Crew (Hockey Royalty #3)

15. Crew

Chapter 15

Crew

A s soon as my orgasm has ended, the weirdest thought pops into my head. I haven’t had sex with the same person this many times since I was married. And the weirdest part is that, even though I’ve barely pulled out and taken the condom off, I’m already thinking about when we can do this again.

I kiss her forehead and go into the bathroom to clean up. When I come out she’s already dressed and I let out a sad, “Boo!”

She gives me a soft smile. “I told you this was a quickie.”

“Your first,” I remind her proudly. “How’d you rate it?”

“Ten out of ten,” she announces laughing, which is a sound I have come to adore the same way a puppy likes belly rubs. “I will probably remember it when I’m ninety-nine.”

“Probably?” I grab my sweats off the floor and pull them on. “That’s not much better than perhaps. I think we might have to go again.”

I grab her gently by the shoulders and pull her back toward the bed, but she breaks free of my loose grip and picks up her bag off the floor. “I’ve got a date with my favorite second cousin and even your ten-out-of-ten orgasms aren’t going to keep me from it.”

“Fine. Fine.” I mock grumble.

I walk Olivia downstairs to the door and it gets adorably awkward again. She looks everywhere but my face. “So… thanks. See you around.”

She reaches for my front door but I grab the handle first and hold the door open for her. Then I follow her out, and she gives me a look. “You said earlier you don’t like walking alone in the dark.”

I point up at the twilight sky. She smiles thankfully. I wrap an arm around her shoulders. "So this is clearly not a one-night stand anymore. I think we can both safely say that."

Her head snaps up and I’m finally able to see those deep dark pools. I lean down and give her a soft kiss. She flushes deeper. “I have to go babysit Dylan.”

“Okay well… if you ever want to get together again and give this a name, let me know.”

"You don't do relationships, Crew. I don't do one-night stands. I mean even when I try it turns into… this." She motions with her hands like there's a mess in front of us.

She shakes her head, her silky brown hair mussing around her face. I reach up and brush it back where a few strands cling to the corner of her mouth. “We can think of something to label it. I think we’d do our best brainstorming naked though,” I go on as we reach her car and she clicks the remote to unlock the door. “That’s how our best work has been done so far anyway and why mess with success?”

“My God, you are something else.”

I laugh. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Goodbye Crew.” She winks. She fucking winks and I am on fire again.

I watch her drive away until her taillights disappear on Abbott Kinney. As soon as I’m within a couple feet of my front door I hear my cellphone screaming from the hall table where I plunked it with my keys as I was leading Olivia to the bedroom.

I see Nash’s name on the screen and walk away, leaving it to ring until it goes to voicemail, which I don’t intend to check. I head into the kitchen and stare at the contents of my fridge, trying to figure out which of the pre-made meals I ordered from my meal service I should eat tonight. Everything is so healthy and after really good sex I usually want something sinful and satisfying, like a cheeseburger.

But we’re days from the first real game of the season and there is no way I’m eating a cheeseburger so someone, like my brother, can comment that I don’t take the game as seriously as my dad did. My phone rings again and I walk back out into the entry and see my dad’s name on the screen so I pick it up. “Hey.”

“Nash is right. You’re avoiding him.”

Shit. I should have known he would bitch to Dad. I grit my teeth but try to sound light-hearted—and innocent. “I see him just about every day. How can I be avoiding him?”

“He says you bolt from practice and games without a word and that you don’t answer when he calls,” Dad says, and I can tell by his tone he’s unimpressed. Not just with me doing this, but with the fact that he has to get involved. Dad has a younger sister, but they never had a disagreement let alone a rivalry of any kind. He doesn’t get the way Nash and I sometimes—and lately more than not—grate on each other’s nerves. He has zero patience for it.

"He likes doing press. He's good at it so I let him," I reply and walk through my house to the living room. I drop down on the sofa and close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. "And he always calls when I'm busy, or in the shower or whatever. That's on him, not me. Also, we haven't had a real game yet so let's not be dramatic."

Dad sighs. "Okay well, I fully expect this to simmer down before that puck drop in four days."

Of course, he knows the exact countdown to our first game of the season. He's going to be there and, like with everything else to do with our careers, he’s going to be proud. Dad has never pushed us into hockey, but since we both chose it, he’s been nothing but a pillar of support. I can’t fault him anything, to be honest. He’s a great dad.

