Dropping Gloves (17 page)

“You have no idea.”

There was a part of me that wanted to leave it at that, to stop probing for more information when everything she told me made me want to drive to LA so I could force these guys to answer for how they’d hurt her. It might not have been them, though, but
something
had put that haunted look in her eyes. I couldn’t go hunt them down, anyway, and it didn’t have a thing to do with thinking I needed to know every detail of what had gone on in her life. Katie didn’t owe me anything. She didn’t need to explain herself to me. But I had a sinking suspicion that
she
felt the need to tell me, before we took things further.

The drugstore was about a block away. I changed lanes to turn in.

“Do you hate me?” she asked quietly, once we were in the parking lot.

“There’s nothing you could ever do to make me hate you.” I shut off the engine and sat there, waiting for her to look at me. When she finally did, I said, “I might not always be happy with every decision you make, but I love you. That’s enough.”

“But you don’t— I know how TMZ and the other gossip sites made me seem. They made me out like I was easy. A slut going from guy to guy. It was what Derek wanted. He wanted me to have some edge, so I could get different sorts of parts, and I just…I went along with the publicity stuff. I trusted him to know what was best for my career, and I shouldn’t have. When something felt wrong, I should have put my foot down and said I wouldn’t do it.”

I agreed wholeheartedly, but telling her so wouldn’t solve anything. “You can’t go back and change things,” I said. “It happened. What matters now are the choices you make moving forward.” Like the fact that she wanted to buy condoms to use with me. My hormones had been working in overdrive since she’d kissed me in her backyard earlier, and thoughts like these weren’t helping to cool things down.

Her hair had fallen into her eyes again, so I brushed it back, letting my fingertips trail over her cheek before I tucked the tendrils behind her ear.

“Promise me something,” I said.

“What’s that?” She blinked a couple of times, as if she were trying to hold back tears again. I didn’t want tears to have any part of things when I finally took her to my bed.

“Promise me that if I ever treat you as anything less than the princess you are, you’ll break my nose and then be sure your dad finishes me off.”

“How can you possibly think I’m a princess, that I deserve to be with someone as good as you, after—”

“Promise me,” I interrupted. “Don’t you fucking dare sell yourself short. Not ever again. I can live with a lot of things, Katie. I can accept that you did things you regret, that you made choices I would rather you hadn’t. But I can’t handle you thinking you’re not good enough. For anything or anyone. That’s not even close to all right. That’s the kind of thinking that leads to you accepting the kind of treatment those guys gave you. So you promise me you won’t ever put up with me treating you as anything less than perfect, because that’s what you are. At least to me, and if anyone thinks otherwise, then they need their thinking adjusted.”

I didn’t know where these speeches kept coming from when I was with Katie. There was a part of me that wished words would come to me like that when I was with the team because that was what they needed from me as their captain. It never seemed to happen with them, though. Only with Katie, who at the moment was looking at me with the most thunderstruck expression I’d ever seen.

“So are we buying condoms or what?” I asked. My face felt hot. I had to be fucking blushing again. I opened my door and got out, slamming it behind me because I was so damn pissed at my own embarrassment I could hardly function.

By the time I got around to Katie’s side, she’d already gotten out on her own.

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” Losing my temper with her over something that was my own damn problem would never be okay. “That’s one of those things you’re not supposed to let me get away with. You should be breaking my nose right about now.” I shut her door and pressed the button on my remote to lock the car.

When I turned around, Katie stretched up on her toes to kiss me.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“Because you can’t even imagine half the ways I’ve screwed up, and you still think I’m perfect.” She reached for my hand. “Come on. Let’s go buy some condoms.”

“Do you have
a type you prefer? Or a brand? There are those condoms that claim they enhance sensitivity. That could be good.” A box caught my eye, and I picked it up, holding it out to Jamie. “Ooh, or those super thin ones. They’re supposed to feel like they aren’t even there. That’s what the advertising says, at least, but I can always tell there’s something there. Can’t you? Or we could go with colored, flavored,
magnum
…” I intentionally left that last query hanging between us to see if he would bite.

He didn’t.

I’d seen him blush a lot over the years, but I had never seen him as bright red as he was right now. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but here, which made sense when I thought about it. Jamie had always been a private kind of guy. He never seemed to have a hard time talking to me about anything when we were alone, but I doubted he wanted his private life spread all over the news. I couldn’t say I blamed him for that. I’d had enough of the paparazzi to last a lifetime, and then some. That was another good thing about staying in Portland. I doubted TMZ would be hanging around here to catch me doing something they could twist into a scandal.

“Whatever you want,” he said quietly, keeping his head down. “You choose.”

I raised my eyebrows, a grin stealing over my lips. “You sure? I’m not terribly particular as long as it’s covered.”

“Same for me,” he said through gritted teeth.

If he wasn’t going to be picky, I might as well be adventurous. I grabbed a few boxes, just for fun: flavored, glow-in-the-dark, and another that claimed to be ribbed for her pleasure. I’d never known a condom to enhance my pleasure before, but for the most part, they didn’t diminish it, either. The
diminished pleasure
I’d experienced tended to fall squarely on the shoulders of the man wearing the condom, instead of the protective gear itself. Beau had never bothered to see to my needs, worrying only about his own. Every aspect of our relationship had been like that, but nowhere had it been more pronounced than in bed. We did things when he wanted, how he wanted, and as fast as he wanted, and tough if I didn’t enjoy myself.

