Odette

21

T he rest of the night is strained between Gavin and me. Though, we both put on a good face. I think Cillian, Isla, and Britton are the only ones that really notice the tension.

Regardless of their attention, I don't feel bad about what I asked him. The truth is he didn't ever leave Caroline for me, and when she left him, he didn't come running.

Would it have made a difference if he had showed up at my doorstep, freshly divorced? I can't answer that, but at least I'd have known he thought about me. As it stands now, I still feel like I wasn't a consideration at all until I met Tori.

Bringing up Preston was a low blow. Gavin's been back in my life for a few months. I've had a lifetime of imagining him with other women. I fucking watched him kiss his bride. He doesn't understand the turmoil I've been through.

Or what I go through every day now. Because, fuck, I like him. As a person, as a father, as a great support to his team. He's dedicated, strong, loyal to all of them. Plus, I adore Tori. It would be easy to fall back in love with him.

If only I could forget the rest.

It's not even hard for me to hear about Caroline so much, it was more the fact that he had seen her when he was back in New York. It's not a detail he shared with me. Tori wasn't with him, so was there an obligation to see her? Is that what it would always be like if Gavin and I were together? Would she be a constant figure?

Of course, I don't expect him to forget it all. But I could never be with someone who didn't make me a priority. I'd need to be the top woman in his life, minus his daughter, of course.

I'm not sure I'd ever feel that with Gavin.

I know I'm not with Preston, and again, there's comfort there. A safety net that doesn't allow me to ever fall in love with him. No married man I've ever been with has said they'd leave their wife for me. It's not something I ever wanted anyway.

The men that have promised me forever weren't emotionally stable enough to keep it. Gavin may be, but I don't trust it all the same.

"I was thinking of going home with Hugo tonight," Britton says. "But if you need a good girl talk, I can postpone."

"No, Britt. Go and have fun. I'm fine, I promise."

"You sure? That conversation looked intense."

"I'm positive. Besides, I wouldn't want to break Blom's heart, he's been looking at you like a puppy dog in love for two hours straight."

"I know, it's pretty adorable."

"It is," I say, linking my arm with hers as we walk to the doors.

"Looks like they got word of you," Gavin tells Britton. "We're going to go out in a group, women in the middle, guys will surround you."

"Well, fuck. There goes a nice evening." She pouts.

"Don't worry about it, sweetheart, we got this," Hugo says, coming to stand at her side.

"Stay close to me," Gavin says. "Blom is parked right next to my car, we'll load Britton into the passenger side of his rig and you get in the driver's seat of mine and scoot over. Okay?"

I nod and we all start moving through the double doors to a crowd of shouts and camera flashes. Gavin keeps an arm wrapped around me with Letty following close behind. But before we can make it to the vehicles, an overzealous cameraman lunges in, pushing me aside to get a shot at Britton.

Stumbling, the only thing that stops me from hitting the ground is Gavin, who lifts me off my feet and hands me to Letty as if I weigh nothing more than a sack of potatoes.

"Get them to the car," he says to Letty, before he turns around and gets nose to nose with the guy who shoved me. "You want to put hands on someone, asshole, you put hands on me."

"I didn't mean…"

"Bullshit." Gavin spits the words in the man's face. "You knew exactly what you were fucking doing. I'm going to teach you to never fucking touch her again."

"That would be assault! I could sue." The guy tries stepping back, but Gavin stalks him.

"I fucking dare you to," he growls. The man tries to shove Gavin away, but he doesn't stand a chance against the wall of a man. Fists raise and it's the last thing I see before more guys join in the scrum and obscure my vision.

"I don't have his keys, Blom," Letty says.

"Put her in with Britton. I'll stay with them."

The men load us into Hugo's truck and Lehtinen immediately turns around to join the fray.

"I'm sorry, this is all because of me," Britton says, nervously sighing.

"Darling, we live for this shit," Hugo says, standing in the open door of his truck, blocking anyone from us. "They'll have it handled in short order."

"I don't want anyone getting in trouble," she argues.

"Won't happen."

I hope he's right, I think as I strain my head from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of Gavin.

"Is this a regular sort of thing?" Britton asks.

"We're hockey players, it's not irregular." He shrugs.

"It's kind of hot," she says, and Hugo grins devilishly.

For as mad at him as I am now, Britton isn't wrong. It did unspeakable things to my lady bits when Gavin placed me safely in Letty's arms and faced off with the asshat. At the same time, I'm worried. My fingers tremble some, so I ball them up in my fist and try to shake the wariness of him potentially getting a fist to the face.

