slept with over the last few years. That’s all.” She pushed some hair back from her face, but it immediately fell forward again. “I was expecting you to air your dirty laundry like I’m about to do, and you hit me with the fact that you’re even more impossibly perfect than I already thought you were.”

“I’m not perfect,” I grumbled. “And that’s exactly what I did tell you. I let you in on every single girl I’ve fucked, all zero of them. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the opportunity, either. I just—” I nearly bit my own tongue forcing myself to shut up before I revealed more than I was ready for.

“You just what?” Katie asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I’m about to fill you in on all the sordid details you want about my sex life. You owe me the same if we’re going to move forward with this.”

“You’ve already got all the details. There are no details. It’s just me, my hand, and my imagination. That’s it. That’s all I was going to say.”

She frowned, in a way that made me think of her mother—the sort of I’m-not-buying-for-a-second-that-you’re-telling-me-the-whole-story frown that all moms must learn to do the moment their first child comes out of the womb. Or maybe sooner than that, since Katie could already do it. The way she was scowling left me squirming in my seat. I shifted, and I dislodged Blackbeard enough that he woke up and circled before settling down again.

“Fine,” I said. “All right. I just couldn’t take any of them up on what they were offering because they weren’t you. Which is stupid because you were gone, and you clearly weren’t waiting around for me, so I might as well move on with my life, right? Take what I could get when I could get it. But I couldn’t.”

Katie blinked again, but this time she was blinking back tears, making me wish I’d had the decency to talk to her without all my frustration coming through in my words. “You’ve never had sex because you were waiting for me?” she said, awed.

“Maybe. Kind of.” I reached up to shove my hand through my hair again but stopped myself just in time. That wouldn’t do anything but prove how nervous I was, talking to her about this. About sex. About all the things I’d been lying in bed at night thinking about for years but had never gotten a chance to do anything about. But now here she was. With condoms. Wanting me. And I was so fucking worked up about telling her this shit that I might blow my chance. “I just thought it should mean something, you know? I didn’t want to go to bed with some girl I didn’t love just for the sake of having sex. I wanted to know there was a future there. I wanted to be in love and have it matter. It should be a big deal, right? It should be important. And none of them mattered because they weren’t you.”

Her lips twitched a couple of times, and then the smile I’d loved since the first time I’d ever seen her crossed her face. It was a shy smile, one that lit up her eyes and turned her cheeks as pink as mine, but she ducked her face down as though that would hide any of her beauty from me.

“You were saving yourself for me,” she said when her eyes fluttered up to meet mine again.

“Well, not necessarily for you. Just for someone I could love like I loved you. Like I still love you.”

She pursed her lips together and shook her head. “Stop while you’re ahead. Tell me you were saving yourself for me.”

I laughed hard enough that Blackbeard dug in his claws and grumbled. “Fine. I was saving myself for you.”

The kitten was sleepy enough that he let me bring him down from his roost. I set him on the sofa, right beside my hip, and he let out a sound that was half sigh, half snore. He must have been running himself ragged all over the house while we were gone to be this tuckered out.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Katie said, drawing my attention back to her instead of the kitten. “But that just reinforces the idea in my head that I don’t deserve you. You say I’m perfect for you, but you’re perfect, Jamie. You don’t have any flaws. None.”

“Not even close to true. I can’t figure out how to lead my team even though they made me captain. I’m scared to use the stove, much less the oven, because I’m bound to start a fire. I think too much and act too little. My hair’s a damn mess all the time, which Burnzie is all too happy to remind me of, I blush at the drop of a fucking hat, and I can’t grow out of these dimples that make me look twelve—”

“The dimples and the blushing are assets, not flaws,” she cut in. “And I think you’ll recall how I feel about your hair.”

I did remember that. Back when she’d had cancer the first time, when the chemo had caused her hair to start falling out, Webs had shaved his off in support. I was about to do the same when she’d flipped out and begged me to keep it. So I had. I’d do just about anything she asked of me—then and now—if it would make her happy.

Still, I rolled my eyes. I’d heard that part about my fucking dimples and blushing way too many damn times, since I was a kid. The only thing that made it slightly easier to deal with was the fact that my brothers—all six of them—suffered from the same affliction. I wasn’t totally alone in it. “The point is, nobody’s perfect. But that doesn’t mean you’re not perfect for me. And maybe I can be perfect for you, too.”

“I don’t think you need the maybe in that statement,” she said with a smile that would have knocked my feet out from under me if I’d been standing.

Her hair had dipped in front of her eyes again, and I reached over to slip it behind her ear. Briefly, she turned her head in toward my touch, kind of how Blackbeard would do when he wanted affection, only without the same determined feline insistence. Her skin was as smooth as satin as I let my fingertips glide along her cheek. Pinpricks of electricity shot between us, jolting my pulse and leaving it stuttering to catch up.

“Why don’t you think you deserve me?” I asked, dropping my hand down to her shoulder. I couldn’t seem to make myself stop touching her in some way.

She inched closer. “Are you sure you’re ready to hear it all?”

No. I wasn’t even close to certain, but I said, “Yes.”

Katie took a breath, scanning my eyes. “Okay. I’m not sure where to start, though.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“The beginning.” Her lips twisted up in a grimace that I wanted to kiss away. “Right. So Derek sent me on a few auditions when I first arrived in Hollywood. The general consensus from casting directors was that I was adorable and sweet and way too pure for the roles they were casting, but they’d keep me in mind if a part I was suited for came along. He wasn’t thrilled by their reactions. Then he arranged for me to read for The Cool Kids. The part he sent me to audition for was the one Zanna ended up playing—a little edgier storyline than mine—but they ended up offering me the role of Courtney. I was perfect for Courtney, they said. Sweet, adorable, and pure, exactly like all the other casting directors had described me and what they used as the reason I wouldn’t fit their parts. I accepted, and Derek was thrilled for the exposure I would get from this role, but he was worried that I was going to be typecast by taking on a part so similar to who I was in person. He didn’t think I’d be offered anything with more grit, more edge, unless we did something about my public image.”

“So he suggested you date Jesse Carmichael?” I filled in.

“Yeah. He’d been trying to get me to hang out with a group of some of his other clients who were often in the news, but I didn’t really know them, and I wasn’t comfortable. Jesse was in the cast, and he’d been flirting with me on set. When Derek saw that, he decided that was the course I needed to take. At first, it wasn’t anything serious. I just went to red carpet events with him, things like that to keep Derek happy. But then Jesse wanted it to be more than just for show. I wasn’t so sure about it. I was still hung up on you, and I had already caught on to the fact that he was into some things I didn’t really want to get messed up with. But they both pressured me, and I gave in. I gave in on a lot of things.”

She wrapped her arms around her stomach and backed away from me, tucking her feet up under her. It felt like she didn’t want to be too close to me. Like she was ashamed of herself and didn’t want it to rub off on me. The urge to go to LA, find Derek Hatch, and bash his face in was as strong as my desire to draw Katie into my arms and convince her there was nothing she could do, then or now, to make me stop loving her. But I stayed put. There was a lot more story she needed to tell, and I was determined to let her get through all of it.

“Jesse and I were good together, even if I didn’t love him. The physical attraction between us was off the charts, and we had great chemistry in”—she stopped and gave me an apologetic look—“in bed. But he got high a lot. Pot just about all the time, acid at least a few times a week… He liked cocaine, too, though. When I was with him, I felt pressured into using the same things he did. I never used much, and I hated the way I felt when I did.”

My stomach churned, thinking about all the things that could have happened to her when she was high. Bashing Derek Hatch’s face in was too good for him, and there were no words for the anger I felt for Jesse Carmichael.

“Drugs and I didn’t get along,” Katie said. “Not at all. People who get high don’t like being around people who don’t, though, so I caved. It was only when he got busted one time and I was with him—and of course, TMZ was all over it—that I decided I couldn’t do that anymore. I had never used enough that I’d developed an addiction, and I decided to quit using altogether. But then Jesse decided that he didn’t want to be with me anymore. Said I wasn’t fun, that I wasn’t willing to have a good time with him, so we broke things off. I stopped hanging out with him and his crowd.”

“He never— He didn’t hurt you?” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by that, but leaving it open-ended was probably for the best. She could answer that however she saw fit.

Katie shook her head. “No, I hurt myself by going along with him, but he never did anything to hurt me. I cared about him as a friend but never anything more than that. Still do. I worry about him. I was surprisingly okay about it after we’d ended things, but Derek wasn’t so happy. He kept trying to get me to go out with other guys like Jesse, other men who ran with that same crowd. I didn’t have any desire to do that, even if he thought it was best. Zanna and I hit it off, though. She had a lot more edge in the public eye than I did, so he was happy about that. She introduced me to a couple of guys who I used to satisfy Derek’s desire to have me seen in public with the edgier crowd, but there was never anything to it. We were friends, and we went to red carpet events and whatnot together, and we made nice for the camera. But since I never really dated them, we weren’t in the news as often as Derek wanted. He wanted me to constantly show up in magazines and on all the entertainment shows, and the profile I was keeping was too low for him. That was when he introduced me to Beau.”

And this was the part where I was sure my blood was going to boil over. It was only after she’d started dating Beau that I’d noticed the haunted look coming into her eyes in photos. Before, anytime she’d been caught by one of the paparazzi with a guy, she’d looked like the Katie I had known and loved for years. She’d still had that innocent look, a certain sweetness that her agent had deemed troublesome. When she was with Beau, everything about her had changed.

I picked Blackbeard up and shifted him to my other side so I wouldn’t squash him, and then I slid over close enough I could put my arm around Katie’s shoulders.

She immediately tensed. “What are you doing?”

“Holding you,” I said. “So you’ll know I’m here. And that I love you. And that it won’t change no matter what you tell me next.”

“Don’t you think you should hear it before you make promises like that?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh. Well.” Then she started to tell her story again, but she didn’t relax against me. “Derek convinced me to go out with Beau. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, because the Brunettis are a lot like the Kardashians. The kids are all famous because they’ve got rich, famous parents, and that usually leads to trouble.”

“You’ve got rich, famous parents and you came out all right,” I argued.

She rolled her eyes. “Dad’s fame and fortune don’t even come close to the Brunettis’ and you know it. But that’s beside the point. The point was, Beau wasn’t into drugs, so I decided it couldn’t hurt anything to go out with him for a little while.”

Except it had hurt, and in ways I knew she had never imagined.

“In the early days, he was great. He spoiled me rotten with extravagant gifts and taking me on romantic vacations when I had time off from filming. I even let myself start to think I could fall in love with him. But then things changed. If I wasn’t dressed right in public, or if I tried to shy away from him when he was groping me for the cameras, he went into rages. He started yelling at me, railing about how I needed to stop flirting with Jesse even though I never flirted with Jesse anymore and hadn’t since we’d broken up. He flipped out any time I talked to another guy in public. He wanted me to do things in front of the cameras that I would never do because I didn’t want my friends and family to see me like that. I didn’t know how to make Beau stop yelling at me. I tried to defuse his anger, and that just made things worse. He would scream awful things at me when we were alone, telling me I was a cheating whore and he would ruin me if I didn’t change. It got so bad that I would do anything to make him stop, and usually the only thing that he wanted was to take me to bed and—”

She choked off for a moment, and I squeezed her shoulder, drawing her closer to me as a reminder of my presence.

“He wanted to take me to bed and essentially screw me into submission. He could be rough at the best of times, but when he was worked up like that, he lost all sense of caring about me. The time I made him stop so I could go buy condoms, he just about threw my purse at me as I ran out the door. He was furious that I would make him stop over something like that. I’m just glad he did eventually stop. I wasn’t sure he would.”

I was having a hard time keeping my breathing even, keeping myself seated on the couch instead of pacing the room or looking for something to hit. But the same as with cancer, hitting something right now wouldn’t do anything to help. This had all happened in the past. I couldn’t go back in time and undo it. I couldn’t erase it from Katie’s memory, or my own now that I knew the extent of it.

“Do I want to know what happened when you came back?” I asked. I really didn’t want to know, because I was fucking positive that once she’d returned with condoms, he’d forced himself on her. And if that was what he’d done…

She shook her head.

“Do I need to know?”

“I think you already do. At the very least, I bet you’re close.”

“He raped you,” I said.

She scooted over, easing herself out of my embrace and leaving a void where she’d been. “I don’t know if I’d call it rape,” she said.

“Did you want it? Did you give consent? Did he force you?” I tried not to let my anger come through in my voice because it wasn’t Katie I was mad at. I wanted to follow her to the other end of the couch, to draw her into my arms again. To hold her. But the last thing I would ever do was push her into something she didn’t want. It took a hell of a lot of willpower, but I stayed where I was, my hands itching to caress and comfort her. I grabbed hold of my thighs to make sure I didn’t do anything to cross a line, whether it was one I could see or not.

She shook her head. “It just happened,” she said. Excusing it. Brushing it off. “I let it happen. We were together, and I let it happen. If anything, it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. There was no fucking excuse for what he’d done to her. And based on everything else she’d said about it, I doubted that was the only time he’d raped her.

She shuddered, as if she could shake it off now. Or maybe she was trying to shake off the truth of what I’d said.

“That was after we’d been here at the holidays,” she said. “He said I’d flirted with you, and maybe I’d fucked you while he wasn’t looking—although don’t ask me how he thought that would have happened—and he was pissed off that I’d pushed him into doing the Light the Lamp event for New Year’s. And he took it out on me.”

“Was that the worst?” I asked, my voice cracking on the words. “Please tell me that was the worst he did to you.”

She shook her head. “But it’s bad enough. I don’t think I need to go into detail. Do I?”

If she went into any more detail, I would end up either puking or breaking my hand. Maybe both.

“No. That’s enough as long as you think it is.”

She looked up, her beautiful blue eyes streaked with red and glistening with unshed tears. “So here’s the part where you tell me you were wrong. That you see me differently now, and maybe I’m not good enough for you.” She scoffed. “This is the part where you cut ties and move on. Where you come to your senses.”

“No, it’s not.” I trailed a hand down her arm, seeking her hand. She let me take it. Her skin was warm and soft, and goose bumps pricked up along the path I’d followed. I raised our hands to my mouth and kissed the backs of her knuckles. “This is the part where I finally get to prove that I may not be perfect, but I’m perfect for you.”

JAMIE SHOULD BE disgusted by the way I’d allowed my agent to manipulate me and then so easily caved in to peer pressure in order to be accepted by Jesse. He should be furious about how I’d been so weak-willed that I had let Beau treat me the way he had. If Jamie had any sense at all, he would be sending me on my way, back to my own house, and telling me he’d had second thoughts about me and I needed to stay out of his life, that he deserved better. Because he did. He deserved to have a woman who was as good and kind and pure as he was. Not someone like me.

But he wasn’t doing any of those things. He was caressing my hand and kissing my knuckles, and I was at a loss as to how he couldn’t see that it was wrong.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said.

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to say bullshit things like that anymore.”

“But that was before you knew. God, Jamie. Your deep, dark secret was that you’ve never slept with someone before, but mine—”

“Isn’t a secret any longer.”

I shot my gaze up to meet his. He looked back at me, as steady and sure as ever. There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation in his expression or the way he held my hand.

“Now we both know where we’ve been,” he said. “We can move forward with both eyes open. We’re not jumping into anything blind without checking to be sure there’s a safety net in place.”

“I haven’t had a safety net in years.” Not since I’d left Portland. I hadn’t had my parents there to help me find my way. I hadn’t had Luke and Dani around to rely on.

I hadn’t had Jamie.

“Now you do,” he said. “That’s what I can be for you.”

It’s what he’d always been. I’d just been stupid enough to leave him behind.

“You still want to?” I asked. I knew I’d hurt him with the things I’d done. Hell, I’d hurt myself. How could he forgive me so readily when it had been months since I’d gotten up the gumption to leave Beau behind, but I still hadn’t forgiven myself?

“Still,” Jamie said. “Always.” He closed the distance between us, the heat of his body far headier than any drug I’d ever tried. He tipped my chin up, met my gaze. “I’ve never stopped wanting you, Katie. I only want you more now. I want to love you the way I should have been all along.”

“Oh,” I whispered just as his lips pressed to mine and stole my breath.

The kiss started out gentle and indulgent, a luxuriant tease. I put my hands in his hair and held him to me, my tongue slick against his as he leaned over, angling me against the arm of the sofa. But then our pulses went spastic and our breathing became ragged, and everything kicked up a few degrees on the intensity scale.

I tugged on his shirt, dragging it free from his pants so I could splay my hands on his abs. They were muscled, defined, and taut to my touch. I spread my palms up and out, lifting his shirt as I explored his chest and shoulders.

He sat back on his knees, straddling me, and impatiently jerked it the rest of the way over his head. His eyes were dark with lust when he looked down again. I reached for the fly of his pants, my hand brushing against his hardness as I unzipped him. He pulsed against my fingers, heat and straining need.

I finally undid his pants enough that I could lower them some. His dick sprang free.

“Oh God.” He slammed his eyes closed. “Maybe we should slow down. I need— Tell me…tell me what you need. Tell me how to make this good for you.”

That was when I knew there was no chance he was going to last long—not this first time—but that was okay. This time couldn’t be about me. I pushed back on his chest so I could climb out from under him. “Stay right there.”

He fell back onto the couch cushions, a dismayed look in his eye, as I rushed into the kitchen for the bag from the drugstore. I dug through it, found the box of flavored condoms, and came back, ripping a foil wrapper open with my teeth. He reached for it, but I shook my head and kept it away from him. Then I kneeled on the floor between his legs and placed it on the tip. He moved his hand in as if to unroll the condom over his length, but I swatted him away. I took him in my mouth, using the pressure of my lips to properly position the strawberry-flavored thing.

I should have tried the strawberry ones years ago. They were a little sweet and a little tart, and best of all, they didn’t taste like latex. Who knew?

When I pulled back, pointing my tongue to drag along the underside of Jamie’s cock, he let out a ragged breath, his hands fisting in the cushions on either side of him. I drew back and licked my lips, then looked up. His face was red with strain, and his eyes had turned so dark they were almost black.

“Did you like that?”

“So fucking much I can’t even…” The rest of his words fell off into nothingness because I swirled my tongue around his head. “Ahh.”

“Let me know when I do something you like.”

“I like everything you’re doing.”

I grinned, bracing myself with a hand on each of his thighs. “You can put your hands on my head. Direct me where you want me.” Then I bobbed down again, taking as much of his length in as I could.

He didn’t talk to me at all, but after a bit of exploration and gauging his response based on the way his hips nearly jerked up off the couch, I figured out what was working for him so I could do more of it. Every now and then, he let out deep, growly sounds that let me know I was absolutely figuring him out.

I added a hand to the mix, stroking his shaft and gently massaging his balls while I focused on his crown with my lips and tongue.

“Oh. Oh fuck.” He put his hands in my hair, getting a good grip, and I knew he was about to come. “Katie, I—” His sac tightened, and his hands tightened against me as his hips came up almost involuntarily.

I kept doing as I had been, seeing him through his climax, until he relaxed his hands and ran them through my hair instead of holding me by it. I turned my head to the side, resting it on his thigh.

When I opened my eyes, it was to find two gigantic feline eyes, almost solid black and so big they were about to burst out of Blackbeard’s head. He had his front paws on the same thigh and was sniffing like he meant business, too, apparently wide awake after all the activity on the sofa he’d been using as a bed. I burst into laughter.

Well, there was a first.

IT FELT INSANELY awkward to get up, clean myself off, pull my pants on, and move around the house as if nothing earth-shattering had just happened. But it had. My whole world had changed in the moment that Katie had put her lips on me. Even now, I felt it all the way to the ends of the messy hairs on my head, and I could see it in the way her eyes fell on me every time I walked by her. Both of us knew nothing would ever be the same between us again, and that was a good thing.

What kinds of things should we talk about after what had just gone down, though? How the hell was I supposed to move from something like that into whatever came next? She’d just given me my first ever blow job, and I hadn’t done a fucking thing for her, and that wasn’t even close to fair. I was almost as much of an ass as fucking Beau Brunetti, but she acted like she didn’t mind me being so selfish. In fact, she’d seemed as though she’d enjoyed it. Was that normal? I didn’t know. I mean, I completely understood why men loved it because, holy hell, that had been amazing and mind-blowing and a thousand times better than anything involving nothing more than my hand, but I wasn’t sure I followed how a woman could be into it.

Maybe I should talk to her about it, but the idea of asking something along the lines of Hey, did you enjoy having my balls up in your face, because I did? seemed even more uncomfortable than pretending our world hadn’t just tilted so far off its axis that it fell through space. I’d better just zip it for now. My mouth and my pants, both.

I went into the kitchen and put fresh water in Blackbeard’s bowl, then grabbed a can of his kitten food. I left the dry stuff out for him all the time, but the people at the rescue had insisted I should give him some of the stinky wet stuff every day, too. He was still on the couch. Katie had joined him again there after she’d gone off to the bathroom for a minute, and he was gnawing on her fingers. But the second he heard the can pop open, he raced into the kitchen and climbed my pants. Thank God I’d put them on again and hadn’t just pulled on some boxers. I should have put on a shirt, too, but it was too late for second thoughts since he was sinking his claws into my skin to get to my shoulder.

I hissed in a breath. “Fucking hell, dude.”

Katie joined us just in time to snicker. “Should you be using language like that in front of him?”

“I doubt he’ll start repeating everything I say anytime soon.” Not like Connor Johnson. So many inappropriate things had come out of that little boy’s mouth the other night that I hadn’t been able to stop myself from laughing out loud. My reactions had only made Jonny glower at Sara more than he already had been, until she’d thrown up her hands and said, What do you want to do, wash my mouth out with soap for every bad word he picks up? I was pretty sure Jonny was debating it, but chances were he would come up with a better solution. Granted, she might not agree his idea was better. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in their house sometimes... The battles of wills had to be epic.

“I don’t know,” Katie murmured, tapping her fingers on the table even though Blackbeard was not willing to be distracted by something silly like playtime right now. There was food coming, after all. “He’s more parrot than cat, at this point.”

“Just don’t tell me I need to start feeding him birdseed. I have no doubt he’d eat it because he eats everything, but I’m guessing this is better for him.”

“He might not mind it if you got a parrot,” Katie said, grinning. “They could be buddies and entertain each other when you’re gone.”

“He’d probably try to kill and eat the parrot.”

“As small as he is, the parrot might eat him first.”

“Not so sure about that,” I said, extracting Blackbeard’s claws from my skin so I could set him on the counter now that his food was ready. “I don’t think birds are carnivores.”

He flailed, frantic to grab on to me again, until I got his nose right in front of his dish. Then he devoured his food in about two and a half seconds. By the time he finished it, his belly was big and round, and he had a sleepy look on his face again.

Blackbeard settled those huge blue eyes on my shoulder. I picked him up and put him there to avoid more claw marks in my skin.

“He looks fat and happy now,” Katie said.

I grinned. “You want to join him?” As soon as I said it, I realized how that might come across. Too late, though. The words were already out of my mouth. Heat raced up my neck and face.

She arched a brow. “You want my belly pooching out like his? Not sure I’ll be able to gain much weight once I start radiation and chemo. I’ll probably lose weight then because of all the nausea. And there’s no telling if I’ll ever be able to…well, that’s not what you meant, anyway.”

Her cheeks were pink and she wouldn’t look at me. She meant being pregnant. She meant she might never be able to have a baby. I really hadn’t thought anything through when I’d opened my fucking mouth. I didn’t mean to turn the conversation back to cancer and chemo and all the ways it would hurt her even though it might save her life. I didn’t want to bring all that sadness and pain back into this moment. I wanted to keep things light and playful, to give her a place where she could escape from the harsh realities of her life for a while. I wanted to be her safety net.

“I meant I could make you something to eat. Dessert or something,” I said, recognizing how feeble it sounded in comparison to what she’d initially interpreted it to mean. “I fed you once, and you didn’t immediately keel over and die from food poisoning. You never did eat the chocolate mug cake I made for you.”

She smiled without looking up, tracing the patterns of the swirls in my marble counters. “If I ever turn down chocolate, that’s when you know there’s something to worry about.”

“Two chocolate mug cakes, coming right up.”

I disengaged Blackbeard again, passing him over to Katie. Then I took out two coffee cups and the ingredients, and I set to work. She put him on the floor and got him to chase a feather toy on a bright yellow fishing pole for a while, but I doubted he would keep it up for long. Not after a big meal like that. When I took the cakes out of the microwave, I turned around to find him making a flying leap at me…only it was really the feather he was going for. It was just heading right in my direction. I dodged out of the way just in the nick of time to avoid claws sinking into my balls again. Once was more than enough for this lifetime.

“Sorry,” Katie said, but she was laughing and didn’t look remotely apologetic.

“Did you swing that thing my way on purpose?”

“Not really. Maybe.” The look in her eyes said absolutely.

“So that’s what I get for making chocolate cake for you, huh?” I set them on the counter to cool, put some raspberries in the mugs, and topped them off with whipped cream.

“Can you put some more in mine?” she asked.

“After you sent that killer flying straight at my nuts?” I scoffed. “You should be glad I’m not going to keep it all for myself.” But I still put more whipped cream in her cup. I set the can on the counter, grabbed two spoons, and carried everything into the living room.

She followed me, Blackbeard chasing the feather toy behind her. When she sat down next to me, she set the can of whipped cream on the coffee table.

“Still not enough?” I asked, laughing.

“Never enough.” She gave me a seductive smile that heated my blood. It was too soon after I’d just come, wasn’t it? But I was already starting to get turned on again.

