15. Nelly

Chapter 15

Nelly

W alking in with Matty through the double doors that a security guard had blocked me from weeks ago felt somehow different, like I wasn’t stepping into a space that was completely unwelcoming, like I was doing something nice that wouldn’t result in an angry Sebastian accusing me of stalking him.

Seb had texted me that practice was running late today and that if I wanted to stop by with Matty after picking him up from school, I was more than welcome to bring him to watch. I figured it would be an easy way to entertain him, and considering it was public and he’d be surrounded by his teammates, I didn’t feel an overwhelming sense to run. There wasn’t anything he could do here.

“Daddy!” Matty shouted as I directed him into the lower stands, one little hand shooting up to wave excitedly at the men standing around on the ice. None of them were wearing their jerseys, so it wasn’t exactly easy to pick him out in their helmets, but the moment Matty’s voice carried across the stadium, a blue helmet turned toward us. Those piercing light blue eyes met us from across the ice, and Seb waved enthusiastically back at his son.

Coach Casey blew the whistle, and everyone glided into their formations, taking up their specific places across the ice.

Matty and I sat down two rows back from one of the exits on the ice, close enough that he could easily see and high enough that the walls of the rink didn’t impede his eyeline. He clutched a little stuffed phoenix in his hands, the same one he’d brought to the last game we’d attended, and I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how many times he’d slipped it into his backpack in the hopes he’d get to go to practice after school.

We sat and watched as the guys ran drills. Over and over, Seb took the puck, maneuvered it across the ice to the opposite side, and passed it off to someone else before they took a shot. He moved like lightning, but from the little bits and pieces I’d gathered from him, he wasn’t moving right or fast enough. But I didn’t understand the game beyond the basic get the puck in the net.

Matty babbled endlessly, talking me through some of the plays, explaining lingo that made absolutely no sense to me. I wasn’t sure if it truly made sense to him, either, or if he was just parroting words his dad had said, and the more he spoke about it, the more I found my mind drifting, wandering back to that night in Sebastian’s kitchen, and getting stuck when his hand cupped my jaw.

I’d panicked.

I’d run back to the guest house, locked myself in my room, and had a full-blown anxiety attack.

I didn’t know what I wanted. Part of me, the stupid, longing, aching part of me that wanted to feel attractive and sought after, the part that wanted to touch and be touched in the ways I wanted, had screamed at me to stay or run back and fling myself at him. But the sensible part of me, the one that had gotten me through the breakdown of my relationship and carried me through life, told me that was the worst idea I could have ever imagined and I’d only be complicating everything — as well as embarrassing myself the moment it came time for me to do anything other than receive .

You’re doing it wrong.

Why do you have to be so fucking bad in bed?

Jesus, Nelly, it’s not difficult.

Morris’s voice had echoed through my mind over and over that night, and the sensible part of me had won out with his influence. Even if Sebastian wanted that, he had no idea what he’d be getting: the worst lay of his life.

So, I’d avoided him. For over a week now, I’d kept things short in the hopes that we could both try to forget about it and shove down whatever was tempting us.

But seeing him there, on the ice, covered head to toe in black, figure-hugging workout gear and padding, did not help with quelling temptation. Not when he was playing beautifully, not when he held his stick in the air with two hands and did a little excited shake for Matty’s entertainment, not when he had one leg up on the wall and was squatting like that.

That man’s ass was truly on another level.

The thoughts made it hard to focus and absorb what was happening in practice, but the overwhelming scale of it all was on another level. It was one thing to be here during a game, knowing I worked for one of the professional athletes sliding across the ice, but it was another to be able to come and go as I liked during closed practices, to be able to see them like this , laid back and without their game faces on, with almost no one else in the arena.

“Daddy’s forward cross-overs are getting better,” Matty said, pointing directly at Sebastian as he pushed his way across the ice with nimble feet.

“Ahh, is that what maneuver is?” I asked.

He grinned up at me and gave me a little nod. “Mmhmm. You’ve gotta put one foot over the other, and push , I think.”

“Sounds hard. I don’t think I could do that,” I chuckled. “Your daddy is probably much better at that than I’d ever be.”

“You should learn!” he chirped excitedly. “Sometimes, after practice, before they bring the big Zamboni out to smooth the ice for the figure skaters, Daddy lets me put on my skates and takes me out on the ice. Maybe he’ll let you, too.”

I jutted my lower lip out a little too far, playing up my sadness. “I don’t have any skates.”

“I’ll ask Daddy to get you some,” he said, looking smug as hell as he sat back in his seat.

I chuckled, but the sound of something slamming into the wall in front of us made me jump, and the second I looked up, all I could see was the back of Sebastian’s helmet and his back against the lip of the wall. Another man, someone with sandy brown hair and tanned skin and a look of pure anger on his face, had Seb pinned with his shoulder.

“Daddy!” Matty shouted, his hands covering his mouth and his eyes going wide as he leaned forward in his seat. “Are you okay?”

Seb turned his head toward us, his mouth twisted up in pain, and for a second, I wondered if I needed to get Matty out, if I needed to rush over, or if I was just witnessing a normal day of practice for him. My heartbeat rose, but Seb lifted a single gloved hand and gave a thumbs up.

