Hard Checked (Ice Kings #4) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,60
part of me for so long, only taking it off for games, I haven’t even thought about removing it until this moment. Even over the last few weeks, after the divorce papers came, I’ve taken it off for games, slid it back on and never gave it a second thought.
Which is pretty fucked up now that I think about it. Especially with all the time I’ve spent with Gigi, starting to feel things for her, and I’ve still been wearing my loyalty to Madison shining bright for all to see.
“Gigi—”
She stops me by pressing her thumb to my lips. I kiss the tip playfully.
“This doesn’t have to be serious, you know. I’m okay with fun, as long as it’s safe fun and we keep our cards face up on the table.”
She’s read me totally wrong, and I inspect her gaze, I search for anything she’s hiding, that she’s lying. In truth, I like this woman, but I can’t and won’t lie to her and say my head is in the right place for something more than what she’s offering. Even if I think I want it.
“I’m not sure I have anything serious to give. Not now. Not in the season either.” We’re close to playoffs. But that’s not the only reason. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep to Gigi.
I might not quite know what we’re doing, but she’s important to me and for that reason I don’t want to hurt her.
“It’s fine. I totally understand and if I wouldn’t have been okay with it, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.” She smiles at me, kisses my mouth and pulls back. She reaches for her tank top and slides it on, her back curving as she wiggles it on and all I want to do is throw her back to the bed and make love to her again. “So, let’s go get Bruiser before he starts hating me for keeping you from him, shall we?”
She saunters off, wearing only a tiny tank top and nothing else and I’m left staring after her, feeling like the world has decided to throw me on a wild journey I never could have predicted. How in the hell did I go from getting so drunk over my wife divorcing me to finding someone as beautiful as Gigi in the span of weeks?
“Your house is something else, hotshot.”
Shaking my head, I bump my hip into her playfully. Bruiser, after freaking out when he saw Gigi and then ran in circles before running outside, is now nestled in her arms while she cradles him, following me through the house.
“It’s pretty damn crazy some days to think it’s mine. Can’t lie.”
From a two-thousand square foot split-level home that’s forty years old to a five-thousand square foot two-story with a pool and enough yard space to build an indoor ice rink if I wanted, this home sometimes still takes my breath away.
Madison and I found it as soon as I was drafted here. The first few years I thought the expense on something so massive was absolutely the dumbest thing we could do. But then we talked about filling it with kids. Space for all our siblings and families to come visit. Then we planned to add an ice rink outside in its own barn. And a workout gym for both of us. With all the plans we had, most of them were done besides the rink I kept putting off.
But other than that, Madison and I spent five years getting this monstrosity exactly how we wanted it… or at least how Madison wanted it. Some days I walk through and it feels almost cold and impersonal to me now that she’s gone. There’s a hell of a lot of white in my living room and now that I don’t have her music or her distracting me, when I sit down and watch television at night, I’m still afraid of spilling something on the rug or couch knowing it’d earn me a tongue-lashing from Madison.
When did we become so damn grown-up or distant that a spill on a couch we can easily replace would send us into a week-long argument?
I think of all of this while I show Gigi the small movie room with eight theater-style chairs. Her jaw drops, turning to me. “Do you actually use this?”
“Yeah sometimes. When the guys are over or when family visits. My nieces and nephews think it’s the coolest thing in the world.”