Blackbeard swatted at the feathers a few more times, but Katie wasn’t swinging it anymore, and he was absolutely pooped. He curled up on the area rug, wrapping both front paws around the feathers to keep them close, like a child would hold a teddy bear, and was asleep in no time.

Katie took one of the mugs and a spoon and dug in. I waited to see what she thought, not that I had to wait very long. She swallowed and glanced up at me. “How on earth is this so good?”

“Oh, you’re surprised, eh?”

“Well, not that you made it,” she clarified. “I already figured out you’ve learned a lot in terms of making your way around the kitchen. I’m more surprised that something that can be put together so fast could possibly be this good.”

I shoved my spoon in my cup and came up with a big mound, making sure I got cake, berries, and cream, too. Katie reached for the can, but instead of spraying it in her cup, she shoved the dispenser between my lips and shot some cream in my mouth alongside my bite. In shock, I laughed so hard I snorted, which was apparently the wrong thing to do with a mouthful of chocolate, raspberry, and sweetened cream; it went everywhere.

“What did you do that for?” I asked, trying to catch what was falling from my mouth but failing miserably. It dripped down my chin, dribbled all over my chest, and some even landed on my lap.

Katie had a mischievous gleam in her eye. “So I could do this,” she said. Then she took my mug from me, set them both on the coffee table, and licked some of it from my chest.

That was all it took for me to go from laughing to harder than steel. I’d been uncertain a few moments before if I could get another erection so soon, but there it was, plain as day, tenting my pants. I leaned back against the cushions, watching her in wonder. “If you wanted your cake and mine, too, you could have just asked,” I said. My voice shook because she was working her tongue up the cleft in the center of my abs, the same way she’d done to my cock earlier. “I would have given it to you. Made you another. Whatever.” I’d give her anything she wanted.

“I could have,” she said when she dipped her head lower and flicked her tongue around my belly button in a way that made my stomach quiver. “But I wanted to do this more than I wanted cake.”

I leaned back, eyes locked on her every move, trying to get myself under control. I couldn’t exactly complain about what she was doing, either. I couldn’t do much of anything but watch, hope that I could hold out long enough to actually make love to her this time, and clench my hands on the couch cushions.

She still had the can in her grip, and she sprayed a dollop on one of my nipples. Her lips closed over it, and she sucked so hard she might as well have been doing the same to my dick, because it jerked in response.

“Does it—” I cut myself off, trying to get my thoughts in line. Not an easy task since now she was swirling her tongue around that nub, and her hands were gliding all over my ribs and abs, and I was about to completely lose my shit.

“Does it what?”

“Does it feel like this for you? If I— If I touched you like this, would it feel this good?”

She didn’t answer right away. She kept licking my skin and leaving a trail of wet kisses in her wake as she came up my neck to my mouth. Her thighs straddled my lap, and she ground herself against me. She kissed me, tasting sweet and chocolaty and perfect, and I put my hands on her hips to bring her closer to me.

But then she straightened, set the can of whipped cream aside, and tugged on the hem of her shirt. I watched in wonder as she stripped it up and over her head, tossing it to the floor behind her. “Why don’t we find out?” she said.

She had on a pink, lacy bra, delicate fabric cupping her flawless breasts. My mouth watered, my eyes hungrily taking her in. I wanted to see every bit of her. To touch every inch of her skin. To discover all her scents and tastes and learn the sensitive places she liked to be touched.

She had a mole on her left shoulder, and there was a pink blemish on her skin over her right breast. I lifted my hand to touch it, tracing the scar with a fingertip. She shuddered slightly, an almost imperceptible tremor, and I looked up to meet her eyes.

“Chemo port,” she explained. “They put tons of makeup over it any time they dressed me in something where it would show on The Cool Kids.”

“Is it tender?”

“Not now. It itches sometimes.”

An overwhelming urge to kiss her scar hit me, so I did. I pressed my lips to the raised bit of flesh. Her breathing sharpened, her lungs lifting her breasts closer to me. Feeling bolder, I kissed her lower, slipping my tongue out to taste. Her skin was smooth as satin. The flesh of her breast was warm and pliable, giving way ever so slightly to my pressure. I kissed the other, just above the top of the lace, and could feel her heartbeat pounding as fast as mine against my lips.

“Touch me,” she said, velvety and low.

She didn’t need to ask me twice. I cupped her breast with one hand, the other dropping from her hip to explore her ass through the denim of her jeans. She was supple everywhere, soft curves and delicate dips, so different from me. Her body was hot against my hands, and she drove back into my touch, arching to push into me with a quiet sound coming from somewhere deep within her. I squeezed gently, and her nipple hardened beneath my touch.

She sucked in a breath, and I met her gaze. Her eyes had turned an intense blue, bright like flame. “More, Jamie.” She placed one hand over mine and crushed it against her. “I need more of you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” Her smile was as silken as her skin. “I promise.”

She sounded so certain, but she was so small. And she was sick again. When she’d had leukemia, she’d bruised so easily I’d been afraid to do much more than hold her hand. It wasn’t leukemia this time, but I was still afraid to touch her in the ways I wanted to. She was precious to me, someone I wanted to protect. Someone I wanted to love with all the reverence and care that had been lacking in all that she’d known before.

Reaching both arms behind her back, she unclasped her bra and drew it forward. I released my hold on her, and the lace scrap dropped to the space between us. Those beautiful, perfect, intoxicating breasts jiggled for a moment before settling, still perky, and practically begging for me to kiss them. Should I? I didn’t know, but she’d licked and sucked on my nipple, so it only seemed fair. She drew her arms free from the straps and tossed the bra behind her, but I couldn’t look anywhere but at those orbs of softness.

Katie leaned forward, and I froze, unsure what she was doing. She grabbed the can of whipped cream, sprayed some on her breast…and then everything happened at warp speed. I couldn’t think anymore. I closed my mouth over her, sucking up the cream and rasping my tongue over her tit. It just got harder, bigger, swelling under my ministrations. She fisted a hand in my hair and put more cream on her other breast, and I greedily lapped it up as she held me to her.

Her breathing was shallow and frantic. The heartbeat thundering behind her ribs was loud enough it almost echoed through the room. She ground her hips into me, heat building upon heat, and then shouted, “Ah!”

I reared back, instantly concerned. “Too much?” I should have trusted my gut. I was being too rough with her. Hurting her.

But she locked both hands in my hair and kissed me so hard, so desperately, that I forgot all about anything but kissing her back. I ran my hands over her back, her sides, her arms, trying to memorize every minute detail. When she came up for air, she said, “Take me to bed, Jamie. I want to be with you.”

No need for a second invitation. I was on my feet, Katie in my arms with her legs wrapped around my waist, in about two seconds flat.

“Don’t step on Blackbeard,” Katie said. She put her arms around my neck, helping to hold her weight.

I glanced down to gauge where he was and took a different path around the coffee table.

“And condoms. We need the condoms.”

Right. Condoms. Good thing Katie was capable of thinking about things like protection, because that ability had left me the moment she’d removed her shirt. I made a detour through the kitchen, slowing down long enough that Katie could grab the plastic shopping bag off the counter, and then headed down the hall. As soon as we reached my bedroom, I flipped on the light and kicked the door closed behind us, because I didn’t want another repeat of what had happened earlier with Blackbeard trying to help out, and set Katie on her feet.

She tossed the bag on the bed and started stripping off her skintight jeans right away. She still had shoes on, though, so I was able to whip my pants down and kick them to the corner of the room before she finished. I grabbed the bag, dug out the first box I laid my hands on—“Not the flavored ones,” she said, still struggling with her jeans—glanced down to see that I’d grabbed the wrong box, tossed it back, and dragged out the next one I found. I tore open the lid and fumbled for a foil packet. By the time I’d ripped it open with my teeth and unrolled it over myself, Katie had gotten free of her jeans.

She slid to the center of the bed, reaching out a hand to me. Nerves turning my legs to jelly, I had to sit down unless I wanted to make a fool of myself and fall on the floor. She touched my arm as soon as I sat, tugging until I relented and lay beside her. I tried to remember how to breathe as my skin met hers.

Every inch of her body was as silken as her breasts. I locked my gaze with hers and trailed my fingertips down the center of her chest to her belly. Her muscles jumped to life beneath my touch.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, straining to form words. Hell, I was straining to form coherent thoughts. I knew I was sure. I’d wanted Katie for years, and now, with her lying here beside me, I could hardly believe it was happening.

“Yes. I want you, Jamie. I want to be with you now, before I have to deal with radiation and chemo and surgery again, before I feel like crap all the time. I want to feel you inside me. To experience this with you without anything else in the way. I want this.”

Even hearing her words and knowing them for the truth, I still couldn’t seem to make the next move. There was a part of me that wanted to freeze this moment in time and make it last forever. Maybe I was putting off taking the next step because I knew at some point it would come to an end. Maybe I didn’t want to face what would come afterward because the future was a giant mass of uncertainty.

Katie must have sensed my hesitation. She took my hand from her belly and edged it lower until my fingers skimmed the liquid heat of her curls. “Touch me,” she said again. “I’m ready. I love you, and I want this. I want to experience this with a man I love and respect, and who loves and respects me, too.”

So I touched her. I slipped a finger through the slick folds of her flesh. She lifted a knee and moved it to the side, opening herself to my exploration. I found a nub near the top of her private place and traced circles around it. She gasped and moved her hips to meet me.

“Good?” I asked.

She bit her lip and nodded. “That’s my clit.”

I might not be experienced in the bedroom, but even I knew enough about female anatomy to realize I’d just struck gold. I concentrated my efforts on that small spot, varying my pressure and changing up the tempo until her eyes went unfocused and she couldn’t hold still. She had to be close to orgasm.

“Move lower,” she gasped. “Don’t stop.”

So I lowered my hand, keeping my thumb on her clit, until I found her entrance. She was so soft and wet, and my finger slipped inside without any resistance. Katie moaned and bucked her hips, driving my finger deeper. I added another, shocked at the sensation of having her flesh surrounding me, accepting me, clutching to keep me in.

“Jamie,” she rasped, and I glanced up to meet her gaze.

She hooked a hand under my shoulder, tugging gently until I came up above her. I braced my weight on my arms on either side of her, and she opened her thighs wider to allow room for me to nestle between them. My cock was straining to reach her, as though it had a mind of its own and could sense the proximity of her pussy.

With a gentle scrape of her nails, Katie moved her hands down my back, stopping when they were on my ass. She gripped my cheeks hard, drawing me closer, even as she locked her legs with mine. “Please.” Just one word. Almost inaudible and full of need.

I held my weight on one arm and used the other hand to guide myself inside her. She took me completely, stretching to accommodate my size but fitting as tight as a glove. She squeezed my ass again and shifted, and then primal instinct took over.

My forehead against hers, eye to eye and nose to nose, we moved together until she clenched me tighter and let out an unintelligible shout. Every muscle in her body had been tensing, clasping, reaching for this moment, and now they all gave way in the sweetest, most exquisite explosion imaginable, like a coil releasing. I kissed her, increasing my pace until I came, too, wrapped up in her love.

“I don’t think I could ever love you more than I do right now,” I murmured, my nose buried in her hair that was splayed over my pillows.

She relaxed her legs so they were tangled with mine but not holding me in place, and she ran her fingers through my hair, her nails scraping my scalp in an oddly comforting manner. “Why do you love me?” she asked.

Why did I love her? Talk about a complicated question. I let it roll around in my head before propping myself up on my elbows and looking down at her. “I love you because I don’t know how to not love you. Because I can’t imagine my world without you, and I don’t ever want to have to face that again. Because you are sweetness and light and life, and you see me as the man I could be, not as the man I am.”

Katie shook her head. “You are that man. You just haven’t learned how to see yourself that way.”

I rolled off her, drawing her along with me to hold against my side. “You make me want to be better than I am,” I said gruffly. Then I couldn’t seem to stop kissing her. Every time I thought I was done, she would smile again, or her eyes would take on this lazy, sated look, and I would have to kiss her again. I kissed her hair, her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her lips. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to bottle this moment and the way we both felt right now so we could return to it whenever life got to be too much to bear.

Because that was coming. She knew it and I knew it.

I had never been the praying sort, but I said a silent prayer right now. We’d had this one perfect moment; I asked for it not to be the last.

I ENDED UP spending the night with Jamie instead of going home. He let me sleep in a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt that were easily two or three sizes too big for me, but at least I didn’t have to go back over to my place to find anything. Once we had cleaned up and were fairly sure there wouldn’t be any more sexy times for the night, Jamie had opened the door and let Blackbeard join us.

As tiny as he was, that kitten didn’t have any problems at all getting into the bed on his own. Not that either of us found that surprising, considering the way he was always climbing up to Jamie’s shoulders. Jamie slept on his back, one arm holding me to him. I used his chest as my pillow, and Blackbeard nestled in the space between Jamie’s neck and shoulder, hanging out above my head. None of us moved a muscle the whole night, it seemed, until sometime after dawn, when Blackbeard started chewing on my hair and attacking it as if it were his feather toy.

Needless to say, I woke up laughing.

Jamie jerked awake, stretching once the initial shock wore off. “He should be eating my hair instead of yours.”

“Not a chance in hell I’d go for that.”

“Hmm.” He rolled his head to the side and glanced at the clock on his nightstand. “Morning came way too early today.”

I felt a tiny bit guilty since I’d been the one to keep him up later than he should have been when he had a game the next night, but not too guilty. “You already have to get up?” I asked, yawning and snuggling closer to him. I wasn’t ready to let go of the flawlessness of the night.

“I’ve got a meeting with the coaches before morning skate.” He inched out from under me, despite my pouting, and Blackbeard let out a whining sound that suited my mood perfectly. “What are you doing today?”

I blinked at him, still trying to wake up. The sun streaming in through the windows lit him in a golden glow. He’d only put on a pair of boxers before we’d gone to bed, so I could see every detail of the muscles my hands had explored last night. That only made me want to do some more exploration, though, and it was going to have to wait if he had to leave for a meeting soon.

I frowned, not ready to move yet, and Blackbeard came down from the pillow and circled a couple of times before curling up in the bend of my elbow. I drew him closer to me, nuzzling my nose against his. Then I regretted it, because he yawned right in my face. His fur might smell sweet, but his breath left a lot to be desired. “I guess I’ll go shopping for some art to put on my walls this morning,” I said. “Mom wants to have lunch. Then I’ve got that appointment with the radiation team in the afternoon before coming to the game.” I hadn’t wanted to think about my upcoming meeting with the doctors. I’d rather just forget all about that, pretend I was perfectly healthy and didn’t need to go through this again, but I doubted anyone would let me get away with it.

“You’re coming to the game, then?” He stretched his arms over his head, pulling them from side to side to work the kinks out. Probably also in an effort to hide the hint of a blush and the way his dimples had come out. I guessed that meant he wanted me to be at the game, even if he didn’t want to show it.

“Unless you’d rather I didn’t,” I said. “I might not be able to come to games once I start radiation.” For that matter, I might not be able to be around Jamie and Blackbeard much for a while. It depended on what type of radiation they’d settled on, but some types of therapy would leave me radioactive for a while. I really hoped I didn’t have to go through that. Some of the other kids in the cancer center when I’d been treated before had been stuck in the hospital, isolated, for a week or more at a time. Others were allowed to go home, but they’d had to limit their contact with the people they loved and couldn’t be around children or animals. I didn’t know if I could handle that kind of treatment plan right now. I forced myself to stop thinking along those lines. No point in worrying until they gave me something to worry about. “I don’t know if you’d rather we took some time letting people in on the idea that we’re together now…”

With all the talk, Blackbeard was starting to get a spurt of energy. Instead of snuggling with me, he was chasing his tail, racing so fast that he was making me dizzy.

Jamie shook his head. “Pretty sure all the guys already know after you came along for dinner with Razor last night. I don’t care if anyone knows. I’ll even call my mom and tell her if you think word might get out publicly soon.”

My heartbeat kicked up a notch, now that he was already thinking about telling his mother about me. This was what I’d wanted, of course—for us to really be an official couple—but to have it happening so fast along with all the other changes in my life was leaving my head spinning as fast as Blackbeard.

“If we were in LA,” I said, trying to keep my excitement in check, “I’d tell you to call her on your way to the rink. No paparazzi here to worry about, though. Tell her when you’re ready for her to know.”

A memory from a few years ago hit me and caused a brief twinge—news about Cam Johnson and Sara Thomas being an item getting back to Jonny’s sisters in Canada before the two of them were ready for anyone to know—but this was different. That was at a point when Jonny and the whole team were surrounded by a ton of controversy, so the media had been hounding them. There was no reason to think that any of the hockey media would latch on to this right now.

“Go shower,” I said, brushing that thought aside. “Want me to make you breakfast?” It was only fair, after all. Jamie had cooked for me a couple of times now.

He grinned. “I would love for you to make me breakfast.” He bent over me on the bed and gave me a peck on the cheek.

Then I remembered how he went about his cooking. “Do you own any pots and pans, or…”

“Nope. Just small pans that’ll fit in the toaster oven. Need me to help?”

I waved him toward the bathroom. “I’ll figure it out.” And I would probably do that by going back to my house and dragging some of my new pans back with me so I could christen them and his stove.

Jamie didn’t hurry off to shower, though. He gave me a solid kiss, this time, shoving Blackbeard to the side and settling himself over me, nearly pinning me to the mattress. He took his time about it, too, leaving us both breathless and wanting more.

“You could come and shower with me,” he said hopefully when he finally came up for air.

“I could.” I laughed. “Not sure Bergy would be too thrilled with you if you’re late, though.”

“Probably not the best idea, huh?”

“Probably not.” This time. We could save that for another day.

I COULDN’T STOP thinking about Katie all day even though I didn’t get to see her. I had my leadership meeting with the coaches, morning skate, a media scrum, a film session, lunch with the boys, and my afternoon nap before I had to head up to the arena for the game. She’d been at her doctor’s appointment when I got home for my nap, and she’d left me a text message saying she would meet me in the owner’s box once I arrived, and that she loved me. Nothing more. No word about what the doctors had told her. Needless to say, I was on edge from the moment I saw that message until I got to the arena.

Usually I headed straight for the locker room so I could get started on my pregame routine. The other guys often stopped by to see their wives and girlfriends and kids before getting ready for the game, or they dropped off friends and family from out of town to be sure they were well looked after. I didn’t often have someone here, though. I couldn’t help but feel nervous as I made my way up the elevator to the suite level.

“Hey, if it ain’t Captain JB,” said Davey Hearne as I walked up, holding out a hand. He was one of the regular security guys at the Moda Center. He’d been working here since they’d built the place, apparently, and during Storm games, he worked at the owner’s box, making sure no one entered who didn’t have clearance.

I shook his hand. “Hey, Davey. Is Katie Weber here yet?” I poked my head through the door to look around.

“Sitting up front with her mama.”

The room was already jam-packed with not only the guys’ wives and girlfriends but their kids, too. Tons of kids of every age, along with all the noise you expect with a veritable nursery. I couldn’t see Katie through the mass of toys and toddlers, but if Davey said she was up front, then that was where I intended to go. Not that I had a clue how to get through the maze in front of me.

I thanked him and headed in, and Connor Johnson immediately toddled over to grab my leg. I picked him up because it was easier than trying to walk with a massive growth on the top of my foot, and I assumed Sara would be with Katie and Laura, anyway.

He put a hand on the side of my face, turning me to look at him, his expression as serious as a heart attack. “Razor is a asswipe.”

I didn’t laugh this time, but that took a gargantuan effort on my part. I tried to look as serious as he did. “Is he? And who told you that?” I asked, cautiously making my way through the room to avoid stepping on any children or toys. I wasn’t going to argue with the little guy on that score. I’d called Razor an ass and worse so many times myself that Connor might have picked it up from me without me realizing it.

“My mommy.”

“I see.” So maybe I was in the clear. I hoped for Sara’s sake that Jonny hadn’t heard the latest from his son, though. He might go ballistic on her, not that he would ever hurt her. They would just argue, which would cause her stress, and that was not something she needed right now. She’d had two miscarriages before, and carrying Connor hadn’t been easy for her, either. She’d spent almost two months confined to bed rest with him. This pregnancy was the only easy one of the bunch, not that it had been easy, but I doubted it would help anything if they got into another argument over something like Connor picking up on bad language. “How about we don’t say that in front of the other kids, okay?”

He pouted at me, but he said, “’Kay ’kay.”

Soupy and Rachel’s twin two-year-old daughters were camped out on the floor with their dolls right in the middle of the aisle I was trying to traverse. They weren’t identical, but close to it, with Rachel’s bright red hair and a smattering of freckles everywhere you looked. I stepped high to go over them, but I felt little hands grab on, and they giggled. I cautiously put my foot down, and then they each claimed a leg to ride.

Before I’d settled on how I would get out of this mess, their older half brother, Tuck, came up to me. I loved this kid. He had the same hair, same freckles, but a devious streak that would rival Connor’s, but in a ten-year-old’s body.

“Let Mr. Jamie walk, Peyton.” He bent down to pick up one of the girls.

I held out my free arm, and he passed her over to me. “Ginger Ninja to the rescue once again. Thanks for the assist.” I’d been calling him that since I first met him years ago when he was five.

He blushed a ferocious shade of red, but then he pried Sidney, the other twin, free. “They like to climb Mr. Soupy’s legs, too. They make him carry them around while they ride his feet and stuff. Mom isn’t letting them do that right now, though, because he’s hurt, and I’m too little. They still try sometimes.” He grinned. “But you’re as big as Mr. Soupy, so I guess they saw their chance and took it.”

“Not quite as big as Soupy.” I shouldn’t have opened my mouth because the second I did, Peyton shoved her fingers in there and giggled. I wasn’t sure what she’d been into, but at least whatever sticky stuff was all over her tasted sweet.

“Close enough.”

Sidney was too heavy for Tuck to carry very far, but he didn’t let that deter him, coming along beside me as we headed for the front where the women were congregating.

Sure enough, Katie and Laura were there with Sara, Rachel, Brie, and Mia Quincey, Q’s wife. Katie’s brows were pinched and her lips were thin, so I knew she was worried or upset about something, but the moment she looked up and saw me carrying the two toddlers, her whole face lit up.

“I see you come bearing gifts,” she said, and all the other women glanced over.

I winked. “Something like that.”

“Did they try to ride you over here?” Rachel asked, rolling her eyes.

“They tried to. Might have succeeded if the Ginger Ninja hadn’t come along.”

She took her daughter from me, and Laura reached for Connor, who was squirming to go in the opposite direction of his mother. Sara had a hand on the small of her back and looked like she was absolutely miserable. Mia patted her lap for Sidney, and Tuck passed over his sister right as Jessica Lynch, Nicky’s fiancée, came in with his niece and two nephews. Elin found Tuck’s older sister, Maddie, in her usual spot in the other corner up front. The two of them huddled together, probably waiting on Danger’s wife and kids to get there since Elin and Étienne were kind of a thing lately. The boys, Hugo and Nils, were right around Tuck’s age. His face lit up when he saw them.

“Later, Mr. Jamie,” he said, racing away.

“Homework, Tuck!” Rachel called behind him. I had a feeling he was going to feign deafness on that one.

Katie got up to join me, but Brie caught my eye before we took off to find somewhere quiet to talk.

“When you get a chance, I need a word.”

“After the game?” I asked, taking Katie’s hand. Brie nodded, and I wound my way through the obstacle course of kids and toys to a corner near the back, leading Katie along with me.

“What’s up with Brie?” she asked me, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Just a thing for Burnzie she asked me for help with.” It was a bald-faced lie, and I hated lying ever. Especially because I was really fucking bad at it. I searched Katie’s face to see if she was on to me, but I thought this time I might have gotten away with it. This was all supposed to be a surprise for her, though, so I was going to have to get used to lying, and in very short order. “So what happened with the doctor? And why are you upset?”

“I really hate how you can always tell when I’m upset.”

“I’d be a bad boyfriend if I couldn’t.”

She perked up a bit at the word boyfriend, and her lips quirked up in a grin. “You looked really hot carrying those kids in.”

“Thanks.” Now I was blushing again. “Stop avoiding the question, though.”

Katie’s smile turned to a pout. “Party pooper. The good news is they’re not going to force me to stay in the hospital for weeks at a time. The bad news is they want to do systemic radiation this time, so I’ll have to be pretty much isolated while I’m going through it.” She sounded upbeat, like she was trying to laugh it off, but her eyes told another story.

“Isolated how?”

She shrugged. “Stay at my house. Not be around pregnant women, kids, or animals at all. Limit my contact with anyone else to less than two hours a day. Oh, and any clothes, bedding, dishes, and whatnot that I use while I’m radioactive will have to be tossed later.” No matter how hard she fought to give off an air of nonchalance, she couldn’t pull it off. Not with me.

“For how long?” I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that she would be right next door to me but I wouldn’t be able to hold her, to comfort her when she felt bad.

“A few days each time. Four rounds of this, about a week apart, before moving on to chemo.”

“But more tests first,” I reminded her. “You might not need chemo.” The radiation might shrink it enough to go ahead with the surgery without going through that step.

She let go of my hand and crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m getting chemo if there’s even a remote possibility it will get rid of that tumor before they decide to cut me open.”

I wrapped her up in a hug because there wasn’t much to be said. Sometimes, touch was the best comfort to be had. Which only made it worse that she was going to have to spend so much time completely isolated from everyone she loved. I squeezed her close. “Less than two hours a day? But we could break that up, right? So you could be around your mom for a while, and your dad, and me…”

“It’s not much.”

