The Secret Hook-Up

I clearly hate myself.

Or I didn’t expect her to say yes.

But she did, and so here I am, stripped down to my boxers in Addie’s bathroom, standing in her shower with her, shampooing her hair.

Nothing I haven’t seen before, I said when she gave me a side-eye at my offer to help her shower.

About the same as showering with all of the guys in the locker room, I said when I started to sense that she wanted to say yes but didn’t trust one of us. Or maybe both of us.

“Waverly’s stylist fixed my hair yesterday,” she says, obviously trying to keep this normal by pretending we’re having an everyday conversation where she’s not totally naked and I’m nearly so. “First time it got washed since…that thing that wasn’t your fault.”

My dick is holding the majority of the blood in my body right now, which means my brain is operating at about ten percent of its normal capacity. And eight percent of that capacity is going toward suppressing the shivers that come with being wet but not in the direct flow of hot water in the shower.

This is one of those corner shower numbers next to the bathtub.

Small.

Almost too small for me to keep enough distance so Addie doesn’t notice the boner from hell.

Worth it though.

I fucked up four years ago. I don’t want to fuck up again.Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“How much longer are you in the sling?” I ask.

“Five to seven days. Depends on the scans.”

I make a noise that I hope is acknowledgment mixed with sympathy.

Pretty sure I sound like a drowning goat instead.

“Surgery?” I ask to cover the noise.

“Depends on the scans.”

I gather more of her hair near her head, rubbing the suds into it against her scalp.

She makes a noise herself.

It’s like a stifled moan.

I’m studiously counting the drips of water on the white fiberglass shower wall so I don’t look at her naked body any more than necessary.

That ass—fuck me, that ass.

I loved holding her ass back when she let me in her life.

And now it’s mere inches from me, and I need to stop looking at it and thinking about it and being aware of its existence.

I meant it when I told her I woke up this morning with acceptance.

But what I didn’t tell her was how long I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, contemplating life in general.

How I’m creeping closer to my late thirties.

How much I feel that pang of jealousy in my chest anytime I visit my teammates who’ve retired and are loving their domestic lives.

The way I feel more sluggish in general, like my body is telling me it’s time to slow down.

The way I’ve always figured I’d be married with kids by the time I retired, but I’m realizing that’s not my path. Retirement from hockey is coming within the next few years regardless of what my personal life looks like.

So I made a choice.

I choose to take responsibility for my part in breaking up with Addie. I choose to acknowledge I put her in an awful position. I choose to forgive myself for it too, because I can’t be good for anyone if I’m busy beating myself up for my mistakes instead of learning from them.

I choose to find out if Addie’s still the woman I fell for.

I choose to do everything I know to do to see if I can fit into her life.

To see if we can complement each other as easily now on purpose as we seemed to by accident four years ago.

Seeing her last week wasn’t an unfortunate coincidence.

It was the universe’s way of telling me to quit lying to myself when I say I’ve let her go. When I say it was her fault we broke up. To face the fact that I’ve consciously or subconsciously compared every woman I’ve dated in the last four years to Addie Bloom, and every last one has come up lacking next to her.

“What did I text you?” she asks the spray of water hitting her front.

Where she has the most glorious breasts known to man.

Which I am also not thinking about holding.

Licking.

Sucking.

Not yet, anyway. Not until I’ve earned my way back in.

I clear my throat. “I could tell you, but I might get something wrong.”

“High-level overview.”

“That we need to set a date to fulfill your obligation to me per auction terms.”

Captain Lavalier, I have dutifully accepted that you won what I offered, which is only what I offended and nothing I didn’t offramp, even though I object to your use of Canadian Ehs as currency in an American auction, and so you can pick one single date lasting no more than 3 hours from sunrise to sunset to get schooled so bad you’ll be crying for your mama when my creatures come up with new and inventive ways to murder your creches over tea.

Yes, I memorized it.

Autocorrects and misspellings and all.

It was badass Addie with a hint of what the fuck just happened and a dash of alcohol.

But that text isn’t what pushed me into acceptance of what I need to do.

No, the privilege of understanding and acceptance came courtesy of the next text she sent me. Which I won’t be mentioning.

She can read it herself in her sent messages later.

Her hand brushes mine and tangles in her soapy locks. “It’s time to rinse.”

“Okay.”

“Turn around. I think I can do this one-handed.”

I obey, turning my back to her, and I start counting the water droplets on the shower door.

And that’s when my mouth decides it doesn’t need my brain in order to say things. “I don’t trust people who don’t see you as a woman until you put on a dress.”

There’s a heavy pause behind me. I can’t hear her breathing over the flow of the water, but I swear I can feel her pulse tick up.

Or maybe that’s mine and I’m projecting.

“Okay,” she says quietly, but it’s more of a question than a statement.

“It pissed me off that it took you putting on a dress for half the city to realize you’re a woman. They didn’t fucking deserve to win you, and I don’t trust what they would’ve tried if they had.”

I was simply almost-naked a minute ago.

Now I’m naked and exposed and vulnerable.

