Claire
My heart is still beating from the way he lifted me up and deposited me into his lap, from that show of strength and how he didn’t give a fuck that people might see.
From the gentle way he fed me the petite dessert I should have been too full to eat, but somehow found the space for.
He refused to let me even finish my offer of paying for dinner and then bundled me into my coat, took my hand, grunted his thanks at Kurt (and passed a folded bill to our poor, innocent and now emotionally scarred waiter), and then led me out onto the sidewalk.
We’ve been all over the city today—but the path he’d taken us on was well thought out and flowed.
Case in point?
Only needing to walk a couple of blocks back to our hotel.
“Cold?” he asks as the wind picks up, tucking me closer before I can tell him that I’m fine.
But since I like being here—cuddled against his warm strength, his arm wrapped tightly around me, I don’t protest. “Tell me about your diabetes,” I say. His chest inflates and the pause is so long that I find myself adding, “I mean, I know the basics, but I just…I’d like to know the day-to-day stuff.”
I want to know how it affects his life, how I can make it easier for him.
Want to know the little things so that his plate isn’t so full.
“Or not,” I say when he doesn’t reply. “It’s okay to not want to talk about it. I know I’m being pushy—”
“No.” He touches my cheek. “It’s strange because it’s my entire life and it’s not—or that’s always what my parents wanted for me. For it to not stop me from doing what I want. And it hasn’t. I’m here. I’m far more affected by what happened when I was in high school—”
I suck in a breath.
The incident that made him hate me. The incident that made him hate himself.
But he keeps talking and because I’m desperate to know every part of him, I push down any questions and just listen.
“—than I am from diabetes. Has it fucked with my life in a multitude of ways? Yup. Of course it has. I have to wait to eat what I want sometimes. Have to eat when I’m not hungry other times. I’m not supposed to be too low because I might, you know, die, but I also can’t allow my glucose to trend too high because I might, you know, die, albeit more slowly. I’ve heard the jokes about eating too much sugar, heard the whispers about how unhealthy my diet must be, heard the judgments about how I’m managing my diet.”
I wrap my arm around his waist, needing to hug him, needing him to know I’m here.
“I’ve listened to the comments about being on my phone all the time, when I need it because it’s my fucking medical device. I’ve put up with bullshit comments about my pump or CGM beeping. I’ve dealt with all of the not fun stuff that comes from having an invisible, lifelong illness,” he says, drawing me even closer. “But so have so many other people. If anything, it’s been far less of why me and far more of giving me an understanding that we all have these challenges we’re dealing with, so we need to bring more empathy and understanding into this world.”
“That’s why you have the charity?”
He works with local kids who have health challenges.
“Why not me?” He shrugs. “I have the money, and it’s important enough to make the time.”
“And yet, you still don’t recognize how wonderful you are?”
“Kitty cat,” he begins, and it’s dark but the glittering lights of NYC mean that I can see the disbelief in his eyes.
“Don’t.” I turn further into his side, lifting up on tiptoe so I can cup both sides of his face. “All day you’ve been telling me to accept that you’re doing this for me because you like me, because I’m a good person with a good heart, because I deserve it.”
He opens his mouth, but I keep going.
“And so, you can’t do all of that, say all of that, show me that reality, and expect me to just keep accepting the awful bullshit you spew.”
“Claire.”
“Because it is bullshit, bullshit you use to keep yourself distant from the world, to keep your heart and soul safe. If you don’t ever let anyone all the way in, they can’t hurt you—”
“I tried that before.”
“I know, honey,” I whisper. “And I know it went bad.”‘
Pain and anger in his eyes. “Bad?” he says quietly. “Bad, kitty cat? I nearly killed someone. I put them in the hospital for months and months.”
The middle of the street is far from the place for this conversation.
But…
I find I can’t let it go.
“You hurt them because they raped your girlfriend.”
His big body shudders.
“I know I shouldn’t have seen the files,” I murmur. “And I didn’t even mean to look. But I was helping the social worker who was on my case move offices—”
“Of course you were.”
“And I saw your name in the files.” Guilt threads itself through my belly again. “I wish I could lie and say I dropped the box and the papers just happened to be right there, but that’s not what happened.” I sigh. “I saw your name. I snooped because I thought you might be hiding something that could hurt the team. And I found a painful part of your past you wanted to forget.” I suck in a breath, release it slowly. “I really am sorry.”
He smooths a hand over the back of my head, calloused palm catching on the strands of my hair. “I know you are.”
“But I’m also not,” I admit. “Because I know that deep dark secret of yours, know exactly why you keep beating yourself up over and over again for it. And I know that you’re not the bad person you think you are.”
“Claire, if this comes out, my position in the league—”
“You think that Luc doesn’t know already?”
He rocks back on his toes, eyes going wide.
But I don’t miss the anger in them.
The hurt.
The panic.
“You told him?”
I shake my head. “Of course not. “But the news stories are out there and the social media posts and…if someone wanted to look, wanted to talk about it, they would.”
“Those records are sealed.” He shudders. “That can’t be right. I—”
“I’m not saying that the guys or even Luc or Lexi know what happened—” Though I’d bet he does because Luc is…Luc. He knows all, and he and his wife and team lawyer, Lexi, have ways to dig out all the skeletons that might come back to hurt the team. And my bet would be on Smitty knowing too, considering how gently he handles Jackson—
Though who knows?
I’ve been wrong about so much.
“I’m just saying,” I go on, “that if it all came out, your friends would still be your friends. Your past wouldn’t change how they look at you, nor the respect they carry for you. They’d know that you protected a person you loved, that you accepted the consequences that came from that, and then you moved on and made something wonderful with your life.”
He’s quiet and statue-still for a long, long moment. Then he drops his chin, settling it on the top of my head. “How can you be so sure?”
I inhale, hold it for a long moment.
Then exhale softly. “Because I know you.”
“The guy who was an asshole?”
I wrap both arms around his middle, press my body to his. “No. The man who felt something for me and did everything in his power to keep me away so I wouldn’t get hurt.”
A quiet curse. “Dammit, kitty cat.”
“Dammit because you know I’m right? Because you know they’d do the same exact thing if they were in your situation? Because you were scared and maybe still are scared? Because I sure as hell am scared that all these big feelings I have for you might end up not being enough, might leave us both wounded and alone.”
“Claire—”
“But I’m done with letting that rule me. I spent years on the sidelines of my life before I found the courage to try, and you know what?”
A long blip of quiet before his arms tighten and his head lifts, and thank God, but the humor is back in his eyes. “What?”
“Smitty gives great advice.”
“Heaven help me,” he mutters then exhales. “Lay it on me.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
Laughter rumbles up and out of his chest, filling the air between us. “Fuck me,” he says. “But the asshole is right.”
“Smitty’s not an ass—”
But before I can finish that thought, he’s yanking me even closer, bending, and…
Showing me that practicing making out with a hot hockey player is fun as hell.
“Get a room, yeah?” someone bellows from behind us, making me jump and us break apart.
Jackson sighs and settles his forehead against mine, mouth curved up at the edges. “Speaking of rooms,” he says. “Come on, kitty cat. Let’s get you back to yours.”