“It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“That’s not even the worst news I got today, though.”

My stomach dropped. What was worse than learning about her treatment plan? “No?” I asked.

“I don’t guess you’ve taken a look at Twitter today, have you?”

I knew I should have gone back in to the drugstore last night and confronted that douchebag who had checked us out. “It’s not something I feel the need to do every day,” I said cautiously.

Katie backed away so she could look up at me with shining eyes. “I thought I was safe from paparazzi here.”

“Paparazzi? So not just the dude at the drugstore?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think Mom and Dad have seen it yet, but it won’t be long. You should probably talk to your family. Tell them what’s going on before they see it. I’ll figure out how to explain it to Mom and Dad, but I don’t want your family thinking…” She shook her head, lost for words.

“Seen what?” My blood pressure was going through the roof, and I didn’t even know exactly what I was mad about yet. “Explain what?”

She slipped her cell phone out of her pocket, pulled something up, and handed the phone to me. The TMZ headline read Katie Weber Caught with Not One But Two New Boy Toys, and it had a picture of her surrounded by two guys who were clearly me and Razor even though our faces had been blurred out. It was from last night. I clicked on it to get to the main article, which was riddled with photos from dinner. No blurring here. A lot of the pics had me holding her hand or with my arm around her waist, but the photographer hadn’t missed Razor dipping her to kiss her on the cheek at the hotel, or when she’d kissed him again afterward when we were dropping him off. With the angle of the shots, though, those kisses looked like real kisses. We might be lucky that they hadn’t caught her planting one on Zee’s cheek when we first got to the hotel. But then again, maybe they had, but since he hadn’t come to dinner, they hadn’t used it. Yet. When I scrolled down to the bottom, I found the tweets from the guy at the drugstore, and they were every bit as offensive as I had imagined and worse. He’d even snapped a pic of us when we’d been in the condom aisle, multiple boxes in hand. The whole article made out that we’d gone back to the hotel with Razor and had an orgy or something.

I handed her phone back to her, my rage barely held in check.

“You should probably fill the team in if they haven’t seen it already,” she said, tucking it away in her pocket. “Jim, the coaches. They might need to get PR on damage control. And Razor, too. He should probably let his parents know what it really was, and he’ll need to explain things to the Thunderbirds brass.”

I’d be sure Razor knew, but I doubted his parents would react like mine would. I’d never met his father, or even heard him talk about the guy, and his mother seemed to take everything in stride as long as he was happy and healthy. He did everything he could to make her life easier, but I didn’t think he would need to do too much to explain himself. My parents would believe whatever I told them, especially since they knew I would never lie to them, but I doubted they’d be thrilled about having to explain this to my youngest brothers if they got wind of it. And then there were their neighbors and coworkers to think about, and the parents of kids my brothers went to school with, and former teachers who would wonder where I’d gone wrong. The list of people my parents would have to deal with seemed endless.

“This is what they’ve been doing to you all along, isn’t it?” For the first time, I really thought I understood how damaging her years in Hollywood had been. It had gone far beyond Jesse Carmichael and Beau Brunetti. The ways those two had hurt her had only been the tip of the iceberg.

She nodded, hugging her arms to her chest. “Pretty much. They sneak around, following everything you do, take a pic, find a way to make it incriminating in some way, and ruin your life.”

Several of the other guys had already come and gone from the owner’s box, and I knew I was running out of time before I needed to get down to the locker room. I kissed her on the forehead. “I’m not going to let them ruin your life,” I said.

She nodded, but she didn’t seem as if she believed a word out of my mouth. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t have the first clue how I would prevent the paparazzi from doing anything, and it might not even be possible.

But I’d be damned if I didn’t try.

THE GAME AGAINST the Thunderbirds turned out to be an absolute blowout. Nicky had a shutout, the Storm put up eight goals, and the T-Birds were an utter wreck throughout. I felt bad for Zee, Hunter, and Razor having to play for a team that had zero chance of getting to the playoffs, and likely wouldn’t for years to come. They said all the right things to the media, of course—well, now Hunter did, even if he’d let a few choice sound bites fly when he’d first been claimed in the expansion draft—but it wasn’t hard for anyone who knew those three to realize they would rather be playing for any other team in the league.

Jamie must have filled in the Storm’s head honchos on the TMZ stuff before the game, because Rachel sat down next to me midway through the third period. She wasn’t just Soupy’s wife. She was also Jim Sutter’s assistant.

She dropped her voice and leaned in close. “Does your mom know yet?”

I nodded. “Filled her in during the first intermission.”

“Good. Jim’s already got PR working on it in conjunction with the Thunderbirds. We’re going to do everything we can to squash it as what it was—completely innocent.”

I wrung my hands together. I’d been doing a lot of that today. “I just hate that Razor’s being dragged into this. I mean, he just wanted to hang out with Jamie for a bit. They never get to see each other.”

“He’s a big boy. He can take it.” One of the twins waddled over and held up her arms, and Rachel instinctively drew her onto her lap. “I can see if Jim can sneak you in to talk to him for a minute after the game without the media around, if you want.”

“Could you?” I owed him an apology for involving him in my screwed-up life, if nothing else.

A few text messages later, it was all arranged. When the final horn sounded, I went with Davey through some back hallways and a private elevator, and he took me straight to an entrance to the visiting team’s area. I’d been all over this building through the years, but only on the home team’s side. It felt strange to turn right instead of left at certain points. Another security guard stopped us at the double doors leading to the locker room and went inside, and a couple of minutes later, Razor came out. He was covered in sweat and still had on his skates, breezers, and all of the lower half of his equipment, even though he’d removed his jersey and shoulder pads.

The two security guards stepped a discreet distance away and started up a conversation, leaving us to talk.

“Hey, Katie,” Razor said, rubbing a towel over his face and bare chest.

“Hey,” I said, blushing. “I guess you know about…” I caught myself trying to read some of the tattoos on his naked skin that I’d never known he had, and snapped my head up. His tats were none of my business, nor was his chest or any other part of his body.

He had a cocky grin at the best of times, but it was cockier than ever right now. No doubt he’d caught me gawking at him. “About the TMZ shit?” he finished for me.

I nodded.

“Yeah, that’s all kinds of fucked up. Sorry they’re screwing you around like that. No pun intended.”

I had no doubt he’d meant every bit of it. That was just Razor.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said. “If I’d thought they would find me here, I would have stayed home and left you and Jamie to hang out without me.”

Razor let out a snort. “You think I’m worried about it? When the girls back in Tulsa find out that I’m open to a threesome, they’ll be all over me whether it’s true or not. I’m sure this will only help me score more than I already am.”

I scowled up at him. “Charming.”

“It was a joke. I’m not in need of that much de-douchifying. De-douchification? Whatever.” He waved a hand, dismissing his attempt at coming up with a real word.

“I come down here to apologize to you, and this is what I get.” I laughed. “You’re something else, Razor.”

He winked. “That’s why the ladies love me. But seriously, there’s not a fucking thing you need to apologize for. Don’t worry about me. I can handle it. I’m just worried about you and Babs.”

“I don’t want your family to think you’ve done anything wrong.”

“I can promise you, my mom’s seen and done much worse than anything some tabloid thinks they can peg on me. This won’t even faze her for a second. Now, Mrs. Jernigan, on the other hand? She’ll throw a shit-fit.” He grinned at me, the kind of wicked grin I recognized as meaning he was up to no good, as usual. Mr. and Mrs. Jernigan were the husband-and-wife ministry team who’d made a fortune with their massive church, televised sermons, and Bible-study books. They’d decided to invest their earnings by buying a hockey team, for some reason. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how a guy like Razor was getting along with them at the helm, let alone how a couple of morally upright people were putting up with him and his shenanigans, but he seemed like the same Razor I’d known when he’d played in Portland—no concern at all for what anyone else thought. He was always himself, no matter the consequences.

“But while you’re down here and Babs isn’t around,” he said slyly. “Did he finally get some? He fed me some pansy I don’t kiss and tell bullshit and threatened to break my nose when I asked earlier, which makes me think he got laid. So did he?”

“I have to go,” I said, rolling my eyes and spinning on my heel before retreating down the tunnel.

“He did! I could kiss you for that, Katie. I could totally fucking kiss you.”

I kept walking but called over my shoulder, “You already did. Just check TMZ if you don’t remember.”

THE STORM’S WIN against the Thunderbirds might have been a positive sign of the team coming together, finally, working out their differences and figuring out how to play together as a cohesive unit. That was certainly what everyone hoped, but it didn’t prove to be the case.

In their very next game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Storm couldn’t score at all despite getting more than forty shots on the Leafs’ goaltender, Jonathan Bernier, and Nicky let in three Leafs goals in the first period alone. Bergy sat him on the bench and sent in Sean “Bobby” Roberts, the Storm’s backup goalie, when the teams returned for the second. That didn’t work out much better. They lost the game five to nothing thanks to stellar goaltending from Bernier and a hat trick from Joffrey Lupul.

The script flipped on the Storm again in the next game when they played the Winnipeg Jets. Nicky might as well have stood on his head, making all the “easy” saves alongside a number of spectacular ones, and the Storm’s offense was clicking like they rarely had all season so far. The problem that night was that they completely forgot how to play defense—a fact the Jets took advantage of at every turn. The Storm squeaked out a win, but they didn’t deserve it. Not by a mile.

They couldn’t seem to play a solid game unless they were up against a team that was in shambles, and that was the talk every night in the owner’s box between the wives and girlfriends. Apparently now I was one of them instead of one of the kids. I’d been hanging out with them for years, but things seemed different now.

One thing I’d learned in my time with these women was that while each of them had her own life and interests, they all very much lived and died right along with their men during these games. Whatever was happening with the team inevitably came home with the guys, and that meant the women spent a lot of time trying to sort out how best to help them.

That extended to helping each other, too. Last season, when Nicky’s sister had passed away leaving him with his niece and nephews to look after, these women had dropped everything in order to help Nicky and Jessica find their footing. That was just the latest in a long string of events where they’d all banded together to support each other, proving Jim Sutter’s mantra that the Portland Storm was a family. Weddings, births, illnesses, deaths, injuries, birthdays—the fact was, with the guys on the road so much, sometimes the women of the Storm family saw each other more than we saw our guys.

They’d banded around me before, when I’d had cancer the first time. That was back before my reputation was in tatters, though, so I could understand that.

They’d done it again a few days ago, though, when all the news outlets started putting out their crazy stories about me, Jamie, and Razor. They were sticking close to me, never letting me be seen anywhere alone. It was like they were putting up a front around me, trying to show the world that whatever might be said about me, they were with me. I wasn’t sure how well it was working so far, since I still saw more vicious rumors and innuendo every time I flipped on the TV or cracked open the Internet, but at least the girls were helping to prevent anything new from showing up there. Through it all, I felt more and more…confused. Seriously confused. I didn’t get why they would put their own reputations on the line by being seen with me if they could avoid it.

And if that wasn’t enough, I could tell they wanted to rally around me again over the cancer returning, too. I hadn’t told anyone but my family and Jamie that I was sick again. I wasn’t ready to deal with the sympathy and well wishes and whatnot. It sometimes felt stifling, smothering, especially when there wasn’t a damn thing they could do that would help.

But they knew.

It was clear because of the way they were treating me when we were all together. It wasn’t the kind of girl talk and giggling I would have expected when they’d figured out Jamie and I were finally a couple. It was more like they were treating me with kid gloves, scooching over to be sure I was in the center of things, getting up to grab a drink for me instead of letting me get it myself, asking if I was warm enough or if I needed to borrow a sweater.

They knew. I hadn’t told them, but they knew. At this point, it didn’t even matter how they had learned or why someone had thought it necessary to tell them. I was just resigned to it, and I figured I might as well come clean so they could stop pussyfooting around the issue.

It was Sunday night during the first intermission of a tie game against the Chicago Blackhawks. The score didn’t even come close to telling the whole story of the game so far, as was becoming a trend with this year’s team. The Storm hadn’t been playing well at all, and a few of the guys were making the kinds of mistakes with the puck that would undoubtedly get Bergy’s blood boiling. I had a feeling they were in the locker room right now getting an earful from him.

I was set to start radiation tomorrow morning. Mia and Rachel had gone down to the locker room because Q had gotten hurt a few minutes ago, but the rest of the regular crew were here. I steeled myself for fending off whatever help they tried to insist on giving me and dove in. “So I guess you all know by now that my cancer’s back,” I said, and they stopped talking and laughing almost instantaneously.

Mom looked like she was about to burst into tears, even though I’d barely said a thing, and Jessica closed down the laptop she’d just opened and pushed it aside. Brie nodded, like she’d been waiting for this. Sara was sitting right beside me, Connor curled up and sleeping on the bit of lap her pregnant belly wasn’t covering. She took my hand, which was a big deal for Sara Johnson. She’d never been the touchy-feely sort.

“I’ll be starting radiation tomorrow.” I was doing my best not to get choked up but failing miserably.

“Tell us what you need,” Brie said.

I shook my head. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Bullshit,” Sara said. “We can hold your hair back when you puke. We can bring you movies and chocolate and soup. We can drive you to doctor’s appointments or the hospital, or pick up groceries, or take you to the damn pharmacy. We can help you get out of the house when you’re up to it. We can fucking cry with you when you need to cry. Don’t try to push us away, Katie. I think you should fucking know by now that we won’t let you.”

I looked to Mom for help. She knew. She understood. But she just nodded for me to go on with tears in her eyes.

I clenched my hands into fists, digging them down between the arms of the chair and the cushion. “I know you want to help. All of you. I get it, but you can’t this time. I can’t be around any of you. The doctors said I have to be completely isolated for a few days with every treatment.”

“Completely?” Jessica asked. “No one can be near you at all?”

“No one who’s pregnant. No kids or animals.”

“So that rules out the kids, animals, Brie, and Sara,” Jessica said, being her usual, logical self. “But not your parents. Not me. Not Rachel and Mia and anyone else we can get involved. Not the guys.”

The others nodded.

“But you have to go home to your kids and pets. What if you get exposed to radiation and don’t get it all washed away before you go home?”

“We’ll be really careful,” she said. “You’ve got an extra bathroom at your house, right? So we can bring extra clothes and towels, take a shower in the bathroom you’re not using before we leave, and make sure there’s no trace of anything harmful.”

My jaw dropped. “That’s crazy. There’s no reason for any of you to go through all that.”

“There’s every reason for it,” Brie said. “You’re the reason. You can bet if I wasn’t pregnant, I would be there.”

Jessica nodded. “There are enough of us around that we can make sure you’re never alone unless you want to be.”

“I do—”

“You don’t get to call us off yet,” Mom interrupted. “Not until you’ve given us a chance to overwhelm you with love.”

“And Brie and I can call you and text you and drive you batshit crazy on FaceTime since we can’t be there,” Sara added.

Brie gave a decisive nod. “Exactly.”

“Exactly what?” Rachel asked as she and Mia came back in. She plopped down in the seat on my other side. “Are we finally planning for cancer treatments? Jim’s been asking me how things were progressing with that, so he could help sort out what the team can do.”

“The team can’t do anything,” I said, throwing up my hands.

“You really think that’s going to fly with them?” This time it was Julianne d’Aragon, Danger’s wife. She’d been keeping an eye on Elin and Étienne to be sure they didn’t sneak off alone somewhere, but now some of the older kids were coming over to join us, so she came, too. Julianne took a seat facing me and pinned me with the sort of mothering look she’d perfected probably around the same time Mom had. “Some of these guys have known you since you were thirteen years old. They think of you as a kid sister. Jim and most of the front office think of you as a daughter or a niece. They’re not going to let you shut them out. None of us are.”

Maddie Campbell was one of the kids who’d just joined us. She was thirteen now, but she’d been wise beyond her years for as long as I’d known her. She sat cross-legged on the floor nearby and gave me the shy smile I’d come to be very familiar with, and it took me back to nights sitting in this box with her, sharing her blanket and letting her surprise me with her insights. “I don’t think Mr. Jamie’s going to stay away no matter what you tell him, so I think you’re just going to have to accept that everyone else is going to help, too. Wherever he goes, the rest of them eventually follow.”

And with that, the part of the discussion in which they allowed me to argue effectively came to an end. Whether I wanted their help or not, I was going to get it. I could live with it, but I wished I felt better about accepting it.

Throughout the rest of the game, they discussed safety measures they’d have to take and worked out a schedule, and I waited until Jamie was done so he could take me home. Right now, he was the only thing I wanted.

A THOUSAND THOUGHTS were racing through my head as Jamie drove us back to his house. It felt good to be cared about so much that the Storm’s WAGs weren’t going to let me go through it alone, but I wasn’t sure I deserved that sort of concern again. Being associated with me right now shouldn’t be on any of their to-do lists, because the firestorm of gossip mag fodder still hadn’t died out, and there were a lot of risks they would be running in terms of their health if they were with me. I didn’t know how to stop them, though, and I wasn’t sure I had the energy for it, anyway. Even if I did right now, as soon as the radiation kicked in, it would knock me on my ass and zap any energy I had left. I supposed I would just have to go with the flow, but that wasn’t something I was very good at.

Over the previous few days, I’d done a lot in order to get settled in my new house. In the mornings and early afternoons, while Jamie and Dad had been busy with practices and other team functions, I’d spent a lot of time with Mom. We’d gone shopping for different knickknacks for the house and planned how to put together my studio.

Dad had come over in the afternoons to help me paint the walls and measure the space. He wanted to do a built-in for me along one wall, even though I’d told him I could hire a contractor to do it. I’m your father, he’d said. Let me do this one thing for you. He hadn’t always been able to do the sorts of father-daughter things he’d wanted to over the years, so I’d given in, despite my reservations about his construction skills. He’d been tinkering with things in the garage lately, Mom had told me. She hadn’t seen anything he’d made yet, but maybe he would surprise us all.

Most days, if he wasn’t busy with some call-in radio show or community involvement arranged for by the Storm, Jamie had come and helped, too. Occasionally he brought Levi or Austin Cooper along and put them to work. The guys had all painted together side by side, bickering and bantering while Dad grumbled orders, and it had started to feel normal.

Every night, though, I ended up next door at Jamie’s instead of sleeping in my own house. It didn’t seem to matter that I was a homeowner now. Not once had I slept without him since that first night, and I was dreading the fact that tomorrow, I would have to. Not only was I going to be radioactive but the team’s home stand had come to an end with tonight’s game. They were due to fly to Philadelphia tomorrow afternoon.

My new normal was about to be stripped away from me. The loss of normalcy was already weighing heavily on me, and it hadn’t even started yet.

The team had lost three to one, and only a handful of players hadn’t made several glaring mistakes in the course of the loss. Jamie had been as quiet as I had the whole way home, but then he reached across the console for my hand. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

“You don’t know that. No one knows.”

“You’re right. No one knows, but I believe it.”

I laced my fingers with his, and that was when I noticed his knuckles were red and swollen. I pulled his hand up so I could see it more clearly in the streetlights, which made it even more obvious that he’d used his hand to throw punches at someone or something. There were a couple of splits in the skin that had been closed with butterfly bandages instead of stitches. I’d been around hockey players my whole life, so I knew what this meant. There was no possibility of misunderstanding.

“You didn’t get in a scrap tonight,” I said. “You haven’t fought once all season. What happened?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t brush me off, Jamie.”

“It was just me being stupid. That’s all. No big deal.”

“You could have broken your hand.” For that matter, I wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t broken something. I turned it palm up and scrutinized it, but that didn’t really help. No X-ray vision. “It is a big deal. Who did you hit?”

“The wall.” He drew his hand free from mine and placed it back on the wheel. “I punched the fucking wall in intermission, not that it did anyone any good. I hurt my hand, I let my teammates see me lose my shit, and we still fucking lost the game.”

“Why did you punch a wall?”

“It was either the wall or Koz, and I figured it would be better if only one of us got hurt instead of both of us.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked even though I knew he would say no. It didn’t matter how many issues hockey players had with their coaches or teammates, they never talked about it outside of the locker room or the coach’s office. Maybe behind closed doors with a wife, but I wasn’t his wife, and even that could sometimes be shaky ground because there had been more than a few cases of players’ wives cheating with a teammate. They seemed to all live by the rule of handling issues within the organization, not spreading things to the media. That was just part of the deal in the hockey world. What happens in the room stays in the room. It was the complete opposite of Hollywood, where one person’s business becomes everyone’s business in a flash.

“Not really, unless you know a good way to get an asshole to stop being an asshole and start acting like he isn’t a one-man show,” Jamie said.

That was a lot more of an answer than I’d been expecting.

We were on our street. Jamie hit the button on his garage remote and waited for the door to open. I took a moment to think about how best to respond. Once we were in the kitchen and Blackbeard was climbing Jamie’s suit, I said, “You know, you could try to think of him like you do Razor.”

“Koz and Razor aren’t even in the same ballpark of assholishness.”

That was debatable, but I chose not to argue the point. “I’m just saying that they both have some issues when it comes to how they come across to other people, and maybe you could draw from your arsenal for dealing with Razor in order to tackle Koz.”

Jamie took out a spoon to transfer a can of Blackbeard’s food to a dish. “That’s what Levi’s supposed to be doing. They wanted me to be a good influence on Razor. I knew that. I tried. Not sure how much it helped, but maybe some. Levi’s supposed to be the good influence on Koz, but I think it’s having the opposite effect.”

Blackbeard didn’t waste any time getting onto the counter to snarf down his meal.

“So Levi’s turning into an asshole?” I quipped. “Should we let Mama Babcock know so she can have a word with him before it’s permanent?” I found a mixing bowl in the cabinet and filled it with ice water, shoving it in Jamie’s direction.

He raised a brow.

“Ice your hand. You know the drill.”

Jamie scowled, but he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve before dipping his hand in the water. “Levi’s not turning into an asshole. He’s just…”

“He’s just not you and he’s making different decisions than you would, and you don’t know how to feel about it because you feel responsible as his older brother and as the team captain and as simply being Jamie Babcock. That’s just how you are, Jamie. But sometimes, people need to make their own mistakes.” I knew that better than anyone.

“Are you better off for the mistakes you made?”

That stung, and he had known it would before he ever let the words out of his mouth. “Maybe not better off, but at least now I know what I want. Levi is still Levi. He’s still your brother. And I bet he’s having more of a positive effect on Koz than you think he is. For that matter, maybe the influence Koz is having on Levi isn’t all bad.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Has Razor’s influence on you been all bad? Nothing good has come from that friendship on his end?”

“I never said that. But Levi and Koz—”

“Levi and Koz aren’t you and Razor. I know.” I picked up Blackbeard’s dish, since he’d finished eating, and washed it in the sink. “But even you have to admit there are an awful lot of similarities.”

“Fine. There are similarities. Tiny, infinitesimal similarities. So now what do I do with them? How do I use that to get Koz to act like a decent human being sometimes or, at the very least, play like he wants to be part of a team instead of a solo act?”

I set the dish on a towel to air dry and wiped my hands on my pants. “I don’t know. That’s the part that you’ve got to figure out. My part was helping you see the direction you should head in.”

I turned around to face him, and he flicked his ice-cold, wet fingers in my direction, flinging drops of water in my face. I squealed and ran. Jamie chased me. I didn’t run fast, though. Tonight, I wanted to be caught, and I got my wish. When he put his arms around me, I melted into him, all the fight draining out of me at his slightest touch.

“Come to bed with me?” he said, his mouth by my ear, laughter mixing with the heat of his words.

I laughed, too. “Yes,” I said. There was nowhere else I would rather be.

WEBS HELD ME up when the boys were leaving the ice after practice, jerking his head toward the other end of the ice. Bergy was waiting for us.

I didn’t want to be here right now. I wanted to go home and see Katie, to spend the allowable two hours with her before we had to get on a plane and fly across the country. But I was here. And she would probably try to kick me out if I was there, anyway.

“How’s the hand?” Bergy asked when we got over to him.

I shrugged. “Hurts. I can deal with it. I’ve played with worse.”

Bergy nodded. “I’m thinking about benching Koz tomorrow. Having him watch a game or two from upstairs. You have any thoughts on that?”

I had at least a few dozen thoughts on that, and most of them would fall somewhere in the range of Absolutely, yes, sit his fucking ass down because he’s hurting us more than he’s helping us, but Katie’s arguments from last night kept ringing in my head. I still didn’t know how to treat Koz as if he were Razor, but I wanted a chance to figure out a way to get through to the guy on my terms. If the rest of the team and I could get through his thick skull, it would probably have a hell of a lot more lasting impact than watching a game from the press box.

So I nodded. “It might not hurt him to sit, but I’m not sure it would help, either. Give me this road trip to figure something out. I’ll talk to Burnzie and Danger, maybe Wheels. We’ll come up with something.”

“All right. It’s your team, so if that’s what you want, I’m willing to wait.” He drew the cord with his whistle up over his head and shoved it in the pocket of his tracksuit. “We can’t wait forever, though, Babs. We have to get everyone heading in the same direction, and right now Koz is a big part of the problem preventing that from happening.”

I nodded my agreement, and Bergy skated off to meet with the team doctors and get a status update on Q for the road trip. Webs didn’t go with him, though, so I stayed, too.

“Laura should have Katie back at her house by now,” he said. “I thought I’d stop by there on my way home to pack. And I’ll make sure Laura comes with me when I leave, so if you wanted some time with her…”

“Yeah. I do, thanks.” I’d held her all night long, not getting anywhere near enough sleep because I’d kept making love to her. Every time I’d thought I could stop, that I could keep my hands off her and let her rest, I’d proven myself wrong. She’d been just as needy as I had. We both knew that it was going to be a long time before we could really have a night together like that again, and I supposed we were trying to fit everything in up front. It was probably going to backfire on me, though, because all I wanted to do was hold her again.

