Game Changer (18 page)

As play wore on, Harper's slump became noticeable. She rested against Brandon and her eyelids looked heavier and heavier, though her sharp eyes continued to track the game. With a minute of game play left in the first period and Bomb Squad on yet another power play, the people around them stood to cheer. Brandon and Harper stayed put. If anything, she burrowed more deeply against him.

Careful not to jostle her, he pulled his phone out to do some covert communication with Kayla via text messages so they could gang up on Harper about leaving in case she turned stubborn and refused to acknowledge her fatigue, which he had a feeling she'd try and pull, knowing her.

H is getting tired. Take her home soon?
he texted.

While he waited for Kayla to notice the text and reply, he saw another message sitting on his phone, one he hadn't heard given the racket of the game.

Hi Brandon. U remember me? Lindsay the nurse from Lockport Memorial Hosp.

Brandon must have made some noise of surprise because Harper roused. “What's up?”

“I got a text from that nightshift nurse who helped you at the hospital. Lindsay. I wonder how she got my number.”

Harper used his chest to push herself upright. “I gave it to her. She seemed into you.”

Huh?
He blinked down at the message. What a bizarre thing to do. It wasn't Harper's right to give his number out like that to another woman. They might be friends, but not those kinds of friends.

“I was trying to thank you for all you've done for me by hooking you up with a cute nurse. I was being your wingman,” Harper said. “I figured you deserve one last roll in the hay before the paparazzi start trailing you everywhere and making sure you abide by your celibacy clause.”

“That's kind of sweet in a warped way.” But if he were interested in getting his rocks off before he was announced as the next groom, then he'd wait until he got back to Miami instead of flaunting his sexual exploits in Harper's face, like he'd done for so many years. He understood now that he'd done that to punish her for rejecting him. The more she'd derided him for sleeping around, the more he'd rubbed it in her face until they'd gotten locked in a vicious cycle of insult and injury. What a fucked-up way to live.

“I thought you and I were striving for a more healthy relationship these days. I'm pretty sure that doesn't involve you arranging hookups for me.”

Another chime with an incoming text, this one from Kayla.
Got it. I'm ready.

“This is healthy,” Harper said. “I set my other friends up on dates when I meet someone I think they'd be interested in.”

It was going to take him some time to wrap his brain around this one. “So it wouldn't bother you if I spent my last night in town with Lindsay?”

“It would bother me if you didn't. It's not like I'm going to be up for hanging out after the game. I'm pretty wiped out. Besides, I worked hard to arrange this hookup for you. I'm just glad Lindsay finally came to her senses and contacted you. I mean, I played the American hero card and everything.”

Geez, this might rank as one the strangest conversations he'd ever had, right below the conversation he and Harper had had after sex. But a hook-up with Lindsay seemed important to Harper, so he decided to humor her until he figured out what he wanted to do. “In that case, I'm surprised it took her so long to contact me, too. The American hero card is my ace in the hole.”

When the buzzer sounded, ending the period, Kayla stood and stretched. “Okay, champ, you're looking tired. Ready to go?”

Harper frowned. “The game's barely getting going and it looks like it's going to be a great one. You should stay here. Both of you. I'll find a ride or grab a cab.”

Kayla met Brandon's gaze over Harper's head and gave him an
oh-please
look. To Harper, she said, “If I don't take you home, then Brandon will insist because he's a gentleman. Since I'm sure you want him to stay here and enjoy the game, then there's no sense in arguing with me. But,” she shrugged, “the choice is yours.”

Go, Kayla.

Harper grinned affectionately at her. “You're a bossy little thing, aren't you?”

Kayla twirled Harper's car keys. “Runs in my family.”

Harper turned her attention to Brandon. “You're going to stay and watch the rest of the game, right? And then do that thing we talked about, I hope.” She darted her eyes to his phone.

It was too hard to think clearly about hooking up with another women while talking to Harper, so he wasn't going to make any promises he wasn't sure he wanted to keep. “I'll text her back.”

Which was true, no matter how he decided to handle the situation.

