Chapter 13—Penalty Kill

Vi rolled over and sat up on the side of the bed. She wrapped Matt’s bathrobe around her and walked to the French doors. Rain pelted the glass, and the sky was an angry gray, promising more of the same all day long. She turned to glance at the clock, which indicated it was 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Last night seemed like decades ago—a mixture of soul-shattering sex and partially revealed secrets. Only there was more, and Matt had no clue. He said her past wasn’t important, and she so wanted to believe him.

She’d love to pretend none of the bad things ever happened, and if he didn’t care, why should she? Let it go. Live in the moment. Who you were doesn’t matter compared to who you are. Words to live by. Now if only she could live by them and live with herself. She wasn’t nearly as much of a free spirit as she claimed to be, or this shit wouldn’t be troubling her so much. It’d be of no consequence.

She, of all people, needed to let the past go. And she would. No more mention of what once was.

Besides, Matt would’ve had time to process her profession, and he’d be dumping her this morning. She was certain of it. And she couldn’t blame him. What she did wasn’t exactly highly respected, and half his team had seen her dance last night, then caught her with Matt in the parking lot. Knowing conservative Matt, he wouldn’t want his kids to be subjected to the possible fallout.

And there would be fallout if their relationship continued. Even if his teammates kept quiet, NHL player girlfriends were outed and held up for inspection for all to see. She wouldn’t be allowed to fade into the crowd, and neither would he or his kids. The boys would be bullied at school, and she’d hate to be the cause of their misery.

This situation was impossible. One hundred percent impossible. She’d known this fact from the start, but she’d ignored the consequences.

Covers rustled behind her, but she didn’t look back. Instead she braced herself for the inevitable and tried to tell herself she’d had fun while it lasted. Seconds later, Matt wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned against his chest and closed her eyes, luxuriating in the feel of him. His body was strong and solid, and his breath tickled her ear. She sighed and rubbed his arms.

“I wish you would’ve told me,” he whispered gruffly in her ear.

“Why? So you could dump me sooner?” Bitterness crept into her voice at the unfairness of it all. She was a good person, but society would judge her based on choices she had and hadn’t made.

“Is that what you think? That I’m dumping you?” He actually chuckled. The bastard chuckled.

“Well, ‘dump’ isn’t the right word since we were never a couple, but you get my point.” She turned in his arms to face him. “Brick and Amelia will be dropping off the boys soon. I should be leaving.”

“You don’t need to leave.”

She noticed he still hadn’t responded to the “dumping” question. “You have a game tonight, and I’ll be working.”

He studied her as if looking for something, but she had no clue what. “Take the night off and bring the boys to my game.”

“Matt, what’s the point? This was over before it started.”

“The point is I want you there. Amelia’s going. You guys can tag along with Macy and her.”

Vi shook her head. “By tonight every guy on your team will know about me.”

“Yeah, they will. So what?” His casual attitude confused her. Maybe he’d been slammed against the boards one too many times lately.

“Aren’t you worried about your ex? If she finds out you’re banging a stripper, she could come after you for custody.” Vi wasn’t clueless. She knew how this worked. Besides, there were worse things in her past than being a stripper. Far worse. But he didn’t want to know about them, and she was happy not to tell him.

“She already is,” he said, his troubled eyes settling on hers.

“Oh, Matt.” Her heart went out to him. Those boys were his everything, and she couldn’t imagine him losing them to a selfish bitch of an ex. “Why? She hasn’t shown any interest in them so far. Why now?”

“She needs money. And unlike most of us, working for a living is beneath her.”

“I see. So if she has the boys, she also gets a big support check?”

“Bingo. She’s even willing to move to Seattle to get it, and I don’t think this town is big enough for both of us.”

“Your custody issues are all the more reason for me to drop out of the picture. I’ll only be a hindrance.”

“No.” He shook his head, his tone unyielding and definite.

“No?” She stared at him incredulously.

He rested his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. Vi rubbed the points of his tight shoulders, wishing she could ease his pain rather than add to it.

He raised his head and met her gaze. Something indefinable shone in those brown eyes, something thrilling and scary and hopeful. Vi held her breath and waited as hope and despair dug opposing trenches in her heart and hunkered down for a long battle.