And I couldn’t.

I couldn’t even go near her. The doctors said we were supposed to stay six feet away from her. No touching. Definitely no kissing. It was going to be absolute torture to go over to her house this afternoon and force myself to keep my distance, but I couldn’t leave without at least seeing her again first.

“I’ve gotta be honest with you, Babs,” Webs said, and my gut clenched in anticipation of whatever it was he intended to say. “I almost went to Jim to see if I could stay behind on this trip, or at least for a few days. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I really don’t have a fucking clue how you’re going to do it.”

“Me, either.” I let out a snort. “At least I’m not the only one who thought about trying to stay behind.”

He kicked up a grin. “I’d want to bash your face in if you hadn’t at least thought about it.”

“I’m still not convinced that going with the team is the right thing even though I have a job to do and I know it.”

“You’re going to make a hell of a son-in-law someday, you know that?” Webs slapped a hand on my shoulder, which didn’t even come close to erasing the jolt of his words. “I know, I’m way ahead of you. It’s all right. But you know, Laura and I were already married and starting our family by the time we were yours and Katie’s ages. Anyway, I’d better get out of here so I can see Katie for a bit and drag Laura out of there.”

He skated off, leaving me to pick my jaw up off the ice. I’d realized that Webs had turned over a new leaf as far as I was concerned, but I still expected him to come after me with a pitchfork all the time. Now he was dropping less-than-subtle hints about marriage. I didn’t know how to take this change, but I supposed I should be thankful he wasn’t trying to stuff my balls down my throat after chopping them off with a dull skate blade.

WHEN I GOT to Katie’s house after lunch with the guys to give her parents some time with her, Laura was alone in the living room, and Webs and Katie were nowhere to be seen. She let me in and then sat on the couch, anxiously tapping her feet against the hardwood floor.

“The nausea’s already started,” she said. “Dave’s trying to help her get comfortable enough that she can take something to calm her stomach. I’ve already been near her longer than I should have been.”

I didn’t have a clue what to say, so I just sat across from her and nodded.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to see your little girl so sick and not even be able to hold her?”

“Pretty sure I’m about to get a sense of it,” I replied.

She gave me a tired, sad smile. And to think, this was just the beginning of it. We had a long way to go from here.

A few minutes later, Webs came down the hall to join us. He stripped off a pair of latex gloves and tossed them in one of two garbage cans. I looked closer and saw that this one was labeled as radioactive. He washed his hands twice and used a paper towel to dry them, once again pressing the foot lever to open the same can.

Laura got up and looked at a schedule that was attached to the fridge with a couple of magnets. “Julianne d’Aragon’s coming over before you’ll need to leave,” she said when she turned around again.

“Remember not to get too close,” Webs added. “Not unless you have to. And wear gloves if you do touch her or something she’s touched, or if you have to clean anything up. Use the other bathroom. And get her to drink. She needs a lot of fluids to flush all this shit out of her system.”

“Ginger ale might be best today because of the nausea,” Laura added.

I let them know that I understood, and eventually Webs got Laura out the door. Then I went down the hall and knocked on Katie’s partially open door.

“You shouldn’t come any closer,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow she had her head buried in.

I ignored that and moved to sit in the armchair by the window. She turned her head to look at me. Her skin was already a pasty-white color and clammy, and her hair was sticking to her scalp in places.

“I look like shit,” she said, tearing up.

“You look like you feel like shit,” I corrected her.

“I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Tough. You’re going to have to deal with the fact that I love you, and that means I love every part of you. Even the cranky, feeling-like-shit, trying-to-send-me-away part.”

Katie rolled over to her back, tucking her arms over her chest. “Dad said you’d thought about trying to stay behind.”

“Yeah. I have. I’m still not convinced I should go.”

“You can’t sort out the mess with Koz if you’re here trying to keep my puke bucket clean.” She indicated a paint bucket on the floor by the bed with her eyes. I supposed that was why Webs had been wearing gloves when he’d come out.

I laughed, which caused her to send a glare in my direction. I pointed at her bucket. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sending him in here to deal with that might improve his attitude by a mile.”

I could tell she was fighting it, but a small smile finally forced its way through to the surface. “You’re ridiculous. Do you know that?”

Yeah, I knew it. I would be as silly and outrageous as I had to be if it meant keeping her spirits up, and the truth of how next-to-impossible a task it might prove to be was sinking in.

“Drink some ginger ale,” I said, pointing to the disposable bottle on her nightstand.

She drank, all the while giving me a pathetic pout that could rival a toddler’s.

INSTEAD OF PLAYING cards with some of the guys like I often did, I spent my time on the flight to Philly having a meeting with my leadership team. I brought Burnzie, Danger, Wheels, Jonny, Nicky, and Q together at the back of the plane so we could hash out a plan for moving forward with the Koz issue, as well as for bringing everyone together. There was no better time for some serious team bonding than on a road trip because we were going to be forced to spend time together whether we wanted to or not. I just didn’t have a sound idea for how to do it.

Katie had proven to me that two heads were better than one when she’d pointed out the similarities between me and Razor, and Levi and Koz, so I figured bringing in more guys than just my assistant captains could only improve our odds of finding a solution. Jonny and Nicky had spent their entire careers in Portland, and Wheels and Q had both been around the league a long time. The more experience I could pull together, the better. I wasn’t too proud to admit I needed help.

“So here’s the deal,” I said once I had everyone together. “We’re more than a full month into the season, and we can’t keep our heads out of our asses long enough to blink, let alone play like we have a shot at the playoffs. Bergy’s ready to start benching guys, but I got him to give me a shot at pulling everyone together first. As much as we might enjoy having someone like Koz getting splinters in his ass, that won’t help us as much in the long run as having him on the ice and scoring goals. At least it won’t as long as we can convince him to play within the system. We need to figure out how to do that, though, and nothing so far has worked. Punishing him for fucking up is having the opposite effect from what we wanted.”

The guys nodded and grunted their agreement.

“I think we all know what the fucking problem is, Babs,” Burnzie said. “Too many guys out there thinking they’re fucking perfect. Not enough guys pulling their weight. How the hell do we fix it?”

I grinned, since he’d given me exactly the opening I needed. The thing was, Burnzie and Razor had a lot in common. Burnzie would fall on the other end of the spectrum from Koz, with Razor landing somewhere in between the two of them. “You’re a good example, Burnzie. You’re a cocky son of a bitch, right? How do you respond when someone tells you you’re doing something wrong?”

He chuckled. “I punch him in the fucking nose and keep doing what I’m doing.”

“Exactly. But then look at guys like Q and Jonny,” I said. “What happens if someone comes along and tells one of them they’re screwing something up?”

Danger crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. “They put their fucking heads down, work ten times harder, and sort their shit out on their own.”

“And think about punching the guy in the fucking nose,” Q added with a grin.

“But we’re role players,” Jonny said. “That’s what we do. We don’t get shit handed to us on a silver platter. We work for every fucking thing we get.”

“You’re never going to convince a guy like Koz to just bury his head and work harder,” Wheels said. “He’s not built that way. He’s been told his whole life that he’s the best there is, so he doesn’t think he needs to change a fucking thing.”

“That’s my point,” I said. “Koz is built like Burnzie. He knows he’s one of the best in the game. He’s got all the skills in the world and he knows how to use them, and he’s never had anyone tell him he couldn’t have anything he wanted. He works hard when it’s something he wants, but otherwise, you can go fuck yourself, as far as he’s concerned. But Burnzie, what would happen if instead of telling you you’re doing something wrong and need to fix it, they told you what you’re doing right and then asked you to step into a bigger role, but to do that you’d have to improve a few things? What would you do then?”

“You mean if you stroke my big, fat ego before breaking the news that I’m shit?” He laughed. “Telling me I’m awesome always helps.”

“Massaging the confidence does wonders for everyone, as long as you don’t go overboard,” Wheels said.

“Right,” Q said. “So what the hell do you want us to do? Go fawn all over his ass? He’s already had enough of that for this lifetime.”

I shook my head. “We massage his ego in a different way. We’ve got Wednesday off. No practice. We’ll be in Raleigh, and I know there’s this team-building place. It’s a puzzle-solving escape game. You have to work together to figure out how to get free before you run out of time. I say we do some team bonding.”

IN THE GAME against the Flyers, you could say that we had been the better team for fifty-five minutes of play. We’d been winning face-offs, getting plenty of offensive zone time, making crisp passes, scoring a couple of goals, staying out of the box, and receiving solid goaltending with Nicky in the net.

But then, with just under five minutes to go, Koz tried to make a fancy pass up the middle of the ice to Ghost instead of skating it out of our defensive zone. Flyers captain Claude Giroux cut off the pass, and then he was off to the races. Levi tried to defend him, but he lost an edge when he tried to dig in. Levi fell and couldn’t get back up in time to be of any use. His partner, Ilya Demidov, was out of position. Demi couldn’t get back in time. Koz got caught flat-footed in neutral ice and wasn’t even thinking about backchecking, and Giroux pulled Nicky out of position before roofing the puck with a sick backhander.

We were still up by a goal. No cause for panic.

Once he got off the ice, Levi went down the tunnel with Drywall Tierney, our head equipment manager, to get the edge on his skate fixed. Bergy sent me, RJ, and Luddy out for the next face-off, along with Burnzie and Cole Paxton on defense.

“Let’s lock this shit down,” Burnzie said as we got into position.

The puck dropped, and RJ lost the face-off to Sean Couturier like he had been all fucking night long.

I busted my ass getting back into defensive positioning, with Burnzie directing traffic. The Flyers dumped the puck into the zone, and I headed in to help Colesy dig it out of the corner. I finally got it free, but Couturier snagged it away from me, and when I tried to steal it back again, my stick got loose. I ended up high-sticking him right in the nose.

Blood started gushing right away. Double minor. I was going to be in the fucking box for nearly all the time left on the clock. Well, I would be if I was lucky. I’d get released early if they scored on either of the ensuing power plays, so at this point, the best scenario I could hope for was being released at the end of my penalty.

I didn’t even attempt to argue with the ref over the call. No fucking point. I skated to the box and took a seat, and hoped the boys could bail me out of this one.

Thirty seconds into the penalty kill, Cody “Harry” Williams took a shot to the head and hit the ice like a fucking bag of bricks. He was able to skate off with the trainers on his own power, but they had to take him back to the quiet room for evaluation because of concussion protocol. That meant we were down to five defensemen.

Play resumed. Levi was one of our D out there. A shot headed his way, and he got his foot over to block it. Instead of hitting the plastic protective piece, it knocked the blade clear off his skate. He couldn’t do anything but hop around on one foot. They cleared the puck, and Demi put an arm under his shoulder to help skate him off to the bench, but he had to go get his skate fixed. That would probably take longer than the rest of the game.

A new set of penalty killers went over the boards, but the Flyers brought off a tic-tac-toe play that ended with the puck in the back of our net and Nicky flat on his face with a hand on the back of his thigh, like he’d pulled his groin.

It was a tie game, and I was still stuck in the box for another two minutes of penalty time. I could only sit there and hope the boys held out long enough to get us to overtime.

They helped Nicky off the ice so he could be seen to by the trainers. Bobby went in along with fresh penalty killers. The puck dropped, the Flyers controlled it, and my team was scrambling.

Colesy went after the puck carrier, who turned at the last second, which led to Colesy slamming him hard into the boards. The ref put up his arm and blew his whistle, and then Colesy was joining me in the box for boarding even though it wouldn’t have been boarding if the Flyers player hadn’t turned his fucking back.

Needless to say, Colesy and Bergy and everyone on our fucking bench were livid. Bergy climbed up onto the players’ bench and was screaming obscenities at the refs. Both Webs and Wheels were physically restraining him, keeping him from jumping out onto the ice. I’d never seen him lose his shit like that. Not in person, at least. Back when he’d been a player, he went wild more than a few times, but he’d retired before I ever got into the league.

Colesy was still trying to argue his case when the linesman skated him over to join me, but it was no use. They’d made the call, and they were sticking with it. Now we had to deal with nearly a full two minutes of five-on-three penalty killing, and we were down to only three defensemen and our backup goalie, who hadn’t been granted a chance to warm up before being thrown to the wolves.

“It’ll be all right,” I said when Colesy flopped down next to me. “They’re going to fucking get us out of this mess, and then we’ll get to overtime, and it’ll be all right.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him of that or me, but it didn’t matter. Neither of us believed a fucking word out of my mouth right now.

RJ didn’t usually kill penalties, but he was our best guy on the dot, so he usually went out for a five-on-three kill. Sure enough, that was who Bergy sent out. We watched helplessly as Giroux beat RJ on the face-off, and the Flyers set up their power play. A few sharp passes pulled Jens and Burnzie both out of position, and a slapper from the point went in the net. The fans in the building were going wild as I made the eighty-foot skate of shame across to the bench.

It felt like we were finding new ways to lose every game instead of finally figuring out how to win.

Webs thumped me on the back of the head. “Game’s not over, Babs. Keep your head in it.”

It might not officially be over, but it might as well be.

TRUE TO THEIR word, the WAGs had hardly left me alone at all other than overnight when the only thing I was doing was sleeping, anyway. Monday had been miserable, made worse because both Jamie and Dad had to leave with the team. By the time I’d awakened today, though, the worst of the nausea was gone, and Mom was at my door with breakfast.

Every two hours throughout the day, someone new showed up to be with me. Jessica brought some work with her from Light the Lamp. While she was over, Sara called me wanting to talk about girls’ names that started with the letter C, so she could stick with the theme that was running in Jonny’s family. Julianne brought over a stack of movies and told me to pick whichever one I was in the mood for. Mia had dropped her kids off with Brie for a playdate, and she had her camera with her when she arrived. Come on, she’d said, outside with you. You need some fresh air, and I want to shoot you in your garden. No amount of arguing had been able to convince her I was better off staying cooped up in the house, and by the time we’d come back in, I was, admittedly, starting to feel a little better.

Just before the game started, Soupy showed up with a pair of crutches under his arms and a takeout dinner bag hanging from one hand. Mia excused herself to shower before going to pick up her kids, and Soupy brought me a disposable tray of my favorite Chinese food and some plastic ware. “Rachel informed me that since I am currently of no use to her in terms of taking care of the twins by myself and she already has to send them to daycare while she works,” he said, “I get to be on Katie-sitting duty for the game. I figured you wouldn’t mind watching with me.”

“I don’t mind. How did you know I would want General Tso’s chicken?” Not to mention the brown rice that I always got.

“Called your mom to ask.” He dutifully washed his hands and took a seat on the opposite side of the room before digging into his own meal.

A few minutes later, Mia was done showering and cleaning up, and she left promising she’d see me again tomorrow. So here we were, Soupy and I watching the Storm fall apart in the third period over the brownies he’d made me swear I wouldn’t tell Rachel about.

“Babs looks like he’s about to implode,” Soupy said as Jamie skated from the penalty box to the bench after the Flyers had taken the lead in the game.

The Storm were still killing a penalty, too, and there was only a minute and forty-three seconds left on the clock. Not much time for them to do anything in terms of tying the game and taking it to overtime, and it was a game they should have won handily based on the early play.

“He’s got a lot going on,” I said feebly. Soupy knew that perfectly well, but I guess I’d just felt the need to defend him.

“He needs to channel it. Bergy needs to send him out there and let him bang some bodies.” Apparently, Bergy agreed with Soupy even though he was all the way on the other side of the country.

It seemed that Jamie didn’t get the memo about banging bodies. Instead, he kept bumping the puck out of the zone and chasing after it, trying for a short-handed goal. After the third time he did that, the other Storm players followed him, and the goalie headed to the bench for an extra attacker. The clock kept ticking down, and Colesy was released from the penalty box. He skated straight to the bench so Luddy could go on to replace him.

Jamie and the rest of the guys put a furious flurry of shots on the Flyers’ net, but it wasn’t enough. The final horn sounded, and they left the ice with a loss in a game they should have won.

Jamie was the last guy to leave the ice. The camera zoomed in on him, making his frustration evident even through the distance.

“Do you think he’ll figure out how to get the guys on board?” I asked. Then I wished I hadn’t. Team dynamics weren’t anything Soupy needed to be talking to me about, whether Jamie had brought them up or not.

But he surprised me by answering. “I think he’s already figured it out. He just needs to believe in himself enough to really take charge of this team. I think there’s some part of him that still thinks it’s Zee’s team, but hell, even Zee knew for the last year or two that he was just filling in until Babs was ready.”

“Did he?” I’d never gotten that impression from Zee, but then again, I’d been busy in LA and hadn’t seen everything going on here as closely as I used to.

“Oh, yeah.” Soupy stretched his legs in front of him, grimacing when he moved the knee that had recently gone under the knife. “He knew. I think all the guys who really paid attention could see how they were grooming Babs to take over. Except Babs, but he’s so damned humble that he doesn’t notice those things.”

“You think he’s close to believing in himself enough?”

He narrowed his eyes at me from all the way across the room. “I think having you in his life again is helping with his confidence. In more ways than you could possibly know. He was a fucking wreck the whole time you were gone. Every time you popped up on the gossip shows, he lost his shit for a while.” Soupy leaned forward in his chair all of a sudden, resting his elbows on his knees. “There’s a way you could help him out some more, you know.”

I knew enough to be suspicious. Soupy didn’t get that kind of look in his eye unless he was being devious. “How?” I asked slowly.

“Well, you two can’t…you know…for a while.” He waved his hands in a crude gesture that left nothing to the imagination. “But you could call him. No radiation through the phone.”

Call him. That was one way of putting it. “You mean phone sex?” I didn’t blush all that often these days, but right now I had to be tomato-red.

“Don’t tell Rachel I mentioned that. Or Babs, either. But sex can fix a lot of problems with a guy’s confidence.” Soupy’s phone buzzed, and he looked down at it. “Finish your brownie. Rachel’s on her way to trade out with me, and I have no intention of letting her know I’ve been eating this.”

I laughed. It felt good to laugh, not to mention surprising considering how down in the dumps I’d been leading up to my confinement. “Will she be jealous? It’s not nice to have chocolate and not share.”

“I’m sharing with you,” he said, shoving another bite of his into his mouth. “But no, she won’t be jealous. She’s got me on a diet.”

I raised a brow.

He scowled. “It seems that when you aren’t burning a ton of calories every day, skating and playing hockey and working out in the gym, you can’t eat the same way or you start packing on the pounds.” He nodded toward my paper plate with the half-eaten brownie. “I’d ask you if you were done and if I could have that, but sharing food with you is a big no-no right now. So eat it or I’m going to have nightmares about a brownie gone to waste.”

I laughed, but I finished my brownie.

NICKY DID HAVE a minor groin pull after last night’s game, so we left him out of the day’s activities so he could get treatment. A goalie from our AHL team would be coming to fill in as backup for Bobby until Nicky was cleared to play again, but he wouldn’t arrive in Raleigh until sometime tonight. Harry’s concussion tests had all come back normal, and he was symptom-free, so he would be taking part in everything.

I’d filled the guys in on the plans for today after we’d boarded the plane for the flight down to North Carolina. A few of the boys weren’t exactly thrilled to have their day off taken away from them, Koz in particular, but they were just going to have to deal with it.

When we’d gotten to the hotel, I’d texted Katie to see if she was up, but she hadn’t responded. I knew she needed her rest, and she had left me some messages earlier in the night about how Soupy was over to watch the game with her, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed. I missed her. I missed seeing her smile and hearing her laugh, and I missed the softness of her hand sliding over my skin. In only a few short days, I’d gotten so accustomed to sleeping with the warmth of her body pressed against mine that I had a great deal of difficulty getting to sleep. Coop’s snoring in the other bed didn’t help, either.

Koz was late coming down for breakfast, and when he showed up, he glared at everyone who dared to look at him. This definitely wasn’t a good start to the day.

Burnzie cuffed me on the back of the head and sat down next to me. “You sure this is what you want to do?” he asked, angling his head in Koz’s direction.

I wasn’t sure at all, but I didn’t think it was a good time to back down. I nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Well, I hope you’re right.”

The bus I’d arranged for arrived at the hotel at nine thirty, and we filed out to board it.

“This is a fucked up way to spend a day off,” Koz said loudly to Levi as he walked past me. “I could still be sleeping.”

“Or you could be shoveling shit at a farm,” Levi said, snickering. “Pretty sure that’s what he would rather send you to do, and there are plenty of those around.”

Danger winked at me. “It could still be arranged.”

Koz didn’t let up with his complaints the whole way to Cipher Escape. We finally pulled up in front of a brick building hidden behind a row of trees. I was glad to get inside just so I wouldn’t have to listen to Koz’s bitching anymore.

“Right,” I said once we’d all assembled in the parking lot. “We’re going to break up into three teams of seven. I want Koz, 501, and Coop to be the team leaders.”

A few of the guys made comments under their breath after I’d named the team leaders, but they kept it to a low rumble.

“It’ll be a schoolyard pick. No choosing linemates, D partners, brothers, roommates, or countrymen to be on the same team, until and unless you have no other options available to you.”

“What the fuck are we even doing?” Koz demanded. “How do I know who I want to have on my team if I don’t know what the point of this whole fucking mess is?”

I shrugged. “Pick and then we’ll figure out if you made good choices or not. Coop barely even knows everyone’s names, so this puts you on more even footing.”

“And if I don’t want to do this?”

“I’m sure I can arrange for you to go shovel some shit somewhere.”

“Already found a farmer looking for cheap labor,” Danger called out, holding up his phone. “Can’t get any cheaper than free.”

After a lot of eye rolling and cursing, not to mention quite a bit of good-natured ribbing when Harry was picked last—Gingers have no souls, Levi had explained—we finally had our teams. I was on Koz’s team, which I’d fully expected after giving the rules for the selection process. We also had Colesy, Radek “Radar” Cernak, Harry, Bobby, and Axel “Jo-Jo” Johansson. That should make for an interesting mix for the task ahead.

We went inside, and the owners explained what would happen. Each team would be locked in identical rooms that had been filled with pictures, boxes, objects, and other sorts of clues that would require logic, problem solving, and teamwork in order for the team to escape within the one-hour time limit. The first team to finish would be rewarded with getting to select the first recipient of the thunder hat. It would go to the guy who best helped the team as a whole to win a game, and it was hideous. It looked like a thundercloud, and it boomed every time you turned your head. The last team to finish would be buying the rest of us lunch. If any team failed to escape, they’d be funding a night out for the team once we got back to Portland.

Once everyone understood the rules, we headed into our separate rooms, and the game was on.

“Bunch of fucking idiots on this team,” Koz muttered.

“You chose us,” I pointed out, shrugging when he shot a glare in my direction.

I started looking around, trying to sort out what we were working with but not trying too hard. I wanted Koz to take charge. I wanted him to pull this team together and get us all working toward the same goal.

He didn’t. He found a chair and sat down, sulking like a child.

The rest of the guys spread out, everyone opening boxes and turning objects over, trying to sort out the clues. No one was helping anyone else, though. After a couple of minutes, Colesy came over to me with a bottle in his hands that had some markings on it. “What do you suppose this is about?” he asked.

“No clue,” I said, even though I’d already discovered a notepad with similar markings on it. Those markings might lead us to deciphering a code of some sort, but I wasn’t leading this team. This wasn’t my show. I knew I might be shooting my team in the foot, but I wasn’t going to give in. I couldn’t, or my plan would backfire. Koz was going to have to bring everyone together or we would be party planning soon.

Even though I kept going through the room, checking things out, more than anything I was watching to see what Koz would do. A few of the guys took things over to him, and he brushed them off at first. But then I could see it starting to get to him. Around fifteen minutes into our hour, Jo-Jo had the bottle Colesy had brought me and was showing it to Koz, and I could practically hear the battle going on inside the kid’s head. He had figured something out, but he didn’t want to be part of the team.

“Radar!” he called out after a very pronounced moment of silence. “Bring me that notepad you had a minute ago. And Harry, what did you do with that thing that looked like a compass?”

“Why should I bring it to you?” Harry grumbled.

“Because I’m the only guy in this room smart enough to fucking decipher this code.”

I had to give him credit. Koz might not have a lot of tact, but he was probably right about being the only one of us able to sort out the code. I had followed the other guys over, and none of it made any sense to me, but within minutes, Koz had grabbed a pen and was making notes on his arm.

“Twenty-two, forty-seven, three,” he said. “Babs, try that on the lock.”

Lock? I hadn’t seen a lock. I’d been too busy trying to figure out how Koz’s mind worked to worry about looking for clues and figuring out how to get out of here. “What lock?” I asked.

“The one on that box right behind you.” Apparently I didn’t move fast enough for him because he got up and shoved me aside. “Just let me do it all, then.” He spun the dial a few times and put in the combination he’d come up with.

Sure enough, the lock opened. He removed the lock and lifted the lid off the box, taking out a photograph. “The teddy bear. The fucking teddy bear.” He looked over his shoulder. “Bobby, what the fuck did you do with that teddy bear?”

Bobby led him to it, and my plan was starting to come together. I took a moment to sit back and be proud of myself for figuring out what made our newest asshole tick. I didn’t take too long, though. We were still locked in this room, and the clock was ticking.

I might have been willing to lose if it meant getting through to Koz, but now that it looked like we might get through to him and we could possibly win, there wasn’t any point in sitting on my ass.

“I think I’ve seen the umbrella in that picture, too,” I said.

