The Playmaker (Fire on Ice) (13 page)

Fifteen

Kian

I was sitting on my small deck overlooking the apartment complex swimming pool. The place was fancy, recommended to me by the team’s human resources department. It was definitely not a place I would have picked for myself.

I was getting used to spending time alone. Looking out into the vast sky as the sun set and the moon appeared in its place. The moon was so full. Almost too full. I thought about Taylor and what the moon looked like from her new place in Northern Arizona. I looked at my cell phone for probably the hundredth time but it was still and quiet. Just like moon.

I took a sip of the bottle of root beer I had opened but barely touched. Yes, Kian Kavanagh was drinking root beer. Not a
Guinness. Not even a cheap just-to-get-you-drunk beer.
Root beer
. I wanted to be completely sober when Taylor called. 

I watched as a young couple quietly climbed into the pool. It was long past the pool’s closing hours. They were illuminated only by moonlight. I thought about how romantic it would be to swim with my princess under the moonlight and stars. If I could actually swim. I had never learned. My mom certainly never had time between her drinking
binges to teach me. Not that we ever lived anywhere near a pool. We were lucky our shitty apartments had bathtubs that actually functioned. I spent all of my time on frozen water anyway.

When it was almost nine and my root beer was gone, I started to think Taylor wasn’t going to call. I knew she had a lot going on but I still felt a twinge of sadness in my chest.

Just when I got up to go back into my lonely one-bedroom, the phone rang. I answered it right away.

“Hey,” Taylor said. It was the first time since she was a
ttacked that she actually sounded like herself.

“Hey, yourself. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. I feel settled into my sister’s place, finally. You know how she is. Everything is a dramatic production.”

I laughed.
Zelda
was a drama queen. No doubt about that.

“I started working on my school assignments. I really need to get caught up. It’s just hard to concentrate.”

“Give yourself time. I’m sure your professors will understand.”

“I’m just so used to being on top of everything. It’s really hard to be so far behind.”

I wanted to ask her if she was ready to see me but I wasn’t sure if it was too soon. I decided to grow a pair and dive into the deep end of the pool. “Can I see you?”

Silence. Shit. Maybe it was too soon. I held my breath and waited.

“Okay,” she said finally.

I exhaled. “When?”

“I think my schedule is a little more flexible than yours.”

“We’ll be off the road for a few days. I can get a day off. I’ll get a plane ticket.”

“I have just one request.”

“What?” I held my breath again.

“Zelda’s apartment is a little cramped. We’re actually sharing her bed right now. Can we go back to the cabin?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

“The last time I remember feeling happy and normal was when we were at that cabin.”

“Anything for you, Princess. You want to go back to the ca
bin, you’ve got it.”

***

I wanted everything to be perfect. When I got into town and got my rental car, I drove straight out to the cabin. I made one stop on the way, at the gas station, and got everything I needed.

The old man remembered me. “Where’s your girl?” he asked as he hobbled over to me.

“I’m going to pick her up. I wondered if I could put a few things in the cabin first, maybe start the fireplace.”

“You
pay, you can do whatever you want.” The old man smiled and I noticed that he had been chewing tobacco. It was stuck to the few teeth he still had left in his mouth.

I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and handed the old man thirty bucks.

“It’s all yours.”

***

I had to check the address three times just to make sure I had the right apartment building. The place was a dump. But it was close to the theater, so that’s probably why Zelda picked it.

I knocked on their apartment door. I didn’t have to wait long. When it opened, Taylor was standing in front of me. She took my breath away.

She’d lost weight. Her face was thinner and it made her round eyes look even bigger. She had slight yellowing around her eyes, the remains of bruises. I’d gotten enough sticks to the eye to know what the dregs of a black eye looked like. She also had a small scar on her bottom lip, probably from stitches. I was also intimately familiar with those.

She looked so fragile. I wanted to scoop her up into my arms and never let her go. I wanted to keep her safe and protected.

She put her hand to her lip, like she was trying to hide her scar. It was such a small thing, probably not even noticeable to anyone else. I noticed because I had memorized every inch of her face.

“Kian,” she said as she opened the door further so I could enter.

Our eyes met and I could see so much pain inside of her it tore my insides to shreds as I stood there. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to touch her. I wanted to—more than I wanted to breathe—but I didn’t want to hurt her.

She took a step toward me but it was tentative. I noticed she was shaking. If only there was some way for me to take every bad thing away from her: all the pain and anxiety and fear. I would take it all
from her. I would experience it in her place.

She carefully placed her small hand on my chest and I sucked in a deep breath. How was it possible that her hand looked even smaller and more delicate than it ever had before? I waited, breath held, as she slowly moved her hand down my chest. Then she placed her head, ever so gently in place of her hands, and my heart skipped a few beats. I carefully placed my arm around her and pulled her into an embrace.

When her body tensed, I thought for a moment I had gone too far or too fast, I wasn’t sure. “Are you okay?” I whispered. “Is this okay?”

She took in a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “Yes. I’m glad you’re here.”

I relaxed into our embrace. It was such a small thing but at that moment it seemed like a huge accomplishment. I breathed in her scent. The hint of strawberry that I loved so much. “I missed you.”

She looked up at me. “I missed you, too.”

