Hard Hit (IceCats 3)

“There it is,” she chuckles as she shakes her head. “No one said you had to want what I have.”

“Well, when you flaunt it all the time, it’s hard not to!”

“I don’t flaunt it.”

I shoot her a deadpan look. “Aviva, you legit are always happy. Like, it’s sickening.”

She mocks, “Apparently not too sickening, because you want the same.”

Ah, she’s got me there, and she knows it. She giggles as Callie, her baby sister, comes out from the back. She’s in a leotard and shorts, ready to go to gymnastics, I assume, since that’s where she always is. She was awarded a scholarship to the University of Bellevue in Nashville for gymnastics and academics for the fall. It’s pretty badass, and I cried like a baby during her graduation. Not sure if I cried more then or when she had her double mastectomy surgery this past spring. It’s a toss-up since I love that girl something fierce.

Aviva and I both raised her. After Aviva’s mom died, it was Aviva, Callie, and me against the world. Of course, my parents were awesome and helpful, but Aviva’s dad was a piece of shit for sure. It was okay, though, because we had each other. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the world we were against.

Breast cancer has always been the enemy.

A bastard of one too. Aviva and I went through a lot of it together, and I think watching us terrified Callie. Add in the fact that she carries the gene for the same cancer we both had, the same cancer that killed her mom, and she was dead set on having the double mastectomy. Now, she has small little implants that don’t get in the way of her gymnastics but still give her that womanly feeling. I promised her tattooed nipples when she finishes her first year of college. We’re also waiting for Aviva to get her implants, which is planned for after the baby is born.

She was supposed to get them with Callie, but a surprise pregnancy stopped that.

Not that I think she cares about the implants at all. Never in my life have I seen Aviva this happy. She has always put on a brave face for Callie and me, but once she rear-ended Nico, even I knew things were about to change for her. He worships her, and I don’t think she could love him any more. He makes her love herself, and I love that about him. I am so thankful for him, but it’s because he is so wonderful that I want a Nico of my own. I want someone to look at me the way he looks at Aviva and to love me the way he loves her. I never craved that until now.

Until I saw what it was like to be loved by a man who completes you.

Don’t get me wrong, I want the house, the husband, and the kids, but I’ve been so career-driven for so long, I ignored that yearning. I fought through school to get my degree and the respect of my peers. I was the only black woman in my program, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to settle for anything but perfection. Then I joined a firm where I didn’t belong. It was a male-dominated firm, and while they may have had some people of my race on staff, we still weren’t treated the way we should have been.

I joined the firm I’m at now about four years ago. I knew the moment I walked in that I’d found my home. Feliciana Montcrieff graduated from the same program I did, just twenty years before me. She is one badass chick and powerful as all get-out. I never thought I would find a boss who gets me the way she does, and I love working for her. There’s been talk of her making me partner, but sometimes I’m unsure if I want that. If I want to have a family and a life outside of the firm, I may have to settle for being an awesome lawyer instead of the boss. I guess, in a way, I’ll be the boss of my household.

While it does scare me to think that might not be enough, I feel, deep in my soul, it will be. I want to be loved. I want to be appreciated and worshiped. That person is out there for me. I just have to find him. However, he has been very hard to find thus far.

“Off to the gym, sweet girl?”

Callie beams at me as she comes around the counter. “Yup, trying to get my training in with Amelia before I leave.”

Amelia is her coach, and she actually competed at Bellevue. She was an incredible gymnast; I know this because I may have stalked her online to make sure she was good enough for Callie. Thankfully, now she’s an incredible coach and mom. We like her around here, and she’s an IceCats’ wife, so Aviva sees a lot of her at Nico’s hockey gatherings and events. I don’t even have a toe in the hockey world, but since I represent Aviva, I have gotten some clients from the IceCats.