“Is that the only reason you’re calling?”

“That isn’t even the reason I’m calling, but I figured I would bring it up,” he retorts. “Your mom will be the next person calling if you don’t heed my advice here and cut your brother some slack or whatever. And trust me, you do not want her on your case.”

“I do not,” I agree. My mom has always worn the pants in our little family.

Stephanie Deveau-Westwood is a smart, savvy, accomplished business woman and she's also a great human being but she doesn't mess around when it comes to squabbles between her sons. She and my uncle Seb are as close as siblings can be. She often tells us Uncle Seb is the only reason she lived long enough to meet our dad and have us because when she was younger she had addiction issues and it was Uncle Sebastian who got her the help she needed.

“Stop threatening me,” I tell him. “I’ll call Nash tonight and sing him bedtime lullabies or something, okay? Just tell me why you called so I can have dinner. I’m starved.”

“Okay,” Dad pauses. “They’re doing a little thing in San Diego when the Quake play the Saints at the beginning of November. It’s a ceremony thing and they want you and Nash there a day early so you can do some press with me so can you guys get permission from your coach?”

Dad could call up Jude Braddock and ask him right now. He played with the guy… well, against the guy. They're acquaintances who have huge respect for each other. But he vowed to never interfere in our hockey lives because his dad tried to basically orchestrate everything about Dad’s life when he was playing. He treated him like a commodity not a son for a very long time. Dad never interferes or steps in, unless I accidentally light a car on fire in my driveway after catching my wife in our bed with someone else. Then he ignores his instincts and takes charge, thankfully.

“Of course. I will ask the coach tomorrow first thing, but wait… is this finally it?” I ask and sit up on the couch. “Are they finally retiring your jersey?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God Dad! Congrats! This is awesome. Well overdue,” I exclaim and I’m on my feet again.

Having your jersey retired is one of the biggest honors a hockey player can have and it’s insane that the Saints haven’t done it before now. I think they’re salty because Nash and I signed contract extensions with the Quake after our rookie contracts expired. The Saints management had reached out to Dad, and our agent, explaining how badly they wanted to sign one of us, they didn’t care which. But Nash and I wanted to stay together and with the Quake —aka their biggest rivals. Anyway, that seems to have passed. It's about time they acknowledge the finest player who ever lived, and the reason they have a Stanley Cup banner hanging from their rafters.

“Thanks. It will really mean a lot if you two can be there,” he says quietly.

“Of course we can. And they’re doing the ceremony during our game? That’s great!” I’m truly excited for my dad. I know he’s wanted this, but he’s never let on. Still, I would want this so I assume he would too.

“Okay cool,” Dad says. “How is the wrist? Nash says it’s bothering you.”

“Nah. I mean it tweaked for a second there but I’m confident now it was a false alarm.” There I go lying again. “Don’t stress.”

“Okay. Your brother’s lingering injury seems to have cleared up too, which is a relief. And how is everything else?” Before I can answer I hear a muffled sound. “Steph, I’m doing it my way.”

“Is Mom there?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh okay." I grin. "So by everything else you mean, how's my mental health, and have I finally let someone else in, or is Anne-Marie still winning?”

“Shit, Steph he has your number and he isn’t afraid to dial it.” My dad starts laughing and then makes whimpering noises as I’m sure my mom is hitting him with one of the hundred throw pillows on their bed or couch. I hope it’s the couch. I don’t want to think of them calling me in bed together. Weird.

“Crew, I’m sorry I ever said that out loud!” Mom’s voice calls out.

“Tell her it’s fine. She’s not wrong. I am not dating anymore because of Anne-Marie,” I admit. “But it’s not a bad thing like she thinks. I’m happy. I’m good.”

I think of where I was twenty minutes ago, with Olivia. “I’m really good, actually, so everyone relax.”

“Okay. Good. We’re happy you’re happy,” Dad replies. “Now go call your brother.”

“Fine.”

"Love you, kid,” Dad says.

"Love you, baby boy!" Mom hollers in the background.

“Love you both.”

I hang up and scroll through my contacts until I get to Nash. I hit the button to connect the call and wait. The asshole lets it ring four times and then finally, just before the voicemail kicks in, he answers. “Oh hi. You’re alive.”

“You spent all morning running drills with me on the ice, Nash.”

