Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(77)
Did he know her? He sure as fuck did.
Petrov snorted. “I can tell by your face going all soft and goofy that you finally figured out you need to remove your head from up your own ass.” He cleared his throat and gave Cole a back-the-fuck-up-now look that was just this side of slasher-movie scary. “Now, how about you take this opportunity to take two steps back before I remind you that I may be a center, but I’ll still kick your ass.”
Cole dropped his arm and stepped back, his hands shaking and his mind racing. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“That seems to apply to a lot of things lately,” Blackburn said. “So what are you going to do about Tess?”
Shit. That was the question. “I don’t know.”
Blackburn shook his head and grumbled something quietly that sounded like dumb-ass. “You better figure it out and quick—the plane for Montreal is wheels up at ten in the morning on Monday.”
Something shifted in his chest, and he took his first deep breath since she’d walked out of his house. “It’s too late.” The truth of it burned like a shot of straight grain alcohol all the way down to his gut. “I fucked it up too badly.”
The team captain narrowed his eyes and practically snarled at him. “Well, if you’re giving up that easily, then I guess she’s lucky to have avoided being tied down to some kind of chickenshit chump anyway.”
Guilt smacked into Cole, nearly knocking him back a few feet, but shame reacted first, dropping the gloves and coming out swinging. “Screw you, Blackburn.”
The captain took a step forward, his stance loose. Cole went to meet him in the middle, ready to let the frustration out even if that meant getting his ass kicked.
“Boys,” Petrov hollered, stopping Cole and Blackburn. “Cut the shit.”
Still sucking metaphorical wind after the sucker punch Blackburn landed, Cole took a few steps back, his pads weighing a million pounds. The laughter and the shit talk filtering out from the training room and the showers was the same as almost every post-practice skate, but it grated against his skin, scratching down to the bone and then going in for the marrow. Christensen walked into the room, air-drying instead of using a towel like a normal human and checking the messages on his phone.
“I fucked up,” Cole said.
Christensen didn’t look up from the messages on his screen. “Is this where I’m supposed to have a shocked face?”
Usually, he would have just walked away here, stuck with his plan to live his life like he always had, but it was time to act like he played football instead of hockey and call an audible.
“I’ve got to get Tess back,” he told his line mates.
Petrov let his head drop back and released a groan. “Fucking A, Phillips.” He straightened and stared right at Cole. “I had another three days to go in the team pool for how long it would take you to stop being a moron.”
“Meanwhile, I guessed right on the money,” Christensen said with a grin. “However, you’ve got one big problem, Phillips.” He finally slid on his joggers. “Tess thinks you’re still in love with Marti and that’s why you blasted out of her apartment without an I love you after giving her the good D.”
Cole’s gut dropped the three floors to the subbasement. “How do you know that?”
“He was playing Xbox at my house and Fallon unloaded on him—guilt by association,” Blackburn said with a grin, showing absolutely no sympathy. “You might not want to get within swinging distance of Fallon for a while.”
“Shit,” Cole muttered and rammed his hands through his hair, scrambling for a solution.
In the movies, this was where the plan finally came together. In reality? His brain was a giant blank and he was so very, very fucked in the worst way possible.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tess was still trying to figure out what in the world to do hours later when she and her girls had taken off for Paint and Sip. Hoping the creative atmosphere would clear her brain, since studies had shown that ideas needed space to percolate, she’d drank her organic grape juice. Finally, Tess put the finishing touches on the pastel-colored painting of a smiling baby—who happened to have two rows of shark teeth on full display—and sat back in her chair, still waiting for inspiration to strike.
“I hope you’re going to hang that in a place of honor in the baby’s room,” Larry said with a smile as he shoved a wrapped package her way.
Tess managed to keep her mouth shut because it seemed cruel to tell their eccentric painting instructor that all the bizarre Paint and Sip night paintings went into a closet—well, except for the Bigfoot one at Cole’s house that she wasn’t going to think about because it would only make her think of him, and damn it she was emotional enough lately without doing that. God, she missed him. Kahn did, too. The little beastie liked to prowl through the house as if he was looking for Cole and his tail flicked with frustration every time he made his rounds and didn’t find him.
“Oh, you didn’t have to get me a present,” she said as she accepted the tiny gift. “That’s very sweet of you.”
His pale cheeks flushed pink and his gaze dropped to his shoes that looked suspiciously like he’d swiped them from a bowling alley. “Well, you four are here almost every week, and despite your tendency to talk more than paint, we’re kinda family. Congrats on the baby.”