As I walk in, I shoot Claude a chastising look. "Don't fucking go there, dude."
Sam and Mikkel immediately stop laughing, but Claude gives me an amused grin. "Come on, Grantham. We're just fucking around...it's not like the Brick can hear us."
"And you're lucky he can't," I say as I walk over to the free weights. "That dude would pound you into the ground."
Claude loses the grin and gets busy on the leg press.
There is a reason they call him the Brick Wall. The guy is massive for a goalie, topping out at six-six and built almost as wide. He takes up most of the net just by sheer size alone, yet has the flexibility and agility of a fucking thirteen-year-old gymnast. I've always enjoyed watching him play and he sure as shit made it hard on me over the years to score goals on him.
"We're fortunate to get him," I add on. "He's going to be a leader on this team, so you need to show him some respect."
"Got it, man," Claude grumbles as he pushes against the steel plate with his feet.
Yeah, I remember what it was like to be in Claude's shoes. I think he's only nineteen or twenty, but that's a baby in this sport. You think you know everything and that you're invincible. I want to shake them and tell them that life is fragile and we can never take anything we have for granted.
It would probably fall on deaf ears, anyway. I know there was a time in my life I didn't want to hear shit like that, and it wasn't until I lost what was precious to me that I started to appreciate it all.
--
As I climb the stairs to the second floor of my house, I am immensely grateful to Kate that there is no awkwardness between us because of that kiss four days ago. And that is due solely to her.
When I came down to breakfast the next morning, I expected things to be weird and tense. There's no doubt in my mind that no matter how fucking good that kiss was, it was absolutely wrong. I had no business crossing that line and confusing Kate with my actions.
But fuck, what a kiss.
It's been hard to think about anything else since then.
When I met Kate's eyes the next morning as she sat at the table with Ben, eating breakfast, I tensed and waited for the recrimination from her. Instead I got a bright, cheerful smile and she said, "Good morning, sunshine."
"Uh...good morning," I mumbled back to her as I headed toward the coffeepot.
Kate then did what Kate excels at. She started rambling on at a hundred miles an hour about the most inane thing ever...her loathing of beets. I'm not sure if she was talking to me or to Ben, but I submerged myself into the conversation, grateful that she didn't seem bothered by what happened between us.
Okay, grateful but also a little perturbed that she apparently had dismissed it completely from her mind. It was clearly not as shattering for her as it had been for me.
The one thing that did make me sad, however, was Kate's hair. She had it pulled back from her face and wrapped it snugly at the back of her head. Once again, Kate had gone into hiding and the message was clear. She didn't want me looking at any part of her that I found to be beautiful. It made me have an achy feeling in the center of my chest all day.
I reach the top of the staircase and turn right down the hall, heading toward the strains of Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" coming out of one of the bedrooms. The girl has some good taste in music for sure.
Kate has her back to me when I turn into the doorway. Hair still completely under wraps, although she traded in a baggy sweatshirt for a baggy yellow T-shirt she wears over some old jeans. Her feet are bare, though, and just that peek of some part of her that normally was hidden from sight causes longing to sweep through me.
I shake my head, mentally slap the thought away, and square my shoulders.
"Hey," I say as I walk all the way into the room. Kate startles slightly, but then turns her head to look at me over her shoulder.
She eyes me up and down. "You need to change your clothes, Petunia Peacock. You don't want to get paint all over your nice stuff."
I look down at the jeans and lightweight thermal T-shirt I'm wearing. This does not constitute "nice stuff" in my wardrobe, although it's with shame I realize this outfit still probably cost more than what Kate spends in a year on her clothing.
"It's fine," I tell her, but kick my tennis shoes off and flip them out the door into the hallway. I definitely don't want paint on those.
