In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (13 page)

When I rolled out of bed, I accidentally tugged the sheet along with me. I wouldn’t leave her like that—without something covering her, she’d get cold, at least without me in the bed to keep her warm—but I definitely took a minute to look my fill while she couldn’t hide herself from me. The way my T-shirt tugged over her breasts made me want to forget about going to morning skate so I could stay with her and enjoy them some more, but missing a mandatory team function would land me a one-way ticket to Bergy’s shit list since we had a game tonight. It wasn’t such a hot idea, despite its high degree of merit.

After drinking her in for a while—messy hair and my rumpled clothes and all—I put the sheet back in place and picked the comforter up from the floor where we’d kicked it off in the night, tucking it all around her. Then I didn’t have any more time to mess around. I had to feed the dogs, fix my own breakfast, take them for a walk, shower, dress, and get to the Moda Center before Bergy decided to rip me a new one.

The second I opened my bedroom door, Pepper’s excitement got the better of her and she let out a long, loud series of barks. I quickly closed the door behind me, hoping it hadn’t been enough to wake Brie since she didn’t have to be up to teach her classes until this afternoon. I gave Pepper a nudge down the stairs. My other two dogs followed us with hardly a sound coming from either of them. They knew the drill. Pepper probably needed to go out and relieve herself more than anything, but she never missed a chance to tell me how she felt about something.

I had no doubt that some of her excitement was because she knew Brie was still in there and Pepper wanted to make friends. That would have to wait for another time, though.

Once I had them all outside, I got busy getting ready for my day. Staying up most of the night—talking to Brie almost as much as we’d engaged in other activities—really wasn’t the best way to spend a night before a game, but at least I would be able to get my afternoon nap in. I finished dealing with my dogs and getting myself ready, but Brie was still fast asleep. I jotted her a quick note, telling her I’d be back around lunchtime to take her home, left it on the kitchen counter where she should be able to find it, and then I headed out the door.

T
HE MORNING SKATE
sucked donkey balls today, at least for me. We’d had yesterday completely free—it was one of our league-mandated days off—so my legs were already stiff from not getting a good skate in. Add in the beers and lack of sleep and I was dragging ass.

Colesy tried his best to cover up for my piss-poor skating, but there wasn’t really any way for him to hide my issues, and we’d only been paired together for one game and a few practices. Not enough for us to have real chemistry out there yet.

Just my luck, Bergy noticed, too. “Burnzie!” he shouted out as the rest of the guys were heading off the ice to shower and clean up. “I need a minute.”

“Shit,” Colesy muttered next to me. “Sorry, man.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” I spun around and skated back across the rink to where Bergy was waiting for me once the rest of the boys were heading down the tunnel.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded with no preamble. “Are you sick or hurt, or did you fuck up and do something you shouldn’t have done?”

I wished I could blame it on being sick, but there wasn’t any chance in hell I was going to try to lie my way out of the situation. I’d made my bed; now I had to lie in it. “I had a late night, and I drank a few too many beers,” I said.

“A few? How many did you have?” His tone had gone from angry to concerned in a second, flat.

I knew exactly why that had happened, too. Nicklas Ericsson, our top goaltender, had spent half the summer in a rehab program back in Sweden. Nicky had started out the current season okay, but a little over a month in, he’d started acting strangely again.

Right now, he wasn’t with the team at all. The coaches couldn’t disclose why or when he’d return, but I knew it was because he was back in rehab. There wasn’t a better place for him to be, honestly, but it meant that we were down our number one guy in the net and having to rely on our backup and a kid who ought to be playing in the AHL. Not only that, but it meant part of our family was missing. He’d become a hell of a lot more than just a friend to many of us over the years. It sucked to know he was dealing with an addiction. I wanted him to come back and be all right, even if he couldn’t play.

Hunter and Bobby, the two guys filling in for him, were both holding their own and playing better than anyone had expected them to. But they weren’t Nicky. Nicklas Ericsson had just started to gain recognition as one of the elite goaltenders in the league when all this had gone down. Now there was no telling if he’d ever be able to really prove himself.

Anyway, there was little wonder as to why Bergy would be concerned. I thought back to last night, trying to sort out exactly how much I’d had to drink. “A couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and I think two beers once I got home. No, three,” I amended. I’d had another after our shower sex.

“Is that much normal for you? You don’t drink like that on a regular basis, do you?”

“Absolutely not. I almost never have a drink on the night before a game, and even when I drink socially it’s usually only one or two.”

Bergy eyed me for a long time, his gaze boring into me the same way it always did when he’d played in the NHL. He could be one intimidating motherfucker when he wanted to be, and I got the distinct impression that he was trying to see if I would crack under his intensity. I wouldn’t try to hide anything like that, though. I really didn’t drink all that often. Last night had been an anomaly.

“Why didn’t you get enough sleep?” he asked after a long minute, when he hadn’t gotten me to break.