Koz’s head popped up. “Where? Did you open it to see if it said anything?”

I hadn’t. It wasn’t something I would have ever thought to do, but Koz had. Within four or five minutes, he’d solved another logic puzzle and gotten the first clue for the next part, and he was directing the rest of us to sort out the things he needed. That was the first time I felt as though I understood the guy. We might be dealing with a fucking genius, or at least with someone whose thought pattern worked in a different way from most of us. I tended to think in straight lines, but Koz saw things as a bunch of spatter drops that made up a bigger picture. That meant I was going to have to talk to him in a different way if I was going to get through his thick skull.

I may not have solved this team’s problems in one day, but I was definitely a hell of a lot closer to getting everyone on the same page than I had been before. Not only that, but I never would have come up with any of this if Katie hadn’t steered me in the right direction.

I couldn’t wait to talk to her once we were done here. More than that, I couldn’t wait to surprise her with what Brie was helping me plan. I only wished I could give her the surprise as soon as she’d been able to help me sort through my issues with Koz.

One thing at a time.

KATIE ANSWERED ON the first ring. “Took you long enough to call me today. Dad said you guys had the day off,” she said without any sort of normal greeting. She sounded sleepy even though it was the middle of the afternoon. I might have interrupted a nap, which made me feel guilty, but only for a second.

“We had the day off from anything the coaches were involved in,” I said. I was in my hotel room. Coop had gone out with a few of the other guys to enjoy the sunshine since it was a gorgeous day in Raleigh, so I was alone for once, and fully prepared to take advantage of it by talking to my girlfriend.

“Oh. You called a captain’s practice?”

“No practice. We went to a place where we got locked in a room and had to escape.”

“That sounds…odd,” she said. And she laughed. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I enjoyed being on the winning team.”

“You don’t like to lose.”

“Nobody likes to lose.” But she was right. I really didn’t like to lose. Most professional athletes were the same in that regard. “What have you been doing today?”

“Thinking about you.” There was a heaviness to her voice that I hated. I wanted to smash it, but it wasn’t something real and physical and tangible. It was just there. “I went out back for a while. Sat on my swing under the tree with a pad of paper and a pen. I thought maybe I could try writing a song, but nothing happened. I couldn’t come up with anything to say.”

“So then what happened?”

“I fell asleep on the swing for a bit. Then I woke up with Julianne yelling for Blackbeard to come back.”

“What?” I nearly choked on my laughter.

“She ran into your cat sitter when they were both showing up. She thought maybe Blackbeard would like to see me from the other side of the fence, but he apparently didn’t understand he was supposed to stay over in your yard.”

“Did he climb you?” I had no doubt that was what he’d intended. He liked curling up on Katie’s breasts as much as I liked playing with them. A whole fucking hell of a lot.

“The cat sitter caught him before he got to me. He was about three or four feet away, which was closer than he should have been, but it was only for a second. We called a vet to be sure it wouldn’t hurt him. They said he should be okay since it was such limited exposure.”

She stopped talking for a minute, and I thought I heard her sniffle.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Would it be bad that I wanted him to come snuggle with me even if it was dangerous for him? Just that little bit of contact would— Never mind. I’m fine.”

She wasn’t fine. She wasn’t even close to fine, and it had only been a few days. I didn’t know how she was going to get through a month of this. I didn’t know how I was going to get through a month of not being able to touch her, to hold her and comfort her, to tell her everything was going to be all right and know that what I was saying was the truth.

“What are you doing right now?” I asked, hoping to move her thoughts away from her loneliness.

“I told Mia I was tired and needed a nap. I’m alone in my bed. Thinking about you. What are you doing right now?”

“The same. I’m alone in my hotel room and thinking about you.”

“Coop’s not there?”

“Out with the guys,” I said.

“When’s he coming back?” She sounded devious. No, that wasn’t quite right. She sounded sexy.

I groaned, already getting hard just from thinking of all the things that couldn’t happen right now. “Not for a while,” I said.

She made a quiet humming sound. “Lock the door.”

“What?” I sat up in the bed, sure I was hearing things.

“Lock the door so he doesn’t walk in on you while you’re…while we’re… Just get up and lock the damn door.”

I got up and locked the damn door. “Okay. Done. Door’s locked.” Now what?

“What are you wearing?” she asked.

“Jeans and a T-shirt.”

“I’m still in my pj’s. I never got dressed today since I knew I wasn’t going out. It’s a satin shirt that buttons down the front and reaches almost to my knees, and it slides over my skin like butter.”

I imagined her gliding her hand down that material. Without conscious thought, I rubbed my hand over my cock. “Are you touching yourself?” I asked, lying on the bed again, one knee bent and the other leg stretched out.

“No. Do you want me to?”

Fuck, yes. But I said, “If you want.”

“My nipples are hard, Jamie.” Not only that, but her breathing was heavy.

“Are you touching them?”

“Yes. I’m pinching my nipple and rolling it between my thumb and fingers, and it’s straining for more.”

“Are you wearing a bra?”

“No.”

I swallowed hard. “Panties?”

Silence. A lot of silence that stretched into forever. Then, “Not anymore. Are you touching yourself?”

“Yes.” My voice cracked.

“Are you hard yet?”

“Hard enough to crush stone.”

“Take off your pants, Jamie.”

“I’m on it.” I held the phone in place with my shoulder and lowered my jeans and boxers to my knees.

“Did I tell you that I’m wet?” she asked. “I’m already so wet. My fingers can just slip and slide wherever they want to go.”

“Dip a finger inside,” I said. I stroked myself, eyes closed, imagining it was her mouth on me.

“I have two fingers in there. And my thumb is circling my clit, and it feels good, Jamie. It feels almost as good as having you touch me.”

“I wish I could touch you right now.”

“What would you do if you could?” she asked.

“I’d push your knees apart and put my mouth where your hand is, and I’d lick you. I’d lick your pussy until you came, and then I’d roll you over on top of me so you could ride me, and I’d play with your breasts until you came again with me inside you.”

“Are you rubbing your cock?”

“Yes. Pretending it’s you instead.”

“What are you seeing me do?” she asked.

“Your mouth is on me.”

“On you how?”

“Your lips are around me, squeezing, and you’re taking as much of me as you can. Hot and wet. You’re using your hand, too.”

“Teasing your balls?”

“Yes. Massaging and tugging on them.”

“I’m pretending it’s you inside me.”

“Oh God.”

“Yes. You’re in me, and you’re so big and hard, and you want me so much that you’re filling me all the way. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt, you know? The kind that is about to give way to the best feeling ever.”

“Am I moving?”

“Fast and hard. So hard. Almost bruising, but not. Just enough to leave me tender tomorrow. The kind of tender that makes me think of you every time I feel it, and then I want you all over again.”

“I always want you,” I said. My mouth was dry from wanting her.

“Are you close? I’m close, Jamie. I’m so close.”

She was. I could hear it in the way her breath was hitching and in the soft, whimpering sounds she was letting out.

“Yes, I’m close,” I said.

“Close your eyes.”

“Already closed.”

“Mine, too. Can you see me? In your mind? Do you see me there?”

Always. I would never be able to see anyone but her. “Yes,” I rasped.

“I see you, too. I see you, and I hear your voice and the harshness of your breath in my ear, and I can almost feel you, Jamie.”

Almost. This was as close as we were likely to come any time soon.

I was past the point of no return. “I’m going to come,” I said.

“Do it. Come, Jamie. I’m so close, too.”

So I did on a groan, stroking my length until after the spasms stopped.

“You always sound the same when you come,” she said. “Did you know that?”

Was that normal? Did some people sound different? I shook it off, preferring to focus instead on helping Katie to join me in at least that one way. “If I were there right now,” I said, “what would you want me to do?”

For a long moment, there was nothing on the other end of the line but an occasional gasp or whimper. “Hold me,” she finally said, but this came out as far more than a whimper. It was a plea. A prayer. “Just hold me.”

It was all I wanted to do.

WITH EVERY DAY that passed, I felt better than I had the day before. I had been expecting that, of course, since I’d been through this whole rigmarole recently enough that there wasn’t any chance I would forget it. That being said, the effect on that first day had been more intense than I’d remembered, but this was a different treatment plan than what I’d gone through the first time. Same side effects, different severity.

When Friday finally rolled around, my first forced isolation came to an end. Now, at least for a few days until my next treatment, I was allowed to have limited contact with other people. I was still supposed to avoid children, pregnant women, and animals as much as possible, so no hanging out in the owner’s box at Storm games, but at least I could hug my mom again without worrying about causing her harm.

Jamie and the rest of the team weren’t due to return until early the next week. He and I talked every day, as often as possible. Our first experience with phone sex had turned into a way to connect on a physical level—even though we weren’t truly touching each other—at a time when I wasn’t allowed any physical contact with anyone. I hadn’t been so sure about it when Soupy had initially made the suggestion, but I was glad I’d given it a shot. In some ways, it was helping to keep me sane.

The other thing keeping me sane was my garden out back. I spent more and more time there, especially in the late afternoons and early evenings. Sunset was the time that called to me. I took my notepad and a pen, sat, and listened to the sounds of the world passing me by. I’d started jotting down a few lines, scattered and fragmented phrases, much like my thoughts. I could always make sense of them later, but for now it was enough just to get them out of my head and put them on paper.

Now that my visitors weren’t limited to two hours of contact at a go, Mom was spending most of her time with me. Well, more at my house than with me. I couldn’t get her to stop cleaning. She was constantly going around my house with her protective gloves on, wiping down surfaces and throwing bedding and towels into the laundry, dealing with all the things that could be contaminated with radiation. She wouldn’t stop no matter how many times I asked her to just sit with me.

I understood it. She needed to do something, and right now the only thing she felt as though she could do was take care of things so I wouldn’t have to. Still, I wished she would just sit next to me and talk to me about things that were going on outside my little house. I was feeling more and more cut off from the world.

Over the weekend, we went shopping for furniture and equipment to put in my studio. Dad was going to finish the built-in once the team got back to town, but I wanted to go ahead and get everything else in now, particularly since this first week of cancer treatment had proven to me just how isolated I was going to be. I needed an outlet. I needed a way to channel all the things I was feeling instead of keeping them all bottled up inside me, and it was worth trying to see if I could do that by creating music.

I paid extra for Sunday delivery because I wanted it all set up before the next round started, and a few of the WAGs came over to help Mom and me get everything installed properly. Julianne even brought her kids with her—all teenagers, old enough that we didn’t have to worry too much about radiation—and Elin and Maddie tagged along, too.

Maddie brought a huge stack of books with her. “Romance novels,” she explained, carrying them into my bedroom to put on the nightstand closest to the window. “Mom sent them. She likes to read them when she doesn’t feel well. Sometimes I sneak one of them off to my bedroom to read at night and put back in the morning before she notices. Don’t tell her.”

“Our secret,” I murmured.

She pulled a fancy notebook out, as well, setting it beside the books. “For songwriting.”

“How’d you know I was thinking about writing songs?”

Maddie shrugged. “Why would you be making a studio in your house if you weren’t going to be singing? And a lot of singers write their own songs. It just makes sense.”

I supposed it did. I picked up the book on the top of the stack. Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. “Have you read this one?” I asked. Maddie had always been an avid reader, but I supposed she’d grown up a lot in the last few years if she was reading books like these. I was used to seeing her with the Percy Jackson series or the Harry Potter books.

She nodded, eyes wide with excitement. “That’s one of my favorites. Mom’s too. That’s why she put it on top. She said to start with that one.” She looked around my room, her brows puckered. “You need a reading chair in here.”

“I hadn’t thought of that yet,” I murmured, tossing the book back on the pile.

“Which one is the most comfortable? From the living room?” Maddie was already on her way out. “We can move one in here for now, and then sometime you can get one that’ll go with the rest of your furniture in here better. But if you’re going to be shut away in your room a bunch, you need a good chair.”

I followed her and picked one out. As soon as I did, she hollered for Étienne and his older brother, Patrice, to come and move it, directing them as to exactly how it should be placed.

“You take after your mom a lot,” I said to her. “Did you know that?”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “We all look like Mom.”

“I wasn’t talking about the way you look,” I said, winking. “I meant the way you just get things done.”

She blushed, but she kept working. She found a warm blanket and draped it over the back of my chair, and she relocated a floor lamp so it was behind the chair. In no time, she’d created a cozy reading corner.

It wasn’t long before everyone else had my studio set up and functional. Soupy came over after a while, claiming that Rachel had kicked him out because he was a nuisance. I suspected she just wanted a quiet evening without having to watch the game, though. She worked for the team, and she was married to one of the players. I had a feeling she couldn’t escape it. Anyway, Tuck had gone over to play with some friends for the afternoon, and Soupy said the twins had come down with something they’d picked up at daycare and were napping. I figured she didn’t want the game—or Soupy’s reactions—to wake them up.

I ordered pizza, and everyone dug in while we watched the Storm’s game against the Washington Capitals. The guys played much better this time, and I couldn’t help but notice that even though Koz still liked to showboat a bit out there, he was at least starting to make an effort at backchecking when the play headed the other direction. That was a huge improvement. Maybe Jamie’s plan was starting to work.

They still lost the game, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort this time. It was more that the Caps’ goalie was a beast in the net tonight, and he wasn’t letting much of anything past him. That happened sometimes. They could play well but run into a hot goaltender who would essentially steal the game. We all knew Nicky had done that on more than a few occasions himself, so you couldn’t curse the hockey gods for it. All signs were starting to point toward the guys turning their season around, though, so my guests went home in a more relaxed mood than they would have a week or two ago.

Soupy and Maddie were the last to leave. I followed them out to be sure he didn’t catch one of his crutches on something in the dark. Maddie got into his SUV and dug a book out of her bag—I had to wonder if it was one of her mom’s romance novels—but Soupy held back for a minute.

“You ready for tomorrow?” he asked.

“No.” I would rather not think about tomorrow at all.

“You’ll get through it all right. I’m on afternoon Katie-sitting duty. Rachel said I get to be there for the puking-up-your-guts part this time. Something about men being disgusting pigs anyway so I should be able to handle it.” He laughed. “It can’t be any worse than changing explosive diapers, right?”

I didn’t feel like laughing.

“Hey,” he said, “lighten up some. There’s more than enough time later to be down about it.”

I smiled for his sake even though I was on the verge of crying again. Those tears seemed to always be just under the surface these days. I was like a ginormous ball of anger and anxiety and fear lately—mainly fear. Always fear. “I’m trying.”

“I know you are.” He let go of the handgrip on one of his crutches and waved me closer. “Come here.”

“I shouldn’t get too close right now.” They said some contact was all right, but how could they be sure? And how much was too much? Soupy had a family who needed him healthy and whole, and he had enough issues of his own without adding whatever my radioactive body might add to the mix.

“I promise I will avoid touching you at all costs for the next few days and I’ll follow all the damn safety rules while I’m around you, but right now you need a fucking hug. So come here.”

He was right about that. I needed a hug. I needed human contact. I was so desperate for it that I didn’t know what to do with myself. That desperation finally won out, and I crossed over to him.

Soupy gave good hugs. He was a big, strong man with arms that felt safe, and I let him enfold me in a brotherly embrace. He held me a lot longer than I should have allowed, and he kissed my cheek when he finally backed away.

“Better?” he asked.

I nodded. “At least for now.”

“All right. I’ll see you after lunch for cleanup duty.”

I wandered back inside, not sure what to do with myself now that I was alone. Jamie would probably call me after a while, but not until they got to the hotel in Tampa. I thought about reading one of Rachel’s books, but I wasn’t in the mood. Instead, I picked up the notebook and pen, and I headed out to the backyard to sit on the swing, thinking I could give songwriting another try. It hadn’t worked out so well the first time, but I wasn’t ready to give up. There’d been a lot on my mind lately, which surely had an effect on my ability to be creative.

The light of the moon combined with the streetlights around the city were just enough that I could see what I was writing. At first, I just scribbled a few words that didn’t make any sense. But then the emptiness I felt from seemingly being alone even while I had people surrounding me started to take shape in words, and I filled the page. As I moved farther down the page, some inner sense took over. I realized some of the lines I’d written early on were wrong, they merely skimmed the surface of what I’d meant to say, so I went back and scratched through them, scrawling in the margins to put down what I really meant.

I got so caught up in what I was working on that I completely lost track of time. It was only when my phone rang and I realized it was Jamie calling me that I had a clue how many hours had passed. I answered, gathering up my notebook and pen so I could go back inside.

For a while, we talked about the game and other things going on with the team. He told me about a prank Coop and some of the other guys had played on Levi, and he filled me in on the fact that Dad had done a face-plant coming off the plane and busted his nose so badly that he looked like he had been in a fight. I walked him through my day in much the same way.

“Sounds like you had a bunch of company all day,” he said.

“Yeah.” But I’d still been lonely. How did that work? I’d been surrounded by people all day, people who obviously cared about me because they’d given up their time to help me out, but I had still felt as if I were on an island of one.

“You alone now?”

“Yeah. Soupy stuck around for a bit after the game, but he had to get home and help Rachel with the kids. Mom’s coming back at the butt crack of dawn to take me up to the cancer center.” And then the whole process was going to start all over again. I got choked up just thinking about the isolation that would be upon me in less than half a day. “Jamie, I don’t know if I can do this! I can’t handle it.”

“You can. You will.” He sounded so certain, but I was on the verge of a total meltdown. “I’ll be back late on Tuesday. I’ll come over when I get home if you want.”

“You can’t stay with me then.”

“I could stay in your guest room.”

“Blackbeard needs you.”

“So do you.”

I did, but he couldn’t give me what I needed right now.

“IT’S BULLSHIT. IT’S absolute fucking bullshit.” Soupy was barking into the phone, spouting off more obscenities than I could keep up with, and I still didn’t have a clue what the hell he was talking about in the first place.

“Slow down,” I said over the latest string of curses. “What’s bullshit? What’s going on?”

“You haven’t seen the pictures of me and Katie?”

Apparently not. “What kind of pictures?” I asked warily. I knew better than to think anything had happened between the two of them. Soupy was as head over heels in love with Rachel as I was with Katie. Plus, Katie had been dealing with cancer treatments, for fuck’s sake. But I was quickly learning that there was no telling how sick and twisted the media could make something innocent seem.

“I hugged her last night out in front of her house,” he said. “She needed a hug, and I was there, and I gave her a fucking hug. They’ve apparently been camping out down the street all week, taking pictures of me every time I come and go so they can talk about how often I’m coming over to fuck her or some shit. And then last night, they got their money shot when I hugged her. Like it’s fucking proof of anything.”

“They don’t need proof,” I said. They just needed some fodder to work from and then they were off to the races.

“What the hell do we do about it?”

Punching things wouldn’t help, I reminded myself. “Does Katie know yet?”

“I doubt it. I hope not, at least. This is the last thing she needs right now. Laura’s got her home now, but I doubt she’s feeling up to doing much.”

“Well, for now, just keep doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t matter what people think. What matters is keeping Katie’s spirits up enough that she can get healthy again.” And in the meanwhile, I needed to up my game on figuring out a way to combat the paparazzi.

That was just the way my life was lately—solve one problem and another would crop up to replace it.

WHEN WE FINALLY got back to Portland, Blackbeard had nearly doubled in size. Or at least it seemed that way. He hadn’t forgotten me, though. As soon as I walked through the door, he made a flying leap for me and climbed the rest of the way to my shoulder. I tried to pet him, but he bit my finger and butted his head against mine, rubbing all over me so hard that he would have fallen off if not for my hand holding him steady.

I texted Katie to see if she was awake. No answer. Even though I was desperate to at least see her, despite the fact that I couldn’t touch her, I stayed at my house all night. She needed her sleep. Not that I got any. The whole night, I tossed and turned, going crazy being this close to her again and not being able to talk to her or touch her, to let her know that I was here and do whatever I could to make her feel better. Blackbeard wasn’t a fan of my insomnia. Every time I rolled over, he grumbled at me and readjusted, sometimes nipping my nose or my ear to be sure I understood the gravity of his displeasure.

Morning finally arrived. I felt like shit from lack of sleep and having flown all the way across the country after yet another loss, but it didn’t stop me from texting to see if she was up. Still nothing. I took a shower, made my breakfast, and played with Blackbeard for a bit, waiting for her to wake up.

She didn’t respond, though.

I needed to leave for practice soon. Bergy had told me I should take the day off. He and Jim were willing to call it a maintenance day for me even though I didn’t have any injuries that needed to be rested. I didn’t feel good about that, though. Yeah, the guys all knew that Katie had cancer again, and I needed to be with her, but we were finally starting to play like a team even if we were losing. Skipping out on practices didn’t seem very captain-like, so I wasn’t going to go there.

With about ten minutes left before I had to head out the door, I thought maybe I could look across the back fence to see if I could get a glimpse of her through one of her windows. Right now, anything would help to ease my worries. I went out back and walked up to the fence to find her swinging under the tree.

“Hey,” I said, and she swiveled her head to look at me. I propped my arms on top of the rails and rested my chin on them, staring. Just staring. I couldn’t get enough of her.

“Hey,” she said, her sweet voice cracking.

“I texted to see if you were up yet.”

“My phone’s inside. I came out to watch the sun come up. Haven’t moved since.”

She had on a checkered shirt with a soft, fuzzy blanket draped around her shoulders. It wasn’t cold out, but she was shivering hard enough I could see it from here. All I wanted to do was go over to her side of the fence and hold her close until she stopped shaking. We both knew that wasn’t possible right now, though.

“Why don’t you go inside and warm up?” I suggested.

She turned her head again, looking off into the distance. “Why? So I can turn on the TV and see the latest headlines and figure out what they’re accusing me of next? Katie Weber bought a house across town so she can screw every guy in the NHL right under her father’s nose! Next thing you know, they’ll be saying I’m screwing Dad, too. Or maybe that he’s my pimp. I bet that’s it. He’s sending you guys my way so he can take a cut of the profits, and Mom’s working as my madam. Maybe I’m busy training up all the other WAGs so they can prostitute themselves, too. I bet that would make for a great headline.”

“Have you thought about revealing that you have cancer again?” I asked. I didn’t want her to have to do that if she wasn’t ready for it, but I was grasping at straws to figure out a way to get them to leave her alone. “Maybe if you let the world in on what’s really happening, the gossip sites would leave you alone.”

“Or maybe they’ll just find a new way to twist it into something worse than it already is,” she bit off. “Breaking news! Katie Weber is funding a radical, costly, and dangerous cancer treatment by whoring herself out to everyone with a cock and two pennies to rub together. Thanks, but no thanks.”

I wished she would look at me. I wished I could see her face and know she was looking in mine, so I could reassure her in some way. But there wasn’t much I could say, and it felt as if there was even less that I could do to actually help.

“I’ll figure something out to get them to leave you alone,” I said.

“Good luck with that. For all we know, they’ve found some way to tap our phones. They’ve probably been recording our calls, and they’re saving that to broadcast sometime soon, when the latest bit of gossip has died off. Sordid phone sex with Katie Weber is just a button away…for the right price! Just wait. It’s coming.”

But it wasn’t. Not if I had anything to say about it.

“NEW YEAR’S EVE?” I repeated after Brie, glancing up at her, Jessica, and the guys from The End of All Things to be sure I’d heard correctly. They nodded. It seemed so far off even though it wasn’t all that far at this point.

It was a day off for the Storm, and Katie was with her mother at the cancer center to get another round of radiation. She’d refused to let me come with her. All I have to do is drink some nasty shit and wait for it to start working. And by the time it does, all I want to do is puke, and you can’t be around me then, anyway. I’d still go over to spend my couple of hours with her later, but this had given me the perfect excuse to get together with Brie and see where our plans stood. She’d set up a meeting with the band and Jessica so we could all be together at the same time and hash out the finer details. We were at the Light the Lamp offices, and Jessica’s assistant was manning the phones while we talked over coffee and Voodoo Doughnuts.

“That’s the soonest we can possibly get something put together,” Spencer Braddock, the lead guitar player, said. “We’ve got the final leg of our tour to finish up. While we’re doing that, we can have Brie, Jessica, and some of our people back here doing the legwork.”

“But what about the Light the Lamp event that night?” I argued, adding cream to my coffee. Every year, Jessica put on a big event on New Year’s Eve for her foundation, a party where addicts and anyone else who wanted to join in could come and hang out for a sober good time. It acted as a fund raiser for Light the Lamp, too, since she got local hotshots to be celebrity drivers for the night. If we were in town, she usually wrangled a bunch of the Storm players to take part. Katie and Beau had done it last year since they’d been in town. People would bid on the opportunity for us to drive them home afterward. It didn’t seem fair to take that night away from Light the Lamp in order to do something for Katie.

“We’re going to figure out a way to combine it all into one big night,” Jessica reassured me. “This is actually going to work out great for Light the Lamp because if we can get the band involved, the turnout will be through the roof.”

“We’ll pay for the production costs for the concert out of the ticket prices,” Brie said. “Everything that’s left after that is going to be split equally between Light the Lamp and the Katie Weber Foundation.”

“Laura and I should be done getting the new foundation set up in the next couple of weeks, so it’ll all work out,” Jessica said.

“And you guys don’t care that you’d be working for free?” I asked the band.

“It won’t be the first charity gig we’ve done, and it won’t be the last,” Emery Johnson said. He was the keyboard player for the band, and the one who did most of the songwriting. He was the one I wanted to get Katie involved with more than any of them.

“Our agent says it’s good to do one every now and then,” Spencer added.

“And it only helps them to increase their presence in the local community,” Jessica put in. “It’s the same thing as when you guys get involved in something local. You don’t have to donate your time or your money, but you do it anyway.”