"Suit yourself," she chirps, and then moves over to the paint I had picked out this morning. She had several paint chip samples for me to choose from, and although I told her I wanted to go with a neutral tan color, I had no clue there could be that many varieties available. I randomly picked one, which Kate said was perfect, and then I went off to the morning skate. Kate took Ben over to Michelle's, who agreed to watch him for the day while we worked, and then went off to the store to purchase the paint.
The room is all ready and she did a fantastic job of placing the drop cloth; lining the molding, baseboards, and windows with painter's tape; and laying out the pans and brushes.
"Ready to get this show on the road, Gooseberry Parfait?" she asks with a grin, looking at me with bright, expectant eyes.
I give her a smile of acknowledgment so she'll move on from that nickname, but the smile feels forced. Her sunny personality shows me that she doesn't have an ounce of regret over what happened between us or what could have been, had I not drawn a line between us. She's clearly moved on, and I think she's expecting me to do the same.
The rest of the day we work hard. We have the first room painted by lunchtime, and after a hastily gobbled sandwich and chips that Kate made for us, we start on the room that Kate is staying in. It's a little difficult to maneuver around, as we had pushed her furniture inward before covering it with the drop cloths, but we manage without bumping into each other too much.
For the most part we're silent as we work, each of us concentrating on our tasks. But it isn't a time completely devoid of conversation. I ask Kate more about her sister and nephews, curious as to their ages and her involvement in raising them. She tells me that Kelly is two years older and she'd gotten pregnant with her first son, Jason, when Kate had just turned fourteen.
Then Lyle had come when Kate was fifteen and Christopher when she was sixteen.
Jesus...her sister pumped out kids fucking fast.
Kate tells me that everyone crammed into her father's single-wide trailer. Her father took one room, Kelly took another, and then Kate gladly gave up her room for the boys. Kate was thus relegated to the couch from the time she was fourteen until she graduated at eighteen. Since Kelly had dropped out of school and gone to work so she could support her brood, Kate became the boys' primary caretaker when she got home from school and her sister went off to work a second-shift job.
Laughing, she tells me, "See...that's why it just wasn't that big of a deal to camp out on Mark's couch, and it's also why Ben is a piece of c
ake. Try watching three boys that are all going through terrible twos and threes around the same time.
I shudder because I can't even imagine.
And Christ...she fucking slept on a couch for four years of her life and she laughs about it.
Un-fucking-believable.
We finally put on the last coat of paint and Kate stretches her neck left and right as she lowers the roller in her hand. "I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow."
I bet she is. Even I'm a little sore from all of it, and I'm in far better shape than Kate is.
"You did a great job," I tell her as I skirt around the cloth-covered dresser to take the rolling brush out of her hands. "I'll clean up if you want to go take a shower. You have quite a bit of paint on you."
"I do?" she asks as she looks down at herself.
"Yeah...right here," I say as I reach out with my free hand and brush the smudge of dried paint over her right cheek. It's an intimate move. I didn't have to touch her, just tell her she had paint on her face, but I couldn't fucking help myself.
Kate goes absolutely still, and she looks at me with wide eyes, the blue in them swimming with uncertainty.
"And right here," I say in a soft voice, my fingers now touching a spot on her forehead.
Kate inhales sharply and her reaction to my touch has my body tightening. Her eyes deepen in color and a small pulse at the base of her neck starts thumping. She's affected by my touch as much as I am by giving it, and now I know...she definitely hasn't moved past that kiss the other day.
This is so wrong.
So very wrong, I tell myself again.
I can't be encouraging something between us when I just put a stop to it--for very valid reasons.
My hand falls away from her and I search for some measure of fortitude within me. With a tight voice I say, "Go on. Get in the shower and I'll clean up here."
And Christ...that's disappointment filling her eyes. I see it only briefly, though, because she gives me a nod of acceptance and lowers her gaze. She turns sideways and starts to slide her way past me. I can't back up to give her room because her dresser is pressing into my back and a wet painted wall is just on her other side.
I hold my arms out wide so she can ease past, and I close my eyes in frustration.