Chapter 26

Luca

T he most terrible thing had happened.

Something that caused chaos and carnage. Disruption and delay.

Somehow, overnight, both Teddy and Asher passports disappeared.

It was crazy. Our little beach shack, the main house, Finn and Scarlett’s, all of their sheds, cars, and tractors in both properties were searched from top to bottom, front to back, but nothing was found.

It was like they’d been dumped into a smelly pair of gym socks then tossed onto the roof … I mean, vanished into thin air. The mystery meant the three of us were forced to reschedule our flights, and gosh darn it, that meant another few days in Byron.

What. A. Damn. Shame.

Even if I was thrilled beyond all comprehension, that jubilation couldn’t be expressed. Ma and Ana weren’t thrilled to postpone our welcome home party, and suspended or not, Coach was less than impressed too. I would be missing the first days of preseason training, but at least with this, my latest disappointment, no legal intervention or PR crisis meeting was needed. The acting skills I picked up on all those nights spent running lines with Clara were handy though.

“I can’t believe we have to stay here at the beach for three more days. I mean, the place is nice and all, but I was really looking forward to breakout drills and bag skates till I vomited.” In truth, I hadn’t done a bad skate since I started NHL. Most modern-day coaches preferred the carrot to the stick approach. I hoped the boys didn’t know that.

Guilt had my hands twitching as Asher slapped me on the back and apologized for me missing training for the hundredth time. Teddy didn’t seem too convinced, though. His darting eyes scouring over me as he quietly walked beside me, sucking the steaming hot jam from his donut was … scary. Vampire like.

“Hopefully, those passports turn up soon,” I continued, perhaps laying it on a little thick. “I’d hate to think how long it would take for the embassy to replace them. Imagine if we had to stay another few weeks. That would really suck.”

Teddy coughed, choked and gagged, and not in a sexy way, but in the ‘I’m dying’ way. As always, Asher the knight in shining armor, lovingly slapping him on the back and ran off to get his man some water. Ted made a miraculous discovery, gripping my shirt and pulling me out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and into his face. “You hid those fucking passports, didn’t you?”

Fuck.

My head bobbed up and side to side like a freshly unwound jack in the box. “What passports? What?”

“What passports? ” Ted tightened his grip. “The passports you were just fucking talking about! The ones that are keeping you from vomiting on a fucking ice rink, and me and Ashy from our second-trimester sonogram.”

Fuck.

“You didn’t tell me you had a sonogram.”

“I actually did. Last week after you snuck back in from a secret fuckity-fuck with your princess, but you were too busy thinking about getting your dick wet again to pay any attention.”

Again. Fuck.

Dread pressed against my chest. “Ted. I’m really sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“Apart from yourself the 7666 times you’ve wanked, and her every few hours, and I’d say love has come over you.”

Love? I shoved my hands between Teds and mirrored his stance, my fists twisting into the soft linen of his shirt till we stood there clutching each other. “Love! Really? Ana said that I don’t even know her ... that I couldn’t … that it’s all too fast.”

“Please,” he scoffed. “You fell in love with the bowl of pasta Evie served you last night. I thought you were going to propose after the first mouthful. Besides, Ana’s straight. She’s got no concept of the accelerated obsession rate of queers. You’ve been fucking around for a few weeks now. If you were lesbians, you’d be married with six dogs and a blind, two-legged cat with an identity crisis…. wait. Hold the phone, Delores.” Ted paused, squealed and spun me in the opposite direction. “Over my shoulder, forty degrees right, near the persimmons. It’s Pol–.”

“Polly.” Bones turned to Jello as I spotted her silky hair, and her hips and her round ass just a few steps away. Looking like a fucking sexy angel sent by the Devil to test me while talking to a guy with striking blonde curls. Apart from the goofy smile I couldn’t contain my body stiffened in shock.

“Did you or did you not almost jizz in your slacks?”

“Not!” I coughed out. I totally did.

A battle of morality raged within me as I tried to focus on Ted, the friend I had completely wronged with my selfishness, with one eye, while the other was on Polly, the girl of my dreams who inspired that very selfishness.

