Worth the Fall (31 page)

It wasn
’t so bad during the day when his parents were at work. And since Petey had started driving again a week ago, he’d been meeting Darío most days to discuss their new business venture.

Which he still hadn
’t told his parents about.

He was waiting until he could leave the house and go to his motel room for that.

“Hey, they’re talking about you,” his father said, pointing at the television.

“
He is definitely missed, that’s for sure,” one announcer said to the other, presumably about him.

“
The defenseman they brought up has done a good job, but Pete Ryan is a hard act to follow.” Petey puffed up a little bit.

“
You’ve got that right. I’ve never seen a more brave player on the ice. One who put his whole heart and body into every shift….”

The announcer went on, but Petey stopped listening. They were right—he was fearless on the ice and always had been.

So why in the hell was he so afraid of a five-foot nothing Laplander?

He got to his feet, reached for his crutches and then pushed them aside. Nope, no crutch for this job. He left the living room and went to the front foyer, where he started putting on his parka. His father followed him out.
“Where are you going so late?”

“
Out,” he said and started to leave, then stopped. No. Do it right. He turned to face his father. “I’m going to Alison’s and I’m going to beg her give me a chance. Give
us
a chance. At a real future together.”

His father looked at him with shock, then disgust.
“You’re just lonely, and out of circulation. You just—”

“
No, Dad. It’s not out of loneliness. I love Alison. I’ve loved her since my senior year in high school. Though there were years in there when I absolutely could not stand her—I still loved her.”

“
As a friend, sure. Like you love Lizzie.”

“
Nope. Not even close to how I feel about Lizzie.”

“
But…but….”

“
And hopefully she’s going to be in the picture for a while, so you better get used to the idea of her and me. And while you’re at it, you better get used to the idea that I’m going into business with Darío. We’re going to build that indoor driving range I told you about.”

His father stared at him, his mouth open. Before he could spew out the words sure to come, Petey zipped up his jacket and walked out the front door. He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the door open behind him and his father shout,
“Petey!”

He stopped and debated just leaving but finally turned around, ready to hear what his dad had to say.

“Be careful on those stairs,” his father said to him. And then, holy shit, he just smiled, turned around and walked back inside.

***

Alison sat on her bed, Petey’s note in her hand.

She read it again, for the third time in the twenty minutes since she
’d found it.

Al,

First off, thanks for letting me crash here. I know it wasn’t easy on you, but it sure made the last few days bearable for me.

I don
’t really know what happened today, but I know I blew it—again. I know the idea of us as anything more than friends with benefits scares you to death, but it shouldn’t. We’re so good together, Al, and in more than just sex (though that’s pretty fucking great!). There’s no one who challenges me more than you do. No one who I want to be at my best for.

Okay. I
’ve been a pussy long enough. So, here it is:

I love you. I always have. I haven
’t always liked you…but the love was always there.

I know I wasn
’t the man you needed me to be at nineteen, and I’ve had to live with that.

All I ask is that you give me a chance to show you now the man I
’ve become.

Please. Let
’s take a chance. Together.

I
’ll wait for you to call.

Petey

“
What are you doing?” Petey said from her doorway, scaring the living crap out of her and causing her to drop the letter.

“
How’d you get in here?” she asked, rising from the corner of the bed.

“
You never lock the door. A habit you’ve got to break.” He looked at the note on floor, and at her open panty drawer. “You
just
found it?”

She nodded.
“I ended up staying in the guest room. I just washed the clothes I’d brought there and put them back in that dresser.”

“
You haven’t slept in here since I left?”

She shook her head and watched as he looked at the bed, still made up the way he
’d left it. He walked into the room and she noticed he wasn’t wearing the brace. Or using crutches.

“
How’s your knee?” she asked, still stunned that he’d walked in now, like she’d conjured him up or something just by reading his letter.

“
Good. I’ve been driving for about a week now. I’m going to take Annie skating on Saturday.”

“
That’s nice.”

He reached her and bent down, still a little stiffly, and retrieved his letter.
“It’s been royally messing with my head, you know, thinking you read this two weeks ago and had nothing to say.”

“
I’m not sure what to say
now
.” She was telling him the truth.

He glanced at the open dresser drawer.
“So if you’re in the next room, why were you in your panty drawer tonight?”

She couldn
’t look at him, didn’t want him to know the truth. But he put a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “Al?”

“
There was one pair I couldn’t find. I thought they’d be in the other room. They should have been. But they weren’t, so I thought maybe they were in here.”

“
The black satin ones?”

“
Yes. And I thought—wait. How did you know that?” Her eyes narrowed.

“
Why did you need the black satin panties tonight?”

“
I…I….”

“
Were you going to call me tonight, Al? Even before you found the note?”

She started to deny it, to not give him the satisfaction. Then she glanced at the letter he still held. Thought about what it
’d taken for him to write it. “Yes. I wanted to see you tonight. After I left my parents, I started thinking. Thinking about us. And….” He started to grin. “Oh, all right. I was going to call you and I wanted to have those panties on if I saw you tonight.”

