Something was definitely up with Rhian, and Jean-Michel was determined to figure out what it was.
For some reason, the rest of the guys on the team liked to rib the French Canadians for being nosy, but that was bullshit. Jean-Michel was just concerned about his friend. That was a good thing! The rest of the guys could take a lesson from him on how to be a good and caring friend.
Also, it drove him crazy not knowing what was going on.
Jean-Michel had a plan, though, and it was elegant and simple.
“Who’s up for drinks tonight?!” he shouted to the locker room at large.
The few enthusiastic woos were almost drowned out by the long, low groan of the old guys.
“Come on, fuckers. It’s been ages since we all went out, and it’s not like we’re going to have much time for the rest of the month, with the holidays coming up.”
A few heads nodded and Jean-Michel was proud of himself for coming up with that argument. He decided it was time to go in for the kill. He looked to their captain.
“I think we need some team bonding time.”
Jean-Michel could see the effort it took for their veteran thirty-eight-year-old captain not to let his shoulders droop. He was cornered now, and he knew it.
He smiled grimly. “Jean-Michel is right, for a change.” Jean-Michel squawked indignantly, but his captain continued. “Let’s get some drinks tonight, boys!”
This time the enthusiastic whooping drowned out the mutters. Jean-Michel got it, sort of. The old guys wanted to be home with their families and all that shit this time of year. But Jean-Michel needed to help Rhian shake off whatever it was he was carrying around, and he needed the rest of the boys to help him, unwittingly or not.
He turned when someone punched his shoulder lightly. “What’s up?” Henri asked quietly while everyone else debated where they should go.
Jean-Michel saw Noel turn towards them, listening from further down the bench as he methodically worked himself free of his gear.
“I don’t know,” Jean-Michel said. “It just seemed like maybe Rhian could use a night out. He’s been…”
Noel nodded, though he didn’t look away from untying his pads.
Henri sighed. “You’re a good friend to worry.”
Jean-Michel preened.
“But maybe you should mind your own business?” Henri suggested.
Whatever. That was pretty rich coming from Henri. If anyone had earned the French-Canadians-are-nosy thing, it was him.
“I don’t see how a fun night out with the boys can do any harm,” Jean-Michel said, trying and failing not to sound defensive. “You’ll see. Even someone as ancient as you will have fun.”
Henri rolled his eyes, but his punch stung enough that Jean-Michel smirked, knowing his shot had landed. He grinned at Henri’s retreating back and shouted, “I’ll see you there at eight, asshole.”
Jean-Michel resisted the urge to rub his hands together with glee. Between himself, Noel, and Henri, they could totally figure out what was up with Rhian and maybe cheer him up a little. Everything was going according to plan.
By eight thirty that night, the team had taken over a handful of tables at the back of the pub they’d chosen and were squished into too few seats and booths, just the way Jean-Michel had envisioned. Everyone had a drink and were gleefully breaking their diets for the sake of the best buffalo wings this side of, well, Buffalo. And some of these guys would know, having played there.
Loud laughter burst occasionally from each of the tables, the guys jostling each other over a chirp or to get another wing. You could practically smell the testosterone and male bonding going on all around them. Everyone was happy and having a good time.
Everyone except Rhian.
Jean-Michel sent a desperate look across the booth he’d claimed along with Noel, Henri and Rhian. They’d spent the past half hour joking around and making sure Rhian had a cold beer and good company.
How was that not as close to heaven as a man could get?
But clearly, Rhian wasn’t feeling it. He sat tucked into the corner, his hands clenched around his beer, taking slow, methodical sips like it was his job not to actually enjoy it. He nodded along with whatever they were saying, smiling when he was supposed to smile, but honestly, Jean-Michel was tempted to check for a pulse.
He was about to just come out and ask what the fuck Rhian’s problem was, but the moment he opened his mouth, Henri kicked him under the table. Jean-Michel frowned. What was Dad’s problem? And why was he frowning back?
Jean-Michel was saved from having to ask—because subtle wasn’t his jam, okay?—when Noel cleared his throat pointedly. Jean-Michel thought he might be trying to back Dad up, but when everyone looked at Noel, he gently tilted his head toward the bar.
“Don’t look now, but Rhian has caught someone’s eye.”
Jean-Michel immediately looked.
Noel sighed. Henri kicked Jean-Michel under the table again.
Rhian glanced at the frankly stunning woman watching him from the bar before dropping his eyes back to his beer.
For a long moment, everyone at the table stared at him, waiting for him to say something. Anything. When it became clear he wasn’t going to, Henri cuffed him on the shoulder. “You should go talk to her.”
“No, thanks,” came Rhian’s quick response.
Why the fuck not!?
Jean-Michel didn’t say it out loud. He knew that would get him another kick and he had to play a game tomorrow night, which he didn’t relish doing with a shin bruised from ankle to knee.
