Alex (23 page)

“Because,” he says softly, then he leans in to kiss me. His lips touch my mouth softly, sliding back and forth with a hint of whispered breath, then he pulls back. “Because…I had a shitty start too, and I think it destroyed the best parts of me. I let it destroy the best parts of me, and honestly…it sometimes makes me angry that you were able to get past it and I can’t. It sometimes makes me angry at you.”

I blink a few times, unsure of what I just heard. He’s staring at me openly, and he has laid something on me with such brutal honesty, I don’t doubt a word of what he’s just said. But unfortunately, rather than express tender emotions I thought he might have for me, he’s just admitted that there’s a part of me that he apparently doesn’t like.

Because it makes him feel bad about himself.

Gah, that is some fucked-up thinking.

I’m affronted, and I can’t help it. I pull back and he releases the grip on my chin. I stare at him a moment, and he returns my stare, eyes unblinking. I push away and roll out of bed, turning to look at him again now that there is some distance between us.

“You’re mad at me because I’ve made something of my life? Because I’ve moved past the trauma of my past?” I know my voice sounds shrill but I can’t help it.

Alex moves from the bed quickly and then I’m in his arms. “I’m only being honest, but you didn’t let me finish. While I find myself angry and envious and probably a whole slew of other negative emotions, that only makes up a very small part of what I feel when I’m with you. It pales in comparison to the respect I have for you, for the desire I feel. It gets paler every day I spend with you.”

I feel the tension leave my body, unaware of how stiff I had been until I heard those words. Pulling my face back, which he had tucked under his chin, I look at him. “Alex…you don’t have to be trapped by your past. You’ve already busted through so many barricades you had in place.”

“I know,” he says while bringing a hand up to stroke my hair. “I’m trying. I don’t want the bitterness I hold toward my past. I want to let it go.”

My heart aches for the longing in his voice. I plaster myself back against his body, wrapping my arms around his waist tightly. I feel the thump of his heartbeat reverberating against me, and I squeeze even tighter.

I will do whatever it takes to move Alex completely away from that darkness.

I pick up my wallet and room key, shoving both in my back pocket. Bending down in the early morning gloom, I kiss Sutton on the forehead and she stirs.

Opening up her eyes slowly, she stretches her arms above her head and gives me a sleepy smile. She then reaches out and takes one of my hands. “Hey, you. Why are you up so early?”

Standing back up straight, I keep a grip on her hand and squeeze it. “I have a breakfast meeting. I’ll be back in a few hours and we can go out for a while and walk around the city. Sound good?”

She nods with a goofy grin on her face and yawns. “Okay.”

Bringing her hand to my mouth, I place a kiss on the inside of her wrist and release it. “Go back to sleep.”

She rolls over at my command, curling her hand up under her chin, then she’s out like a light. I stare at her a moment more, my heart giving that sweetly painful squeeze that comes more often than not when I’m looking at Sutton. She’s precariously close to becoming my everything, a thought that scares the daylights out of me. I’m not sure I’m ready for that responsibility, particularly not when I have so many ghosts that continue to torture me.

Turning away from her, because more than anything, I just want to crawl back in bed with her and spend the day there, I head out of my hotel room. We are staying another night in New York because we have an afternoon game just across the Hudson with the Wildcats. I have an afternoon practice skate, but that gives me a few hours to hang with Sutton. She’s going to stay in New York and watch tomorrow’s game, so I have her again tonight too, the thought causing a smile to plaster across my face as I walk to the elevator.

After a short ride down to the lobby, I make my way to the hotel’s restaurant, which is surprisingly empty, and immediately spot Cameron. We had made plans to meet in New York because that was a shorter trip for him than coming to North Carolina. I’m assuming he arrived last night as he drove in, and he planned to head back after our meeting.

Cameron spots me as I walk toward him and he stands from the table. I haven’t seen him in almost three years, the last time when I made a short trip to Hamilton in the summer while I was visiting my hockey coach, who was sick. We look a lot alike in the face but he wears his dark hair in a buzz cut and he’s starting to develop a little bit of a gut.

Outside of his looks and knowing that he owns a hardware store in Hamilton, I really don’t know much about my older brother at all. I approach him and he looks at me awkwardly, not sure if we should shake hands or hug. I take the decision out of his hands and grab hold of the chair opposite where he was sitting and pull it back. I glance at him briefly and say, “Cameron,” then I sit down.

He follows suit, taking the napkin on his plate and placing it on his lap. “It’s good to see you, Alex. I caught the game last night…on TV, of course, in my hotel room. You looked great.”

My head pops up at that revelation, because as far as I’ve known, Cameron was not a fan of the sport and never talked to me about my career. I don’t even know what to say, so I take a sip of water that had already been poured and cut to the chase. “So how is Dad doing?”