My crisis came to an end with a stinging bitch slap to the cheek. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Luca. Snap out of it. You look like Rodney fucking Dangerfield.” I had no idea who that was. “Lucky for you, I have experience with close friends ditching me for hot Australians. Just go talk to her, but I swear to God, Luca, the second we get home, those passports better appear, or your nuts will be the next things to go missing.”

In the NHL I faced two hundred- and fifty-pound behemoths set on pounding me into the ground on the regular, but still. “You’re kinda scaring me, Ted.”

“I know! It’s totally hot, though, right?”

“Oh, absolutely.” With his need for violence quelled and his ego boosted, Teddy straightened out my shirt, messed up my hair, and sent me loose.

“Go get your girl, but for fuck’s sake, don’t let Evie see you. Me mauling your balls off will be the last of your problems if she does.”

“Right.” I nodded in agreement and pushed past Asher, who was returning with ten gallons of water.

I was grateful I wore jeans as my Not So Little Luca swelled, straining against my zipper with every step. Whoever she was talking to was out of view, but Polly’s back, her ass, was to me. I didn’t care if it was Elias. Fiancé or not, Polly was leaving with me.

Passing giant pumpkins, watermelons, and kiwi, I drew nearer. After the last few shoppers passing between us cleared, my mood, my world, tilted on its axis to see him roughly spin her to face me. “Just leave me alone. I said no.” Whoever the asshole with his hands on my girl was, he was about to be feel a lot of pain.

Blinded by rage that far eclipsed what I felt when squaring up against Dallas fucking Brookes, I marched up behind him. Polly saw me, the brief flicker of relief that crossed her face vanished as quicky as her eyes darted to her hands. Mine followed and my heart stopped. The fingers on her right hand were bent at the knuckles, forming a right angle she was digging into the palm of her left and pulling it toward her. It took a second but then I realized. The pub. The Auslan Polly taught me. Yes. No. Thank you. Cheekily cake, for when I was hitting on a guy, and help. Help. That’s the sign for help.

“The lady said she wasn’t interested. Back the fuck off.” Before he had the chance to react, I gripped the bastards throat and squeezed.

He wriggled and whined like a pathetic weed and managed to eeek out, “Fuck off, Yank. No one asked you.”

“Please! Let go of him, Luca,” Polly pleaded, latching on to my elbow with one hand and wiping her tears away with the other, “Go back to your friends. He was just leaving. Weren’t you, Luke?”

“The fuck I was.” He coughed. “We were just getting started.”

Like the Auslan, it took a second, but when it did, it hit with the force of a nuke. Luke. Luke Bailey. This was the guy who ….

Sweat seeped from my every pore as my grip tightened, his pulse thundering beneath my fingers. “Is this him?” I choked out.

“Luca, don’t,” Polly cried, again attempting to pull me away as Luke grunted, trying to free himself from my grip.

“Answer me, Princess. Is this him? Yes or no.”

“Yes.” Her reply, a broken sob, cracked something inside me. All sense and reason disappeared, and I was slamming my forehead into his nose. The bone-splintering crunch was deafening. The blood was gruesome … and all his, or so I thought. A clenched fist connected next, knocking the coward off his feet and onto his back with a thud. My right foot was about to be acquainted with his ribs when Nate and Finn clambered onto my back. Teddy and Evie piled in behind them, all trying to drag me away from disaster.

It was Toronto all over again. Me out of control, risking everything, fighting over a girl I wasn’t sure even wanted me.

Once I was under their control, Luke scrambled and pointed toward Polly. “You’re a fucking slut, just like you always were.” He then ran, looking over his shoulder every few steps, blood still pouring from his face. I fought tooth and nail to free myself, my legs demanding I give chase. But barely audible over the thundering of my heart was Nate and his voice of reason drifting into my ear.

“Dude. Whatever this is, it’s not worth it. Think of what you’ve got at home.”

Home. Fuck. I should have panicked. Been concerned for myself, my future at least. Engaging in a physical assault of any type was never okay, but when you’re a professional athlete that’s hanging onto your career by the sharp metal edge of a blade, and you’re in another country, it’s fucking reckless. But honestly, I had zero fucks to spare. All I cared about was standing before me, trembling, pleading with her eyes.