Admitting to the last woman I let myself care about that I overstepped last night.

And I know I overstepped.

I overstepped in stopping by when she didn’t answer my texts this morning asking if she was feeling okay.

I overstepped in doing her dishes. I overstepped in fixing her breakfast and coffee. I overstepped in picking up her living room and letting myself contemplate starting her laundry for her.

I’m overstepping in letting part of my brain hope that she’s looking at my ass now as our positions are reversed.

But she’s not calling me out on any of that.

She’s not saying anything at all.

And I don’t regret overstepping.

Because if I’m going to see Addie regularly over the next few months—which she doesn’t know yet, but I likely am—then I’m going to be me.

The real me.

The me she’ll get if she gives me another chance.

I’m not much different today than I was four years ago when it comes to helping people I care about.

But I’m very much different when it comes to realizing that I don’t yet understand what she needs.

And while I know I like her more than I’ve ever liked any other woman in at least a decade, I also know that I might have to accept that she might never like me the same.

I look down at the shampoo suds swirling around my feet, which is my only evidence that she’s rinsing her hair.

“I get it,” I add. “I know. You didn’t ask me to play hero. You don’t need me defending your honor and you can take care of yourself on a meet-up with someone who won an experience with you. You’ve got everything under control and you don’t need my help. Truth is, I didn’t do it entirely for you. I did it for me. So I could sleep better. So I won’t worry about things that you’ll tell me I don’t need to worry about, but things that I can’t help but worry about because it’s who I fucking am.”

She inhales loudly enough to drown out the sound of the shower. “I’m glad you have the resources to help you sleep better.”

I glance over my shoulder, get a don’t you dare peek at me while I’m naked face that’s not nearly as irritated as I’d expect it to be, and turn my head back around to not look at her.

Is she pissed about my motives last night but suppressing it?

Or was she halfheartedly glaring merely because I looked at her?

I didn’t look at her breasts. Just her face. Which I won’t be saying out loud.

Mostly because I wanted to look at all of her, and I can’t tell her I only looked at her face without adding that I wanted to look at all of her.

I will get to look at her again.

All of her.

But only if I find the right balance between pushing it and not pushing it.

“If you ever do need help, you can call me,” I add. “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t mock you. I won’t ask any more questions than necessary to get there and do whatever it is you need me to do.”

I can see the vaguest outline of myself in the glass shower door, but I can’t see her.

And I definitely don’t expect the, “Thank you,” that follows a long pause.

It’s startling after the number of times she’s told me I’ve got this or I can handle this or No, I like to do it myself any time I tried to help her with nearly anything when we were together.

Right up to when she told me she didn’t need a caretaker when she hurt her arm.

Which was my fault too.

I insisted on teaching her how to ice skate.

She fell and dislocated her shoulder when I wouldn’t let her go as soon as she wanted me to so that she could try skating on her own.

“I’d offer to help all the same for any friend,” I say.

“I know.”

We lapse into silence again.

I don’t know what she’s thinking about, but I’m thinking about how miserable my drive home will be, and how much I’m looking forward to rubbing out this boner.

Unless she lets me push her against the wall and take her right here.

I’d be good with that.

We were good together. If she needs the reminder…

“My bosses don’t want me participating in any more auctions,” she mutters, which is so far from where my brain has gone that I almost don’t comprehend the words. “They also noticed people noticing that I’m a woman, and they were…uncomfortable…with certain parts of last night.”

Focus, dumbass. Focus. “That’s a complicated mess of not fair.”

“It is.”

“Do you want to offer another experience?”

“Fuck, no.”

I chuckle.

“Conditioner time. You can turn around again.”

I shift in the shower and take the conditioner bottle she points to, squirt some in my hand, and go to work on her hair again.

I love her hair. It’s thick and smooth and gorgeous, and it smells like her.

“My sister-in-law offered to come help me while I recover,” Addie says. “I should call her back and accept.”

I make a noncommittal noise. She didn’t say will. She said should. And I know she knows I noticed.

“If I don’t, you’ll keep showing up to try to see me naked,” she adds.

“I’m not doing this to see you naked. I’m doing it because you in makeup scares me and that’s the other thing that’ll keep me from sleeping at night.”

I would absolutely come to her house every day to help her shower to see her naked.

I’d do it every day for months without expectation that I’ll ever recover from this case of blue balls if that’s what it takes to prove to her that she can trust me.

No matter how uncomfortable my junk is as I’m massaging sweet-smelling conditioner into her hair and sneaking peeks at her slender waist and the dimples at the base of her spine and the way her thick ass muscles flare out.

“I’d be offended, but I saw what I looked like before I got in the shower,” Addie says.

“You looked gorgeous last night. But you almost always do. In a dress or in your baseball pants or completely naked or in a Minnesota Wild shirt, which I’ll deny saying if you ever tell one of my teammates.”

“Stop.”

“This is called setting standards if you ever change your mind about being single forever. Don’t settle for anyone who doesn’t think you’re gorgeous all the time. Don’t even do casual with someone who doesn’t think you’re gorgeous all the time. You’re welcome.”

