Hawke (Carolina Cold Fury Hockey #5)(44)

When the home screen illuminates, I see a waiting text. A quick tap of my finger on the icon and I see it’s from Todd.

Just checking in to see how you’re doing. How’s Dave?

Dear, sweet Todd.

We’ve talked by phone once since we parted ways, and he’s sent me a couple of texts. Despite the way I broke things off with him, he’s still kept in touch with me. He said, “I’m still your friend, Vale.”

And I suppose that’s true, but I can tell he’s harboring hope we’ll somehow make this work. While I don’t have any romantic interest in him now that I’ve broken ties, I don’t hate him. I don’t dislike him. On the contrary, I still very much like and admire the man I know him to be. While I never really thought being friends with an ex is possible, it seems that Todd is making a valiant attempt to disprove me, but again, I think he has an ulterior motive, so I need to be careful with him. I don’t want to give him false hope.

I shoot a quick text back. We’re both good. Home from hospital and all settled in. How are you?

I don’t wait for Todd to respond. It’s still working hours for a dentist and he normally doesn’t leave his clinic until after six p.m. I’m sure he’s armpit deep in cavities at this moment.

Instead, I dial Avery and she picks up on the third ring. “Your damn mutt is getting on my last nerve. She’s just eaten the third pair of Thomas’s socks this week. She’s a menace, I tell you.”

“That’s all on you, sweetie,” I tell her with a laugh. “If you’d put the socks in the laundry basket when you took them off his little feet, Piper wouldn’t be inclined to eat them.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mutters. “I hear you.”

“How is my girl doing?” I ask, my chest constricting at the thought of Piper nearly fifteen hundred miles away. I sit on the edge of my bed and reach out to finger a framed picture of me and Piper on the bedside table. Her chocolate-brown face with a slightly pink nose, tongue lolling out the side of her face. We both look so happy in this photo and it seems so long ago. A picture of me and Todd had been next to it, but I put that in the drawer the day after we broke up. I couldn’t stand to look at his face, knowing that I hurt him.

“She misses you,” Avery says in a sympathetic voice. “So do I for that matter.”

“I miss you too and I can’t thank you enough for watching her for me until I can get back on my feet.”

We spend a few minutes filling each other in on our respective lives over the past few days.

I tell her more details about Dad’s hospitalization.

She tells me that Thomas has learned to cross his eyes and now does it for every photo that’s ever taken.

I tell her a funny story about one of my Xtreme Fit clients who always smells like cumin, a not altogether unpleasant aroma, just not one you like smelling on a person.

She tells me that Rob, her husband, started playing on a rec hockey league this week and already broke his nose.

I tell her about Hawke.

Well, I more or less blurt it out in an unrestrained bark of admission. “I slept with Hawke two days ago.”

Avery knows that Hawke and I have crossed paths. I’d told her all about the first time we talked and how awkward it was. I’d told her about his olive branch and that we settled into a friendly routine. I’d told her about Hawke molesting me in his bathroom—but omitted how much I enjoyed it—and that he outed us to Todd. She knows this sort of precipitated Todd’s proposal, which in turn precipitated my ending the relationship with him.

But she never in a million years thought we’d have sex, and this is confirmed when she screeches, “You did what?”

“I slept with Hawke,” I practically whine. “It was when Dad got put into the hospital and I was exhausted and vulnerable and I needed some comfort, familiarity.”

“You needed an orgasm,” Avery says emphatically. “Right? That’s all it was, I bet.”

I’m silent.

And the silence is damning.

“Tell me that’s all it was,” Avery demands.

“Well, to me it was—”

She rolls right over me. “That son of a bitch doesn’t deserve more than that from you, Vale. You know I was never his biggest fan, but after he wouldn’t return your calls and email…well, he just can’t have more of you than some hot hookup sex. Don’t give him more than that.”

Her last statement is a plea.

She’s begging me not to put myself in a position where I can get hurt again, so I quickly reassure her. “Don’t worry, Av. It was definitely only a hookup for Hawke; he’s apparently still holding a grudge—”

“Why?” Avery demands. “He has no right.”

“Regardless,” I say gently. “It was just a one-time thing. We’ve both moved past it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

No, I’m not past it.

“Because he’ll hurt you again if you let him in,” Avery points out. “And besides…I bet the sex wasn’t even as good as you remembered it, right?”

“Totally awful,” I tell her.

Best. Sex. Ever.

“Hawke is selfish,” she adds. “Remember that. He thinks about no one but himself.”