“Vi.” He took a lock of her hair and wrapped it around his index finger, studying the strands as if they held the secrets to their universe. Her heart pounded in her chest. Surely he could feel it.

“This is hard for me,” he said finally.

“What is?”

“Admitting the truth.” His gaze locked with hers. She wanted to look away, afraid he’d see too much in her eyes. “I don’t want to end this today, tomorrow, or in a month. I don’t know what I want, but I do know I want to keep seeing you.”

Vi squeezed her eyes shut to stop the flow of tears burning hot behind her eyelids. “Matt. This will never work out. And I can’t quit my job. I need it to pay school expenses.” The man was crazy. He couldn’t possibly believe they had a future of any kind. Sure, the sex was good, but what else was there? She wasn’t even that good with kids.

“You graduate in a few months, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“I can’t have a girlfriend of mine stripping for a living. No offense, but most people aren’t as open-minded and liberal about such things as I am.” One corner of his mouth twitched as he fought not to smile.

His statement drew a snort from her, and a lopsided grin slanted across his face. God, she adored this man. She didn’t want to end it, either. But it was impossible—

“I do have my boys to consider, and you’re right, my ex would use your profession against us. That’s the harsh reality of it.”

She wanted to quit. She’d known last night before he’d seen her. She didn’t love it as much as she once did. In fact, she’d been finding it harder and harder to get up on that stage and take off her clothes. Only she didn’t have any other option for paying the bills. Job opportunities for felons were severely limited.

“I’d quit if I could,” she admitted.

He put his hands on her shoulders. He grinned smugly as if he’d just come up with the world’s most brilliant idea. “What if I set you up with your own dance studio?” He beamed down at her.

Vi tried to wrap her head around what he’d just said and couldn’t. “You want to buy me a dance studio?”

“Yeah. Why not? You’ll have a degree in dance. You could offer some intro classes for the WAGs at a reduced price. That’d get you going client-wise. Hell, I could arrange a class for the guys, too.”

Vi laughed at the visual of a couple dozen brawny hockey players learning the basics of ballet. “You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah, I would.”

Hope soared within her, the first glimmer of hope she’d felt since that fateful night when she was nineteen and her entire world fell apart through no action of her own.

She shook her head and offered her last feeble argument. “I can’t. I can’t take money from you.”

“It’ll be a loan. I’ll have my attorney draw up the papers.” He bulldozed right past her and didn’t appear to be taking no for an answer.

“What if I fail?”

“You won’t. I have faith in you. You should have faith in yourself.”

“I want to, but my life hasn’t been all that easy. Every time I think I’m getting where I want to go, it blows up in my face.”

“Time to break the pattern.”

She nodded, still looking uncertain.

“You don’t have to give me an answer right away. Think about it.”

“Matt—”

He held her face in his hands and smiled at her. She managed a shaky smile back. “Okay, I’ll think about it, but I still have a past your ex can dredge up.”

“I know. We’ll deal with things as they come. She doesn’t really want the boys. I can always pay her off to get her to leave.”

“I don’t know,” she hedged.

“Think about it.” He planted a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s enjoy this weekend. Then we’ll talk. Game tonight. Open skate at the SHAC tomorrow. Do you skate?”

“Actually, I do. Not the best, but not bad.”

“Will you go with me and the boys?”

“Your teammates know. They saw me, and they saw you with me.”

“Yeah, and I want them to know I’m proud of you.”

She studied him for a long time. “I guess I could do that.”

“And tonight?”

“Okay.” She was going to say more, but she heard a loud crash, followed by pounding feet and shouts of “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!”

Matt shot her a sideways glance. She kissed his cheek and grabbed for her clothes. “We’d better rescue Luther and your house.”

“Luther? Your cat?”

“Yes, my cat,” she called over her shoulder, and ran out the door to enter the melee.

* * * *

The younger guys gathered around one another in the locker room, laughing and making lewd remarks as they stared at a picture on a cell phone.

Matt ignored them, as he usually did. They were in the pro hockey player party stage. They’d grow up eventually, either by learning tough lessons like Rod or because someone straightened them out, be it a wife or girlfriend or parent.

