You Make Me Weak (The Blackwells of Crystal Lake 1)

“Is he fast?” Hudson asked, grabbing another potato.

“He’s pretty fast.”

“Can you beat him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, just skate around the kid. Play smart and don’t let him catch you in the corners. Remember, the bigger the guy, the harder he falls. If you give him a good, clean hit, you can take him out. Use the momentum of your skates.”

Okay. She needed to nip this in the bud. “Liam’s only eleven,” she said, walking into the kitchen.

Her son whirled around and Rebecca tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. What did a person do when caught red-handed with a lover in the house? Just a few days earlier Hudson had hidden in her closet when Liam woke up in the night and knocked on her bedroom door. Liam had complained of a sore stomach and with Hudson in the closet, Rebecca had been more stressed than her son.

Seriously. She was too old for this stuff.

“Mom! Hudson was just coming over when I got home, so I asked him if he wanted to stay for breakfast, and he said that he was hungry because he did a lot of work last night.”

Her eyebrow shot up at that. “Did he?” Rebecca didn’t quite care for the grin on Hudson’s face.

“I didn’t think you’d mind because you’re friends.” He looked between the two adults. “Right?”

“Oh yes,” she replied, heading for the coffee machine. “We’re friends.” Her words were laced with sarcasm.

Liam looked from his mother to Hudson and then back to Rebecca. “Is it okay? Hudson said because he’d worked up such an appetite, we should make a big breakfast.”

“That’s fine.” She leaned against the counter and did her best to avoid Hudson’s gaze.

“He’s going to come to my hockey game too.”

Her head whipped up at that. “I’m not sure…” She began, though the rest of her sentence died slowly at the earnest look on Liam’s face. “I mean, Hudson’s probably busy.”

“I’m not,” he said, moving alongside her and grabbing his own mug from the cupboard. His hard thigh pressed into her—only for a second—but it was enough to send electric pulses dancing across her skin.

“Busy,” Hudson continued, shooting her a glance while pouring himself a coffee.

“Great.” Rebecca downed her coffee and smiled at her son. “Just great.”

“I know, right?” Liam grinned from ear to ear and turned back to his task.

It would seem that her fears the night before were coming true. Hudson in the kitchen with her son wasn’t part of their program. Coming to his hockey game? Not in their program. This thing had become complicated.

The question was, what the hell was she going to do about it?

Chapter 25

The kid had skills.

It had been a long time since Hudson attended a hockey game, and he was impressed at the level of play Liam and his teammates possessed. The big defender on the opposing team, Gavin, had been successfully neutralized, and the boys pulled out a win. Only by one goal, but a win nonetheless.

It brought back a lot of memories, being here, and he was glad he’d come, even though it was obvious Rebecca wasn’t exactly happy about the idea. He’d driven himself and had watched the game from a solitary perch high up in the stands. He knew enough to know that if he sat with Rebecca, that is, if she’d let him, tongues would wag.

As it was, he was getting more than his fair share of looks from the parents gathered in the main foyer of the arena. Hudson wandered over to the large glass display cases, one of which was devoted solely to his brother Travis. There were numerous photos spanning a career that had started at the tender age of three and ended with a framed shot from Travis’s rookie year.

Hudson smiled. At one time, he and his brothers had practically lived in this arena. The smells, the fried food, and popcorn were still the same.

“You came!”

Hudson turned and spied Liam a few feet from him, hockey bag and stick in tow.