We did, but hockey players were small potatoes compared to The End of All Things. They were up there in the stratosphere with The Beatles and Elvis and shit. These guys couldn’t go anywhere without their security guards at their sides. It was even worse than what Katie had been dealing with, and her ordeal was more than enough.

“If you’re sure,” I said.

“We’re sure,” Emery said. “So then it’ll be up to you to get Katie to stay at the arena after the game.”

“Exactly,” Spencer said. “You get her to stay, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

I half laughed, half snorted. “Right.” That would be easier said than done. By then, she was bound to be in the midst of chemotherapy. I wasn’t positive she would want to come to the game that night to begin with, but even if she did, she would probably want nothing more than to go home and go to bed once it ended.

“You can convince her,” Brie said. “They’re her favorite band. It’ll be something fun she can do, and we all know she hasn’t had much fun lately.”

That didn’t even begin to cover it.

THIS TIME WAS worse than last time. Maybe not the nausea part of it, but just in general. I could tell she ached everywhere from the soft moans she let slip every time she rolled over in her bed, the notebook she’d been writing in knocked to the floor, splayed open at the spine with pages crushed due to falling from her bed. Standing here in the doorway and watching her made me feel so fucking useless. I should be holding her. I should be rubbing her aches away or keeping her wrapped up in my warmth so she wasn’t lying there—alone—with her teeth chattering from the cold. But instead I was here, leaning against the doorframe to her room, and I couldn’t do a fucking thing to make her feel better.

The doorbell rang, and she didn’t even look up. Not that we would let her get out of bed to answer it anyway. Soupy and I were both here, and Jim Sutter had dropped in for a bit to check on her, as well. That was one of the things I respected most about Jim. He cared as much about the friends and family of his players as he did about the players themselves. When he said we were a family, he meant it.

I headed down the hall in time to see Soupy crutching toward the front door. Levi came through when he opened it. And Koz, surprisingly, who was carrying a vase with white and yellow Gerbera daisies. This was the first time Koz had ever voluntarily done anything with me outside of the rink, and he’d brought flowers. I didn’t know what to think of that.

They both had notebook-paper-sized bits of poster board in their hands that had charity information scrawled on them. I’d stolen the idea from a few other celebs who’d been hounded by the paparazzi. I had handed out the poster board and permanent markers, told the guys what to write on them, and to hold the signs up and make sure any pics the fucking hidden cameramen decided to take of us as we went into Katie’s house would have the messages included. It meant they were less likely to post shit about her online, and even if they did, at least we were sending out a good message. I was sure they weren’t ready to give up on their current obsession, anyway, especially since even more of the guys were coming over and giving them more gossip fodder, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot else we could do, short of staying away. I didn’t know about the rest of the guys, but they would have a hell of a time keeping me away when I could be here.

“How’s she doing?” Levi asked.

I shook my head. “Not well.” There wasn’t a hell of a lot to say other than that.

“Can I…” Koz held up the vase and angled his head toward the hall.

“Just be sure you keep your distance,” I said. I had no clue if he’d been paying attention when I’d told everyone who wanted to come see her how far away they had to be.

“Got it,” he said, and he took off toward her room.

Levi and Soupy followed me into the living room, and Soupy plopped down on the sofa, putting his injured leg up on the coffee table.

“You could go home now,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Can’t do that. Rachel’s orders.”

Jim chuckled. He was in the dining room at the table with his laptop open, doing Lord only knew what. The guy was always working.

“Rachel’s orders?” I repeated.

“I’m supposed to be sure you don’t stay too long, you don’t get too close to Katie, you don’t touch her, and you absolutely don’t kiss her under any circumstances. If I fail to uphold my end of things, my wife is going to withhold certain privileges that I have no intention of giving up on your account. So I’m staying.”

“She would never have to know,” Levi pointed out, and I agreed wholeheartedly.

“Rachel knows everything,” Jim said. He looked up at us over the tops of his bifocals. “That’s why I can’t do my job without her. I wouldn’t advise putting that to the test.”

“And I don’t intend to,” Soupy said, smirking. “Sometimes I’m on Katie-sitting duty. Today, it’s Babs-sitting duty. But if she pukes, you get to clean it up.”

“Levi can do that.”

“No fucking chance.” He shuddered.

“Point is,” Soupy said, “I’m looking after you as much as you’re looking after her today. That’s just how it’s going to be, so you might as well accept that I’m going to be here until you go back over to your place.”

I rolled my eyes, but I left it alone. We all sat around talking for a while, but then I realized that Koz still hadn’t returned from taking Katie the flowers. I excused myself to investigate. The door to her room was open, and I popped my head in. She was sitting up in her chair by the window, the flowers on a table next to her and a book in her hands. Koz was on the other side of the room on the floor, knees bent and arms stretched out across them.

The thing that surprised me most, though, was to find Katie smiling and Koz laughing. She glanced over at me and her smile got even brighter.

“Did Koz show you these?” She pointed toward the flowers.

“He did,” I said, still feeling wary because I didn’t understand what was going on or how he’d gotten her to mood to lift in such a short amount of time. I mean, he’d just brought her flowers, for fuck’s sake. Anyone could do that. I hadn’t, but that wasn’t the point.

“He’s been telling me how he used to take flowers to his grandma every day when she was going through radiation and chemo.”

“I didn’t know your grandmother had cancer,” I said.

He shrugged and gave me a fuck-you look. “You never asked.”

That was true. I had never bothered to learn much of anything about the guy. I knew what everyone had been saying about him when he’d come over in the trade, and I’d assumed it to be the truth. It was the same thing people had been doing to Katie, and it was bullshit.

“I never did,” I said. “You’re right.” I had always just assumed the worst about the kid, and I figured it was all rubbing off on my brother, and I didn’t like him because of it. The room-escape activity had helped me to learn a lot about him just through observation, things I never would have realized otherwise. But now I was coming to understand that maybe there was even more to the story than I ever would have imagined. I sank down to the floor just inside the doorway, taking up a position much like his.

“She loves daisies. Always has. They made her smile when there wasn’t a hell of a lot worth smiling over. She said it helped her get through the worst of her treatments. She knew she would always have fresh flowers in the house. I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if it would help Katie smile, too.”

And apparently, it had. She was still beaming. “How’s she doing?” I asked him.

“She just bought a motorcycle,” he said, and he actually grinned at me. “And over the summer, she asked me to go with her to the tattoo parlor. We got matching ink.”

“Which tat?” I asked.

“The one on my left shoulder.”

I did a double take. “Your grandma got a tattoo of giving someone the finger?”

“Giving cancer the finger, because that’s what she’d just done.” He sobered. “She raised me. My mom was still a kid when she had me, so Grandma took over.”

Which served to prove that you never really knew someone’s story, even if you thought you did. I’d pegged him as a spoiled rich kid who’d never been told no his whole life.

For the rest of my time with Katie that day, the two of us got to know more about Koz. Even though it was very obvious that she still felt like hell, she was smiling when the guys and I left. A real smile, not one she’d pasted in place so we wouldn’t worry.

I WASN’T SURE if the signs the guys and I carried with us as we came and went from Katie’s house were helping, or if it was just the fact that she was staying out of the public eye. Whatever was behind it, the media was finally easing up on her and finding some other celebrities to feed their addiction.

That was one positive thing.

The way the team had been playing of late was another positive. Whether Koz was starting to feel more like he belonged or we were treating him more like he was one of us, there had been a huge change in the way he was playing. He was listening more and talking less, but when he did speak up, he usually had something constructive to say. He saw the ice differently than most of us, almost like he could see a play forming from up above. He realized not only where the guys on the ice were at the moment but could see where they were heading. Now, when he said something, the rest of us listened.

Our puck luck was starting to change for the better, and everyone was playing a lot looser. Well, almost everyone. I hadn’t been playing my best. I hadn’t scored a goal in nearly two weeks, and I’d hardly even gotten any assists. Those I had gotten had been due to luck more than any of my own efforts. My aim and timing were off, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I tried not to let it get to me, but it was. I felt as if I wasn’t holding up my end of the bargain, and that didn’t make me a very good captain.

In my weekly leadership meetings with Bergy and the rest of the coaches, we always discussed the things we could do to keep the team moving in this direction, keep the guys focused on the big picture and our overall goals. Bergy was a huge proponent of goals, big and small, short-term and long-term.

Even though I knew my game was suffering, it surprised me when, during our most recent meeting, Bergy wasn’t happy with the short-term goal I’d written down: Spend a day on the road with Koz to get to know him better.

“That’s not a good goal for you,” Bergy said.

“Why isn’t that a good goal?” I asked.

“Because you’ve already done what you needed to with Koz. Now you need to trust the rest of the guys to pick up where you left off. He’s being a team player now. He’s found his voice in the room and on the ice. He doesn’t need to be your focus anymore.”

I must have been giving him a confused expression because he scowled, crossing his arms. “You need to make goals about your own game. Not the team. You need to figure out what’s going on with your own shit instead of worrying about everyone else’s for a while.”

“It’s easier to worry about them than to deal with what’s wrong with me.”

“I think you know what’s wrong with you.” Bergy handed me another three-by-five index card. When I didn’t immediately start writing, he said, “Tell him what he needs to focus on, Danger, because he’s not getting it.”

“If your personal life isn’t in order, your game is going to suffer,” Danger said. “It’s a simple fact. Right now, your focus shouldn’t be on the team as much as it should be on your life away from the game.”

My life away from the game. Right now, that was just Katie. Nothing more and nothing less. And obviously, the ways I worried about her had probably been affecting my play.

“It’s only normal to worry about the people you love, Babs,” Burnzie said. “That’s what we do. You need to find ways to channel that when we’re off the ice so that during games, you can think about what’s happening there.”

I chewed on that for a while, and then I remembered what Koz had said about bringing his grandma flowers every day because it had made her smile. He had done it because it was something that lightened her load, even just for a moment, and that made living his own life slightly easier. He couldn’t cure his grandma’s cancer any more than I could cure Katie’s, but he could bring her flowers. He could make her smile, even if it was only a brief respite. I could do the same thing.

I wrote down a new goal: Make Katie smile every day, no matter what it takes.

Bergy looked over my shoulder, and then he nodded and walked away. “I think that’s good enough for this week, boys. Let’s get ready for practice.”

“THE TUMOR IS definitely shrinking,” Dr. Oliver said.

I grasped on to that like it was a life buoy. “Then no surgery.”

He glanced up over the top of my chart. “It’s shrunk, but not enough to rule out surgery. It’s not gone, and I doubt it will completely disappear until you have the thyroidectomy. You’re skipping over steps, Katie. Important steps.”

I sighed like a deflating balloon, and Jamie took my hand. We’d hardly had this much contact in a month, and I let his warmth cocoon around me.

For the last couple of weeks, he’d been bringing me flowers every day and having them delivered while he was out on the road. My house was starting to look like a spring garden. Daisies, tulips, roses, lilies, carnations…he’d given me every flower under the sun in every color imaginable. I kept running out of vases and having to send someone out to buy me more so I’d have room for them all. That wasn’t what had touched me the most, though. He’d given me a soft, stuffed cat, a toy like you’d give a five-year-old. So you’ll have something to hold when you’re not allowed contact, he’d said. I’d felt silly at first when I’d snuggled that cat close to me at night, but eventually the thought had faded and I’d been glad for something to hold.

But now, he was next to me. Holding my hand. Helping to settle me through the simple act of touching me. I doubted he understood just how healing his presence could be, but it was a balm to my soul at a time when I felt as alone as I’d ever been in my life.

“Radiation has definitely helped things along,” the doctor said. “It hasn’t helped enough, and I don’t think this is something we want to just keep throwing radiation at. I think we definitely need to move on to chemotherapy, as we discussed previously.”

I bit my tongue to keep from throwing a fit. Radiation had been awful, and chemo was worse, but at least chemo wouldn’t keep me in isolation nonstop. I would be allowed to touch people again. To touch Jamie, like we were doing now. To let him hold me. Maybe we could even make love sometimes, as long as I felt up to it and he wasn’t disgusted by my bald head and all the other fun things that came with the territory.

“Okay. Chemo next, and then maybe the tumor will disappear.”

The doctor grimaced, and Jamie squeezed my hand, and I almost lost my shit.

“I know!” I said. “I shouldn’t get my hopes up about that, and I know that I’m probably going to end up having surgery. But I have to have hope that I can avoid it. Don’t take that one small thing away from me.” My damn tears were back, and it pissed me off. I batted them away with the back of my free hand. “Please. Just let me hope, even if you know that there is absolutely zero chance in hell that it’ll go the way I want, at least have the decency to leave me with some hope.” I took a shuddering breath, bracing myself for him to tell me the same shit he’d been telling me all along and squash my plea and my spirit in a single blow.

Dr. Oliver set the chart aside and fixed me with his professional stare. “There is always hope,” he said.

I took those words in and held them tight to my heart.

We spent some time hashing out all the details for my upcoming chemotherapy regimen. I would go in to have a port implanted in a few days, and I’d start the first round of chemo in a week. Dr. Oliver said I could start getting back to being around people like normal, as long as I was up to it. I needed to still limit the time I spent touching kids, pregnant women, and animals for another week or two, but I could have sex again—thank God—and have fairly normal contact with Jamie other than spending a full night together. The doctor said that should wait a week, as well, but we could gradually build ourselves up to the type of physical relationship that we wanted.

Once all of that was arranged, Jamie drove me home. It wasn’t a game night, and he’d already finished everything he was required to do for the team for the day, so he was mine until I had to go back to my place and sleep.

As soon as he opened the door from his garage, Blackbeard made a running leap for him.

“He’s so big!” I said. In a month, that kitten had to have doubled in size.

Jamie grinned. “Over two pounds now. He’s still underweight for his age, but he’s catching up as fast as he can.”

He headed into the living room, Blackbeard going along for the ride, and I followed. The fishing pole feather toy was on a table, up out of the kitten’s reach, so I took it down and gave it a swish. That was all the enticement Blackbeard needed to turn into a rabid feather hunter. He leaped and twirled, doing backflips, twisting in midair, and generally contorting his body in ways that left me and Jamie in stitches. I had to stop because I was laughing so hard it hurt, but Blackbeard acted as though he could have kept going forever.

I collapsed on the floor, flopping on my back until I could catch my breath. Four tiny paws ended up on my chest, and two wild, gigantic kitten eyes stared right at me.

“Oh, you haven’t had enough, have you?”

“Never,” Jamie said.

I flushed with heat from the promise in his voice. “I didn’t mean you.”

“I know.” He lay down on the floor beside me, stretching his body out so that we were touching at so many different points.

Then I couldn’t catch my breath, but for an entirely different reason.

He propped his head up on an elbow and looked down at me, tracing the lines of my face with his other hand. “Do you have any plans for New Year’s Eve?” he asked.

“Beyond coming to the game? After this last month, I’m ready for some human contact, at least where I can get it.”

“I mean after the game.”

I shook my head. “Are you not doing the Light the Lamp event this year?” I would do it, too, if not for the fact that I was bound to be bald alien-girl again by then, and I wasn’t really keen on having that plastered all over the entertainment news. Besides, chemo zapped the energy right out of me. Staying up for much beyond the Storm’s game was probably more than I could commit to doing.

“Jessica hasn’t told you?” he asked.

I shook my head, confused.

“It’s going to be different this year. She got together with Brie and managed to get The End of All Things on board.”

“What?” I was so excited by that news that I would have sat upright on the floor if not for his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin. Maybe I could convince my body to play along for that one night, if it meant a chance to hang out with my favorite band in the history of ever. “Aren’t they still supposed to be on tour then? Oh my God, they’re going to be celebrity drivers for the night? Do you think I could talk Jessica into letting me just be a guest for the night? I would make a huge donation if I could get Emery to drive—”

“Slow down.” Jamie laughed and placed a fingertip on my lips to silence me, and I kissed it. “Like I said, it’s going to be different this year. It’s going to be at the Moda Center after the game, and the band is going to put on a concert. The tickets they sell will raise money for Light the Lamp. I think she might still be doing the celebrity drivers afterward, too. Not sure on that part. So do you want to come with me? We don’t have to take part in anything official. I just know you love their music—”

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” And a thousand more yesses where that came from.

“Okay. I’ll make it happen. I can probably even convince Brie to figure out a way for you to get backstage and meet them. Maybe you could even watch the show from back there if you didn’t feel up to being out with the crowd.” His fingertips were still touching my lips, dancing lightly over them. “It’s been forever since I’ve kissed you.”

“Yes,” I said again. My voice was a harsh whisper against his touch. The excitement of his revelation combined with my longing for him made my heart feel like it was breaking through my ribs, it was pounding so hard.

He didn’t kiss me right away. At least not in a way where I could kiss him back. He pressed his lips to my temple first, holding them there for an impossible length of time before kissing the bridge of my nose. I held my breath, anxious to discover where his kisses would lead him next. He took his time, ramping up his efforts at such a gradual pace I thought I would go insane. I was so deprived of his touch that every ounce of contact left me feeling drugged, but in the best possible way.

Blackbeard had curled up on my chest and started purring, but he wasn’t alone. I was almost positive that I was purring, too.

“I need to make love to you,” Jamie said. “I need you so bad I can hardly stand it.”

He couldn’t need it as much as I did. I fisted my hand in his hair and drew him down to my lips, and I almost cried when they finally touched.

He kissed me slow and deep, his tongue exploring every hidden area of my mouth. He dislodged the kitten and rolled onto his back, bringing me up on top of him and cradling me against him.

I rested my head on his chest, savoring the sensation of him drawing his fingers through my hair—hair I wouldn’t have soon.

He buried his nose where his fingers had just been and drew in a deep breath. “Have I ever mentioned how much I fantasize about your hair?” he murmured.

He didn’t need to tell me. I knew.

“I want you to take me to bed, Jamie,” I said. “I want your hands on me, and I want to feel you inside me so that every time I get scared and lonely and can’t have your touch to calm me down, I can reach back in my mind and remember. I need your touch seared in my memory. I need it burned into my skin so it will never leave me.”

So he did. He got up and carried me to his bed, and we made love as though it were the last chance we would ever have. Having him inside me, looking into my eyes as though they were the key to my soul, allowed me to feel again. I’d been fighting to numb myself, not wanting to experience the emptiness that had surrounded me. But it was the moments afterward—when he held me like I’d been dreaming of for weeks on end, his fingertips methodically untangling my mass of hair—that I truly savored. Those moments allowed me to breathe again for the first time in weeks. He tenderly eased apart the knots in my hair, and I filled my lungs with life.

AS THE WEEKS PASSED, leaving Katie behind while the team went on road trips was getting to be more and more difficult. I honestly didn’t know how the guys with wives and kids could stand it, especially when someone they loved was sick. But throughout the league, players did it all the time. I never heard any of them complain about it, so I had to do it, too, and bite my tongue if I had to.

It was easier for me than it might have been, since I had Webs around to commiserate. He’d been leaving Laura and their kids behind for as long as I’d been alive. Not only that, but he cared about Katie as much as I did, so he understood the emotional toll it took on me each time we had to get on that damned charter plane. He helped keep me focused when we were out on the road.

Being able to talk to Katie every day—even if it was just a quick chat through text messages—helped me even more than having her father around did. I still spent a hell of a lot of my time worrying about her, though, and I didn’t know if that would ever ease up. At least not until the doctors gave her a clean bill of health again, which we all knew would be a long time coming.

I was still sending her flowers every day. Sometimes I’d throw in a teddy bear or a box of chocolates, anything I could think of to make her feel better even if it was just for a moment. In return, she sent me a selfie every day. It was something I’d hounded her for, even though I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them.

We started on the day that she went to the cancer center to have the chemo port put in. She took the picture on her cell phone from her hospital bed, hair covered by a cap and tubes connected to her. She looked more resigned than scared that day, despite her smile.

One by one, she sent me more pictures of herself, even on the days when the team was in Portland and I was with her. Some days, she was laughing and being goofy. Every now and then, she would pull Blackbeard into the shot, and he would be a blur of movement trying to get free or rubbing noses with her. Sometimes she would have her pen and notebook in hand, ink smudged on her cheek. Other days, her pain and fears came through in every aspect of her appearance.

The one that stabbed me in the gut came when we were in Winnipeg for a game against the Jets. She took a shot of her bare feet with teal-blue toenails—Brie and Mia had been over that day and they had given each other pedicures—with piles of her hair everywhere, and a message of only two words: It’s starting.

Years ago, I’d been there the day that her hair had started to fall out. She’d come to the locker room and had Webs shave the rest of her hair off with Jonny’s clippers because she couldn’t bear the thought of waiting on it to fall out bit by bit. This time, we were all miles and miles away. I got choked up thinking of how she would handle it. This time, Jonny had just flown in to join us after going home for the birth of his daughter, Cassidy. He went with me to the hotel’s gym that day and held a bag still so I could punch the shit out of it. Not that it helped.

When we got back to Portland, I went straight home. She was in my bed, as bald as the day she was born, with Blackbeard snuggled up by her shoulder. I stripped off my suit and got into bed with them, and I kissed every inch of her head while she cried.

AFTER BEING CLEARED to be around kids, Katie had started to come to some of our home games when she wasn’t feeling completely miserable. Once she lost her hair, though, she stopped coming.

At first, I didn’t understand. I mean, she had been through this before, and she hadn’t let losing her hair stop her from living her life back then. She’d thought about it, at first, preferring to hide at home instead of going to her prom or any of the other things she normally would have done. But then she’d gotten over it. She’d worn a wig or put on a scarf and gone on with her life. Hell, when I’d taken her to her prom, she’d gone without a fucking thing covering her head.

Not only that, but she’d just spent an entire month where she had been essentially a prisoner within her own home. Her contact with the outside world had been so limited, I didn’t understand why she would put herself through that again voluntarily. It was only when I realized that every time she left her house for any reason, she looked up and down the street, searching for photographers hidden in bushes or behind cars. Once I picked up on that, I got it.

Katie wasn’t ready for the world to know that her cancer had returned. She was waiting for the paparazzi to pounce again.

As soon as I connected the dots, I called up Brie. “I think this is a mistake,” I said the second she answered the phone. “The concert, getting her up on stage with them, proposing in front of the crowd, the whole shebang. I think I fucked up. Really, truly, royally fucked up.”

“It’ll be all right. You’re overreacting.”

“I’m not overreacting. We have to cancel it.”

“We can’t cancel it now,” she said. “It’s in two weeks. Everything’s booked. Jessica and Laura already got the foundation set up in Katie’s name. The show’s almost sold out. We’ve had dancers preparing for it for weeks, and the band has been pimping it out all over the place. There are too many wheels in motion, Babs.”

I knew all of that as well as I knew the back of my hand, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a huge blunder in putting this together without explaining it to Katie first. Without seeing if she was even interested in performing with them. What if she didn’t want the world to see her as she was? What if she wouldn’t go out on the stage and sing with them? Everything we’d been planning would go up in flames, just like that.

“People will find out sooner or later anyway,” Brie said. “She can’t hide the fact that she’s sick forever. And she shouldn’t. There are a lot of people out there who would want to support her through it, and she’s not giving them the chance.”

“I don’t disagree, but shouldn’t it be on Katie’s terms?”

“Are you chickening out of proposing? Because that doesn’t seem like you.”

“I’m not chickening out. I want to marry her.” I just didn’t want to traumatize her in order to do it. She’d already been through enough without me adding to it.

In the end, I’d accepted that things had already gone too far for me to change any of it. I would just have to hope for the best and figure out a way to minimize the damage if Katie didn’t respond well.

KATIE’S TREATMENTS PROGRESSED as expected. Most of the time, she felt like shit and wasn’t up to doing much. She was tired a lot, and she ached. I tried to help by giving her gentle massages when I could, but most of the time she just wanted me to cuddle her. Her sex drive was almost non-existent these days, but I didn’t imagine I would want to get it on, either, if I were going through what she was.

The days immediately following her treatments were the worst, but after a bit of time passed, she would get up and start doing things. Webs and I had finished setting up her studio, and sometimes I would find her in there with headphones on, picking at the keyboard or strumming a guitar, humming a melody. Other days, I would come home and she would be on the swing in her backyard with her notebook, writing down lyrics or completely lost in thought. Even in this time, which for so many people would be the lowest point of their lives, Katie was figuring out who she was and who she wanted to be.

Usually, when I found her like that, I smiled to myself and backed away, leaving her to her work. Sometimes she looked up and saw me before I could escape, though. She would smile and pat the seat beside her, and she would play me a bit of what she was working on or sing a few lyrics for me. There was a lot of sadness in her music, but always with an underlying sense of hope. That gave me hope, too. I locked those moments away in my mind. I didn’t want to lose them.

The entire Weber family got involved in the preparations for the big night. Laura had been working with Jessica on setting up the foundation, of course, but it didn’t stop there. She was the one making sure Katie was occupied whenever I needed to get together with someone for planning some aspect or another of the big night.

When Dani came home from school for a weekend, she and Webs went ring shopping with me—Dani because she knew Katie’s style and the two of them wore the same ring size, and Webs to be sure whatever I chose was good enough to be worthy of giving to his little girl.

Luke and his teammates at the University of Minnesota filmed a video, getting everyone on the team and in the stands at one of their games to do a dance that Brie choreographed to a song called “Summer Stars.” She and Mia flew out together to teach everyone the dance and film it, claiming they were each going to visit relatives so Katie wouldn’t suspect anything. The song was Katie’s favorite by The End of All Things, and the one that the band would bring her on stage to sing with them. The video would be played on the Jumbotron while they performed.