Cameron’s face goes slightly red, and I guess he’s a little miffed I’m not engaging in small talk. “He’s fine right now. They gave him some steroid medications to reduce the inflammation and the bleeding stopped.”

“Is he drinking?”

The look Cameron gives me says it all, so I press forward. “Have you suggested rehab to him?”

“Yes and he won’t do it. Maybe if you talked to him—”

“He’ll never listen to my advice. Half the time he can’t even stand to look at me,” I snap.

“I think you’re wrong,” Cameron says. “He’s proud of you. He admires what you’ve become. I think he’d do it for you.”

I stare at Cameron as if he’s just fallen out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down. Is he living in a dream world? Has he just buried his head in the sand, pretending that the first sixteen years of my life weren’t traumatic? Has Cameron truly forgotten the ways in which my dad abused me, both physically and mentally?

The thought causes rage to build and I want to tear into my brother. From the corner of my eye, I notice a waitress approaching and I level a look at her that sends her scurrying. But that moment was enough of a reprieve that I bring myself under control.

With my voice as calm as I can make it, but still gritty and raw, I tell Cameron, “I know you didn’t fail to notice the shit storm that Dad rained down on me for most of my life. I know you are aware of it, because you sat blissfully untouched while Dad focused all of his attention on me. And by attention, I mean using pain to forge me into a hockey machine.”

“Alex—” Cameron says in a pleading tone, but I cut him off.

“No…you know what I went through, and you may not know it now, because we don’t talk, but I go through it still with him. He’s still to this day trying to control and manipulate me—that is, when he’s sober enough to put the effort into it. So what makes you think, first, that Dad would listen to me, but, more important, what makes you think that I give a shit if he goes to rehab or not?”

Cameron jerks backward over the vehemence in my voice but his eyes look sad when he says, “Because he’s your dad. And yes…I know he was a monster to you. I wish I could have done more…as your older brother, I should have—”

“You’re fucking right you should have done something,” I growl as I lean across the table.

Cameron just looks at me patiently, eyes still sad. When I lean back, he continues, “I regret I didn’t do anything—step in, redirect his attention, whatever. I can’t change it. But maybe you need to consider…my life with him wasn’t all that great. You might have had negative attention from him, but you had all his attention. I had none. Once he realized I had no talent for the game, I was forgotten. I raised myself in that house, and you can spout all you want about how terrible he was…but there were good times too. I remember them. I remember you and Dad watching hockey together on TV, laughing and joking. I remember you getting extra presents at Christmas, and I remember Dad telling all of his friends about how proud he was of you. Not me, you. So don’t think you were the only one who suffered, Alex. My suffering was just different.”

My heart starts pounding over Cam’s words and I flush heavy with guilt. Holy shit…is it possible I’ve been so mired in my own bitterness and self-pity that I failed to recognize that I wasn’t the only one my dad warped?

“Cameron—” I say softly, unsurely, no clue what to say.

“Listen, Alex,” he cuts me off. “I don’t want to rehash the past. It wasn’t pretty—enough said. But Dad is going downhill and I just really want you to be prepared for it. He’s going to die if he doesn’t stop drinking.”

Taking a deep breath, I rub my finger around the base of my water glass. Lifting my eyes to my brother, I ask, “What do you think I might be able to do to convince him to go to rehab?”

“I don’t know that you can,” he says in resignation. “I just think it’s worth a try. He won’t listen to the doctor, he won’t listen to me. Maybe he’ll listen to you, maybe not. But at least we’ll know we tried everything.”

A terrible thought takes root in my brain, causing icy fingers of dread to squeeze my chest. Swallowing hard, I say quietly, “I should have done something sooner. Instead, I ignored him for years, letting him drink himself to death because I hated him. If it’s too late now, then that’s my fault.”

Cam leans across the table and grips my forearm tightly. I refuse to meet his eyes but I hear what he says next. “No way, Alex. This is all on Dad. Nothing you did or didn’t do…nothing I did or didn’t do, made him this way. This is not on your doorstep.”

I look at my older brother and find no comfort in the intensity of his gaze. I know he believes what he just said, but I don’t—not for a minute. Pulling my arm away from his grasp, I sit up straighter in my chair. Clearing my throat, I signal the waitress that we’re ready and say, “Let’s eat breakfast and figure out the best way for me to talk to him.”

Cameron stares at me a moment, his eyes searching deeply to see if I’m carrying the guilt. I’ve tamped it down deep but it’s still there, though I know he can’t see it. I show him assured, calm and in control Alex Crossman. I’m used to this facade and I find it falls back easily into place.

I’m exhausted and for the first time in weeks, I don’t have a thrill of anticipation running through me at the prospect of seeing Sutton. Tonight’s game was brutal, I fucking played like shit and I can’t stop thinking about my deadbeat dad, whom I’m feeling compelled to save to alleviate my guilt. For the first time that I can ever remember, there is a certain appeal to getting shit-faced drunk and letting my worries drown along with my misery.