“Not your type?” Noel asked.
Rhian glanced back up, and the woman caught his eye. She was tall, her light-eyed gaze direct, her hair long and so shiny Jean-Michel’s hands twitched to touch it, just to see if it was really that soft. Actually, she kind of reminded Jean-Michel of Savannah, only less business-sporty and more bar-flirty.
Rhian’s cheeks got a little pinker and he looked back down. “No, she’s…definitely my type. I mean, I guess. If I really had one.”
Who doesn’t have a type?
Jean-Michel also kept that one inside. His shins rejoiced.
“So, you should go talk to her,” Henri suggested. He was watching Rhian closely, like this was a test. Jean-Michel had no idea for what, though. He had never been good at tests…
“Nah,” Rhian said, and, for the first time that night, took a good, long pull from his beer.
“Dude, you seeing someone?” Jean-Michel asked the moment the idea popped into his head.
He braced for a kick, but it didn’t come. Instead, Noel and Henri looked as interested in the answer as he was.
Rhian’s head snapped up. “What? No!”
“Then…” Noel said, tilting his head toward the bar again.
“Yeah, okay. Fine,” Rhian said, shoving at Jean-Michel and forcing him out of the booth. “I’m just going to go talk to that woman. I mean flirt. Yeah. I’m going to flirt with her,” Rhian declared.
He stomped off the moment he was free of the booth, leaving the three of them staring at his back.
Rhian watched the probably very nice and perfectly innocent woman’s eyes widen as he stormed toward the bar, then he checked himself, using the excuse of needing to squeeze between tables to slow down and take a deep breath.
It wasn’t this poor woman’s fault that he was going to have to speak with her. It wasn’t her fault his private life was a hell of a lot more private than most people’s, and all that left him with was a shit ton of lies and the burning desire to be anywhere but in this bar, approaching some stranger. He felt sorry for her more than anything, and promised himself that he wouldn’t lead her on for a second, just for the sake of putting on a show for the guys.
That was why, when he reached her side, he started with, “Hi. I’m not really here to flirt with you, but if you wanted to pretend for a while, I would love to buy you a couple drinks and some wings.”
She blinked up at him, her mouth dropping open. He shifted to the left, blocking her face from the view of the back corner and his idiot friends. In hindsight, he recognized he maybe should have eased into that proposal instead of just dumping it on her like that.
Fuck, he was an idiot.
Her mouth was still hanging open, which, remarkably, didn’t make her any less attractive, objectively speaking. “Uh…” she stammered.
“I’m sorry. I can also just leave you alone,” Rhian offered.
“No, wait.” She put her hand on his arm, and he forced himself not to flinch away. Her eyes narrowed on his and he felt pinned in place. Caught. “Let me get this right. You don’t want to flirt with me, but your friends are giving you shit, so you came over to see if I would be willing to fake it with you?”
She was kind enough to keep her voice low, so that the people around them wouldn’t hear.
“Yes,” he muttered, because this was a fucking stupid idea and he was doing it anyway.
“And in exchange for this, I get food and drinks and your company, in a purely platonic fashion.”
He could feel his cheeks heating up, but held her gaze. Her smile grew, bright and wide, and it was pretty clear she was laughing at him.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much the deal,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to mislead you, since that would be shitty, and if I flirted for real, I might…”
“Be tempted?” she asked, her smile turning sly.
“No,” he said, baldly. Then he felt bad and tried to explain. “It’s not you. It’s just that I…” Shit, he didn’t really have an explanation for this. Not one he could share.
Fortunately, she seemed to get that. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Helena, my friends call me Lena. Nice to meet you.”
“Rhian,” he replied, taking her hand. “But you can call me The Asshole.”
She laughed, loud and bright. Rhian risked a glance over to the table and saw the guys grinning at him. Rhian immediately returned his focus to Lena.
“They seem easily convinced,” Lena observed.
Now Rhian chuckled. “They believe what they want to see.”
She grinned and put her hand on his arm, leaning in. “Well, we can convince them, provided you were serious about those wings.”
“Dead serious. But are you sure?” he asked, his stomach squirming just from having her so close. And touching him. “I can’t…it’s not…”
“I get it,” Lena said quickly, giving him a little more space, but still smiling at him. “You’ve got a reputation to protect and, perhaps, a secret to keep. You don’t need every sports fan in Boston up in your business. Or,” she said, glancing over at the table again, “your teammates, either, for that matter.”
A fine sweat broke out over Rhian’s entire body. Shit. She knew who he was. “Hockey fan?” he hazarded.
“Yup,” she replied, popping the p. “And, fortunately for you, a discreet one. We’re cool. That is, unless you shirk me on those wings. Then I’m calling Pierre McGuire with an exclusive.”