It's different watching him on the ice, when I can see every move and know it can't go too far.

Violence like this has never been something I've experienced.

"He's okay, ," Hugo says, tuning in to my concern. "He's got the whole team and Damian in there with him. But I think he's pissed off enough to take the lot of those chucklefucks all by himself. Vaughn looked like he wanted to cut that dude's twig and berries right off, drop 'em in a blender, and water his flower bed with it."

"He did," I agree, still watching. Still waiting for him to emerge.

"Seems awful protective of you, darling."

"I'm sure he'd be that way with anyone," I say.

"He'd stick up for anyone, sure. He wouldn't be murderous, though."

Finally, the crowd breaks up. I catch sight of Vaughn as he heads straight toward us, his eyes boring into mine through the windshield.

He looks…fine, actually. He's not even disheveled, his curls in perfect place, just as they were before all of this. Other than the tension he wears in his jaw, he shows no sign of being in any kind of altercation.

Hugo moves aside only when Gavin is within a few steps.

"Are you okay?" he asks me, palming my face and turning it side to side as if he's looking as hard as I am for any injury on him.

"I'm okay, you caught me." He stills at my words, a silent promise crossing his face. It's as if I can hear him promise that he always will.

I look away so I don't risk believing it.

"How about you, Britton? All good?"

"Yeah, Gavin. Thank you."

"It's our pleasure," he tells her. "Come on, . I'll take you home.

"You're trembling," he says, finally breaking the silence as we approach my neighborhood. "You're sure you're not hurt?"

"I'm okay," I say. Physically, I am. Emotionally, not so much. He takes my hand in his and I don't fight it. I was worried, scared for the first time in I don't know how long. Fear isn't something I live with.

Well, that's a lie. But the fear of heartache is different than a fear of surroundings or people in general. One I am mostly able to control, the others are spontaneous and unpredictable.

Gavin parks in front of my house, and as he always does, tells me to stay put so he can come around to open my door and help me out. As soon as I stand, he wraps me in his arms.

"Will you fight with me?"

"What?" I ask, looking up.

"Invite me inside and let's fight this out. You can say all the things you've been holding in. Let me have it, Ode. Let me carry the full burden of what I've done," he says. "Let's see what we can work through, and what we can't."

"I don't…"

"I know you don't want to talk about it. I'm asking if you will, though. Please, Ode? I think there's a lot we still need to say."

It's then I notice a bloom of redness under his jaw.

"Did you get hit?"

"By his camera. It's nothing."

It's not nothing. Gavin put himself in harm's way for me and my friend he only just met tonight. I inhale a long breath, letting out an audible sigh.

"Come in, Gavin."

He follows me inside, through the kitchen, and to the small bar I have set up in my living room. I don't offer anything to him as I pour myself a finger of whiskey. One single swallow to bolster myself for a conversation I once wanted so badly.

"Why were you trembling?"

"I was scared," I say.

"For me?" he asks, but I don't answer. "So, you don't hate me?"

"No, I've told you I don't."

"Did you ever?"

"I tried to," I say. "I tried to hate you both so that I'd hate myself a little less."

"Why did you hate yourself?" he asks, standing closer now, though I haven't turned to look at him. "You didn't do anything wrong. Nothing was your fault. I explained that."

"With words, Gavin," I say, spinning toward him. "Your words were something I thought I could understand. I hated them, but I understood them. What I saw was a contradiction to everything you said. I spiraled with thoughts that you had lied to me, that our time together was a sham, a fling. That I was nothing but a good time that you'd both laugh about later. That's why I hated myself. For falling for the ruse and for you."

"It wasn't a lie," he argues. "We were not a lie."

"And neither was your marriage."

"Not in every way, no."

"How was it a lie, Gavin? You lived together, supported each other, raised a child together, slept together. In what ways was it a lie?"

"In the way we loved each other, which wasn't the way a married couple should. In the way that we didn't plan to live out our lives together. 'Til death was a lie." He runs a palm over the stubble on his jaw. He's frustrated, but so am I.

"What am I supposed to do with that? I can't unsee your wedding day. I can't relive those months where it felt like I was drowning in sorrow."

"No more than I can change the decisions I made."

He's right, of course. Neither of us can do anything about the past.

"What would you change, if you could?"

Gavin doesn't answer right away, walking to the wall of windows, lights across the lake shimmering like night stars in the darkness.