My family was trying to get involved, too. My birthday fell just before Christmas, but since all my brothers played hockey, my parents tended to pick which of their kids they would be with for the holidays. This year they were coming to Portland and bringing my three youngest brothers—Seth, Isaac, and Jack—with them. It was supposed to be Cal’s turn to have Mom and Dad for Christmas, but he said he would be more than all right hanging out with the billet family he was living with in Oshawa, and Reece was going to spend Christmas on the road with the Binghamton Senators in his first year as a pro.

The contingent of Babcocks arrived in Portland one day before my birthday, just in time for a home game against the Sharks. I offered to set them up in the owner’s box, along with most of the other relatives who were in from out of town, or get tickets for regular seats, but Mom had other plans. They decided to watch the game at my house with Blackbeard and Katie, since she still wasn’t going out much other than to her doctor’s appointments and hospital visits.

Katie texted me her selfie for the day just before I shut down my phone prior to the game. She had Blackbeard in a grip he was frantically trying to escape from, and my parents and three teenaged brothers were all surrounding her. Isaac, a sixteen-year-old with arms as long as I was tall, held the phone out to fit them all in the shot, and he had his head turned like he was going to kiss Katie on the top of her head if not for the kitten claws zooming straight for his nose. I laughed and powered off my phone, setting it in my stall.

“At least we know one thing about tonight,” Koz said over the hip-hop music playing in the background and all the talk as everyone got ready.

“What’s that?” Burnzie asked. The two of them were on much better terms lately, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot. Burnzie still thought Koz needed an attitude adjustment and wanted to be the one to give it to him. I had decided to let those two sort their differences out themselves.

Koz finished taping his socks and tossed the roll of tape to Levi. “The best fucking captain in the game tonight’s going to be playing for the home team,” he said.

I snorted. “Not sure it means much when the other team doesn’t have a captain.”

Burnzie gave me a disbelieving look and shook his head. “Take what you can get, Babs. Take it and run.”

I’D NEVER SPENT much time around Jamie’s family before other than Levi until the last couple of weeks. Mom and Dad had invited them over for a big Christmas dinner. Levi and Koz joined us, too, as well as Ghost, Harry, RJ, and Luddy, a few of the other young, single guys on the team. Luke and Dani were both home from school for the holidays.

My parents’ house wasn’t big enough for the whole clan, so Jamie suggested we do it at his place. We could have overflow and an extra kitchen with my house, and we could open up the gate between the two backyards for everyone to easily move from one place to another. It worked out great, with Mom and Mrs. B taking over the food prep.

I spent most of the day curled up in a ball on one of Jamie’s recliners. I’d had my latest round of chemo a few days before Christmas, and while the nausea had passed, my whole body ached. I didn’t have the energy to do much, but I didn’t want to be shut away from everyone in my room, either. Sometimes, Jamie would pick me up and steal my chair, drawing me onto his lap to cuddle with me. Other times, he was off keeping the guys entertained, playing pool or video games or something similar. That was when Blackbeard would jump up for a snuggle session. I was surrounded by people I loved the whole day, though.

When everyone else left to go home for the night, Jamie took me back to my house, carrying Blackbeard along with us. He handed me a small box that shook as he passed it over.

I gave him a wary look.

“Just open it,” he said, laughing.

As soon as I untied the ribbon, the lid popped off and a black-and-white tuxedo kitten climbed out.

“You didn’t.” I had to blink back tears of surprise and awe.

“I figured it couldn’t hurt for you to have one of your own, even though Blackbeard sometimes prefers you over me.” Jamie picked the new kitten up and set it in my palm. “She’s a snuggly thing. I thought, since I can’t be with you all the time when you need someone to hold you, maybe you needed another cat to curl up with. And it couldn’t hurt for Blackbeard to have someone else to play with, right?”

“She, huh?”

He frowned and picked up the kitten again, holding her to the light so he could check the appropriate parts. “Unless I’m mistaken. So I guess you’d better come up with a name for her before Levi gets any bright ideas.”

“Why don’t you name her since I named Blackbeard?”

“Yeah?” he asked.

I nodded.

“What about Oreo? She’s about as sweet as one, at least, and it fits her coloring.” He set her on the floor to join Blackbeard since she was squirming to go explore, and then he sat next to me on the couch, drawing my legs over his lap.

“Oreo works for me,” I said. So did the way he was kneading the muscles of my forearm, working all the tension out.

For his Christmas gift, I’d given him a hand mixer and a promise that I’d teach him how to use it while making sure he didn’t burn down the house. All of a sudden, that felt wholly inadequate in comparison to a kitten who would keep me company for years and years to come.

The two kittens ran around for a bit, but it didn’t take long before they were as worn out as I was. Oreo climbed up on the sofa and curled up on my lap for a nap, and Blackbeard headed straight for his traditional perch. I decided he had the right idea and copied him, resting my head next to Blackbeard on Jamie’s shoulder. That was one of their many uses, after all.

THE BABCOCKS STAYED in Portland through the holidays, even though the team had to go on a brief road trip between Christmas and New Year’s. “We want to go to the concert,” Mrs. B explained when I questioned her about it. “The boys love The End of All Things. And it’s a great opportunity to get to know you and your family without Jamie and Levi getting in the way.”

Mom and all the WAGs helped me keep Jamie’s family entertained while the team was gone. Nicky’s two nephews, Hugo and Nils, planned some pickup hockey games for all the kids, and the Babcock boys were a welcome addition to the regular crew.

A couple of days before the big concert, I went back in for more tests. The primary one I was concerned with was the MRI that would show how much my tumor had shrunk. I wanted that sucker to be gone. Zapped. Kaput. Finished.

“Well?” I asked the radiologist as soon as I came out of the tube.

“Dr. Oliver will fill you in once he and I have a chance to go over the results,” she said. I’d known she would say that, but it still sucked to hear it.

Jamie came with me the next day to get the news.

“No change,” Dr. Oliver said, and I nearly slammed my way out of his office in frustration.

“None?” I demanded. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing, which is actually a good thing,” he said, nodding enthusiastically. “That means it hasn’t grown. We’ve kept the cancer from spreading. But you can’t spend the rest of your life on chemo and radiation in the hope that it will remain contained.”

I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear anything more he had to say, and if not for Jamie squeezing my hand, I would have mentally checked out right then and there.

“So how soon will she need to have surgery?” Jamie asked.

Hot tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. “I’m not having surgery.” In the last few weeks, the songs I’d written had finally started to come together. They were still really raw, and the lyrics were maybe a bit too emotional and honest, so it might be better for me to work on making them a little more vague and generic. But the fact was, they were good. They were something I could envision myself singing in front of a crowd, and the more time I’d spent writing them, the more it was something I wanted. I didn’t know if simply writing the songs would be enough. I wanted the chance to perform, to get up on a stage and use the voice that I’d been born with in order to touch people.

Jamie turned to me with a pained look in his eyes, the same sort of expression he used to have before we’d gotten back together. “You have to,” he said. “You remember what you promised me? That you’d fight with everything in you.”

“I have been,” I forced out. “I still am.”

“And now it’s time to ramp up the fight,” he said. “You’ve got to do this. You know it. We’re not just trying to push you into something because we’re sadistic fuckers who want to torture you.”

Hot tears splashed on my lap. The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could follow my dreams or my heart. I’d already followed my dreams once before, and everyone knew how that had turned out. I supposed that meant I knew what I had to do next.

I swiped the back of my hand over my cheeks, brushing away the tears, and looked across the desk at Dr. Oliver. “So when can I get on the schedule for surgery?”

WHEN NEW YEAR’S Eve finally rolled around, I pulled out my most natural-looking wig and even put a bit of makeup on. I hadn’t been bothering with trying to make myself look decent lately. I didn’t feel decent, so what was the point? But for this? I figured I ought to make myself presentable.

My thyroidectomy was scheduled for the following Tuesday. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to sing again after that, so I was determined to make the most of tonight. I was going to have fun at the game with all the other WAGs and Jamie’s family. Then I was going to the concert, and I was going to sing to my heart’s content in the audience. And damn it all, I was going to look good while I did it.

I tried on about a dozen different outfits before settling on a blue A-line dress that had just a hint of sparkle. I used to sparkle all the time, but there hadn’t been much point in wearing glittery things lately. Getting to see The End of All Things was a good enough reason to glam it up some.

Jamie did a double take when I answered my door, his eyes moving up and down in an appreciative sweep.

“Too much?” I asked, slipping my coat on as he held it up for me.

He kissed my forehead. “Never.”

The whole way to the arena, he kept glancing over at me every chance he got, his expression heated in a way that made my previously dormant tingles of awareness come back to life. There was a part of me that wished we could turn around and go home again so we could just be together. He had a game to play, though, and I wasn’t about to give up all that I had planned for tonight.

I kissed him and wished him good luck before he headed for the bowels of the arena and I made my way up to the owner’s box. Mom and some of the other girls were already there, so I headed over to join them.

The Storm were playing the Oilers tonight, and the crowd in the building was raucous. Jamie got the team out to an early lead, scoring on a breakaway only two minutes in. The guys didn’t look back from there, running over the Oilers to the tune of a six-to-nothing shutout, with a hat trick for Jamie.

By the time the game was over, my exhaustion had given way to the excitement coursing through the building. Brie and Jessica headed downstairs as soon as the game ended so they could oversee getting everything switched out from a hockey setup to a rock concert layout. I waited with Mom until Jamie came to collect me. His eyes were still shining with postgame intensity as he took my arm and we headed down to ice level.

The crowd had dispersed after the game, but the arena was already starting to fill up again. Excited fans pushed their way through the concourses, but Jamie expertly guided me to a back hallway where we wouldn't be jostled.

“Brie arranged for you to meet the guys,” he explained.

A few more turns, and then we were being ushered into the dressing room, where the band was getting ready to go on stage, and I turned into a blushing, gushing, twelve-year-old girl again.

Brie was in there, too, in full dance costume for one of the numbers she’d be performing in later tonight. She tapped Emery on the shoulder and brought him over to me, and my knees nearly buckled underneath me.

“Hi, Katie,” he said. He reached for my hand, smiling, and all I could do was gape like a fish out of water and let him take it.

A few of the other band members came over, shaking my hand and greeting me like I was an old friend. I felt woozy, probably from too much excitement, and they led me to a chair and helped me sit down. Jamie hovered nearby but not too close, letting me enjoy the moment.

I had almost gotten my nerves under control when Kellan Davies, the lead singer, sat down next to me and said, “So do you want to come on stage and sing with us? We were thinking about doing something special with ‘Summer Stars’ tonight, and I thought you could help us out with that.”

I picked my jaw up from my lap and put it back in place. I mean, yes, I was something of a celebrity and people knew who I was. I’d done quite a bit of singing on The Cool Kids, but that didn’t mean I had any business getting on stage with The End of All Things. Their fans hadn’t paid good money to hear me. They wanted to hear Kellan.

“You’re joking, right?” I said.

He took a moment and then looked up at Brie. “You weren’t kidding when you said it might take some convincing, were you?”

I WATCHED THE show from the wings, still in awe of the fact that this was even happening. Kellan Davies from The End of All Things really had asked me to come on stage and sing with him, and the rest of the band was on board, and none of this was a joke. It was all so surreal that I kept pinching my arms, and it hurt every single time.

“You’re going to end up with some hard-core bruises if you don’t stop that,” Jamie said, laughing beside me.

“Just trying to be sure I’m awake and this is really happening.”

“It’s really happening,” he said in my ear. He put his arms around me, drawing me against him. I leaned back and let him bear the burden of keeping us both upright. He didn’t appear to mind.

Even though it seemed too good to be true, and I had just decided it made so much more sense to follow my heart than my dreams, this wasn’t the sort of opportunity I could pass up. I wasn’t deluding myself into thinking anything would come of it. It was one night, one song. A blip on the radar that would be quickly forgotten. If I was going to make a career for myself in music after my surgery, it was going to be the result of a lot of hard work, not some fluke opportunity like this.

They played through several of their newer songs, including one that had been getting a ton of play on the radio in the last few months. The audience was on their feet, singing along at the tops of their lungs. Every now and then, Kellan would cut away and hold out his microphone to pick up the voices in the crowd.

That only increased when they started playing “Open Spaces,” one of their biggest hits of all time from a few years back. It had a slinky, seductive beat, and soon the whole arena lit up with the lights of thousands of cell phones. When they got to the chorus, Brie and another dancer joined them on stage, performing the dance they’d choreographed for the music video. She was far enough along in her pregnancy now that she was showing, but she didn’t let that stop her from doing all the lifts and other intricate moves that were called for. Their movements were just as intoxicating as the music. When that song came to an end, the band dropped the volume but kept playing, and Kellan spoke over the applause.

“On behalf of The End of All Things, I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out tonight. We love Portland!” Massive cheers filled the arena. “Portland has always been our home, but these days we have to spend a lot of our time away from here. It’s always good coming home, though. We know a lot of you would have come to see us even if we weren’t donating all the money raised tonight to a couple of very worthy causes.”

A couple? I glanced up at Jamie, but he shrugged, as lost as I was.

A video popped up on the Jumbotron overhead, showing some highlights from events Light the Lamp had been part of in recent years.

“For a few years now, the Light the Lamp Foundation has been helping to turn around the lives of a lot of people in this community who’ve fallen victim to drugs and alcohol. They’re putting addicts in touch with people who can help them, and they’re giving addicts a way to give back—through building homes, cleaning up parks, serving meals to the homeless, and dozens of other projects that most of us would never think of. As a band, we’re proud to support them in their efforts. And we’re also proud to be supporting the Katie Weber Foundation.”

It was a very good thing I was already letting Jamie hold me up because I would have been on the floor otherwise.

“There is no Katie Weber Foundation,” I hissed at Jamie.

“There wasn’t,” he said in my ear. “There is now.”

“Katie is another product of Portland,” Kellan said as the video on the Jumbotron switched to the one the Storm had put together for Hockey Fights Cancer night a few months ago. “She may not have been born here, but she calls Portland home, and you can be damn sure we claim her. She was only seventeen when she was first diagnosed with cancer. Katie’s friends and family have set up a foundation in her name to support cancer research and to monetarily aid families of children with cancer.”

“How much of this did you have a hand in?” I asked Jamie.

His arms tensed around me. “All of it.”

“How much more is there?” I needed to know. I needed to get a grip on myself or I would never be able to go out there and sing. I’d barely gotten through the Star-Spangled Banner back in October after watching this video, and that was before I knew the cancer had returned.

“A decent amount,” Jamie said.

There wasn’t much hope of avoiding all these tears, then. I just hoped my makeup would withstand it. I forced myself to watch the video, determined not to fall apart. This was my life on that screen. It was filled with the people I loved and the moments that had brought me to this place. Kellan kept talking, but I didn’t hear him. Not now. A thousand memories drowned out the sounds of the present.

I had braced myself for the prom picture, but nothing could have prepared me for the images that came after it. All the selfies I’d been taking and sending to Jamie over the last several weeks popped up in a montage. They flashed across the screen in chronological order, showing the almost twenty thousand people here tonight all the things I’d been attempting to hide from myself, even, not to mention the world.

Taking those pictures had required a hell of a lot of acceptance—of myself, my appearance, the reality of my health and present situation. But it had also forced me to love myself exactly as I was. Because Jamie loved me. He didn’t give his love to just anyone. For him to love someone the way he loved me, you had to be worthy of it.

Not so very long ago, I hadn’t been so sure that I deserved his love. I’d made a lot of mistakes over the years, and he had been here being his flawless, perfect self. He hadn’t stopped loving me, though, and that had to count for something.

In my book, it counted for a whole hell of a lot.

“Is this why you wanted them?” I asked. “For this video?”

He squashed me to him, holding me so close I could hardly breathe but couldn’t bring myself to care about that. Because it meant he didn’t want to let me go. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them when I asked for them. I only figured it out later.”

“Hmph,” I said, but I couldn’t put any heat behind it.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, pressing his lips to the wig.

I shook my head, realizing too late that it would knock the wig askew, and I was about to have to go out on that stage in front of all those people, not to mention their cell phones and cameras and Twitter accounts. But that was all right, because they’d already seen the truth of the situation. They knew I had cancer again. They knew I was the bald alien-girl I’d been at my senior prom, so there was no point in pretending I wasn’t that person. She was me, and I was her, and that was that.

Within a few moments of that happening, the band starting playing the opening strains of “Summer Stars,” and Kellan turned to the wings of the stage and held out a hand to me, urging me to join him.

I took a breath and squeezed my eyes against the tears that were attempting to fall. Then I stepped out of the protection of Jamie’s arms. My wig slipped out of place, so I reached up and took it off, pressing it into Jamie’s hands. He met and held my gaze, and I nodded—maybe to reassure him, or possibly to reinforce the surge of confidence bubbling up within me to fight off the stage fright and fears.

I stepped out into the spotlight, moving toward Kellan. The crowd roared over the strains of music pulsing through the sound system, but I couldn’t see them. The lights left me blind to anything but what was immediately in front of me, but for whatever reason, that soothed me. Because I knew what my future held now. A life with Jamie. A life, however long, of a love so pure and steadfast and honest that it filled me with peace in a world that seemed bound and determined to threaten me at every turn.

And I knew that what Kellan had said was right. This was my home. Whatever life held in store for me, I would experience it here with the people I loved.

Sometimes in life, dreams aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. When they’re not, though, there’s usually another dream—a better dream—waiting for you in the wings.

THERE WAS SOMETHING about the stage lighting that made Katie look like an angel. It seemed appropriate, considering how she fit within my life. She always said she looked like an alien without her hair, but she was wrong.

She took the mic Kellan held out for her and held it up to her mouth. It was as if the roof opened up to let the sun pour into the arena when she sang. The video her brother’s team and school had put together started playing, and Kellan tapped Katie on the shoulder to point up at the Jumbotron. She kept singing as she looked up, and then she laughed into the microphone, shaking her head in disbelief. “My brother has some serious moves, people,” she said in a break between the verse and the chorus. “Watch out. He’ll be the next big thing.”

Behind me, our families quietly moved into place, along with just about every guy from the team and all of their loved ones. I handed the wig to Laura. Levi came up to stand next to me. He fished out the jewelry box from his pocket and handed it to me. I nodded, shoving it into my own pocket.

Kellan joined her to sing the second verse, and the crowd went wild. The lighting changed when they got to the chorus again. Everything went a deep blue, except for a spotlight hitting the disco ball overhead, giving the effect of stars twinkling in a perfectly clear night sky.

Everything picked up for a big push to the end, but then the band members dropped out one at a time, until it was just the drummer keeping a rhythm along with Kellan and Katie. Two voices and a simple beat, thumping like a heart. By the time they came to a finish, there wasn’t a single person in the arena still in his seat.

A cameraman focused in on the two singers, and that image replaced the video her brother had made.

Kellan grinned at Katie. She smiled and waved at the crowd, and she made to hand the mic back to him, but he shook his head. “Keep that. You’ll need it.”

She shook her head in confusion, and that was when he caught my eye and waved me onto the stage. “There’s someone here who needs to talk to you,” he said.

It took a second—and a none-too-gentle shove from Burnzie, along with a cuff to the back of my head and, “At least you bothered to fucking comb your hair after you showered this time”—to get my feet moving.

The spotlights blinded me, and I blinked a few times as I crossed the stage. By the time I reached the pair of them, my eyes had adjusted. Kellan handed me his mic, but my hands were shaking so badly I didn’t know if I could hold on to it. The crowd was so quiet that you could hear every time someone shifted in his seat or coughed, which only made me more nervous. What the hell was I thinking? Katie was used to getting up on a stage in front of people. She had cameras on her all the time, and she knew how to say what she wanted to when the spotlight was on her. I couldn’t even figure out what to say in front of twenty fucking teammates, though.

Yet here I was, with twenty thousand people waiting for me to make an ass of myself.

I bit the inside of my cheek and forced myself to start talking even though I wasn’t sure what was going to come out of my mouth. “This is kind of weird for me. Usually when I have this many people watching me in this building, they don’t care what I have to say as long as I put the puck in the net.”

“Why don’t you try scoring four next time, you slacker?” some guy shouted from one of the front rows, and everyone who heard him laughed.

“I know,” I said. “A hat trick’s not enough. I’ll work on that.” The interruption threw me off for a second, but it did at least loosen me up some.

I focused in on Katie, trying to tune everything else out. She laughed, but the tears she’d been trying to hold back since this whole thing had started were streaking her cheeks with mascara.

“I still remember the first time I ever saw you,” I said. “You were sixteen years old, and so full of life I couldn’t help but watch you across the room all day. We were at an Ice Breaker event for the Storm, and I was an eighteen-year-old rookie who was scared to death and intimidated as hell to be around these guys I’d been trying to emulate my whole life. But then I bumped into you. Literally.” The crowd laughed, but I kept powering through. “You blushed and stammered an apology, but I blushed harder and couldn’t figure out how to say a damn thing because you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. You said something about my dimples, which embarrassed me more than ever. I think I fell in love with you in that exact moment. But then you walked over to your dad and planted a kiss on his cheek. That was when I realized who you were. He looked back at me with one of those threatening looks he always seemed to give me, and I was pretty sure I’d already earned a spot on his shit list just for accidentally bumping into you.”

Even with her tears, Katie chuckled. She ducked her head down, and I caught a glimpse of Webs standing in the wings. I was pretty sure he winked at me. I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that he was not only okay with this but encouraging me.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but I only love you more now,” I said. “Every day, I love you more than the day before. I used to be scared of your father.” More laughter from the crowd. “Now I’m just scared of a future that doesn’t have you in it. We don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no crystal ball that will show us exactly where we’ll be in a month or a year or ten years or even fifty. But I know this. However long we have, you and me, I want us to spend it together. I want to be right by your side through it all. I want to hold your hand when you’re scared, and I want to carry you when you can’t go on. And no matter what, when it’s our last day together—whenever that may be—I want to know that I loved you more on that day than I did any day before it.”

I dug the ring box out of my pocket, but my hand was shaking so badly I dropped it on the stage. I bent down to retrieve it, and Katie said, “Yes,” into her microphone, loud and clear. The word echoed in the arena.

I laughed. “I haven’t even asked the question.”

“So get on with it,” she said. Her tears hadn’t stopped flowing. “Ask me so I can say yes, because I can’t stand it.”

I dropped down to a knee, and I tried to open the box, but I kept fumbling with it. She tucked her microphone under an arm, opened the box, set it back on my hand, and gave me a get-a-move-on look, waving her hand for further emphasis. The audience roared with laughter.

I couldn’t help but join them. “Katie Weber,” I said, choking on my laughter. “Will you marry me?”

She drew the mic out again and put it right up to her mouth. “Now can I say yes?”

Shouts of “Yes!” came from all around us, including more than a few from our friends and family.

She raised a brow in question.

“Go on,” I said.

“Yes!” She dragged me to my feet and kissed me so hard I dropped the mic, but then everything else faded away, and it was just the two of us.

By the time we finally broke it off, Kellan had apparently retrieved the microphone.

“Well, I’d say that was well worth the price of admission, wouldn’t you?” He winked at us. “You all be sure to put pictures up on Twitter and Instagram and whatnot, okay? This is the kind of news that should be shared with the world. How often do you go to a rock concert and end up witnessing a proposal?”

Katie put the ring on her finger and took my hand. She led me off the stage to the wings as the band started playing the next song. Everyone circled around us, offering congratulations and hugs and handshakes.

Webs caught my eye and angled his head off to the side for me to follow. Since some of the women had already dragged Katie in the other direction so they could gush over her ring, it was easy enough to follow him. I just had no idea what he wanted this time.

He crossed his arms, taking up a familiar, threatening stance. I’d given up on trying to figure him out. He’d been trying to get me and Katie back together for months. He’d told me I would make a good son-in-law, and he’d helped to pick out the ring. Now—now—he wanted to rip my balls off again? What the fuck was I supposed to do?

“For almost twenty-three years,” he said, “Katie has been my little girl. She’s been my responsibility. Mine to protect. Mine to guard her heart. I haven’t always done a good job of it. I’ve failed her more times than I care to admit, and she’s been the one to suffer the consequences. Now it’s your turn. You’d better do a much better fucking job than I did. You understand me?”

For once, I understood him perfectly well. I nodded. “I might need help sometimes, though. I don’t think she’ll ever stop needing her father.”

His lips twitched, and I knew he was fighting either tears or a smile. He slapped me on the back. “Good man. Go make my little girl happy.” Then he turned and walked away.

I made my way back into the melee of friends and family, looking for Katie. She was easy to spot in the center of it all, her bare head shining like a beacon. She beamed up at me when I reached her. But then she grabbed on to my arm and pulled me away from the crowd.

“Mom wants to talk wedding dates already,” she said.

I laughed. “She doesn’t mess around.”

“Never has, never will.”

“Do you want to start planning?” I asked.

Katie shook her head. “I am not going to have a naked head in both my prom pictures and my wedding pictures. That’s not going to happen. No setting a date until we’re sure I’m done with chemo for good, so we can know that I’ll have hair.”

“Fair enough.” I kissed the top of her head. “But can we do it while your hair’s short and spunky?”

“You like it like that?”

“I love it like that. Because it means you’re healthy.”

“Oh.” The single word was marshmallow soft.

She put her arms around me, hugging me close. As soon as I did the same, she melted against me.

“I always love your hair,” I murmured, my lips against the smooth skin of her head. “Long, short, thick, thin, any color you want it to be. I even love it when you don’t have any. Because I love you.”