“I’m fine, bud,” Seb grunted. He pushed the brown-haired man off him, sending him gliding a few feet back before the man dug his skate in and stopped himself.

“Oh, shit, that your kid?”

Coach Casey blew his whistle, shouting a hasty, “Take five!”

“Yeah. Matty,” Seb said, spitting a mouthful of saliva onto the bare ice and rotating his shoulders as he replied to the man who had driven him into the wall. “If you could refrain from swearing in front of him, that would be great.”

“Ah, fuck, sorry,” he laughed. He skated up to the wall, resting his arms on it and leaning over, looking directly at Matty. “What’s up, squirt? I’m Bryan. Center, like your dad.”

I raised a brow at Seb as he turned, positioning himself between Bryan and the exit. Seb just shook his head.

“Hi,” Matty said, his voice a little smaller as he stared at Bryan, his eyes narrowed and untrusting. In fairness, he had just seen his dad get slammed into the wall by this guy, so I couldn’t blame him.

Bryan’s gaze drifted toward me instead, and as if Seb had been watching like a goddamn hawk, he mumbled, “Don’t.”

“You must be the new nanny,” Bryan said, glancing at Seb beside him but completely ignoring his request. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Uh, yeah, sorry. It’s Nelly,” I said, lifting up from my seat and reaching across the single set in front of us with an outstretched hand. Bryan reached out, too, giving it a quick little shake. He was handsome enough — he looked a little older than Seb’s thirty-two years, a little more weathered, with a jaw hard enough to cut steel and a hint of a tattoo poking up beneath his shirt at the neckline.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, smirking. He still hadn’t let go of my hand. “Any other services you offer?”

“What?”

“Bryan,” Seb warned, his voice dropping far lower than I’d heard it before.

“Oh, just because you’re living with him,” Bryan said, squeezing my hand just a little bit tighter, unrelenting in his grasp. My pulse rose further, my balance uneven across the gap. Matty’s hand slid into my free hand as if he could tell, and goddammit, that kid deserved an ice cream after this. “How full is this service package? Just cooking, cleaning, and watching the kid? Or does he have you sucking his cock in the middle of the night?”

Seb moved before the words had even settled in.

I could barely catch what happened — one moment, Bryan was persistently holding my hand, and the next, he’d released it, and I was frozen, and he was laid back on the ice with Seb’s bladed foot against his stomach.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Coach shouted, the sound of a whistle peeling out across the arena.

“What does that mean?” Matty asked, tugging on my hand, trying to get me to come back to him. But I couldn’t move.

He said that in front of Matty.

“What’s wrong with you?” Seb spat, shoving his hockey stick up against Bryan’s chin. His cheeks had turned red, his ears pink, and even though I could only see his profile, he looked furious . “You don’t say that to her. You don’t say that in front of my kid!”

Function over my body returned to me all at once, and I moved, blocking Matty’s view as I tried to keep half my attention on him and half on what was happening on the ice. I needed to get him out of here.

“Nelly?” Matty asked, pulling on my hand.

“Get your twig off his neck, Blue,” Coach said.

“Like hell I will,” Seb snarled, leaning just a little further in toward Bryan, pushing down on his diaphragm with his skate. “Apologize to her. Now.”

To me?

If anything, he should be apologizing to Seb for saying that in front of Matty. Why was he adamant that he apologize to me ?

Bryan laughed, his hand wrapping around Seb’s ankle. But he didn’t say a word.

“Tell me what happened,” Coach demanded, “before I assume this is a pointless attack and bench you.”

“I’m not repeating what he said in front of Matty,” Seb said, pushing his stick harder against Bryan’s chin and forcing his head back. “But it was inappropriate and an insult to Nelly.”

Coach sighed dramatically and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration. “Fine. We’ll talk after practice. Just let him go.”

“Nelly,” Matty said again, and I turned to him, resisting the urge to squat down to his level so he wouldn’t see his father standing over a man with a hockey stick lodged against his throat. “I don’t understand.”

“I know, bud,” I sighed, cupping his cheek. Wide, blue eyes that looked just like Seb’s looked up at me with confusion. “Just know that what he said was not okay, and you shouldn’t repeat it. Okay?”

Matty nodded. “Okay. Daddy’s angry, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You don’t need to see that.”

“Is he okay? ”

“He’s okay,” I said.

“Nell?”

I spun on a dime, and Seb was at the wall, leaning over it with his face still red and a sheen of sweat dripping from his skin. Bryan was back up, skating toward the rest of the group, and Coach still stood behind Seb as still as a statue. I threw one leg over the seats in front of me and climbed over them.

“Hey,” I said, dropping my voice so Matty wouldn’t hear. “Are you okay?”

His mouth formed a hard line as he looked between me and his son. “I’m fine,” he grumbled. “Can you take Matty home, please?”

“Oh. Uh… yeah, I can,” I swallowed. “I’m sorry, you said?—”

“I know.” He sucked his teeth and wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. “I made a bad call extending the offer today.”

“Seb—”

“Honestly, just get him out of here before Bryan says something else, and Matty has to watch me beat his fucking brains out on the ice,” Seb said, his voice barely audible as the whistle blew again. “I’ll see you at home.”