Puck & Make Up (A Rush Hockey #7)

Chapter 7

Seven

Fox

“ Y ou know,” she says, the words slightly slurred, several hours later, “I don’t hate you.”

We’re on the second bad movie—because the crazy woman apparently likes to watch movies with plots that make no fucking sense.

Case in point?

We’re watching a film about a troll inhabiting an apartment building in San Francisco…and it’s not a kids’ movie. This being after I sat on the couch, exchanged a handful of cookies for a bottle of beer, and watched the tail end of a movie about sharks who can somehow “swim” in the sand on beaches.

Yup. It makes no sense.

But I got to watch Dessie cackle and hoard the cookies I passed her like she was Gollum with the ring that ruled them all, and…

Drink beer.

Until the tension began to leave her body and she stopped looking over at me every few seconds as though she expected me to turn and attack.

Chocolate, sugar, and beer.

And bad movies.

They tame the beast that is Dessie.

Noted.

“I don’t hate you either,” I tell her, offering up the last cookie in the bag.

She exhales. “So why do we put so much effort into pretending we do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, head buzzing from the beers I drank and tongue suitably loosened enough to add, “Except that it seems like sometimes when you’re pissed at me it’s the only time you actually see me.”

Her inhale is sharp. “I—” A shaky exhale. “Seriously?” she whispers.

I shrug. “I walked into Monroe’s that first night, and it was like you hated me on sight.”

“You came with the reputation of the Rush Hockey squad.”

“For the record, I was never into the whole property damage side those losers seemed to revel in.”

“Just the carousing and women and being general nuisances?” she asks drolly.

My lips twitch. “You know me, sugar lips. Do I enjoy being a nuisance?”

Not even a second of hesitation when she says, “Yes.”

Our eyes connect and then we both start busting up, the sounds of the trolls growling on the TV echoing through the room behind us. But I’m barely aware of the wizardly battle taking place in the background.

All I see is Dessie.

Her smile wide, her eyes dancing, her expression relaxed. She’s not like this with me, not ever. Even when she’s ignoring me, there’s tension around her mouth, in her shoulders.

“So, nuisance tendencies aside, why do you really not like spending time with me?” I blurt.

I know the moment I ask the question that it’s a mistake.

Then tension roars back in an instant.

“Sugar,” I say, “ignore me.”

“No,” she whispers, and I hate that she seems small right now, that my words reduced her from the bright, beautiful woman to…

This.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m an idiot. Let’s just watch the movie and?—”

“I’m attracted to you.”

My mouth drops open, and I sputter for a few long moments. “Um, is this a problem?”

Her cheeks turn red, and she groans. “Oh my God,” she mutters, dropping her face into her hands. “I did not fucking admit that.”

“Sugar—”

“No,” she snaps, head shooting up, eyes narrowed into a glare. “ Don’t .”

I lean over, ignoring when she tenses further, when she starts to shift away from me. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” I rasp, cupping her face in both of my hands. “I’ve dreamed about you every fucking night from the first time I saw you at Monroe’s.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not. No .” She pulls back, and this time, I let her go because…

Of course I do.

I have to.

But I don’t give up. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes.”

“Dessie, baby, you have to know how gorgeous you are.”

She snorts, but before I can push that, she says, “So, you’re what”—her lips press flat—“just a little boy pulling on my braid because you like me?”

“Yes.” I lift a shoulder, drop it carelessly. “And if I had a frog, I’d put it in your desk.”

She scowls.

“It’s the same principle as you always making sure my beer is more foam than alcohol when I come into Monroe’s and you’re on shift.”

Her eyes slide away, but I don’t miss the flush spreading out over her cheeks. “I?—”

Moving close, I cup her jaw again. “I don’t mind that. Fuck, you could never serve me a beer again and it would be fine. It…it only really hurts when you ignore me.”

“Dammit,” she whispers, her shoulders slumping. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“Finally putting our cards on the table?”

“Yes, it’s a fucking terrible decision.”

“I—” Then I blink, the rest of my words stoppered up in the back of my throat as she stands and takes a couple of quick steps away from the table.

“Sugar?”

“ No.”

“Dessie—”

“I’m broken,” she says, turning away from me, her black ponytail swinging behind her. “It’s inevitable that this will all just blow up in my face and then where will I go? I don’t have firefighting anymore. If don’t have Monroe’s or River’s Bend or Rosie or Bailey?—”

“Why would you lose your friends or River’s Bend, sugar?” I ask gently, moving toward her.

Those shoulders hitch up again and I expect her to ignore me, to lie, to come up with some bullshit excuse to put me off.

But…

She doesn’t.

Instead she turns to me and whispers, “Because that’s what always happens. With men. With people I think are my friends. With my job. With?—”

Her voice cracks, and I take a half step forward, prepared to cradle her close again, prepared to wipe her tears away.

“Des,” I whisper.

“I hate you because I want you,” she says. “Because every single time I allow my heart to make the decision to overrule my mind, I end up bruised and battered and alone. I can’t have that happen. Not again.”

Shit.

My heart aches, and my anger ramps.

I want to hold her again, and I want to demand that she explain herself, that she give me the name of every single person who hurt her.

But I need to know the rest of it.

“Is that why you came back to River’s Bend?” I ask carefully. “Because people you cared about hurt you?”

“People I cared about.” She sighs and spins back to face me, eyes widening as though not realizing I had come so close. But she just side-steps me, moves to the table, and picks up the last beer, chugging down a large sip of it. “Yes,” she whispers. “My fiancé and my coworker he was fucking.”

I frown. “But weren’t you working at?—”

“The station?” she finishes, and I nod. “Yup. Turns out it’s not all that hard to cheat when your partner is working long hours and away from home days on end.” A sigh as she takes another long drag on the bottle. “But Jett isn’t the only asshole to break my heart. I’m not good at this, Fox. Not good at picking people who will be good for me.”

“So what?” I ask. “You’re just going to hole up and hide from life?”

Her brows drag together, tone going deadly. “Excuse me?”

But really? She’s going to be a coward?

Dessie?

“You’re scared, sugar lips,” I tell her. “Scared of getting hurt again, but”—I shrug—“that’s fucking life. Things don’t work out, we date people who are bad for us. We hide from the truth”—fuck, do I know that —“but if we’re just hiding from everything that might hurt us then we might as well not?—”

“What?” she asks when I don’t finish. “Might as well not what?”

I sigh. “You know what I mean.”

“Tell me,” she grits out.

“Fine,” I say. “You really want to do this?”

She waves a hand around her apartment. “I think you’re the one doing this, hot shot. You showed up at my door. You hung around. You wanted to know the truth. And you’re the one pushing this right now.”

“Maybe I am the one pushing this.” I move over to her. “But I’m also not the one hiding.”

Not hiding this.

I touch her cheek. “I’ve had my heart broken. More than once. I’ve been cut from teams I was desperate to play for. And up until a couple weeks ago, I thought I was never going to make it to my end goal. But, fuck, sugar, we have one life to live.” I drop my hands onto her shoulders. “Is this”—I glance around the room—“living alone, too scared to go after what you desire really all you want from yours?”