“Hey, Lu.” Gibs, the young winger out of Boston, called out to him. He held a phone out for Matt to see. Matt’s blood turned to ice, and he wanted to knock some idiot heads together. On the cell was a grainy—thank God for small favors—picture of a nude Vi with one leg raised above her head and wrapped around the stripper pole.

“You’re one lucky bastard to have Jazz at Dancing Girls for a girlfriend,” Gibs said, oblivious to Matt being close to detonation.

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a—a friend.” He struggled to articulate what Vi was to him, because it wasn’t as simple as it had been in the beginning.

“Vhatever. Holy crap. She iz hot. Can I have her when you’re done?” Rush, their Russian party boy, grinned at Matt.

“Damn, I still can’t believe you’re tapping that.” Jasper Flint stuck his arms out and bowed. “We are not worthy. You are clearly the master.” The other guys joined in, at least the younger ones. Most of the veterans watched with amusement.

“Fucking delete that right now.” He jabbed his finger at Gibs’s chest, backing him up against a wall.

Gibs’s smile slid from his face. “Yeah, yeah, sorry, Lu.” He tapped on his phone and held it up. “There, it’s deleted. Sorry, dude, didn’t mean to piss you off. You said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”

“Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she is, but treat her like she is. Got it?”

Gibs nodded and backed away, as if he expected Matt to punch his lights out any second.

Matt throttled down his irritation. He prided himself on being a role model for the young guys to emulate, but not this way. They thought he was doing a stripper, and their relationship was all about sex, but he’d set them straight—sorta.

They didn’t understand. Vi wasn’t your average stripper. She had ideals and dreams and— God, was he that shallow and stupid? Average stripper? Every one of them had a personal life different from their stage persona.

But it wasn’t all about sex? Was it? He’d said, “treat her like my girlfriend,” which had the desired result. They backed right off. Every guy in there understood that WAGs were off-limits when it came to certain things. Brandishing a nude pic of a WAG would qualify as one of those things. He’d invited this sorta girlfriend of his to be his date at the family skate tomorrow. Talk about sending mixed messages—not just to the guys but to Vi, his boys, and himself. Speaking of the boys, they hadn’t batted an eye when Vi came storming out of his bedroom and down the hall to rescue Luther, who streaked past them like his tail was on fire. The cat had dived under Matt’s bed with the boys in hot pursuit.

Matt approved of how Vi sat Andy and Joey down and lectured them on the proper treatment of animals, her second such lecture according to her. He assured her the third time would be a charm. She hadn’t seemed amused.

Matt stalked off to his stall to get ready for the game. Brick watched him but said nothing.

“Fuck,” Matt muttered, and sat down on the bench in front of his stall.

“I wouldn’t be thrilled if anyone other than me was watching my girlfriend get naked.”

“She’s not my—”

“Yeah, whatever. What are you going to do?”

“I’m trying to convince her to quit and open a dance studio. She says that’s her dream.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Brick asked. “Are you going to end it? Dating a stripper could be problematic because of your precarious custody situation.”

“Tell me about it, and she’s a showgirl, not a stripper.”

Brick grinned at him.

Matt put his head in his hands and sighed. He wasn’t going to end it. He probably should, but he didn’t want to stop seeing her. Hell, he’d offered to set her up in business.

But his boys… His boys were the most important thing in his life. He couldn’t jeopardize his situation as custodial parent, and he shouldn’t have to. Vi was ten times the person his ex was.

He’d never been so confused in his life.

“I’m glad I’m not you.” Brick smiled wryly at him and gave him a smack on the back. “We have a game to play.”

“Yeah, we do.”

Matt lived up to his Mr. Dependable moniker by playing well and not letting the turmoil and shit in his life affect his game. Things had been so much simpler before Vi. He’d had his routine, and so had his boys.

Vi didn’t do routines. She did spontaneous. She followed her heart. She lived in the moment. Matt stayed in his own lane, never deviating, never passing slow-moving cars or taking an off-ramp just to see what was there. Vi shook things up. He was recycling and not buying Styrofoam cups or plates. He’d donated to the Save the Earth Foundation. His boys had asked him if they could adopt an elephant in Africa, symbolically of course. She’d affected all of them in the short time she’d been in their lives.

He wouldn’t trade where he was now for any place he’d been in the past, despite the obstacles.