The Bad Boy Hockey Collection: A Collection Of Single Daddy Romances Page 4

  “Someone you can’t see, or won’t?” She’d pulled the card from my hands and stared at it like it held the secret to happiness in its embossed logo. “Brody Marsh Carpentry. Shit, Cori, not only does he know how to handle his stick, he’s good with his hands. You’re crazy not to at least call him.”

  “And give him the chance to tell Jackson, so they can both laugh at my desperation together? I don’t fucking think so, Jenn.” I’d crossed my arms, glaring at the card in her hands, knowing I should have never mentioned it.

  Jenn arched her brows, passing the card back to me. “Ah, so that’s what this is about,” she said. “It’s got nothing to do with whether or not you find him attractive, or whether he seems like a half decent guy. In your mind, he may as well be Jackson, not just Jackson’s brother. That’s not fair, Cori, and you know it.”

  “No, what’s not fair is that Jackson cheated on me, Jenn,” I snapped back at her. “That’s what’s not fair.”

  “But Jackson did that, not Brody.”

  “Same fucking difference.”

  “It’s not, though,” she says, softening her tone. “And the sooner you realize not every guy out there is looking for a way to hurt you, the sooner you’ll finally be able to move on from the one guy that did. And that guy was not Brody Marsh, Cori.”

  After that, I steered clear of Jenn for the rest of the day, too vulnerable to have to take up such a soul-crushing conversation again. Sure, there’s a good chance she was right, that I’m being unfair—

  Okay, fine, I’m being unfair, and she’s definitely right. And obviously Brody has already had his fair share of unfairness thrown at him, seeing as he’s a single daddy with an ex-girlfriend who didn’t give a damn whether she was being fair to him or not.

  Even now, stretched across the beige leather sofa in my apartment, I can still see the appalling words scrawled across that page, handwritten by a faceless woman I have no desire to ever meet. And only one thing keeps replaying through my mind.

  How can someone choose something—or worse, someone—over their own son?

  But that’s exactly what Brody didn’t do. Instead, he took on the responsibility of his four-month-old son himself, asked his mother for help, and is doing whatever he can to keep that little boy safe.

  And here I am judging him because of his brother’s actions.

  I feel even worse, but I can’t stop the thoughts that war within me. The one glass of red wine I’ve had has done little to take the edge off my uneasiness, and it’s only intensified the mixed feelings I’m contending with. The same things swirl inside my head—Jenn is right, I’m being too harsh, Brody is not Jackson, Jackson is my past, it’s time to let go...

  I’m still thinking about how I’m a horrible person who’s bound to spend the rest of her life bitter and alone when my cellphone rings. Which is weird in itself because the damn thing never rings. Anyone I know always texts me. The sight of my caller display with an unknown number on it makes it even odder.

  “Hello?”

  “I promise I’m not calling to discuss work,” a deep, familiar voice says easily, but I can’t place it.

  “I’m sorry, who’s speaking?”

  “Oh.” The masculine voice chuckles. “It’s Brody.”

  Everything comes to a crashing halt, my brain no longer focused on the whirlwind of racing thoughts. I sit up abruptly, planting my bare feet on the floor to ground me. “Brody? But...how did you get this number?”

  “Your friend at the lawyer’s office?” He sounds surprised that I’m questioning him. “She texted my number, said she’d got it off the business card that you’d given her because you were too embarrassed that you’d forgotten to give me your number in return...” He trails off, realization sinking in. “...which I’m assuming wasn’t the truth at all.”

  I’ll kill Jenn. Ever fiber of my being is alive with the need to wring her dainty little neck. It also feels like I need to rein in my thoughts about Brody because I’ve been thinking about him all freaking evening and, boom, he calls out of thin air, like my mind has magically conjured him up.

  Or, like Jenn has done some scheming and conjuring of her own.

  “No,” I answer truthfully. “I didn’t know Jenn was going to memorize your number when I showed her your card, or that she would text you my number, for that matter.”

  “But you were discussing me with her.” I can hear the smug satisfaction in his voice, and it causes heat to creep into my cheeks. “So, women really do that, huh?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get together and talk about the men they find attractive.”

  “You, Mr. Marsh, are seriously delusional,” I assure him.

  “But you didn’t say you didn’t find me attractive,” he replies, obviously amused.

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Wait,” he chuckles. “Wait. Jesus, I’m kidding. I swear, I’m just being an ass.”

  “Finally, something we can agree on,” I tell him. I hope to God he can’t hear my heart beating wildly, but the way it’s pulsing loudly in my ears, I can’t see how he can’t. “We should really end this call now, Brody.”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “Because...it’s a conflict of interest,” I stammer. But it sounds hollow even to my own ears, and he picks up on it.

  “And is it the conflict you don’t want, or the interest?” he counters. “You told me yourself, you’re just the assistant, Corinne. There’s no conflict at all between you and I.”

  I beg to differ, on a multitude of levels. Hell, there’s a whole lot of confliction going on inside me right now, but I can’t admit that to him. “We’ve got nothing to talk about,” I assure him.

  “Funny, your friend seems to think so.”

  “Well, Jenn is wrong,” I snap. “Christ, why did you call, anyway, Brody? Because you thought it would be fun to put me on edge just a little bit more?”

  “To say thank you,” he says evenly. “But...”

  “But what?” I bark, exasperated.

  “I’m just trying to figure out if my ability to put you on edge is a good thing or a bad thing.”

