Puck Prince (Houston Scythes Hockey #1)

29. Owen

29

OWEN

For someone who is used to having arena lights beating down on me, people waving my jersey in the stands, and my name ricocheting off the rafters, I don’t love being the center of attention.

But this is for charity, so I suck it up. I hold the giant check. I stand where they tell me and smile when they ask.

The whole time, though, I’m scanning the crowd.

I haven’t seen Callie since I took the stage and it bothers me more than it should. If I had to guess, it’s because of the kiss. Or the near-kiss, I guess, since Lance is the worst fucking wingman on the planet.

God, I wanted to kiss her.

But if what they say about timing being everything is true… well, Callie and I are impeccable at picking the wrong moment. It’s like a fucked-up game of Red Light, Green Light , but it’s mostly red lights and the rare green light will electrocute you.

One red light is waiting for me just off stage. I want to smack Lance over the head with this stupid cardboard check, but the PR team probably wouldn’t appreciate me undercutting our charity work with violence.

Still, I’m prepared to dub Lance the world’s most effective cockblock when I step off stage and notice the look on his face.

He’s got his hands in his pockets, and his brows are pinched together.

“What’s the matter with you?” I ask.

“We need to talk.”

“About…?”

Lance looks around and then motions for me to follow him into a dark, secluded corner behind the stage. I sigh and follow his lead.

“You know you’re my best friend, right?” he says once we’ve found a quiet corner.

“Obviously. No one else likes you.”

He doesn’t take the bait. “You’re like a brother to me, O.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Is he sick? Am I sick? I don’t see how that would be possible, but Lance is never this serious.

“So you know I wouldn’t bring this up if I didn’t love you.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Lance,” I snap. “Did someone die or something? Whatever it is, spit it out.”

“Okay.” He sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Don’t get all riled up…”

“I won’t.”

“You say that, but we both know how you can be.”

“Lance!”

“I saw Miles and Callie together,” he blurts.

I arch an eyebrow. “Okay. And?”

He shifts his weight back and forth on his heels. “I was on my way to the bathroom, and they were standing there in the hall. They were pretty… cozy.”

My eyes narrow. “Define ‘cozy.’”

“She was up against the wall, and he was in front of her. Close. Like, close, man. There was a lot of tension between them and?—”

I’m fucking riled up.

I don’t even know what was happening, and I’m riled. Damn it. “Miles is engaged.”

“I know.” He nods nervously.

“And Callie and I are… together.”

Sort of. Loosely. But no one else knows that! As far as everyone else knows, we’re capital-T Together.

He wrings his hands in front of him. “Listen, man, I know all that. I also know that Miles and you are tight. But I wanted to tell you what I saw because something about it didn’t feel right. And as soon as they saw me, they just kind of sprang apart. Like I said, I didn’t see anything but… I could see something. You feel me?”

Yeah, I feel him.

I also feel sick.

I don’t think Callie is the type to cheat, although I guess our relationship isn’t real, so who knows if it would even be considered cheating? But still. If she was messing around with someone else: one: I doubt she’d be sloppy enough to do it at the charity ball where everyone we know and every press camera in the business is lurking around every corner; and two: I don’t think she’d fuck with an engaged man. It doesn’t seem like Callie.

I also don’t really know her. What I do know, thanks to Coach Coleman, is that she has a past.

“Do you know where she is?” I ask.

“She came back into the ballroom, but I haven’t seen her.”

“Thanks, man.” I pat him on the shoulder and head back into the crowd, taking inventory of the room.

It doesn’t take long to realize she’s not here, so I make my way into the hall. People are standing around in groups, talking, drinking, heading to and from the bathrooms. I wander that direction, thinking maybe she’s hiding out in there.

But as I pass an empty conference room, I notice one of the doors is cracked.

On a whim, I peek inside. It’s dark, other than the moonlight coming through the tall, narrow windows. And in that silver light, I see the stunning silhouette of a woman.

Gotcha.

I walk up behind her, ready to play a round of Twenty Questions, but before I launch into my interrogation, I notice she’s shaking from head to toe.

“Callie?”

She nearly comes out of her skin, spinning around to face me with a muffled shriek.