The very idea, even though she didn’t know shit and he knew she was only joking anyway, made him want to barf. He raised a hand to get the bartender’s attention. In two minutes, he’d ordered Lena wings and a drink, and himself another beer. No way in hell he was going back for his partially finished one at the table. He was in far enough over his head as it was.
Savannah curled up on their huge living room couch and tried to focus on the game she’d chosen to watch specifically because New York had a few players that she didn’t trust not to try to break her guys when they played each other next week.
This was her preferred way to work from home. She had her favorite snowflake blanket over her legs, her Rudolf pajamas on underneath, and only the television, the apple-cinnamon candles, and the bright, cheerful lights on the Christmas tree in the corner for light.
The boys liked to make fun of her for all her Christmas stuff, but she knew they secretly loved it. Well, okay, Garrick loved it and Rhian was utterly baffled by it, but he did enjoy seeing how happy it made her to decorate their home. She liked to go on and on about those adorable light-up Christmas villages she could hardly resist every year at this time, just so she could see the confusion on Rhian’s face as she described the little figurines skating on the little pond with the little cocoa stand.
It was fucking adorable—the Christmas village and Rhian’s reaction.
She laughed to herself and hoped Rhian was also having a good time tonight. Maybe the boys could get him to cut loose a little. Be less serious for a couple hours. Hell, get him drunk enough to dance, even. She didn’t worry that he would do anything stupid. And she certainly didn’t worry that he’d cheat. It just wasn’t in his make-up, even when it would probably be easier for everyone if he was seen dancing with some woman. Or chatting up someone at the bar.
She was still frowning over that thought when Garrick came back into the room, bearing her a fresh cup of chamomile tea.
“Thanks,” she said, taking it from him and putting it on the coffee table to cool.
He nudged her until she made room for him behind her on the long sectional—not that she needed to be convinced. She happily settled herself between his long legs, spreading the blanket over both of them before tucking her side and shoulder against his chest.
She tried to focus on the television again, but was starting to realize she might have to give it up as a lost cause. Her mother had warned her about “baby brain” and now she was getting an idea of what that meant. One second she was watching the TV, the next her eyes were tracing over the heavy evergreen garlands she’d draped along the mantelpiece and wondering if she should add some red berries for color, and then she was staring at the picture of her, Garrick, and Rhian perched among the greens.
“You thinking about him?” Garrick asked, apparently not paying any more attention to the game than she was.
“Yeah,” she confessed, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Do you think he’s changed his mind?”
“About us?” he asked in total disbelief.
“About the baby,” she said, her heart lodged in her throat from just speaking her greatest fear.
“What? No,” Garrick said firmly, pulling her closer. “He’s just…” Garrick trailed off, and Savannah wondered if he’d had an idea of how to end that sentence when he’d begun it. “I think he’s accepted a lot of changes, and this is another big one, a particularly scary one for him, so I think all that’s finally caught up with him,” Garrick said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s us, of course. Being in love, falling in love with both of us freaked him out. You know that.”
Indeed, she thought with a small smile. “Freaked out” was an understatement. But he’d gotten used to the idea. To having them around. Being with them. Living with them and sharing a life.
“And then you add on his discovery of his biological family here in Boston. Finding Seamus and Chelsea, and suddenly having a grandfather and a sister for the first time in his life. Not to mention confronting the mother who abandoned him, and meeting his psycho brother, and not having them in his life.”
“Thank god.”
“Right. Then you throw on a six-year contract, a few million dollars a year after a lifetime of having nothing.”
“And we still can’t get him to spend the money,” she said with a grin.
“He’ll probably have most of it in the bank, untouched, when he retires,” Garrick agreed. “So, then you add on a baby, and the fact that he never had a father, and that he’s probably worried he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and…”
“It’s a lot,” she agreed, getting what Garrick was saying, but finding a new worry in it. “What if it’s too much?”
“It’s not.” Garrick’s confidence was absolute. “He’s the strongest person I know. He’ll figure this out, and when he’s ready, he’ll come tell us what’s on his mind. He will.”
“I hope so,” she said, but she wasn’t as confident. “And before he does something really regrettable at work. He’s been hovering.”
“You can tell him to back off.”
“I’m afraid to,” she admitted. “I’m afraid he’ll run.”
“He won’t. He never has.”
She turned so Garrick could see her face and the look she was giving him.
“Okay, but that was at the very beginning and doesn’t really count. He came to find us to fix it. He’s going to come find us on this one, too.”
“But we’re right here. He sleeps beside us every night. We make love to him, he makes love to us. Why can’t he just…”
“He will. Be patient.”
Savannah sighed, but it was more affectionate than exasperated. “Well, he needs to hurry up.” She ran her hand over her belly. “I’m working on a timeline, here.”