There was no chance it would be anything like that with Jamie. He was so caring in everything he did, I knew without a doubt that it would carry over into the bedroom.

Once I was satisfied with my selections, we headed up to the checkout counter. I reached in my purse for my wallet, but Jamie beat me to the punch, handing over a wad of bills. The checker bagged everything up, doing his best to hide a knowing smile but constantly peeking up at me, and handed over the receipt. We left the store and got back into Jamie’s car.

Jamie didn’t start the ignition, though. He had put on his seat belt, but he was staring at the guy who’d rung up our purchases. When I glanced up to find out why, I could see him through the store windows with his phone in his hands as he leaned over the counter.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Jamie asked.

“Texting his friends that he just saw us buying more condoms than we could use in a month. Maybe tweeting it, but hopefully texting. And he could be adding something else to our purchases, like blindfolds and handcuffs. Something to make it seem worse than it is. That’s just what people do.” They always exaggerated the truth, whatever the truth was. I’d come to accept it as simply part of being somewhat famous.

“You think he knows who we are?”

“You think he doesn’t?” I gave Jamie a dubious look. “Maybe he doesn’t watch hockey, so you might be in the clear, but he definitely knew who I was. You saw the way he was looking at me.”

Jamie undid his seat belt. “I’m going back in there.”

“What? No.” I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Why would you do that? Going in there again will only make things worse.”

“Because someone needs to tell him that what he’s doing is wrong!”

I flinched and let go of his arm, folding my hands on my lap. “Fine. You’re not the one who’s been dealing with this for four years, but surely you know best. Go on. I’m sure it’ll make everything better if slutty Katie Weber’s latest man goes in and threatens the guy who’s just letting the world know how slutty Katie still is.”

“I wasn’t planning on threatening him.”

“No? Then what? Skipping that step and going straight for the throat punch? Sounds like something Dad would do, not you, but maybe you’ve been paying attention and taking a few notes about how to be sure you draw
more
attention to the things you want to hide.”

A few more moments passed in silence. Then he put his seat belt on again and started the car. “I’m sorry,” Jamie said, driving out of the parking lot. “I wanted to make things better for you, and what I had in mind would have only made it worse. You’re right. I didn’t think it through.” He pulled up at a stoplight and held out his hand between us, open to take mine.

I hesitated, but then I put my hand in his. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I’ve done things to make you think I’m a slut. But I’m not, Jamie. I’m really not. I know how things seem, but that’s just what they wanted the world to see. For some reason, it’s easy to believe the worst of people and hard to believe the best, but no one is either as good or as bad as the media paints them. No one.”

Jamie dragged his other hand through his hair, mussing his faux hawk so some of it was standing on end. “I don’t think you’re a slut.”

“No?” I still sounded pouty and petulant. “Well, you’re one of very few, then. Even Dad fell for everything the media tried to sell about me.” And thanks to how well Derek cast me in that role, it hadn’t even been a hard sell.

A couple of minutes later, Jamie parked the car. He closed the garage door behind us.

I grabbed my purse and the drugstore bag, ready to go home. To my house. Alone, because I wasn’t really in the mood to fool around with him after the argument we’d just had. I wasn’t used to disagreeing with Jamie, and I didn’t like it. There was a hollow ache in my stomach that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with conflict. I really fucking hated conflict.

“Come on,” Jamie said as we got out of his car. He waited by the door leading into his kitchen, holding out a hand for me. “Blackbeard’ll be frantic for company by now.”

“You sure you want me to come in?” I hedged. “I could go home if you’d prefer that. Since…” I wasn’t sure how to put into words that maybe he wasn’t in the mood right now after we’d been arguing and talking about what a slut the world thinks I am. And honestly, even though he said he didn’t think of me that way, the only thing he had to go on to the contrary was my word. Maybe he needed more time to think about all of this.

He gave me an overblown suspicious look and pointed to the bag in my hands. “You sure about that? Because it seems wasteful not to put those to use.”

“You think you can use them all, huh?” I laughed. “They do have expiration dates, but I think they’ll last a while. We don’t have to rush into anything.”

His whole face dropped. “I’m not going to rush you, Katie. Not ever.”

That much was painfully evident, since I was the one making almost every move. I smiled and crossed over to take his hand, kissing him on the side of his jaw. “I meant
I
wouldn’t rush
you
.”

A frisson of hope flitted between us, and I couldn’t tell where it started and where it ended. It just was. Tangible. Nearly physical.

He threaded his fingers through mine. “So you’ll come in?”

I stepped ahead of him and opened the door. Blackbeard raced through it, making a flying leap straight for Jamie and landing halfway up his thigh. Within seconds, he clawed his way up and made himself at home on Jamie’s shoulder, amid a stream of curses.

I tried to stifle my laugh. “Just be glad he only weighs about a pound right now. Wait until he’s a full-grown cat and still doing that.”

Jamie sent a half-hearted glare in the kitten’s direction. “We’ll see if he makes it that long.”