“Yeah, I was just calling—”
Pepper laughed at something Mason said, the sound bright and open.
“Who is that?” Mom asked, her interest piqued.
Shit. “No one to worry about, Mom.” She’d be a dog with a bone if she got the slightest hint that I was interested in someone here.
“It’s a girl!” She covered the receiver with her hand, or something, given how muffled she sounded. “Ed! Get in here! Eric has a girl!”
“I do not have a girl,” I rebutted low and soft.
Pepper turned at that moment, an eyebrow quirking. Great, she’d heard me.
“At practice, too, if my calendar is correct! She must be someone really special!”
Fuck, if I didn’t stop her now, she’d have Pepper and I married off with two kids by dinner. Not that I’d mind practicing for kids with Pepper because damn did that woman have—
“You have to bring her home for Thanksgiving!”
“Mom!” I snapped, gaining the attention of Pepper, Mason, and every other player walking by us on the way to the locker room. “You have the completely wrong idea.” I dropped my voice and turned away, to deflect attention. “How is Dad feeling?” Maybe the subject change would shake her.
“Oh, he’s out in the machine shed, trying to fix that Combine. You know him.”
My stomach twisted.
“Yeah, I do, and the docs just cleared him last week. What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“Eric Gentry, don’t you dare use that tone with me.”
And boom, I was ten again.
“Sorry, mom. Just let me send a check. Get the combine fixed or buy him a new one, I don’t care. But he’s had four spinal surgeries in the past two years. He doesn’t need to be out there like that.”
“Oh honey, I know you want to take care of us, but I just can’t. If your daddy knew that it was your money that had kept us afloat for the last couple of years, he’d be so embarrassed.”
“He never has to know, Mom. As far as he knows, I’m the Blue Line Financial Mortgage Co.”
She sighed in relief as the last of the team filed past me.
“Good, and I promise we’ll pay it back.”
“I don’t care if you pay it back. I honestly wish you wouldn’t—”
“...so I pop the hood,” I hear Pepper say as she and Mason get closer, “And a family of squirrels has moved into my engine and chewed up every hose!”
My eyebrows hit the ceiling when I looked at her.
“It’s true,” she whispered.
“No problem, I’ll take you home,” Mason said, putting his arm around her shoulder.
Uh. The fuck he would.
“Of course we’re going to,” Mom said in my ear.
“I’ll take you home,” I said to Pepper.
She stopped, clutching her tablet to her chest and looking up at me like I had four heads. “You will?”
“Sure. It’s on the way to my place.” Where we would not be going. Her place was safe. Ivy was there, so my hands would mind themselves. At my house? All bets were off the second she said yes.
“Oh, I really don’t mind,” Mason argued. “We could hang out? Get some dinner?”
Pepper’s gaze swung from Mason back to me.
“I thought you had to talk to Coach Harris?” I prompted Mason. “No biggie, of course, Pepper. We can absolutely watch another one of those comic movies another time. I’ll just—”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh! That would be awesome!” She patted Mason on the shoulder. “Mase, you know the way to Dad’s office, right? Eric, I’ll just run to my office and input these numbers while you shower. You are going to shower, right? Because…” she motioned to my body again, but it wasn’t so flattering this time. “I mean, we’re going to be in the same car and everything—”
“Relax, Pepper. I’m going to shower. Right now. I’ll come to your office after. Mason, it was nice to meet you.” Asshole.
Pepper nodded, and I heard a sigh in my ear.
Oh, fuck my life.
“Mom. You’re still there.”
“Yep.” I could practically hear the smile in her voice.
“And you heard everything.”
“Yep!”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I’d better see that girl at my Thanksgiving table. Love you! Bye!” She hung up, never having told me the original reason she called.
Shaking my head, I made my way into the locker room. My thoughts jumbled into a tangle as I got my gear off and showered.
They were still spinning after I got out of the shower and dressed in the now-empty locker room.
What the hell was wrong with me? I’d never gotten possessive of a girl. Ever. Sure, maybe Faith, but she was my sister and that was a whole different set of instincts. Maybe it was that Coach had asked me to keep an eye out for her. Or maybe that Mason was a complete and total douchebag.
Whatever it was, I needed to get a grip on it before I got a grip on her.
“So, Mason Hall, huh?” Gage asked, sitting next to me on the bench as I tied my shoes.
I was so distracted I hadn’t heard him come in.
“What about him?” I asked.
“I saw you out in the hallway with him and Pepper.” His eyes narrowed slightly, just enough to send a warning, but his tone was soft. “Between that and your lunge for Crosby earlier, I thought maybe you might be getting into something that you shouldn’t be.”
“Coach asked me to look out for her when it came to the guys, especially that Mason guy. That’s all. Said he was going to try to get close to her for the wrong reasons.”
Gage nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “You know the history there?”
“Besides the fact that he’s Bobby Hall’s son, and they dated in high school?” I stood and slid my wallet into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Yeah, those are important parts. Everyone figured that she’d go with him, but he broke up with her, went to the Ducks, too early, too green, made an ass out of himself thinking his daddy’s name would let him skate by, and then got sent to the minors. Coach maneuvered a couple trades so Hall could move to our farm team.”
“In Tacoma.” Thirty minutes away.
“That’s the one. Now, everyone looking from the outside has always pretty much assumed she’d come home and they’d get back together—”
Now he had my attention. “Who is everyone?”
“Friends. Some family. Tabloids. Hall was still playing for the Ducks back then, so they were always a story.”
“You telling me to get out of the way? Like they’re fated or some bullshit?” I leaned against my locker, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Hell no.” He stood. “I’m telling you to get in the way. That kid is going to try and do exactly what he did to her last time.”
“Which is?”
“Use her name to get himself on an NHL roster and leave her in the dust. Or worse, get signed to the Sharks, and then play the dedicated boyfriend while he fucks everything that moves behind her back.”
Just thinking that he’d cheat on her like that had red flashing in front of my eyes.
“Did he?”
Gage nodded once and then turned for the door. “You heard what Coach said. Keep your hands to yourself. But do Pepper a favor and keep him the fuck away from her. She always sees the good in people, too sweet to see what he was up to then, and what he’s definitely up to now.”
“You really think she doesn’t see through it?”
He cocked his head to the side in thought. “First loves die hard.”
Then, like that had answered anything, he left.
I grabbed my keys and headed for Pepper’s office, where I found her leaned close to a dual monitor computer system, entering data from her tablet while videos were paused on the extra screen.
She had a pencil between her teeth, her look of concentration so intense that I probably could have shot a puck through
the wall and she wouldn’t have noticed. She was as focused on her work—as dedicated as I was, and damn if that wasn’t sexy as hell.
I watched her quietly, leaned against her door frame until she put the pencil down and stretched.
I tried to ignore the way the move pushed her breasts against her V neck shirt, highlighting the curves better than a spotlight.
I failed.
“Eric!” She bounced to her feet. “You ready for some more Marvel magic, Iron Man?”
“Still with Iron Man, huh?” I arched a brow at her. “I’m not being a hero anymore.”
“It’s the red hair,” she said with an impish hip check. “And maybe the pads, too.”
Yeah, Iron Man. I was okay with that. Because from what I saw in that movie we’d watched the other night, he was going to be the one who ended up with his smokin’ hot co-worker, who was aptly named Pepper.
I held the door open for her, and she brushed against me as she slid through the small space.
Electricity hummed through my veins, all concentrating in the one area I knew I couldn’t use when it came to this woman.