“I love her, and you’re the reason she isn’t talking to me!”
King pulls me off him.
Rook scrambles back to his feet. “You’re the one with a mile-long list of puck-bunny pictures all over social media.”
“Those are my brother’s conquests, not mine. When have you ever seen me pick up a bunny? Fucking never.”
“Bullshit.” Rook spits, but I can see him filtering through preseason, trying to come up with a time when I’ve chatted up a bunny, let alone taken one home with me. I’m as polite as I possibly can be to fans, considering I’m a dick on the best of days.
“You know what’s bullshit? The fact that your goddamn puck-bunny history is the reason Stevie is freaking out right now. You’re the one who’s screwing this up for me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I should probably stop while I’m ahead here, but I can’t seem to keep my mouth from running. It’s been days, and I’m done with Stevie avoiding me and Rook being pissed off at me when he’s the damn problem. “She lives in your fucking shadow.”
His brow furrows. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Yes. She does. She avoids the attention because she’s terrified that all people are going to see is Rook Bowman’s baby sister.” I hold my arms wide, giving him free rein to go ahead and try to hit me again. “You have no idea how hard it is for her. She thinks that no matter what she does, her identity is always going to be tied up in you, and she thinks if she’s my girlfriend, it’s going to be the same damn thing.”
Rook seems to deflate. He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “You let that video go up and did nothing about it.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? She shut down on me and won’t talk to me; my team thinks I’m an asshole; you’re pissed, which the entire team knows, so it’s been great for team morale; and Alex took her off my PT because he doesn’t like the optics.” We’re both heaving, me rubbing my jaw and him rubbing his ribs.
“I didn’t tell him to do that.”
“You didn’t have to. I’m the cause of the dissension, as far as he’s concerned. Which means I’m messing up the team. I might be an asshole, but I care about this team.” I pace, rubbing the back of my neck. Even with everyone pissed at me, I’ve still managed to make a valuable contribution. “This entire time I’ve been so patient. I didn’t push her for anything. I kept it light. She rehabbed me and we hung out. I focused on getting better and gave her time to get over that stupid dickbag who played with her head. And that was your fault, too, by the way.”
“How the hell is that my fault?”
“She just wants a brother. She doesn’t need you to try to replace your dad. She wanted you to think she was okay, so she found a shield, and he worked until he didn’t.”
“What?” His brow furrows even more, his confusion shifting to disquiet. “How do you know this?”
“Because she told me. Because while you’ve been busy with your life and your career and being so sure I was out to screw her over, I’ve been listening. And waiting for her to be okay enough for me to tell her how I damn well feel about her.”
“You made Stevie look like a puck bunny,” he argues.
“There are pictures of you fucking around with two mostly naked women in a goddamn hot tub still floating around on the internet!” I jab my chest with a finger. “All I did was kiss her.”
“That looked like a hell of a lot more than a kiss, and you damn well know it.”
Okay. He’s got me there. “It would’ve been better if it hadn’t happened in a public place, and if someone hadn’t posted it for the entire hockey-watching nation to speculate over, but in my defense I hadn’t seen her in almost a week. Emotions were running high.” I use the same line she gave me: her excuse for letting it go as far as it did. Which was bullshit. The only reason it didn’t happen sooner was because my dick wouldn’t work effectively and I was waiting for her to be over the douche ex. Also, Alex’s orders figured in at least a little.
He crosses his arm, lip still twitching. “She told me she kissed you, not the other way around.”
“She figured you’d overreact, and she didn’t want you to try to kill me. Seems like she was right about that.”
He rolls his eyes, and then they slide back to me, narrowing. “You were there.” It’s not a question, and his voice is suddenly low.
I realize I’ve stepped in the biggest pile of dog shit ever, because I admitted, accidentally, that I was at Stevie’s the morning after the video went viral. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.