I glanced around the apartment. It brought back memories of so many of the dumps I had lived in. It just didn’t seem like a place my princess should be living. But it really wasn’t an issue I wanted to get into when we had so many other things to deal with.

“
Where’s Zelda?”

“She had
class. She’s actually been going. That’s a first.”

“Does she know that we’re going to be staying at the cabin?”

Taylor nodded. “Let me just get my stuff.”

When I released my hold on her and she left the room to get her things, I already felt an emptiness that I knew would grow as I got used to being with her again and we had to separate.

Part of me wanted to just say fuck it and quit playing hockey so I could stay with her. But I knew Taylor would never agree to that and I wasn’t a quitter. But what about quitting if there was a bigger purpose? Was hockey more important than being there for the person I loved? The person who I would die for. The person whose life meant more to me than my own.

Taylor returned from the bedroom with a backpack.

“Is that all you’re bringing with you?”

She nodded. “If you remember the first time we were at the cabin, we had nothing with us but the clothes on our backs. This is a vast improvement.”

“You have a point.”

  The drive there was quiet. Taylor told me about school and how much her professors were helping her to finish her classes and graduate. I was a little surprised that she hadn’t mentioned graduate school. It was something that she had talked about a lot before she was attacked.

But there was tension in the air between us and I knew it was the unspoken that was filling that air. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted every detail of what that sick fuck had done to her. But I wasn’t sure if it was right to ask her and I wasn’t sure she wanted to tell me. So the questions just hung there in the air like little weights. I wasn’t one to hold back. I wasn’t the most sensitive person on the planet and no one would ever accuse me of being discreet, so I just pitched it out there for her to catch and throw back if and when she wanted to.

“If you want to talk about it, I’m okay with it.”

She frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah. Whatever you want to say, you can. Whatever you want to tell me, you can. I want to hear it. All. Everything. Some things. Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

“Okay.”

I could feel the tension in the car start to dissipate, like air slowly being let out of a balloon. 

“You can ask me questions, too, if you want.” I could see her glance over at me out of the corner of her eye, like she was gauging my reaction. I couldn’t wait to get to the cabin and get out of the damn car so I could look into her eyes while we talked.

“Yes, I want to.” There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask but I also wanted to try to be sensitive. Funny, before I met Taylor, I never would have put me and sensitive in the same sentence.

When we arrived at the cabin, I looked over at Taylor and the tension she had been holding in her face seemed to relax a bit. She still looked a little panicked. I couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms again. I wanted to tell her everything was going to be alright but I wasn’t sure I could make that promise.

I was going
to try to make things right. I just wasn’t sure exactly how to do that.

“I’ve already got the place rented and stocked,” I said as we both grabbed our bags and headed toward our cabin.

Our cabin. We had only been here once before but it already felt like our own private sanctuary.   

I opened the door and allowed Taylor to step in ahead of me. I watched for her reaction as she took in everything.

I had started the fireplace and it was giving off a warm glow throughout the place. I had also put daisies all over the bed and several bouquets of assorted flowers were scatted around the room. I completely cleaned out the gas station of every flower they had in the convenience store.

When she glanced over at the small table, she let out a laugh. It was so good to hear her laugh. She picked up a few of the items I had on the table and carefully touched them. “You got everything we bought the last time we were here.”

I nodded. “Plus a few extra things so we don’t starve.” I pointed to a cooler next to the table. “You said you wanted to feel the way you felt the last time we were here.”

She turned to me and when she looked up at me, I noticed her eyes were wet. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”

I didn’t know if I should pull her into my arms or wait until she came to me so I just stood there. I felt like an awkward kid again—one who didn’t know anything about girls. That was me at about eleven. That was a long time ago. I’d learned a lot about women since then. I just didn’t know anything about dealing with a situation like this. Hell, six months ago, before I met Taylor, I didn’t know anything about real love.

She placed her delicate hand on my chest, just like she had done in her sister’s apartment. I was getting the feeling that was like a safety zone for her. She looked up at me and gave me a half smile. Then she placed her head on my chest and I embraced her and pulled her in tight.

She felt so small and fragile. I thought about that monster and what he did to her and a sob escaped from my chest.

Fuck.

I wanted to be strong for Taylor. I wanted to be her rock. Crying was not an option. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and thought about killing the prick instead. I knew that would toughen me up.

“Do you want to sit by the fire?” she asked.

Now that I had her in my arms, I wasn’t sure I wanted to let her go. But I knew we couldn’t just stand there all night. “Okay,” I agreed.

I pulled her over to the small worn out coach that was next to the fireplace. We both sat and I put my arm around her shoulder. I was glad that she was no longer flinching at my touch.

We both looked into the raging fire. It was symbolic of how I felt when I thought about what had happened to Taylor. Whenever I thought about him hitting her delicate face, anger burned inside me. I couldn’t even bear to think about what else he had done. How he had violated my princess and taken something so precious.

Something that wasn’t his to take.

“Tell me what you’re thinking?” Taylor asked. “Your eyes look so dark.”

I drew in a deep breath. “I’m not sure what to do with all of the anger inside of me. Sometimes, I feel like it’s eating me alive. Other times, I feel like it’s that fire, burning inside me, and if I don’t do something about it, it will completely consume me.”

She slowly put her hand to my face and softly caressed my check. I closed my eyes and just felt her hand as she touched me. I just wanted to be in this moment, with my princess, and nothing else.