“Oh. Owen. It’s—” She exhales. “—you. You scared me.”

She’s jumpy as fuck, and as I get closer, I realize she’s not just shaking.

She’s crying .

The energy I’d set aside to drill her about Miles funnels into something very different. I want to grab her and pull her against my chest. I want to hold her the way I did on the dance floor, soothing my hand down her back while she tells me what’s wrong.

She’s upset. And something in my chest can’t stand it.

“What happened?”

She bites her lips, and her chin quivers. I shove my hands in my pockets to keep myself from reaching for her.

“Did something happen?” I press.

“Y…yeah.” The word comes out strangled. She won’t look at me.

That one word could mean a million different things. Guilt, fear, pain. I can’t tell, but I need to know. It’s the only thing that matters.

“Here. Let’s just sit.” I help her into a chair. “Is that okay?”

She nods, and as we shift to face the moonlight, I get a better view of her face. She’s flushed, blotchy. Her makeup is ruined, her nose is red, and her lips are puffy.

That thing in my chest rumbles in warning. I sit in the chair next to her and face her, my knees touching hers. But Callie is closed, guarded. Nothing like the woman I danced with half an hour ago.

Callie draws in a shaky, labored breath. “I… I…”

“Take your time,” I tell her, even as I want to drag the truth out of her.

She shudders as she exhales. When she finally starts talking again, her voice is just this side of broken. “I was going to the restroom, and when I came out, the hallway was empty. I was about to go back inside to watch the ceremony, but someone grabbed me.”

“Who?”

“Miles.”

My chest tightens, tension folding in on itself like a black hole of rage.

“Grabbed you how?” I can tell by the way she’s flinching at my words that the questions are coming out like bullets. If I want her to keep talking, I’m going to have to bring it down a notch.

“He grabbed my arm. At first he was… nice. He seemed like he’d been drinking but, like, everyone has, you know? And I didn’t think anything of it.”

“But then?”

Callie shifts into reverse, wiping her face, cringing away—not from me, but from the memory in her head. “I don’t know. I’m probably just being ridiculous about the whole thing.”

I allow myself to touch her knee, to give it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t do that. Don’t downplay what you’re feeling. He obviously did something to upset you. What was it?”

It’s like pulling teeth, but after chewing on the words for a minute, she goes on. “He was friendly. But kind of… too friendly.”

“He came onto you?”

Lance was right. Something was going on. You think you know a guy…

Callie’s eyes widen, and she shakes her hands. “No! No. I mean, not exactly. He just… I don’t know.” She buries her face in her hands.

Meanwhile, I am fuming. My jaw clenches and unclenches as I think about it. As I think about what I’ll do to him for touching her.

“Owen.” Her words jerk me back into the moment. Mostly because she’s leaned closer. Her hands are on my thighs. “Nothing happened. He was just drinking and talking, and I got a little uncomfortable. But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Callie, if he made you uncomfortable—if he upset you this much—then he did something wrong. Whatever he said or did was clearly out of line.”

I stand up, nearly knocking my chair over.

Fuck. The way I feel right now, I want to do a lot more damage than that. I want to flip fucking tables.

I want to knock Miles on his ass in front of the cameras—the world. I want to show them what happens when they touch what doesn’t belong to them.

“Can we just not make a big deal of it?” Callie whimpers, scrubbing at her cheeks. “I overreacted. I do that sometimes.”

But again, she won’t look at me. Her memory is taking her somewhere else. By the look in her eyes, I can tell it’s a place she doesn’t like to go—tries to never go.

So I cool the engines and sit back down.

“You can talk to me, Cal,” I rasp, doing everything I can to keep my anger in check. I take her hand in mine. “I’m listening.”

Her chin wobbles again like she’s seconds away from shedding tears. But she swallows it all down. “Do you remember… when we were signing the contract in my uncle’s office? He said something about me having a history at work…”

I nod. “I remember.”

“It’s not, like, a long history. It was just—I’m saying it was just one guy. The last team I worked with. I sort of got… involved with one of the players.”

“Okay.” My voice is gentle. My touch is even gentler. Because I want her to keep going. Because I want her to tell me anyone who has ever hurt her so I can wipe them off the face of the Earth.