“Yeah but like where are you outside of work?”

This is one of the very many subtle differences between Nash and me. He calls hockey work. I never have. Everyone sees the blatant differences, like how I'm tattooed and he's not. My eyes are a lighter shade of hazel. I like to keep my hair a little longer and shaggy, and it's naturally a shade darker than his. He's reserved, I'm anything but. However, it's the little things, like this, that always really hit hard for me.

We are so different and I always fought the differences, forcing a friendship, not just a genetic obligation to get along. I stopped doing that and he’s finally noticing. He just doesn’t know why I did it. I’m sure that question will come up soon.

“And just now,” he continues and his voice is one deep decibel away from whining. “I call, no answer. Dad calls thirty seconds later and you pick up.”

“How did you know that?”

“He texted me.”

Fucking hell. Why is Dad making this a bigger issue? I grit my teeth. “I was saying goodbye to someone when you called. I had company. Dad called right before I could call you back. Nash, please stop being a nagging girlfriend. If I wanted one of those, I would have one.”

“So it wasn’t a girl who you had over?”

“So we’re changing gears from nagging girlfriend to jealous wife?” I snark.

“Fuck off, Crew. I’m a concerned brother,” he barks back defensively. I can picture him pacing the oak floors in his immaculate, soulless house. “Not concerned. Wrong word. I know you’re still fine.”

Indicating I wasn't previously. I get super irked by that as I head back into the kitchen and contemplate hanging up on him. But the thing is, he's right. I wasn't fine. When Anne-Marie left me and did what she did, I had some kind of mental break. I admit it. Nash knows the gory details, thanks to our parents. Anne-Marie and I decided to open our marriage. She was convinced we were too young to stay together if we didn't. I agreed because I was scared she was right and I didn't want to fail. I wanted us to work. He knows all of this but we haven't talked about the fact that he knows all of this. I have wondered more than once since I found out he knew I was bi, if he also knows I tearfully confessed, to Mom and Dad I stayed in this open marriage for five and a half months, and that everything was okay because there were rules. No secret hook-ups, everything must be approved by the other person ahead of time, and never in our home, always rent a hotel room. But the rules weren't being followed and I found out the hard way when I came home from a road trip and found Anne-Marie in our bed with a guy I didn't know. The dude ran before I could punch him, which I fully intended to do. And then Anne-Marie asked for a divorce, right there, half-naked, with the other guy's stink still on my sheets. I lost it, dragged the mattress outside, and lit it on fire. She got in her car and left screaming. But my car was still in the driveway, way too close to the burning mattress and it went up in flames. The only decent thing Anne-Marie did that night, and maybe in our entire marriage, was call the cops as she drove away. If she hadn't the whole house would have likely gone up and me with it, because I was too broken to stop it.

I told Nash a little about the breakup, that she cheated and we were divorcing, but I didn't tell him about the mental break. And I didn't want him to know. He wouldn't have broken like that. He wouldn't have needed Dad to sweet-talk the police into writing the whole thing off as an accident and then whisk him away for a weekend to get a grip. Dad took me to this place up in the California mountains. A lodge by June Lake. We stayed in a cabin and in the cabin next door, Dad flew in and paid for one of the top psychologists in America, and that's where I would spend my days. In therapy. It was there I told Dad, with the encouragement of the psychologist, that I was bisexual.

I didn’t tell him how I figured that out. That the arrangement Anne-Marie and I had also included three ways and sometimes that meant another man in the mix, not always just another woman. That Anne-Marie had been the one to suggest it, and that she said she was cool with it, but then she used it as a reason for divorce. “I don’t think you even like women, deep down. I think you’re lying to yourself and to me. You hook up with guys way too easily.” And that later, during the divorce proceedings, she threatened to reveal it to the media if I didn’t give her more than the prenup she had signed said she would get. I agreed to give her more money, not because I was gay, or ashamed of being bi, but because I would give all my money away to be rid of her. Also, I was not going to let her control my coming out. I would tell people the way I wanted when I wanted to.

I kept all that from Nash for a million reasons, for his sake and mine. But he knows now, thanks to Dad, and his reaction has been worse than I could have ever imagined. Our relationship can’t recover from this.