Harper gave him a weak, one-armed hug. “Have fun. And if you hitch a ride to Locks, then you can take my car to see her. You still have a set of my car keys, right?”

Next she'd be slipping a condom into his pocket, she was working so hard to make this happen. “Yeah. Got 'em.”

With Brandon's help, she rose and straightened up. “Good. Okay. I'll see you in the morning. My plan is to ride with Theo and you tomorrow to the airport. I wish I could drive you myself, but I don't think that's the wisest plan.”

“Definitely not.”

She turned to her other friends and said her good-byes, then ruffled Brandon's hair like he was her kid brother. “Have a great night, Brandon.”

Brandon stayed and watched the rest of the game, but his heart wasn't in it, despite the thumping that Bomb Squad was issuing to the Puck Daddies. He texted Lindsay back, not shutting her down but not leading her on either. Really, he couldn't decide what to do. He thought he'd be able to think more clearly after Harper left, but he was still baffled. A month earlier, he would've hooked up with Lindsay without thinking twice. He loved casual sex—didn't he? But the thought of it didn't light a fire inside him tonight. Rather, he wanted to go to Locks after the game and hang out with his buddies, then look in on Harper.

In the end, he hitched a ride to Locks with Gabe.

“You're doing great as the team captain,” Brandon said.

“Thanks. I like it. You're missed for sure, but I'm having fun with the job.”

Gabe's car had all kinds of modifications to accommodate his missing right arm—which had been removed at the shoulder, not leaving enough arm to support a prosthesis—and the limited mobility of the tricked out, technological marvel of a prosthesis he wore on his left arm. A push start and a gear shifter on the left side of the dash, a special knob on the steering wheel for him to grip, and an automatic seat belt with a lap belt extension for easier access—and those were just the modifications that Brandon could see. Brandon and Gabe had known each other for a long time, yet it still amazed Brandon how Gabe fearlessly adapted to every environment. He'd never forget what a huge influence Gabe had been in those early years on Brandon's recovery and attitude.

Locks was packed. Brandon paused outside the door, his eyes on the bricks. Coming back to this place, Harper's brick fortress, was comforting, anchoring in its familiarity and sturdiness. Why hadn't he been able to recognize that before?

In the absence of any family, she'd created this warm, welcoming, unflappable haven, not only for herself, but for everyone around her. And she made it out of nothing but a dream and the ashes of her grief after burying both her parents. She'd adapted to her situation in a way that wasn't so different from Gabe's ability to adapt. Both were remarkable people who'd overcome so many odds.

Being back made him feel homesick, which was something he hadn't known he was capable of feeling. Certainly, he'd never felt that way about Hartford, not even when he returned to Connecticut to visit his folks, who still lived in the home he'd grown up in.

He texted Lindsay from the parking lot.
Hey, it's not going to work out tonight. I'm going to turn in early.

He walked through Locks, chatting with his teammates and their girlfriends and wives. When he found Will, he told him how much that first power play goal had meant to Harper, and Will caught him up to speed on the bar, since he'd been there almost every evening to keep an eye on the place. The biker punks hadn't been back. In fact, there hadn't been any trouble at all. No cars stolen, nothing. The place was doing a brisk business and the new manager, Susan, was settling in great.

As Brandon moved around the bar, chatting people up, a waitress brought him a beer that'd been ordered for him by Elijah, which was cool of him, even though Brandon didn't often drink. No sooner had he thanked Elijah, then discretely passed the beer to Kayla, before another beer showed up. He kept that one as a decoy.

“The guys are just trying to tell you they miss you,” Theo said when yet another player passed him a dark beer that looked like Guinness. A couple of those and Brandon's eight-pack would look more like a two-liter.

“I miss everybody, too. I miss all this stuff,” he said. But as great as it was to hang out with his buddies, his thoughts kept pulling to the apartment upstairs. For reasons he didn't care to analyze, he wanted Harper to know he hadn't hooked up with Lindsay.

“I'm going to check in with Harper, make sure she's okay.”

“She was already asleep when I came down here,” Kayla said.

“Yeah. Good. I'm just going to check. Be back in a few.”