I see how much these memories scare her and how hard this is to talk about.

And whatever happened with Miles ripped the stitches out of those old wounds and now she’s bleeding. I need to stop it.

“It was so stupid. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that. I was fresh out of college and a lot of the people in the industry didn’t take me seriously, including the players. So I told myself to stay professional and prove them wrong. And then I met… someone… He was nice. Charming. But you know what they say about charm…”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Exactly. We started seeing each other, but he wasn’t who I thought he was. He was too much. And kind of aggressive. I guess I have a little PTSD from it.” Callie shakes her head, pulling her hand back. “Anyway, I’m fine. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I just get triggered sometimes, and I overreact. That’s all.”

I take in what she’s saying and sit with it for a minute.

How the hell do I deal with this? On one hand, I know she’s barely scratching the surface of the story. On the other, she’s so close to dissolving that every instinct in my body is screaming at me to hold her together. Not to poke, not to pry—but to protect.

Keep her safe, it’s saying. Keep her whole.

So I stand up and hold out my hand. She looks up at me with oceanic blue eyes—eyes I could drown in if I’m not careful. She hesitates.

“I don’t… I don’t really want to go back in there. My face is a mess, and I don’t feel like?—”

“We’re not going in there,” I say. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Really?” She blinks. “You don’t need to stick around?”

“Nah.” I wave my hand before holding it out again. “I came, I talked, I danced, I handed big checks to people. I’m ready to go. Are you?”

A thin, watery smile spreads across her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Alright then. Let’s get the fuck outta Dodge.”

She laughs and takes my hand. We walk to the door, and I peek into the hallway before we step out.

I throw out an arm to stop her before she follows me. “Not that way.”

“What? Is the coast not clear?”

“Half the team is standing just down the hall, including your uncle, so I am going to have to go with ‘no.’”

Callie turns around, scouring the room. “There. Another exit.”

“That’s my girl.” The words come out of my mouth before I can edit them.

Oh well. Que sera sera.

She bolts for the door. I’m right behind her, but she still tosses a look over her shoulder. “Come on, Sharpe. People are going to get the wrong idea if they know we’ve just been hanging out alone in here.”

“We’re supposed to be dating. That’s the right idea.”

“Not about that. I mean they’re gonna think that you’re slow as hell, getting outrun by a girl in a ballgown.”

I grin. “You got a head start!”

“You’re a professional athlete, and I’m wearing heels. How much advantage do you need?”

I swallow back what I really want to say, which is that I’m perfectly fine with second place if it means I get to look at Callie’s first-place ass in a tight, satin dress.

Instead, I grit my teeth and take off after her. She gets to the door first and shoves it open.

Turns out, it doesn’t lead outside. It leads straight back into the ballroom, which is even busier than the hallway.

“Oh, shit,” she lets out as I wrap my arms around her and tug her back in before anyone sees us.

I’m still holding her from behind as I look around for another exit.

Sidenote: her ass doesn’t just look good; it feels good, too.

Head in game, Sharpe.

“Over there.” I point. “An exit that actually says ‘Emergency.’ If that doesn’t lead outside, I’m calling the fire marshal and having this whole event shut down.”

We are much more careful this time. I crack the door open and there are people loitering in the distance, looking bored as they stare at their phones.

“Don’t be fooled,” I warn her. “Those are paparazzi. The moment they see us, they’ll spring into action.”

“So what should we do?” she asks anxiously, twisting the rings on her fingers. Her face has shades of that fear from before cropping back up, and all I want to do is make them go away.

“Just… lay low and follow my lead,” I tell her. “I’ll keep you safe.”

We slip out the door, and I immediately drag her into the trees. “My dress is going to be ruined.” she whispers, dodging all the branches.

It’s a good thing we aren’t at my apartment. I’d rip the thing off with my teeth.

We manage to stay out of sight until we pop out of the foliage at the back of the parking lot where I promptly flag down one of the black Escalades.

I help her in, and we make our way home in silence. Not bad silence—it’s easy and decompressing.

It isn’t even until we pull into the complex that I realize I’ve had my arm around her the entire time.

She doesn’t seem to mind.