“Breathe, baby.” She whispered, “Breathe.” And I did. We did. Together. My baby and me. Eyes locked, fingers entwined. As one, the rise and fall of our chests synchronized and slowed. For that stolen moment in time, it was just us. Bound together by secret tragedy.

Nate was the one to penetrate the silent space between us with a cracking slap to my pec, before sliding from my back. “I thought you weren’t much of a fighter? Dude that was fucking awesome. Good job, big fella.” Then, he did something I would never have expected something that showed the true character of the man. “You okay, Pol?”

“Yes,” she replied, her voice a meek shadow of its normal self. “Yes, I think so.”

Glancing around, he nodded. “And are you here alone?” When she made no reply, he stepped closer, tapping gently on her upper arm. “Polly, are you here by yourself?” Any remaining color in her beautiful face faded to grey and with a blink, her body crumpled in on itself. “Shit!” Nate and I scrambled to catch her before he turned to face Teddy, Ash, and his less-than-impressed-looking wife, who was hovering behind him. “Eves, I know you’ll be pissed at me for the rest of my life, but I need you, Ash, and Teddy to deal with that blood on Luca. I’m taking Polly home.”

Evie shot daggers between Nate and Polly but nodded in agreement.

“I’m a hockey player for fuck’s sake . ” I protested as a big, wet, blob of red dripped from my nose, landing with a splat on my wrist and hers. “This is nothing. ”

“Yeah?” she growled like a mother bear about to eat one of her cubs, “Well you’re not on the ice now, are you? You’re here, for some reason defending her, and I want answers.”

Resigned to my fate, I pushed myself between Nate and Polly, cupped her face in my hands and kissed her hard and deep. “You will be okay, Princess. I’m so sorry he got so close.”

“Go mate. I’ll look after her.” Nate said, tugging me away from the only thing I wanted as Evie watched on in silence. It was … unnerving, and I suspected temporary.

It’s probably best if you just don’t look or say anything to her unless she speaks to you first.

Shifting in my seat, my hands tapped at my thigh as Asher and Ted’s words of warning repeated in my mind. Evie was grumbling to herself with an ice pack pressed to my forehead with her left hand, while gripping the steering wheel with her right. She’d just watched me, a guest in her home, and her husband defend and care for her nemesis. As if that wasn’t enough, Teddy, one of her best friends, had wrapped Polly in his arms, sweetly kissed her on the forehead and insisted she let Nate and himself take her home. I could only imagine the bruising betrayal she felt.

“How long?” she asked, finally cracking the cone of silence threatening my sanity. “The whole time you’ve been with us? Even after you knew who she was?”

“Pretty much, yeah, but—”

“Nope. No buts, Luca.” In a manner she undoubtably wanted to repeat on me, the ice pack was crushed between her fingers and then tossed out the open passenger side window. “I don’t want to hear it. That … that evil fucking woman tried to take everything I loved away from me, and knowing that, you’ve still chased her behind my back.”

“She’s not evil!” I yelled. “You know nothing about what she’s been through. What she’s carried alone for all these years. He fucked her up, Evie. She wasn’t with that prick like you think she was. That bastard pinned her down and forced—” I stopped, biting the inside of my cheek to hold the truth I had no right to share inside. “I am never going to defend what she did to you. It was wrong. One hundred percent, but she was broken and scared and … and just fucking broken.”

Evie’s eyes darted between me and the road, the one handed white-knuckling becoming two. “I know what kind of man Luke Bailey is.” She swallowed heavily and took a slow, deep breath. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

“Yes. I think so, yes.”

“Fuck,” muttered Asher from the back seat. “Poor Polly. I mean … um. Sorry, Eves. I’ll shut up.”

All three of us followed Asher’s lead and fell back into silence. The steady hum of tires on asphalt mixing with the peaceful vibes of Angus and Julia Stone almost lulling me to sleep. At least I hoped it was that and not a concussion. Beside me, perhaps struggling with the discomfort of my unauthorized revelations, Evie resumed muttering, wriggling in her seat, tutting and sighing before suddenly punching the center of the steering wheel and cursing at the top of her lungs.

“Fucking hell! Thanks, Luca. You just made hating that bitch a whole lot harder.”