She started to step away from him, but he reached out and held her wrist.
“And do you? Have those panties on?”

She shook her head.
“I saw the note and started reading it. I never really looked.”

“
You wouldn’t have found them.”

“
No?”

He shook his head and set the note on the bed, then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out her panties.

“See. There was good reason to warn you to stay out of my panty drawer, ya perv,” she said, but there was humor in her voice.

And then he flashed that grin. It nearly took her breath away. He moved closer to her, still holding on to her wrist.

And then a thought hit her. “Wait. If you thought I read your note two weeks ago and didn’t respond, what are you doing here? Now?”

His grin widened. He brought her wrist behind her back and then released her hand and slid his palm down to her ass, which he grabbed, pulling her close.
“Because my knee is better and I’m here to make good on my promise.”

She looked at him, puzzled, and then she got it. She broke from him and made for the door, but he wrapped a hand around her waist before she
’d gone five feet. He picked her up off the ground and whirled her around, depositing her on the bed.

“
That’s right. I’m here to chase you, Al.” He bent down and kissed her, long and hard. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her, loving the weight of his big body on top of hers. He raised his head and looked down at her.

“
And this time, I’m going to catch you.”

~*~

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

~ Sigmund Freud

Six months later

Alison readjusted in the chaise lounge, trying to get optimal sun. She heard rustling and opened her eyes to see Katie and Lizzie next to her on the lawn doing the same thing on their loungers. She smiled at the familiarity of it all. They’d been doing this for nearly twenty-five summers. And before they’d become sun goddesses, they’d been playing games on this lawn every summer.

Some things never changed.

Sam Robbins picked that moment to start crying, which caused Peaches Luna to join in, causing their mothers to gather the babies off the blanket beside their chairs and start digging in diaper bags.

Okay, some things changed plenty.

The babies, sitting on their respective mothers’ laps, reached for each other and Alison saw a possible romance in the making.

“
They are so going to be high school sweethearts,” Alison said, watching as Sam shared a Cheerio with Peaches.

“
That won’t be possible,” Darío said as he left the nearby picnic table and swooped up a cooing Peaches from her mother’s arm. “You see, Peaches will not be dating until she’s thirty.” He took the bottle that Katie held up for him and returned to the picnic table, settled Peaches on his lap and proceeded to feed his daughter.

“
Good luck with that,” Alison said. “If she has her mother’s looks she’ll have to start beating them off with a stick in middle school.”

Darío said something Spanish under his breath and held his daughter even tighter. Katie, apparently able to hear—and understand—her husband, laughed.
“It’s okay honey, it turned out okay for me. It will for Peaches, too.”

The couple smiled at each other.

Finn, who was sitting at the table with Darío, came and gathered up baby Sam, bottle, the blanky that seemed glued to Sam, and joined Darío and Peaches at the table. He barely had the bottle in Sam’s line of vision before the eight-month-old was tearing it away from his father and jamming it into his mouth.

“
Just like his Uncle Petey—needs to get that nipple in his mouth,” Petey said as he joined the group at the table. He’d been playing with Annie in the lake where she remained, swimming with strong strokes, her legs kicking wildly.

He now stood drying himself off with a towel, his amazing body glistening with water. His comment was greeted with groans from them all, thrown Cheerios and a combination head shake/eye roll from Alison.

“What?” he said, his hands up in surrender. “Just telling the truth.”

Alison let out a long-suffering sigh.
“Yeah, he’s a total perv. But he’s
my
total perv.”

“
And you love him,” Lizzie said, almost as if she was still trying to come to terms with it, six months after they told their friends they were a couple.

“
Yep. I love him,” she said to her friends, though she was watching her man. He grinned that stupid, sexy grin at her and she sighed once more. This time the sigh was not of suffering, but of contentment. Then the smile grew wider, dirtier, and her sigh turned to an tiny gasp of anticipation.

Their friends had been shocked back in February when they went public with their relationship. Petey and Alison let them all believe that it had grown out of the proximity they shared during Petey
’s recovery. They didn’t feel the need to throw in the story of their history, so they’d allowed the misconception.

Petey had moved back in with Alison and had stayed, even when his house had become vacant. They
’d talked about moving there, but they both liked the coziness of her cottage, so the conversation never got much traction.

In early May, they
’d made the trek to Detroit where Petey was honored at the last home Red Wings game. Lizzie had gone with them to be there for the ceremony and for meetings with her staff. They’d gotten Petey’s condo cleaned out, moved what they couldn’t take back with them to Lizzie’s place, and met with a realtor about listing Petey’s place.

Alison was thrilled to share Petey
’s last Red Wings moment with him, and so happy that he was able to get some closure on that chapter of his career.

And his new chapter—as a local business owner—was moving right along. He and Darío had gone into business together to build an indoor driving range. He
’d even hired the engineering firm where Denise Casparich worked, and she was one of the main people on the project. Petey oversaw the project on a daily basis with Darío, Katie, and Peaches now on the road most weeks during the golf season.