Puck & Make Up (A Rush Hockey #7)

Chapter 8

Eight

Dessie

T he disappointment in Fox’s eyes when he left last night is almost impossible to shake.

What’s worse?

The disappointment I feel in myself because I answered his question with the affirmative.

Is this living alone, too scared to go after what you desire really all you want from yours?

And I’d said…

Yes.

“Ugh,” I mutter, lifting the lid of the dumpster and tossing the bag of trash inside.

The beer bottles clink and I feel another twinge of guilt.

Sleep was a long time coming after listening to the click of the front door closing, to Fox’s muffled voice through the wooden panel ordering me to lock up.

I had done just that, flicking the lever, securing the chain, but my mind had been strangely blank.

Same as it had been when I crossed the room and sank onto the couch. As it had been when I watched the end of the movie—and why there’s no way I can tell anyone how the troll was vanquished because while my gaze was trained on the TV’s screen, I wasn’t absorbing a damned thing.

Because all I could think— can think—is?—

All you want from yours?

Once upon a time I’d wanted everything.

Now…I know better.

“Enough.” I exhale and turn for the bar, intending to find some task inside Monroe’s to keep me busy, but the moment I get close to the back door, I see my uncle standing there. Beard bushy, eyes tired, arms crossed.

“I told you not until Friday.”

“I know,” I mutter, trying to shift around him, to sneak my way inside. “I just need?—”

“Turn around, Dessie girl.”

“Uncle Roger,” I say, exasperated. “I got a full night’s rest”— ha —“and you didn’t. Let me get a bit ahead for you today so?—”

He pushes off the door, crosses to me, and grips the tops of my shoulders, giving me a light shove in the direction of the parking lot. “Go out, get a cup of coffee with your friends, take a walk, touch some fucking grass or something. Just don’t keep hanging around here.”

“I like it here,” I protest, shrugging off his hold and spinning to face him.

It’s home.

It’s comfortable.

More importantly, it’s safe.

“Honey,” he says on a sigh, wrapping his arm around my shoulders now and guiding— read: corralling —me toward the parking lot.

My stomach starts twisting.

I don’t like the way he says that, don’t like the thread of finality in his tone.

“What are you saying?” I rasp.

“I’ve let this go on far too long,” he says, drawing up next to my car and tugging at the handle, which unlocks because, unfortunately, he has my purse in his hand and my keys are inside and that means the doors automatically unlock when he pulls, and?—

“Let what go on for too long?” I ask, focusing on anything except the mess that is my head.

Sighing, he settles his hand on my shoulder again, presses down until I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. “You working at the bar.”

That twisting from before?

Well, it’s a fucking tornado now, whipping around and around in my stomach until I feel like I might puke. “What are you saying?”

“You needed a safe place to land,” he says. “But you’re hiding now, Dessie girl. And I can’t let you keep doing that.”

Pain spears through me. “What are you saying?” I ask again.

“You can’t keep working here, honey. You need to get back out there and start living again.”

“I—”

He cups my jaw for a second before he leans back and reaches for my legs, tucking them into my car, tosses my purse onto the passenger’s seat and says,

“You’re fired.”

And then he closes the door.

And walks away.

I don’t know how I ended up in the parking lot of the coffee shop on Main Street.

Maybe it’s because my uncle implanted the thought in my subconscious.

Maybe it’s because it’s only a couple of blocks down the road.

Maybe it’s…

Pure chance.

Regardless, I’m sitting in my car, completely unaware of my surroundings, when there’s the knock on my window that snaps me out of my haze.

I jerk my head to the side, see Fox’s beard first, then the concerned expression on his face when he crouches to look fully in through my window. Before I can pull myself together, he’s reaching for the door handle, tugged the metal panel open. “Sugar lips,” he asks, leaning into my space, inundating me with the heat of his body and his scent and all that is…

Fox.

“What’s the matter, baby?” he asks.

Heart aching, I look away. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

A sigh as he settles back on his haunches, one hand dropping to my knee.

The sensation brands me through my clothes, as though he’s touching my naked skin.

“Liar.”

I lift my chin. “Why do you always accuse me of lying?”

“Because you use your lies like a shield, sugar. And because,” he adds before I can protest that, “you’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes staring off into space.”

At that, the fight washes right out of me.

“Roger fired me,” I whisper.

That wipes the self-satisfied smile off his face, but he doesn’t hesitate, just reaches in, unbuckles my seat belt.

“Wh—”

He snags my arm, my purse, and then I’m out of the car, the cool morning breeze kissing my cheeks.

“What are you doing?” I ask as he closes the door, locks my car, and starts hauling me forward. I try to drag my feet, but there’s no stopping his strength as he hauls me out of the parking lot and toward the huge park that takes up a large chunk of the area just off Main Street.

It houses the Rec Center. And the soccer fields. Plays host to the farmer’s market on Saturdays. And it’s key to the numerous festivals the town puts on—including the annual Sip and Slide wine tasting event that had taken place last weekend.

And now…me—being dragged along by an overgrown hockey player.

“Hey,” I growl. “Let me go.”

“Here,” he mutters in response —not letting me go, for the record—but shoving a to go cup from the coffee shop in my hand. “Drink this,” he orders.

“Let. Me. Go .”

“It’s your favorite,” he says. “A vanilla mocha with cinnamon and oat milk.”

“I—”

He knows what I drink?

“I know everything about you,” he murmurs, stepping closer, until I’m surrounded in his warmth again. “I’m obsessed.”

“Fox,” I whisper.

He stops us next to a bench, sits and draws me down next to him. “Tell me.”

An order.

I should refuse on principle.

But…I can’t.

“What’s to tell?” I say miserably. “Roger’s done with my bullshit and now I don’t have a job again and—” Christ . My eyes begin to burn, and I almost start crying. For the second time in as many days.

Pathetic.

“Roger loves you.” Fox tips the bottom of my cup up slightly, reminding me to drink my coffee while it’s still hot.

Another order—albeit, a silent one.

I wrinkle my nose, but…it’s coffee, so I drink.

Mostly so I don’t start crying again.

“You think he doesn’t?” he asks.

I avoid the question. “Is this what making peace with each other is? Coffee and me bitching about my life?”

Silence.

Nothing more than the sound of the wind in the trees, the cars slowly driving by on Main Street, the barely audible yells of the kids having a great time on the nearby playground.

“It’s less bitching and more about having someone to confide in,” he says. “Instead of hiding at work.” He fixes me with a look. “Which, for the record, I think is what Roger’s move was about this morning.”

Considering that my uncle had said much the same thing—telling me to get a life and stop hiding—I can’t bring myself to argue.

Not when I want to be miserable.

“I’ll be fine.”

Fox snorts.

“I will be.”

“Is that why you were playing zombie in the parking lot?” he asks. “Why you fell apart in my arms last night?”

“I—”

“Is that why you push everyone away before they can get close?”

“Bailey and Rosie?—”

“Do they know what you told me last night?” he asks gently, and he rushes to my cheeks. “No,” he says with a shake of his head. “I thought so.”

“They’re busy,” I hedge. “Bailey is still rebuilding after the fire and figuring out her life with Axel, Veronica, and Alex. And Rosie’s dealing with more than enough”—the legal tangle that cost her the mayoral position and nearly her freedom—“all while falling in love. They don’t need to more on their plate, especially when my stuff?—”

“What?” He turns on the bench, resting an arm along the back. “When your stuff is what?”

“Isn’t that big of a deal.”