Puck Prince (Houston Scythes Hockey #1)

13. Callie

13

CALLIE

“But he was wearing a condom!” I argue to absolutely no one. I’m alone. Well… I guess I’m never alone anymore…

I glance down at my stomach with a grimace.

Jesus.

This shouldn’t be happening. It can’t be happening. Like, from a justice perspective, these scales seem hella unbalanced against little old me.

But from a scientific perspective, I have to admit there’s some merit to the possibility. If I dive deep down into the dreary depths of my psyche, did I suspect I was pregnant four weeks ago when I missed my period? Perhaps.

And did I proceed to repress the hell out of that in the interest of moving to a new city, starting a new job, and not spiraling into a tight knot of woe-is-me, anxious energy? One hundo percent.

I think back, and yeah, we absolutely used a condom.

He tossed me on the bed like I weighed almost nothing—very flattering. He grabbed a condom from the nightstand drawer. Crawled on top of me. Let out a gritty laugh and?—

Oh, fuck me…

“That motherfucker opened the damn thing with his teeth.” I sit back against the tub. In one aggressive move that was probably meant to look sexy—to be fair, it did look sexy—he probably broke the condom.

No protection is strong enough to withstand a hockey player-sized ego. I should’ve known better.

But I didn’t. And I don’t.

So I dust myself off and stand up, snatching all the tests off the counter. I don’t need Kennedy finding them. What I do need is to deal with this myself.

In the few fleeting seconds when I let myself entertain the possibility that I was with child over the past month, I considered just dropping into a clinic. It would be an in and out situation. I could pretend it never happened.

But now, as it did every other time I thought about it, the idea makes my stomach go sour.

I know, deep down, I can’t do that.

It’s not the baby’s fault I fucked up and fucked a hockey player.

Either way, I want to know for sure that this is happening. I grab my purse, shoving the tests in it, and decide I should go to the doctor just to be sure. Once I have a positive blood test, I will figure out what to do.

Starting with getting my own place so Kennedy doesn’t suspect…

And so I can avoid Owen Sharpe for the next eighteen years or so.

I’ve stopped getting nauseous over worrying if I am going to run into Owen in the elevator. Probably because I also run the risk of running into him at work. The Fearless lipstick hasn’t been as helpful as I hoped, but exposure therapy is working wonders.

Or maybe it’s that I am always nauseous these days, Hockey Boy or not.

I make my way outside, reaching in my purse for my sunglasses when the light hits. Note to self: sudden bursts of sunlight make me nauseous as well. Jesus, this is gonna be a whole thing.

I grab my Michael Kors shades, but as I tug them from the bottomless trash pit that is my purse, they get caught, yanking a pen, my lipstick, and one of the tests out. Everything dumps on the ground.

“Shit,” I mutter, bending down to pick everything up.

I hear footsteps and glance up to see the woman and baby from the other day approaching the building. She hasn’t noticed me yet. I work frantically to get everything shoved back in my purse before she does.

Suddenly, I hear a click and see a flash. A photographer is hiding around the corner, snapping pictures like there’s no tomorrow.

I stand up. “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” I am half-raging and half-panicked. Did he see what I dropped? Does he know who I am? He knows enough to be here and the camera was obviously aimed at?—

The door behind me opens, and I turn to see…

Owen.

Of course. They weren’t taking pictures of me. My pride is a teensy bit bruised, but I won’t complain.

He’s no doubt swooping out to rescue his maybe-wife, maybe-hookup from the papz. But then, no. Owen marches right past the woman and the baby, not even bothering to look at them, and heads straight for me.

The last fifteen minutes has been the emotional equivalent of the spinning teacup ride, so all I’m capable of doing is standing and watching his approach. And it’s a good approach.

Sunlit, chiseled jaw. Sculpted legs. It doesn’t help that I know what those legs feel like under my hands—and in other, less work appropriate places. He wasn’t wrong last week: I started massaging his calf, but couldn’t quite bring myself to stop there.

Just like I can’t bring myself to look away from him now.

Horniness has got to be yet another symptom of carrying this man’s spawn.

Our baby is going to be an absolute beauty.

That thought is still clanging around inside my head, loud enough I’m sure Owen can hear it when he wraps his arm around me and yanks me close to him.

God, does this man ever not smell like cinnamon and sex? It’s intoxicating. And infuriating.

Lost in the moment and a little dizzy from the mix of hormones and how hard his body feels against mine, I don’t even fight him as he pulls me into the building. I glance back over my shoulder, looking for the woman and baby.

But they’re nowhere to be found.

As soon as we are inside and out of sight, Owen drops me like I’m hot. Running his hands through his hair, he checks to make sure the photographer is plodding away down the sidewalk before he lets out a breath.

I am slightly less relieved.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” I demand.

His eyes drop to me. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? You just ambushed and manhandled me in front of the paparazzi. That’s exactly the kind of shit that’s going to get people talking! I thought we were going to be more careful.”

Too late for that.

“Oh, gee, I’m so sorry I saved you out there,” he drawls sarcastically.

“Saved me? From what?”

He lowers his voice a little, looking around and stepping closer. “Look, I’m trying to make this easier, but you insist on being difficult, all the damn time. I am doing you a favor because you—we—are being targeted by the press.”

“ We don’t even know each other, remember? That was the deal. We have nothing in common.”

Except a fetus, but that’s a horrifying truth to be examined at another, much later time.

“And I don’t think dragging me into your apartment building is going to help keep the press away. You made it look like we were up to something!”

Again, too late for that.

“I didn’t—” Owen lets out an exhausted laugh. “I had no choice.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“When is this gonna end?” he groans, seemingly to the universe because it takes a few beats before he finally looks at me. “You live next door; you work at the arena. I’m trying to stay out of the public eye here?”

“You’re a hockey player, Owen. You’ll never be out of the public eye.”

He just shakes his head. “You know what? Just forget it. It won’t happen again. We don’t know each other.”

With that, he walks off, and I am left standing in the lobby, confused and nauseated. “Great.”

I put my shades on, without dropping shit everywhere this time, and head out. I need to just lay low and hope no one noticed anything. Maybe it’ll just blow over.