Coach turned the shade of a cherry tomato.
“This is not good,” Lukas whispered.
It sure as hell was not.
“I don’t give a good goddamn if the fate of the world depended on you kissing my daughter. Or whatever the hell else is going on. You fraternized with a staff member of the Sharks and disrespected the rule I’d set down at the beginning of the season. My. Daughters. Are. Off. Limits.”
Fraternized?
“What the fuck are we going to do without you on defense?” Coach asked Crosby.
“Coach, it wasn’t—” Crosby started, the blood draining from his face.
“And just where the hell were you?” Coach shouted at me. “Did I not ask you to take care of her?”
“I’m sorry?” What the hell? Ironically, that’s where I had been when the picture was taken. Taking care of Pepper in a way her father would most definitely not approved of. Ways that included my hands and tongue. My level of guilt ratcheted up another notch. From this elevation, I couldn’t even see the moral high ground.
“Pepper. I asked you to take care of Pepper. To keep an eye on her. To keep assholes like Crosby—” he pointed down the bench while keeping his eyes locked on me. “Away from my little girl. So can you please tell me what the hell you’ve been doing? Giving her an alibi?”
Alibi? Crosby’s advice came roaring back in my ears. Did Coach know about my relationship with Pepper?
“Sir, I assure you I’ve done my best to protect Pepper.” To include taking her home for Thanksgiving when you bailed on her yet again.
“Oh really? And that’s how she ended up kissing Crosby?”
Holy shit. He really couldn’t tell the difference between his daughters. He thought it was a picture of Pepper. As if Pepper would ever deign to do something as heinous as kiss Crosby. Before I could correct him, he’d already turned back to Crosby.
“And as for you, pack your shit. You’re done. I warned you, you broke the rules, and now you’re off my fucking team. You have an hour to clear the locker room.” Coach headed toward the door.
“I’m on contract!” Crosby called out. “You can’t just kick me off the team.”
Coach turned slowly fixing him with a stare I knew would soon be turned on me once he knew the truth. “I couldn’t give a damn about your contract. I don’t have to trade you to get you off my team. I have two in reserves just waiting for your spot. I can bench you the rest of the season with zero guilt. So leave, trade, or sit on the damn bench. I don’t care as long as you’re not on my ice.” He left the same way he entered, slamming the door.
We all sat in stunned silence for a moment. What the hell just happened?
“He can’t do this,” Crosby railed.
“Looks like he just did,” Warren answered. “Honestly, I don’t blame him. I don’t want someone playing with me that I can’t trust. If I were you, I’d pack your gear before security helps you out.”
There was a slight stirring as the guys continued to put their gear on, but kept verbally silent.
“Fuck this,” Crosby seethed, carelessly throwing thousands of dollars in gear into his bag.
Shit. What was I going to do? As much as I had known the threat it existed, I never imagined Coach would actually cut someone over a personal relationship. I couldn’t even correct his assumption that it was Pepper without giving myself away. Without killing my chances of saving my family’s land.
“And fuck you,” Crosby shouted, pointing at me as he walked out of the locker room.
We remained silent as he stalked away, and stayed that way long after he’d slammed the doors as his exit.
Unlike every other practice, I wasn’t the first on the ice. I hung back in the locker room, trying to get my head on straight. Trying to figure out what the best thing for Pepper was. I knew she wouldn’t want me to fight her battles, but it went against my nature to let people think the worst of her. It set off something primal in the pit of my gut that demanded I stand up and claim my woman. She was mine. Not Crosby’s. Not even Coach’s. Mine.
“Hey,” Bentley said, coming back into the locker room.
“It wasn’t Pepper.” I needed to say it, even if it wasn’t the right man.
“I know that, and you know that, and she knows that. But that’s where the knowledge train pulls into the station. Unless you’re in some kind of hurry to pack your shit just like Crosby did.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Yeah, and you’d let everyone just go around believing Chloe was kissing other guys?” I stood, holding my helmet under my arm.
“Hell no. But Chloe was never Coach Harris’s daughter. How serious is it between you two?”
My gut reaction was extremely. But I didn’t know what was in her head. I couldn’t answer for our relationship when it existed in secrecy. When I didn’t know where she stood.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
He nodded. “Yeah, that stage is tough. I’m just saying that if she’s not your endgame, you might need to cut her loose.”
There was no way I could give her up. Walking away from Pepper would require an act of God, and even then I’d stand by her.
Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. When had she crawled that deep inside my head? My heart?
“And if she is my endgame?” I asked.
Bentley sucked a breath in through his teeth. “Damn. Then you’d better get really good at keeping secrets. At least until the end of the season.”
I walked into my apartment after practice, and my exhaustion was instantly forgotten. Pepper was singing along to the Beastie Boys in the kitchen. I’d given her a key a couple of weeks ago to make our lives a little easier.
Dropping my bag in the front hall, I leaned against the support pillar that defined the open concept space, watching her shake her ass to Intergalactic as she demolished my kitchen with whatever she was attempting to bake.
Contentment slid through me, nice and easy, blocking out the shit from today. I could get used to this—coming home to her every day.
She spun and caught sight of me, her cheeks instantly blushing pink as she fumbled with her phone.
The music stopped.
“Please, don’t stop on my behalf,” I told her. “I was enjoying the show.”
She put her phone on the counter and skipped over to me. “Haha. Figured I’d bake some of those protein granola bars you like.” She rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Welcome home.”
I filled my hands with her ass and lifted her so our eyes were level. “I love coming home to you.” Then I kissed the shit out of her. Long and hard. She tasted l
ike chocolate and bananas. My favorite.
God, I didn’t want to ruin her day.
I set her on the counter and stood between her thighs before pulling away. “We have to talk.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s been a shit day,” she admitted, playing with my hair. “Dad called screaming that I’d jeopardized his team, and how I could never earn the player’s respect if I went around sleeping with them. And how dare I be so foolish as to be cavorting—yes, he said cavorting—with Crosby on the street.” She smiled at me.
Smiled.
“Uh, okay. And you corrected him, right? Told him that it wasn’t you?” Not that I wanted Ivy to get the screaming treatment, but I didn’t want Pepper connected to Crosby, either.
“Nope!” she told me with too much glee. “If he seriously can’t tell his daughter’s apart then screw him. He didn’t even ask if it could have been her.”
“You’re just going to let him think you did that?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I am doing that. Just not with Crosby.”
My hands flexed on her hips. “He kicked Crosby off the team today.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? He did?” Something like horror flashed across her features.
“Yeah. In front of the whole team and everything.”
She dropped her hands from my neck, and I immediately felt the loss. “Oh, God.”
“Pepper—”
“He’s going to fire you. You’ll lose your spot.” She shoved at my chest, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t budging until we had this out.
“Yep. He is.” I’d made my peace with that on the drive home.
“And you’re just...okay with that? You’ll lose your contract!” She shoved again.
“It’s super cute how you think all hundred and ten of your pounds can move me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s super annoying how you aren’t taking this seriously. It’s one thing to let my dad stew for a few days thinking I really kissed Crosby. It’s another to throw away your career. We have to be done.” She nodded like it had been decided.
“No, we’re not.” I brushed her hair back and cupped her neck, my thumbs resting just in front of her ears. “I’m not giving you up. I can’t.”