And so here we are with me being a dick to him and him getting annoyed and acting like he has no clue why. Nash is the absolute king of poker faces. If he looks confused, it's because he wants you to think he's confused. He doesn't have an expression hit his face that he isn't aware of. He's the most self-aware person on the planet, not to mention thoughtful, articulate, and calm. So the way he looked like he’d swallowed durian fruit when we fumbled around the subject of my sexuality at the rink made his feelings about it loud and clear.

“So what? What can I help you with Nash?”

I stare at the contents of my fridge. It’s all less appealing than it was before. I grab a chicken kale salad and drop it on the counter. “I wanted to tell you about Dad. And ask if you were… do you want to carpool? We’re going to have to get up there before the team and so I figured we could go together.”

He knows I hate riding with him because it's like traveling with a ninety-six-year-old man. He hates riding with me because he constantly thinks I’m speeding and that I don’t wait at stop signs long enough. I do. So if he wants to travel together, he must be really desperate for us to spend time together. “Yeah. Okay. But I drive.”

“Fine.”

“Cool.” I sigh. “Gotta go. Dinner is calling.”

“I also wanted the name of that lawyer Dad got you hooked up with when you needed one.” And that has me stop in my tracks, halfway to the water cooler to fill my Stanley.

“The lawyer Dad hooked me up with? For my divorce?”

“Yeah. I mean he does other stuff too right?” Nash asks and his voice is off. His words are clipped and his tone is kind of uneven when everything about Nash is usually even.

“Divorces and custody agreements,” I inform my twin. “You got a child I need to know about? A wife?”

“Ha. Ha,” he says but his tone isn’t dry. It’s kind of… anxious.

“Seriously, what’s up?” I say, softening a little. I know how hard it was to be going through something and thinking I had to do it alone. I don’t wish that on anyone. “Why do you need a lawyer and what can I do to help?”

“Answer the phone when I call,” he snaps. “And I don’t need a lawyer. It’s for a friend.”

I almost snort at that because Nash doesn’t have any friends that I don’t also call friend. He does nothing but eat, sleep, and hockey, and I know no one on the team needs a divorce lawyer. Divorcing in hockey is rare and so when it happens, news gets around fast, but the only thing that would be less believable than Nash having a friend I don’t know, is Nash needing a lawyer himself, so I guess he must know someone I don’t. “Charlie Sullivan. And it’s a she , not he.”

“Charlie is a she?”

“Charlotte Sullivan but she goes by Charlie,” I explain. “She’s young. Like fresh out of law school, but she’s good. But, like I said, she is divorce and family law.”

“It’s fine,” Nash blows me off. “Maybe she knows someone who can help with this girl’s situation.”

“You have a female friend?”

Yeah, I sound shocked and he's rightfully offended.

“I could. I’m not a fucking monk,” Nash snaps as I fill my Stanley and walk back over to the counter to unpack my chicken kale salad hoping it magically turned into a cheeseburger. “And I think friend is an overstatement. She’s this woman who lives in my building. A real pain in the ass to everyone who meets her but she’s like, in a bind, and I thought I would be neighborly and offer help.”

None of this sounds normal, or legit, but I know if I push him right now he’ll just get more pissy, so I relent and make a mental note to answer more of his calls and quiz him about it on our trip to San Diego if he hasn’t confided before that. “You’re a good neighbor, Nash. Mr. Rogers would be proud. Now can I go eat my salad? You’ll be happy to know I decided to give your private chef a whirl.”

“Yeah?” He sounds instantly thrilled. “He’s good, eh? Have you tried his pumpkin ravioli? My god, the pesto sauce is insane.”

“I’ll have that tomorrow before practice and report back.”

“If you don’t like it, we can’t be twins anymore.”

He’s been making that joke since we were, like, seven and it never fails to make me smile. “Later.”

I hang up and head back into my living room with my meal, turning on ESPN to help distract me from my thoughts of Olivia. As much as I want to flip through the highlight reel of what we did today, I shouldn’t because it’s only going to make me want to do it again. And she hasn’t agreed to that. Maybe it’s best she doesn’t. This can’t go anywhere anyway.

Olivia is a sweet girl who wants a serious relationship. She also has something that catapulted her into my bed but she hasn't said what that is. I don't want to find out. I don't want to be involved with someone. So instead of thinking of Olivia, I think of all the drama and trauma my marriage caused me. By the time I finish my dinner, I'm very happy with letting this thing with Olivia go. It was fun but now it's done, which is best for both of us.