“Have I ever mentioned you’re perfect?” she murmured against my chest.

I opened my mouth to argue with her, but she cut me off.

“Perfect for me.”

She got that right. We were perfect for each other.

THE INSTANT JAMIE opened the door, both kittens came racing for us. Jamie had his arms full with the overnight bag I’d had with me at the hospital and the prescriptions they’d sent home with us. Blackbeard had made it halfway up Jamie’s body before he realized I was the easier climb. He leaped from Jamie over to me, catching his claws on the fabric of my coat before shimmying the rest of the way to my shoulder.

At least I was wearing a coat.

“Is he all right?” Jamie asked, his voice full of concern.

I nodded. At the moment, my throat hurt too much to talk unless I had to, so I was trying to use more nonverbal cues for communication.

Jamie closed the door behind us and carried everything away, leaving me to deal with the kittens. I headed into the kitchen, Oreo doing her best to trip me up as I walked, and took out a dish and a can of the stinky kitten food. As soon as I popped the top, Blackbeard’s nose went into overdrive, and he jumped down to the counter. Oreo started crying, so I picked her up and set her beside her buddy to wait while I scooped it all out for them.

Once they were happily munching away, I took off my coat. Jamie had returned by then. He took it from me and kissed my cheek before turning to hang it in the hall closet.

The thyroidectomy had been successful. They’d gotten every bit of the tumor, taking every bit of my thyroid along with it. I was going to have to take meds for the rest of my life to replace it, but that wasn’t such a big deal. At this point, taking a few pills was the least of my concerns.

I was cancer-free again. No more chemotherapy. No more radiation. My hair should start growing again sometime in the next few weeks, so there was nothing to stop me from making wedding plans with Jamie.

Not only that, but I ended up as part of the ninety-eight percent of successful surgeries, not the two percent. Which meant no damage to my vocal chords. Which meant I could still sing, if I decided that was the path I wanted to take.

After the concert on New Year’s Eve, Kellan and Emery had both sat down with me for a few minutes, offering to spend some time writing songs with me. I’d been floored. It was a good thing I’d already been seated when they’d made the offer, because there was no chance I would have remained standing.

They were heading back out to finish up their tour next week, but we’d arranged to get together once they returned to Portland in February. By then, I should have fully recovered from surgery and be well on my way to being normal again. I didn’t know what kinds of doors this would open for me, but it only made sense to explore it. Songwriting might not end up being the right path for me. Singing might not, either. The only thing I knew for certain was that no matter what I decided to do, Jamie would be by my side.

“How’s the throat feel?” he asked me now, leaning on the counter and watching our fur babies shoving one another out of the way so they could each get to their meal more easily.

I scrunched up my nose. “Sore,” I mouthed, careful not to let any actual sound escape.

“Would ice cream help? It’s chocolate. I remember you telling me once that if you ever turned down chocolate, that’s when I need to worry about you.”

I grinned and nodded.

He winked. He took out a couple of bowls and spoons, then headed for the freezer. It wasn’t a store-bought ice cream tub, though. It was a reusable plastic container, the type that people used for storing leftovers.

I gave him a questioning look.

“I made it,” he said, waggling his brows. “With the hand mixer you bought me.”

I shook my head, wishing it didn’t hurt to talk. I wanted to tell him that you couldn’t just mix up ice cream and pop it in the freezer, that you needed an ice cream maker to churn it while it slowly dropped to the right temperature, or else you’d end up with frozen, icy chunks that were not what anyone would call ice cream. That was way too much to attempt saying, though, so I just watched, baffled, as he scooped out what appeared to be perfectly smooth, creamy ice cream.

He put some in a bowl and passed it over to me with a spoon. “It’s fine,” he said. “I tested it out last night when I got home. It’s a recipe that Archie taught me. Just try it.”

Dubious, I dipped my spoon into the bowl and put a small bite in my mouth. It was perfection. Smooth as velvet, rich and sweet but not overpoweringly so. It was so good I let out a moan, which I regretted because it hurt. I winced.

“That good, huh?” Jamie leaned over the counter and kissed me, licking his lips as he backed away. “Yep. That good.”

I went back for more, sighing in pleasure as the cold hit the aching spot in my throat. There was no way he’d made this. Not without an ice cream machine, at the very least, and even then he would have had to cook the custardy stuff before putting it all in the machine.

“Where’s the machine?” I forced out, hating the raw, scratchy sound of my voice almost as much as the pain of forming the words.

He was still scooping out some for himself. He set the spoon down in his bowl, turned to the cabinet, and took out the mixer I’d given him for Christmas. “Right here.”

I shook my head. “You couldn’t have made this”—I pointed at my bowl—“with that.” I followed up by pointing toward the handheld appliance.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said. He put the mixer away and finished getting his ice cream. The kittens had finished their meal, so he eased them down to the floor before carrying his bowl and spoon to the living room.

I followed, curling up against his side, still as perplexed as ever.

He kissed the tip of my nose before taking a bite of his dessert. “Two ingredients,” he said, mouth full. “Heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk. That’s it. Toss it in a bowl, whip it up, and freeze. This is what you get. I added cocoa since you love chocolate.”

“Seriously?” I said, grimacing at the pain. I was going to have to try harder to avoid talking.

“Seriously. Have some faith in me.”

I had more than just some faith in him, but he continued to surprise me at every turn. One thing was certain. No matter how many years we had together, and I hoped there were so many that most couples would be sick of each other before it was over, there was no chance I would ever get bored.

I took another bite, letting the frozen goodness soothe the aches in my throat the same way that Jamie soothed the aches in my soul.

I’d told him once before that sometimes a person didn’t understand what they really wanted until they’d lost it. Well, I’d lost him, and I’d gotten him back again. No matter how many wild and crazy hairs I got about things I wanted to do with myself, I would never forget that he was better than any dream I could conjure up. He was perfect—for me. And he was mine.

Good thing I was smart enough to learn from my mistakes. I’d left him before and gotten burned. Now I could be with him and know there was no place I’d rather be.

Portland wasn’t my home; Jamie was.

There is nothing in this world that feels as good as being completely at home. Not even chocolate.

Catherine Gayle is a USA Today bestselling author of Regency-set historical romance and contemporary hockey romance. She’s a transplanted Texan living in North Carolina with two extremely spoiled felines. In her spare time, she watches way too much hockey and reality TV, plans fun things to do for the Nephew Monster’s next visit, and performs experiments in the kitchen which are rarely toxic.

If you enjoyed this book and want to know when more like it will be available, be sure to sign up for Catherine’s mailing list. You can find out more on her website, at The Sin Bin, at Hockey Romance, at Facebook, on Twitter, at Instagram, and at Goodreads. If you want to see some of her cats’ antics and possibly the occasional video update from Catherine, visit her YouTube account.

DROPPING GLOVES is Book 7 in the Portland Storm hockey romance series written by USA Today bestselling author Catherine Gayle. If you enjoy it, look for the other books in the series.

BREAKAWAY

ON THE FLY

TAKING A SHOT

LIGHT THE LAMP

DELAY OF GAME

DOUBLE MAJOR

IN THE ZONE

HOLIDAY HAT TRICK

COMEBACK

DROPPING GLOVES

HOME ICE

MISTLETOE MISCONDUCT

LOSING AN EDGE

GAME BREAKER

DEFENSIVE ZONE

POWER PLAY

There are also currently two boxed sets of books within the series, if you would prefer to purchase them in that way.

PORTLAND STORM: THE FIRST PERIOD (Contains Breakaway, On the Fly, Taking a Shot, and Light the Lamp)

PORTLAND STORM: THE SECOND PERIOD (Contains Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback)

Also, join Catherine’s mailing list to receive ICE BREAKER, a Portland Storm short story prequel that you can’t get anywhere else.

Want to join in the Portland Storm discussion? Join the Facebook reader group at Cat’s House.

Interested in buying your own customizable Portland Storm and Tulsa Thunderbirds jerseys, T-shirts, and more? Find out how here.

Like what you’ve read?  Keep reading for a preview of the next book in this series.

“OH MY GOD.” My eldest daughter, Zoe, stopped dead in her tracks, her face completely pale as though she’d just seen a ghost.

Her sudden halt caused a pileup of my girls, all screeching to a standstill right beside her. The huge crowd surrounding us in the concourse at the Moda Center—all here for the Portland Storm’s StormSkillz Competition, the same as we were—nearly ran our little group over in their quest to get food and drinks and get to their seats for the day of family fun.

Clueless as to what led my girls to cause a traffic jam, I took a cursory look around, but all I could see was the ocean of purple and silver jerseys jockeying for position. Nothing stood out as being anything that should cause that kind of reaction in my sixteen-year-old daughter. “What?” I asked, since I didn’t have the first inkling what was going on.

Zoe looked like she might have stopped breathing.

Her younger sisters had figured it out, though. Evie, my fifteen-year-old, clutched her older sister’s hand and let out a squeal, her face turning twenty-seven shades of pink and red with excitement. “It’s Levi Babcock! Right there.”

Well, that explained it. My girls were seriously boy crazy—all four of them—and Levi Babcock was their obsession du jour. Zoe was even wearing a Storm jersey that had “Future Mrs.” as the name and 501 as the number. Apparently, everyone called him 501 because of his name and the jeans, or something like that. I had a hard time keeping up with all the preoccupations kids talked about these days. There was just too much on my plate.

I spun around, and that was when I found him—tall, broad, dark-haired, wearing a designer suit. A few other men in suits were around him, which made them stand out among the jersey-clad fans filling up the building. They were probably all players, or at least involved with the team in some way. Why else would they be in suits? My girls didn’t have eyes for any of them but Levi, though. In recent years, I had come to learn that female teens had a certain type of hormone that produced single-minded determination in a way that I didn’t quite recall experiencing. Surely I couldn’t have been too different from my girls, though. Maybe I’d just blocked it all from memory due to embarrassment.

The young Storm defenseman should probably run away, and fast, because I didn’t know if I would be able to control all four of my hormone-riddled daughters, and if they got their hands on him… I shook my head. I’d probably be doing good to keep any one of them in check, but all four? The end result could be disastrous for the young man.

Zoe’s jaw was hanging open, her eyes popping out of her head in a way that was downright comical; Evie was practically hyperventilating, her skin flushed; Izzy, my thirteen-year-old, had started bouncing in circles and was talking in a nonstop stream of high-pitched babble that sounded like oh-Mom-can-we-go-meet-him-and-get-his-autograph-and-kidnap-him-right-now-please-I-promise-I’ll-take-good-care-of-him-he-can-be-my-first-brother-husband-then-we-just-have-to-kidnap-Kaner-and-Seguin-and-Torey-Krug-too.

And then there was my youngest, eleven-year-old Sophie. As with everything in life, Sophie was a special case. She stopped alongside her sisters long enough for it to seep in that her crush was standing not twenty feet away from us, and then she was off like a shot.

“Shit,” I muttered beneath my breath, taking off after her and calling out, “Sophie, stop right this second! Help me with your sister,” I added over my shoulder to the other three, in the hope that they could pull themselves together enough to do what needed to be done.

I needed all hands on deck, because when Sophie had her mind set on something, it was next to impossible to veer her off her intended course. A mean stubborn streak went along with the territory with my youngest, as was common in kids who had Down syndrome. Not that she was mean; she was just obstinate about getting what she wanted. She was actually one of the sweetest, kindest, most loving and loveable kids I’d ever known, but at the moment, she wanted to give all of her love—whether it was welcome or not—to an unsuspecting Levi Babcock.

“Levi!” she shouted as she raced toward him, ducking between people traveling in every direction around her. She only had eyes for her prey, though, oblivious to everything else going on.

Levi swiveled his head around, trying to determine where the voice had come from, and caught sight of her just in time. He broke into an easy grin, but I doubted he understood that he was her intended target and was about to get pummeled with affection. Sophie launched herself at him, and he barely got his arms out and ready to catch her in time, his grin disappearing in exchange for wide-eyed surprise. Being smaller, stronger, and far more determined than I was, my little girl had made it through the crowd in a flash.

I pushed my way through the throng, desperate both to get to my daughter and to apologize for her overzealous behavior. A lot of people in this world just didn’t understand, and some weren’t very forgiving. I had no way of knowing which category Levi might fall into. Zoe, Evie, and Izzy were right on my tail, which was good, since I might need backup.

We arrived just in time to hear Sophie ask him, “Levi, will you marry me?”

A genuine smile lit up his features and brought out a dimple in his left cheek as he held my daughter high up in his arms. Hers were wrapped so tight around his neck that she had to be making breathing difficult, but he didn’t seem to mind. No wonder my girls were all head over heels in puppy love with this guy. I probably would be, too, if I were their age.

He winked at Sophie, and then he nodded over at me. “I’m not so sure your mom is ready to give you up just yet,” he said, deftly brushing off her proposal without doing so in a way that would hurt her feelings. “How about we see how things stand in a decade or so? You might meet someone you like better than me by then, you know. I might get old and fat and lose my hair.”

“I’ll never love anyone better than you.” Sophie put her head down on his shoulder, her expression as blissful as I’d ever seen it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to pry her death grip free, but she was on him like duct tape with no intention of letting go. “Sophie, honey, we have to let Levi go get ready to skate.”

“Actually, no, you don’t,” one of the other men in suits said. He had a deep, accented voice that rumbled through me, and I shot my gaze up to his, fully ready to give him a piece of my mind about telling my kid something that directly went against what I’d just told her. It was hard enough to get her to listen as it was, sometimes, and the last thing I needed was someone giving her the wrong impression.

Then I started suffering from a case of the same hormonal chaos that had taken over my daughters. I had no idea who this man was—huge, muscled, with a strong jaw and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair that was perfectly styled, not to mention blue-gray eyes that had no business being anywhere but the bedroom—but simply looking at him stole my ability to form a more coherent thought than unh at the same time as it made my knees suddenly go weak.

This was trouble. I had too much on my hands already to deal with jumping back in time to my own teen years.

Then he smiled at me, and I feared I might thoroughly disgrace myself in front of my girls and let rapid-onset jelly-legs syndrome take over my life. I hadn’t gone gaga over a man in years, but apparently I wasn’t immune to it.

“Mom, I told you I was gonna marry Levi,” Sophie said, her smile bright enough to light up Times Square at New Year’s.

That was all it took to remind me I was the grown-up here, and I had a job to do. Sophie still had a death grip on Levi’s suit jacket, but he wasn’t acting anxious to be rid of his ardent and very much too young so-called fiancée.

I steeled my spine for the task at hand—figuring out a way to extricate her without either ripping his jacket or instigating a temper tantrum—and reached for her again. “Maybe someday,” I said, trying to pry her stubby fingers free. “But it’s going to have to wait. He’s got to do work today.”

“That’s what I was saying,” the drop-dead gorgeous older man said.

He gently eased Sophie’s grip open and lifted her out of Levi’s arms, setting her down on the ground. More than that, she let him do that. Sophie didn’t let anyone get away with something like that so easily. There was something about this man that made her trust him, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. My hormones were leaning toward the good thing part, but trusting them to make decisions for me wasn’t something I could—or should—do.

“What were you saying?” I asked, mentally telling my hormones to get in line, or else. Ha. Like they’d ever paid attention to my threats.

“There’s nothing he has to do today except cater to you and your girls,” the older man said, grinning at Sophie.

That smile? The way he was looking at my baby girl? That was a panty-melting move for me, only I wasn’t positive he meant it to be one.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. My head’s in the clouds and I’m not quite following.”

“I’m not either,” Levi said. “What am I supposedly doing today?”

My girls all tittered nervously, blushing up a storm, just because he’d opened his mouth. He could speak gibberish, and their response would be the same. Still, he was as lost as I was about this whole thing. At least I wasn’t the only one confused.

That amazing smile turned to me. Cue panty explosion.

“Sorry. I’m Mattias Bergstrom, the Storm’s head coach.” He held out a hand, but I was too nervous to shake it.

“Paige Calhoun,” I spluttered. “And my daughters, Zoe, Evie, Izzy, and Sophie.”

Then he kept going, dropping his hand back to his side as though I hadn’t just been exceedingly rude. “In our last game, 501 got tripped up and hit his head on the goal post. He had some concussion symptoms that night, so we’ve got to hold him out of all activity for at least a week. That means he can’t take part in any of today’s events…which means he gets to be your personal companion for the day. All day long, he’s going to take care of you five ladies. He’ll take you up to the press box to show you around. He’ll sit with you through the different events and explain whatever you want him to explain. After it’s over, he’ll bring you back down to the locker room and introduce you to the boys so you can get autographs. He’s going to make today special for you and your girls.”

“He is?” I spluttered at the same time as Levi said, “I am?”

I shook my head. “There’s got to be some sort of mistake here, some confusion.” I reached for Sophie’s hand, determined to corral my girls and head toward our seats without any further boy issues. “We’ve just got regular tickets for the event. Nothing special. We should go.” I tugged on Sophie’s hand, but she didn’t budge.

“Mom,” she said in the long, drawn-out way that was unique to her when she was annoyed with me. “We’re spending the day with Levi.”

“There’s no mistake,” the coach said. “The other coaches and I will help him out where we can, but I want to make this happen.” He looked off to the side at a gray-haired man with glasses, another one of the suits who’d been listening with a good deal of interest and a slight smile. “We can make this happen, can’t we, Jim?”

“I don’t see why not,” the older man said. “Rach—”

“Not to worry. I’m already on it,” a petite redheaded woman said, stepping into our circle. Even with only those few words, I could hear her thick Southern accent. She definitely wasn’t originally from around here. She fished through a messenger bag for a moment and came up with a handful of passes on neck straps. She counted off five and handed them over to me. “Be sure you’re wearing these at all times. Just keep them around your necks. They’ll get you access to wherever Bergy wants 501 to take you.” She smiled at me, then at each of my girls. “I think y’all are going to have a great day.”

With fierce determination, Sophie released my hand, took her badge, settled it around her neck, and reached for Levi’s hand. The whole time, she was grinning from ear to ear.

I supposed that settled that. With a sigh of resignation, I handed the other girls their badges and put one around my own neck. “I guess we’re getting the royal treatment today, girls.”

Not that I didn’t want to give them the world. I did, and they knew I would do everything I could for them. I didn’t make a ton of money as a massage therapist, though, and I worked hard for every penny I earned. Their father paid child support, but that money only went so far. The only reason we were here at all today was because he had won tickets in a raffle at work, but he had to be out of town this weekend. He couldn’t bring the girls. That left it to me to corral them and herd them in the direction of our destination without veering off our course too far, as usual, and so here we were.

Coach Bergstrom winked at Sophie, and my knees almost gave out on me. There was apparently something about a man looking after my little girl like this that did me in.

“Let me have a word with 501, ladies, and then I’ll leave you in his hands.”

I JERKED MY head to the side for Levi Babcock to follow me a few steps away from Paige Calhoun and her daughters. He came, but not without a stowaway attached to him at the hip. Sophie, the little girl who reminded me so much of my sister, wouldn’t release his hand, leaving my young defenseman with a comically bewildered and anxious expression. Not that I could blame him for his nerves.

Much like most hockey players, Levi was better known by his nickname, 501, than by his given name. He was a lot like his older brother, Jamie, a guy everyone called Babs. They both had the sort of youthful good looks that brought out screaming teenaged girls in droves, like they were in a boy band or something. Babs was engaged to be married now, so he could always use his fiancée as an excuse to get away from his more overzealous admirers, but 501 didn’t have the same luxury. He was fair game, as far as they were concerned.

That meant he had to be careful. I understood that even if I’d never experienced anything like it myself. Some of those girls might try to trap him, and then he’d have a world of problems to sort out, both personal and potentially legal. Not something he needed to add to his plate right now. Our general manager, Jim Sutter, and I had already given him plenty to work on as soon as he was medically cleared to return to the ice. He didn’t need to add any off-ice issues to his agenda right now.

This girl was not one he needed to be wary of, though, and I didn’t need to know her personally in order to be certain of that fact.

I smiled at Sophie. She gripped 501’s hand harder and hugged her cheek to his arm, oblivious to the look of panic in his eyes or the fact that, for as much as she was holding on to him, he was doing his best not to touch her in any way. The look on her face was one of pure bliss. I doubted she would stop smiling for a week, which made it difficult to suppress my own smile.

“Are you excited to spend the day with him?” I asked.

“Mom didn’t say we would get to meet Levi,” she said. “Best surprise ever, Mr. Coach.”

“Sounds like it to me. But you can call me Bergy.” I dug out my wallet and removed a few bills, then passed them over to my young defenseman. “I’ve got a few things I have to see to before I can help you out. Take them up to the press box. Show them around, introduce them to whoever they want to meet up there, buy them some snacks and drinks. Just be yourself.” Then I thought to add, “But watch your language. I’ll be up to join you before everything gets started.”

“But…I…”

The kid looked like a lost puppy, to the point I was tempted to pet him. Something told me Sophie might take care of that for me if the idea came to her. I knew better than to be the one to plant the idea in her head.

“You’ll be fine,” I promised him. “They’re just girls. Besides, they’ve got their mother with them.”

Based on what I’d seen so far, I had no doubt Paige Calhoun was the sort of mother who would prevent her daughters from doing anything that would put 501 in harm’s way. Even now, she was watching Sophie like a hawk, not that there was anything to worry about. She should be more worried about me and 501 doing something to Sophie, since she didn’t know us at all, but her focus was squarely on making sure her daughter didn’t do anything she shouldn’t.

I understood it better than most. Growing up with a younger sister born with Down syndrome gave me a good grasp on the single-minded determination those kids could have, not to mention the fact that they often missed social cues that other kids would pick up. But I also knew they tended to have hearts of gold.

The thing was, underneath it all, they were just like the rest of us. They were just people, and that meant Sophie was just a girl like any other her age in so many ways. She had hormones and would experience crushes and love and heartache the same as everyone else. And right now? She had the opportunity to spend the whole day with her crush. I’d be damned if I didn’t do whatever it took to make it a memorable day for her and her entire family. If I could have done something similar for Linnea when she was this age, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

“You’re sure, Bergy?” 501 said, looking at me like I was a madman. And maybe he was right about that. “I mean… This is… I don’t—”

“Positive,” Sophie responded, despite the fact that he hadn’t asked her anything at all. She tightened her grip on him. “You’re my date.”

I arched a brow and nodded. “I think Sophie’s got the right of it.” I clapped a hand on 501’s shoulder in encouragement and nudged him in the direction of Sophie’s mother and sisters. “All right,” I said once we were next to them again, unable to stop myself from looking in Paige’s direction. Paige’s allure was far different from Sophie’s but no less magnetic. I needed to watch myself around her. For all I knew, she was married. Even if she wasn’t, that meant she was a single mother. Either way, she had a hell of a lot more in her life that needed her focus than me finding her attractive. I smiled for her. Couldn’t stop myself, actually. “Looks like you’re all set. I’ll be up to help out in a bit, but in the meantime, you’re in good hands.”

The oldest of the daughters looked like she was about to pass out, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from 501. One of the others was having the opposite reaction to being near him, nearly bursting out of her skin with the sort of exuberance and overabundance of energy that could only come from teenage hormones.

But even though her girls certainly drew my eye momentarily, it was Paige who held my attention. She had the most amazing long hair that fell straight down her back, almost pure black in color and as thick and luxurious as I’d ever seen. She was petite and fit, and she seemed to know that she was gorgeous exactly as she was, not bothering with more than a light dusting of makeup.

Her uneasiness over the current situation appeared to be getting the best of her, as she shifted from foot to foot and reached up to resituate the strap of her purse over her shoulder. That action drew my eye to her hand. More specifically, to her ring finger. Which was bare. I wasn’t sure why I’d bothered to notice that, but I had. And she saw the recognition hit my face, too, if her sudden blinking was any indication.

But then she shook her head, as if that would be enough to brush whatever was bothering her aside. Her expression was as apologetic as I’d ever seen, which was saying something. My own mother had spent years apologizing for Linnea, even though there’d been no damned good reason to apologize, before she’d finally broken the habit. Something told me Paige hadn’t managed that feat yet. She opened her mouth, but I cut her off before she could tell me she was sorry. That was the last thing she needed to say, and I definitely didn’t need to hear it.

“My sister has Down syndrome,” I said.

I wasn’t sure why I told her that other than it was the first thing that came to mind and the only thing that came to my lips in time to stop her apology. And it worked. She snapped her mouth closed, and everything about her appearance changed in an instant. Her hazel eyes softened, and she dropped her hand to her side instead of attempting to force Sophie to release 501’s arm.

“Does she?” Paige asked.

Sophie lit up. “You have a sister, Bergy? Where is she? I want to meet her.”

I chuckled. “She’s in Sweden. I don’t think you’ll be able to meet her today.”

“Okay. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I don’t know about that,” Paige said. “You have to go back to school on Monday.”

“Can Levi come to school with me? I want to show him to my friends.”

With that, 501 tensed up.

“I bet we can get some pictures to show your friends,” I said, and he started breathing again. I glanced at my watch. “But for you, I think you should go have some fun with him.”

“Okay,” Sophie said. She took off walking in the wrong direction, dragging 501 alongside her. The rest of the Calhouns followed in their wake.

Somehow, 501 must have convinced Sophie that he knew a better way of getting to their ultimate destination, because they turned around and shuffled past me heading in the appropriate direction.

“Give me twenty minutes,” I called out as they passed me by.

501 nodded, wide-eyed, but it was Paige’s expression that once again drew my eye. She seemed completely and utterly perplexed as her head swiveled so she could take me in.

And now, whether it was a good idea or not, I really wanted to get to know her.

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