Opening the room door, I anticipate Sutton will greet me with a hug and a warm smile, and I’m not wrong. There she is, wearing one of the robes and smelling like fresh rain from the shower she just clearly had.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” she asks as she runs her fingertips lightly over the eight stitches in my left temple. “I saw you get injured.”

I jerk back slightly, not because it hurts but because I don’t want her care right now. Stepping out of her arms, I walk over to the minibar and pull out a beer. Twisting the cap off, I toss it in the garbage can and take a long pull. After swallowing, I say, “I’m fine.”

And I am. Sutton preferred to stay at the hotel and watch the game on TV, so I know she got a close-up, slow-mo view of the stick that I took to my temple from one of the Wildcats’ defensemen. Head wounds bleed like a bitch and mine was no exception. But it didn’t stop me from launching myself at the fucktard, immediately dropping my gloves to the ice so that he knew it was on.

He dropped his just as quickly and we circled each other on the ice, our arms held in a fighting stance, fists curled tight for maximum delivery of pain. Even though blood was pouring down the left side of my face, it thankfully stayed clear of my eye and I had good vision, plus I had anger. I was pissed off and I made the first move, grabbing hold of his jersey with my left hand and landing three solid jabs to his jaw with my right.

That’s all I got in before both of his hands were gripping my jersey, grappling to get leverage against me. I tried to jerk loose to land some more blows but both of our skates shot out from under us and we were on the ice.

It was all over then as the officials swarmed in and pulled us apart. We both landed five-minute majors, but I went off the ice and headed back to the locker room so our team doctor could stitch me up. We still had another period and a half of play left and a small cut wasn’t about to stop me.

I should have just stayed my ass back in the locker room. Once back out on the ice, I played some of the crappiest hockey I’ve played since I was about ten years old. I couldn’t make a clean pass, my shots were wide and my skating was hesitant. Some viewers would blame it on my injury but that didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. I had just lost my focus, plain and simple, and I’m sure it had everything to do with my meeting with Cameron this morning.

Walking over to one of the large armchairs that grace the room, I sit down with a heavy sigh. Sutton watches me cautiously. I must be giving off some bad vibes, because she isn’t moving any closer.

“What’s wrong, Alex? Is it the game?”

I can’t help the snort that comes out or the wry smile that I give her. “Sure, we’ll say it’s the game.”

I take another deep pull on the beer and watch her. She’s so fucking beautiful, and I know she’s naked under the robe. But the thing that I focus on—right this very moment—is the look in her eyes. They are filled with such worry and care for me, that it physically hurts to receive it. It’s alien to me, a concept I don’t understand. It makes me feel weak and small, and I don’t want any part of it.

“Drop your robe,” I order her, my voice low and gruff. I take another sip of beer.

“Alex?” she says, uncertainty ringing clear, but her hands go to the belt to undo the knot. My pulse quickens when she pulls the belt away and I get just a peek of her skin underneath.

“Come here,” I tell her, and I know she’s not hearing the normal sexual rumble of passion that fuels me. I know I sound cold and controlling. It’s the same tone I’ve used on Cassie time and again, and that thought makes my stomach curdle.

It doesn’t deter me, though. When she reaches me, her feet stopping just short of mine, she just stares down at me, not understanding what I want or need. Hell, I don’t know what I need. But I do know I want her.

I want her to make me forget for just a little bit.

“Get on your knees for me, baby,” I taunt her. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Fuck, I’m being a dick and I can’t stop myself. My own dick lengthens and goes rock hard at the prospect of her mouth on me.

I smirk at her, waiting to see what she does but I’m wholly unprepared for the glistening of tears that form in her eyes. I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my gut.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asks in a small voice, her bottom lip quivering slightly.

Fuck, oh fuck. What the hell am I doing?

Jumping up from the chair and dropping my bottle to the floor, I pull her into my arms and hug her tight to me.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her quickly, placing a kiss on her temple.

I squeeze her again. “I’m so sorry. I’m just having a shitty day and I took it out on you.”

Pulling back slightly, I look down at her and she blinks hard at the tears so they slide down her cheeks. I’m relieved that no others take their place. Reaching up, I wipe the wetness from her face and wait for her to say something.

“Alex, please tell me what’s wrong?” she pleads, her hands cupping my jawline. “Talk to me.”

I feel the soft graze of her fingers on my skin and I breathe in deeply the smell of her hair. She is everything I could possibly want in life and yet I have never been more unsure of the path I should take.

It was a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy. I told her she’d see the asshole side of me again, and she just got a good dose. I told her I’d hurt her, and I did. I’m really not worthy of her when it boils down to it.