Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(65)

The kitten watched Cole approach, his tail flicking with impatience and annoyance.

Oh yeah, you’re put out, are you, devil cat? You’re not the one tiptoeing like a cartoon villain down your own stupid hallway.

Kahn tilted his head to the side as if he could understand Cole’s thoughts.

“That’s right. Stay right there.”

He reached out. The kitten started. And the closest he ended up to catching the cat was a brush of silky fur across his fingertips before Kahn scurried down the hallway as if Satan himself was on his tail.

“Kahn,” he hollered, the name a cry in the otherwise silent house, but the kitten was gone.

Like Tess, the kitten didn’t want to have a damn thing to do with him.

Cole sank down onto his ass and leaned his back against Tess’s door, making sure to use extra caution when it came to resting his head against the wood and letting his eyelids drift downward. God, he was exhausted, like bone-deep-weary, triple-overtime exhausted. He’d set his alarms last night so he’d woken up every hour on the hour and then, at the doctor’s insistence, he’d texted the doc. Of course, the doctor thought that it was Tess texting him, not Cole.

It wasn’t just the fucked-up sleep schedule that had him feeling as if he was part zombie, though. It wasn’t even a small part of it. The real reason was because of the woman who wasn’t behind the door, the one who’d jostled his entire world—shaking it like a snow globe—and then had walked out.

“What do you get for changing things up?” He let out a sigh and opened his eyes, his gaze falling on Tess’s Bigfoot painting. “Kicked down to the second line, a concussion, and a gaping empty space in your chest.”

God. He sounded like an angsty emo teenager drunk for the first time on wine spritzers.

Someone pounded on his front door. “Hey, Phillips,” Petrov yelled. “Open up, you dumb-ass.”

Great. Visitors (and he knew Christensen had to be there, too) were pretty much the last thing he wanted when he was having a fucking amazing time sitting in his hall feeling sorry for himself. The center continued to hammer away on the door because fate just loved to tell him that he was wrong. Cole got up and ambled over to it, mumbling a string of curses to himself.

“We know you’re alone,” Christensen hollered. “You better not be fucking dead or unconscious.”

Cole flipped the dead bolt and opened the door. “And if I was, would I be opening the door?”

“Coach is going to have your ass if he finds out you stayed by yourself last night,” Christensen said, giving him an assessing once-over before barging inside without asking if he could come in and heading straight for the kitchen—of course.

“How in the hell did you two knuckleheads know?” Was his damn house bugged?

“Tess told Fallon who told Blackburn that Marti was staying with you. He knew that was bullshit because unlike you, he’s not a total idiot. He called me and said to come over and find out if you were still breathing or if we needed to kill you ourselves,” Petrov said as he strolled in, his attention on the ugly painting. “What in the hell is that?”

Cole’s gut twisted. “Tess painted it.”

Petrov lifted an eyebrow. “And you hung it here where everyone could see it?”

“She did. It was a…” Fuck, how in the hell did he explain flirting via moving a painting to Petrov and Christensen without sounding like a total idiot? You don’t, you moron. “It doesn’t matter.”

“When did you get a cat?” Christensen yelled from the kitchen. “And why is it looking at me like it’s plotting my death?”

“Obviously it has good taste,” Petrov shot back.

For the first time since his head smacked down on the ice, Cole cracked a smile. He did more than that—he laughed loud, like a man who’d just remembered he could.

“Oh fuck,” Christensen said, poking his head out of the kitchen and eyeballing Cole warily. “Your brain’s totally broken. You’re laughing.”

He flipped off the other man and walked into the kitchen, which looked exactly like it should—except for the two uninvited hockey players lounging against his counters like they owned the place.

“It happens. I laugh.” He stopped in front of the fridge and stared up at Kahn, who had situated himself on top of it so close to the edge, he looked like a fuzzy gargoyle. “Now, help me get Tess’s kitten down so I can take him to her apartment.”

“She isn’t coming back?” Petrov asked.

Cole’s jaw tightened and some invisible force squeezed his lungs tight. “Why would she?” He tried for a nonchalant shrug that felt stiff and awkward. “The repairs on her apartment are done. This arrangement was just temporary.”

Christensen and Petrov exchanged a who-in-the-fuck-does-he-think-he’s-fooling look as if he wasn’t there to see it.

“And you’re okay with that?” Christensen asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Another shrug, this one a little smoother. “Now, help me get this damn kitten.”

He reached up toward the top of the fridge only to have Kahn gracefully leap up to the top of the cabinets, where he sat down and sent a hiss Cole’s way before starting to clean his paws.

“You’re fine with Tess leaving, huh?” Petrov rolled his eyes. “There is a motherfucking painting of Bigfoot hanging in your hall.” He kept his focus on the kitten as he moved to the right of the cabinets, automatically taking a zone defense position. “It’s the only thing in this whole place that isn’t light brownish tan or whatever they call that color your decorator approved.”