She glances over her shoulder at me. Her face is makeup-free again, glistening with the moisture in the shower. Eyes wary. Lips pursed.

I aim for a poker face.

She’s gonna be pissed when she looks at her phone again and sees the last message she sent me after the auction last night.

Probably even more pissed now that she’s let me help her do her dishes and take a shower.

But that one message is the very root of why I’m here.

That, and knowing what the Thrusters staff wants me to do after I won an afternoon with Addie last night.

I wish you hadn’t gotten attached. Then we could’ve hung out forever. But I don’t do relationships because relationships don’t benefit people like me. All they do is rob you of your happiness. Ask me how I know. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter. I hope voice-to-text gets this wrong because I’m going to wish I didn’t send this when I see it in the morning.

Translation: It wasn’t you. It was me and something in my past that hurt me.

So if Addie Bloom would take me in her life so long as I never tell her I want to see her every day, every night, every hour and minute of my life, why would I not try?

Why would I not want to be here with her?

Giving her all of the time she needs to see me as someone who enhances her life?

To trust me enough to tell me who hurt her so badly that it destroyed her belief in relationships.

Forever isn’t casual. Forever is never casual.

But if casual is what she needs to believe in for me to stay in her life, then I’ll play the game.

The weeks left until I report for training camp will fly by. They always do. I won’t have a lot of time for a serious relationship either once my own season gets going.

But the time I do have, I’ll be a benefit for her.

Not a drag. Not an obligation.

A bonus.

And eventually, I’ll hang up my skates, and we’ll see where we go from there.

If she lets me.

“I can finish up,” she says.

“You sure?”

She nods.

“I’ll wait outside if you need help getting dressed.”

“I don’t want to keep my boss waiting. Santiago’s retiring, and I’m on the list to interview for his job. I can’t fuck up.”

“Does that mean you want help so you can get there faster?”

She growls quietly.

I take that as a yes.

“No one who’s seen the Fireballs play the past few years would think any of you on the coaching staff are screwing up where it counts,” I say. “And you’re Addie Fucking Bloom. You don’t piss around anyway.”

She looks back at me again. Her hair is shiny with the conditioner rubbed in. Water droplets cling to her thick brown lashes. Wary eyes hold my gaze before briefly dipping to my lips, then back.

So it is possible for my hard-on to get harder.

“I fucked up getting drunk last night,” she whispers.

“You’re allowed to be human.”

“I’m really not.”

“Addie—”

“People already call me the token woman coach.”

“Very few people, and those people suck and they’re just trying to get under your skin because it makes them uncomfortable that you’re better at your job than they are at theirs.”

“But am I? Am I? Or do people just want A League of Their Own and Field of Dreams mashed up and come to life? Am I really as good as all of the other women coaches in professional sports, or am I the token lady coach?”

I start to assure her she’s good at her job, but she shakes her head and looks forward again. “Never mind. I need to rinse my hair and get dressed and get to work.”

I put a hand on her good shoulder. “You. Kick. Ass. You’re not a gimmick. And if you get promoted to head coach, it’ll be because you earned it, not because the Fireballs are trying to be the first team in the league to have a female head coach.”

“Will it?”

“Who cares? Once you’re there, you’ll keep taking the team all the way, every season. That’s what’ll count.”

“What if I don’t?” she whispers.

Fuck it.

Just fuck it.

I wrap my arms around her from behind, careful with her bad shoulder, and press a kiss to her good shoulder. “Can’t control injuries, Addie. Can’t control how a rookie or a trade will fit into the team. Can’t control the weather. Can’t control bad calls. Can’t control bad days. But you can control doing the best damn job you know how to do. You’re incapable of doing anything else.”

Her breath shudders out of her.

She doesn’t pull away.

Doesn’t tense.

Doesn’t rub her ass against my hard-on that’s poking her, but she doesn’t shriek and yell at me for it either.

Nor does she yell at me for the fact that my forearms are pressing against her breasts.

Or for kissing her shoulder.

This Addie.

This is the Addie I miss. The Addie she doesn’t let anyone else see. The one with fears and dreams and a soft side. The one who needs to be hugged and who needs a safe space to get tipsy and laugh with friends.

Is this why she doesn’t do relationships?

Because she doesn’t know how to let her guard down enough to let someone in?

Or is it more than that?

What has made her so terrified of being vulnerable?

“I need to get to work,” she whispers.

“Right.” I drop my arms and step back toward the shower door. “I’ll get a towel ready.”

I don’t want to get a towel ready.

I want to stand in this shower and rub soap all over her body and kiss her and touch her and play with her sweet pussy until she’s screaming my name.

I want to towel her off and carry her to bed and stroke her soft skin and lick her from head to toe and make love to her while being so very, very careful with her bad arm.

I want to lie in bed with her all afternoon and listen to her tell stories about the Fireballs and tell her my own favorite stories about the Thrusters from the past few years.

And none of that is happening today.

But maybe—maybe—it could happen another day.