"It's hard for me to say. Because now I know what I would have missed out on in Tori's life if we hadn't gone through with the marriage," he starts. "It was hard being away from her so much, but at least when I was playing at home or it was the offseason, I was going home to her every night and witnessing as many of her firsts as I could. Watching her grow into who she is now with a front row seat instead of one that was only placed out for me on off days and holidays. I don't know if we could have made it work any other way, at first. But later, after I was signed and was making money, there were options. Ones I thought about starting from the time Tori was about six years old and started school."

"But you didn't explore those options," I prompt.

"By then, it had been almost seven years. I hadn't heard many updates about you, but I figured you were probably happy and living the life you'd dreamed of. I convinced myself that I was nothing but a mess you'd swept up and tossed out years before. I'd change that, if I could. I'd find you and see if there was some spark of love still alive. If I'd done that then, maybe I'd have saved all three of us from some hurt."

"All three of us," I muse quietly. Caroline is just as much a part of this dysfunction, even though I don't think I've ever had a single conversation with her. I've never been able to convince myself that she suffered much in any of this. She got a loyal husband, a wonderful daughter, and a comfortable life, after all.

"Yes," he says, looking over his shoulder at me. "Another thing I would change is the sex. Your accusation earlier was right, we did have sex. Sometimes, not even often. But enough that it confused the situation and cemented us into a union we never meant to be long-lasting. She should have been free to fall in love with someone else and I should have been free to continue being in love with you."

His words fuck with my mind. I see them together in my head, their bodies entwined while he calls out my name. It's an old fantasy, dark and twisted, it's played out in my mind so many times. For so long, I hoped they would fall apart. I don't know what kind of a monster that makes me, wishing a family would fracture and break. Rejection can decimate everything good inside someone, and for a while, I let it.

"Did you ever think of me?" I ask, my voice breaking while I force out the last word.

"Of course, I did," he says, furious now. In a second, he's standing in front of me again, crowding my space with his smell and drilling those eyes into my own. "All the time. I was in love with you. I don't remember a time when I wasn't. I'll never know a time when I'm not."

Without bidding, I pull his face to mine, our mouths colliding. I'm aware how much of a sucker I am for his words. When you've waited so long to hear them, it's hard to swallow down the reaction to them. Our argument hasn't dampened the arousal I felt earlier at his protectiveness, and him saying these things now only reignites it all.

He meets me with the same unhinged intensity. It's not enough, though, I need more to soothe the need, the nerves, the years of wanting. My hands move to his belt, then the button and zipper on his pants. I reach in, feeling him grow harder as he unbuttons my own blouse, yanking my bra down so he can weigh my breasts in his hand. Our mouths never stop.

Not when I push his pants and boxer briefs down over his hips or when his thumbs play at the waistband of my skirt. I've craved this moment since he left my bed last time. I'd never admit that to him, but I have. His body haunts me, his cock the star of my dreams.

He lifts me and moves me to sit on the edge of my kitchen counter. He pauses then, waiting for me to say stop, maybe. I grab the hem of my skirt and pull it up as far as I can, widening my legs…giving him access and answer.

When he reaches between my thighs, he finds me bare, and he sighs, a smile twitching at the part of his mouth that wears the tiny scar. Smiles aren't what I'm after right now, I need release. A brutal ejection of all this residual despair I've held on to.

"Why didn't you come to me as soon as Caroline left?" I ask when his fingers slide in.

"I wanted to. But I didn't want you to think I was rebounding. It felt like fate when you ended up as Tori's mentor." He adds a finger, and my head falls back. "Everything came rushing back when I saw you standing right over there, and nothing else mattered. I know what I lost, Ode. I live with that every day."

His mouth nibbles along my neck, his fingers get replaced by the tip of his cock.

"I don't know how to forgive it all, Gavin."

"I'm only asking you to try," he says, thrusting. "We finally have our chance, Ode, nothing's in our way but us." He punctuates his statement with another thrust, and I grab on to his shoulders. His muscles bunch and stretch under my fingers. He pulls my hips into his over and over, heat racing to my chest the closer he brings me to the edge. "Stop fucking around with the other guy and give us the fair shot we didn't have before."

"What if I can't?" I can have this every day if I can figure out how to trust him and the things he says. "What if I never feel like anything but your backup plan?"

"Ode, no. You're the end game. You're the rest of my life. You're my eternity," he says until I'm coming for him and him for me in a swirl of emotion. My body is elated, my mind a tornado of thoughts that I can't focus.

Or trust.

Gavin holds me while we settle, our breaths synchronizing.

"I don't know how…"

"I do. Let me take the lead," he whispers at my temple. "You're shaking again."

"I'm still scared."