He left the decoy beer on the bar, then slipped up the stairs and let himself in through Harper's front door, making no effort to be quiet. He wanted her to hear him. The apartment was still, with a small lamp in the living room the only illumination. Dropping the keys on the kitchen counter, he flipped the kitchen's main light on, then strode straight to Harper's bedroom door and brazenly pushed it open.

The shaft of light from the kitchen stretched along the carpet and licked up the side of her darkly stained sleigh bed frame. Harper lay on her back, surrounded by all kinds of pillows as though she were sleeping in a nest. Even with all the noise Brandon was making, she didn't stir, which probably meant she'd taken a big dose of pain meds before bed. The glass on her nightstand was empty. He grabbed it, walked to the kitchen and filled it, then returned, but she was still motionless, her breathing even.

His phone chimed with an incoming text alert. Shoot. He'd forgotten to shut off the volume. He fumbled for his phone in his pocket as Harper sniffed and rustled the duvet, resettling.

The text was from Lindsay. A selfie of her mugging a sexpot pout at the camera, her exceptionally perky cleavage on full display. The shot was captioned with a text.
Not too late to change your mind and make a girl's night.

No, he supposed it wasn't. Breasts were his favorite part of the female body, and it wasn't too big a mental leap to picture himself burying his face in Lindsay's fantastic rack. But beyond that primal reflex at seeing the erotic sight, the idea of hooking up with nurse Lindsay for a one-night stand held no allure. Zero.

“Brandon?” Harper said, her voice thick and raspy with the pull of sleep.

He turned the volume on his phone off and pocketed it. “The game just ended so I was checking on you. Go back to sleep.”

She hummed. Her eyelids opened and she looked at him, her eyes onyx pools that a man could stare into forever. “What time is it?”

“About ten.”

“Early. Did Bomb Squad win?”

“Yeah. Four to one.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “You must've been their lucky charm.”

“Maybe so.” He pulled the duvet up to her chin.

Her eyelids closed and she hummed again. “You're my lucky charm, too.”

He shook his head at the ridiculous proclamation. What was he, a leprechaun? “I thought I was your spirit guide.”

“That, too.”

“Enough talking. Go back to sleep.”

He stood next to the bed and watched the muscles of her face relax as she drifted to sleep again. She looked so soft, so pretty, in her little nest of pillows, her blonde hair fanning out around her. Until now, he'd never cared about a woman as a person before, as a friend. Even with Harper, with all their years of painful back-and-forth, he hadn't felt a bond beyond lust until the past few weeks. So much had changed. It was a good shift, centering.

They were meant to be in each other's lives, just not in the way they'd always expected. In the years since he lost his leg, he'd felt lost, like a ship sailing through the night without a map or a compass, without the stars or moon, trying to find the right path through the darkness. But he would always have Locks and Bomb Squad and Harper as his north star. Funny that it'd taken moving away to shake him into realizing that fundamental truth.

He leaned over, planning to kiss her forehead, but on a whim, he angled his lips over hers and kissed her lightly. He loved the way her kisses tasted, the way their mouths notched together so perfectly. That was the one part he missed about the unhealthy first chapter of their relationship.

When he pulled away, she sighed. A sweet, sleepy smile returned to her lips. His heart did a heavy
da-dum
that he felt all the way in his throat and down to his toes. He leaned over, unable or unwilling to stop himself from kissing her again.

It took him a moment to realize that her lips were moving against his, nothing more than a slight pucker of a response. Then her lips parted and he heard another contented hum whispering from deep in her throat, a sound he'd never heard from her before tonight. With a pounding heart, he parted his lips enough that the tip of his tongue could taste her lips. Damn, he loved the way she tasted.

For the briefest moment, she arched up into the kiss. Then she wrenched her face to the side with a shaky exhalation. “You keep telling me to go back to sleep, but you won't go away.”

He spun away from the bed, his hand covering his mouth and his body and mind reeling in shock. Thank goodness she'd stopped that kiss before it'd gone any further because he'd demonstrated a complete lack of self-control.