  I breathe out, frustrated as hell and ready to freak out on him. “Trust me, Brody, there’s nothing good about this.”

  “You don’t know that, Corinne.” There’s a hint of mischievousness in his voice. “You’ve never experienced having me take you to the edge before.”

  More heat rises in my cheeks, and I hate myself for feeling a delicious sizzle of excitement at the mere prospect of his words. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Two years of relative celibacy and an undeniably gorgeous man on the other end of the phone, that’s what. “Now, I really need to hang up.”

  “Why, because you might actually like the sounds of it?”

  “No, because you’re an asshole who—”

  “I’m not Jackson.” Brody interrupts my impending rant with a level of assertiveness I hadn’t heard until now. “You can blame me for his stupidity, and you can blame yourself for it, too, Corinne. But Jackson cheated on you, no one else. Placing blame elsewhere isn’t helping anyone. It was a dick move on his part, but there’s no one to blame for it other than him.”

  “I’m not blaming you—” I choke out, shocked.

  “Maybe not, but you’re sure as hell penalizing me for it,” he replies. “It sounds to me like you’ve been punishing yourself for it, too, for the past two years.”

  “You don’t know me,” I remind him in a deflated whisper.

  “And you don’t know me, as you so eloquently stated earlier,” he says, matching my quietness as though afraid of scaring away a skittish animal. “That doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.”

  Chapter Six

  Brody

  I’d been thinking constantly about the way Corinne flinched under my touch since I saw her two days ago. Getting a random call from her colleague at the law office didn’t help. And it had taken me two days to work up the nerve to
actually call her, only to find out she hadn’t actually coerced her friend into giving me her cell number at all.

  That realization is a bit of a blow to my ego—Corinne hadn’t wanted me to call her; at least, she’d never admitted it out loud—but the way she’s stammering and using every defense mechanism in the book tells me more than her words ever could.

  There’s a part of Corinne that is interested in me. I could see it a few days ago at the office when our hands touched, and I can hear it now in her voice as she halfheartedly denies it.

  Now, if she would just get out of her own way, she might realize it, too.

  “Fine,” she says defeatedly into the phone. “We can talk for a little bit. Get to know each other.”

  Success. “Good, but—”

  “But there are topics we don’t bring up, got it?” she adds, cutting me off. “We don’t discuss your brother. At all.”

  “We don’t discuss my dickhead brother,” I nod, a smirk playing on my lips as I recline my chair back in front of the fireplace in my living room, swirling the scotch around in my glass. “We also don’t discuss Charlotte. All else is fair game.”

  “Sounds fair enough.” A deep sigh is heard through to the phone. “So, where do we begin? This was your idea.”

  “By choosing a place and time to meet up,” I say simply. “That’s why I called, Corinne. To ask you if you wanted to get a coffee or something.”

  “Or something,” she repeats warily. “I thought you meant we were going to talk right now. On the phone.”

  “I prefer to see your pretty face in front of me,” I say, grinning. “Besides, it gets me out of the house, which is kind of nice.”

  “You want to go for coffee.” She doesn’t sound sure of this idea at all.

  “It’s coffee, Corinne,” I inform her. “Not picking out His and Hers monogrammed towels. Tomorrow, maybe? I have a practice at eleven-thirty, but I could meet up with you afterward. I’m sure my mom wouldn’t have a problem staying with Spencer for an extra hour or two. You could meet me at the arena, if you want.”

  She’s silent on the other end of the line, and I’m convinced she’s going to turn me down. “Coffee. Tomorrow. Meeting up at the arena.”

  “Say, one o’clock?”

  If I’m not mistaken, she’s trying to stifle the frustrated groan that is managing to escape her mouth anyway, but she offers a begrudging “Fine,” which I think surprises us both. “But on one condition, Brody.”

  “What’s that, Corinne?”

  She pauses. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  “Oh, Corinne,” I reply mischievously. “Quite the contrary. I’m going to make you like this.”

  ***

  I end the call shortly after she agrees to see me, mostly because I meant what I said—I want to see her face to face, and I’m really not much of a phone person. With Spencer sleeping in the next room, though, it was the only way I was going to get the chance to talk to her tonight.

  And something told me I had to talk to her tonight. No more waiting. I’d almost dialed her number numerous times, and now that I had finally done it and she was going to meet me tomorrow afternoon, somehow, I feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

  Which is a nice feeling. I could use a little less stress, even just for tonight.

  Things must have been stressful for LaughLoudLiveQuiet lately, too, because her responses have been a bit more sporadic. Mine have been as well, though, with the law office meeting and the hockey practice I attended last evening.

  But, sure enough, there’s a reply in my inbox from her, which makes me smile.

  You’ve been just as quiet lately as I have. Although your eye is still your profile picture, so you can’t possibly have gone completely into hiding. So, I’m assuming your life’s been hectic, too.

  She’s definitely assumed right.

  Hectic is a good word for it. But considering your username, I thought you’d like that your life has grown quieter...on the online front, anyway?

  Maybe it’s the scotch, or the warmth of the fireplace, but I take a chance. It’s a slight self-deprecating way of seeing how interested she really is. After days of chatting each evening, we’ve essentially told each other nothing about ourselves, but neither of us has really come out and asked for information, either.

  Her response is enough to make me rethink that, though.

  I might prefer the quiet life, but surprisingly, that doesn’t seem to include messages from you.