Because I kept trying to drown the pain of all my guilt and grief brought unexpectedly back to the surface by throwing myself into wild sex with a woman who is knocking my world off its axis
didn’t seem like the best answer. “There’s this girl,” I finally said, giving him some of the truth even if I couldn’t face all of it. “Being up so late is not going to become a habit, even if I hope she will.” And I definitely wanted to make Brie more than just a habit, despite her connection to Garrett. She hadn’t pushed last night. She hadn’t tried to force me to talk about him. She’d seemed to understand my need to suffer all that alone, to keep it separate from whatever was going to happen between the two of us. She’d allowed me to channel all the emotion I didn’t want to deal with into making love to her.

“All right,” Bergy said. “But be aware that I’m paying attention. I’m keeping an eye on you. I have no intention of messing around with this shit, so if I get the sense that there’s more going on with you than what you’ve told me, we’re going to have to do a hell of a lot more than talk about it. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it. This isn’t going to be an issue, Bergy.”

“That’s what Nicky said, too.” He skated off the ice. “Get your ass hydrated before tonight!” he shouted over his shoulder.

I wasn’t worried about becoming an alcoholic, but I could definitely get addicted to Brie.

T
HE RINGING OF
my phone woke me, and I sat straight up in the bed so fast that my head felt as if it might split in two. Too much wine, too much sex, and not enough sleep was definitely not a good combination. I couldn’t say how there could possibly be such a thing as too much sex, but based on the way I felt right now—kind of sore everywhere, but especially that delicious after-sex ache between my legs—there was.

I rolled off the bed and scoured the floor for my clothes and purse, but Keith had apparently moved them to a chair near the window. I stumbled over to it and dug out my phone. Tanya was calling me from the studio. I hit the button to answer and hoped I’d gotten to it before it went to my voice mail.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“You’re still that tired at this hour?” she replied. “You sound like death. And not even the warmed-over kind.”

I cleared my throat, scowling even though she couldn’t see my face. “What’s up?”

“Not you. I hope spending the night with Sex on a Stick was as good as I imagine it was.” She had a laughing, teasing quality to her tone.

“None of your business.” There was definitely more grumble in my tone than I’d intended. Probably from lack of sleep. And maybe a little bit because she’d called Keith Sex on a Stick again, and he’d just shown me yet again exactly how astute that observation was.

“I know. I know.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m calling to see if you can come in a few hours early today. Janelle’s kid is sick and she needs to take him to the doctor or urgent care or something. If you can’t cover her classes, we’re going to have to cancel them.”

I searched Keith’s bedroom for a clock—I would normally look at my phone but that wouldn’t work at the moment—finally finding one on the nightstand next to the bed. Should have looked there first but I was still half asleep and not thinking clearly. The time 11:48 glowed bright red. How on earth had I slept until almost noon? I mean, yeah, we had kept each other up half the night, but good grief. I never slept this late. Not that it mattered at this point. I was scheduled to teach my first class at three, so I really needed to get there
now
if Janelle was going to have time to get her son to the doctor.

“Give me half an hour,” I said, already stripping off the clothes Keith had given me and pulling on the ones I’d worn last night. “Forty-five minutes, tops.”

“Got it. Thanks, Brie.” She hung up, and I folded the clothes he’d given me, set them on the foot of the bed, and dashed out the door to find Keith so he could take me home.

Only, when I opened the door to his bedroom, I was greeted by three enthusiastic dogs instead of Keith. The little one, if you could call her that, stood up on her back paws and put the front ones on my shoulders, licking me on the chin. She let out a happy bark and my nostrils were filled with the intense scent of doggy breath. That did more to wake me up than anything else had so far.

I blinked a few times and shook my head as though that could clear away the smell. Then I pushed her back. “Down,” I said, but I didn’t sound very convincing, even to my own ears. I’d never spent much time around dogs before. Cats were far more my style. No need to take them on walks. They could use a litter box. And kitty breath wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as doggy breath. There were other bonuses in my mind, too, but those were an excellent start.

She didn’t back off much and the other two were right behind her, looking just as excited to see me. I figured I’d better start walking and see if they’d let me through. Lucky for me, their excitement only seemed to increase at the prospect of racing me down the stairs. I let them go ahead of me so I wouldn’t have one of them barreling into me from behind.

“Keith?” I called out when I got downstairs.

Nothing. Not a sound other than the smaller dog barking.

I made my way through a few rooms, hoping to find him without seeming as though I was snooping. It didn’t seem as though the snooping thing would matter, though, because there wasn’t any sign of him.

I didn’t have time to mess around looking for him in his ginormous mansion of a house. I dug my phone back out of my purse and called him, but it went straight to his voice mail without even ringing. I vaguely recalled he’d said he had to go to practice today, but if he was there, I had no earthly idea when he’d be back. I looked up the number for a cab company. Only there was one major problem with getting a cab to come and get me: I didn’t have the first clue what Keith’s address was.

Crap
. I put my phone away since it wasn’t going to do me any good, at least until I could figure out his address. I headed back into the kitchen, hoping maybe I’d find a piece of mail lying on the counters or something, but there was only a single piece of paper there—a note for me, scrawled in untidy handwriting.

Brie,

I’m at morning skate with the team. Help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, and I’ll be back around lunchtime to take you home.