Chapter 9
Roman
I slip and slide my way across the snow-and-ice-covered sidewalk to the front door of The Grind. It’s close to 4 P.M. and I’m the only car parallel parked out front, but Glenwood Avenue is bumper to bumper, gridlocked traffic, for the “annual running of the southerners to take shelter during inclement weather” has begun.
While I wasn’t with the Cold Fury then, I’ve heard all about when Raleigh got hit with an epic snow and ice storm about nine years ago that started around midday. Although the Department of Transportation diligently salted the roads, the storm was such that it didn’t matter. Ice accumulated thickly and rapidly, and the entire city was gridlocked with a massive rush of people trying to get home. News reports had children stranded in schools, commuters taking up to twelve hours to drive five miles, and numerous wrecks, because let’s face it, it’s hard to drive on ice in the best of times, nearly impossible for people who have no clue how to do it.
After it started to snow and sleet about two hours ago, an alarming amount of ice collected on the trees, power lines, and roads. Since the city was still slightly traumatized by the great ice event of nine years ago, the Cold Fury cleared the staff and players from the arena and locked it down. A game is scheduled for tomorrow, which is still tentatively on, but that will depend on how hard we actually get hit.
This sucks in a major way, because I had a date set with Lexi for tonight. The plan was for me to pick her up here when she got off at six, but that is not going to happen with the way the weather is. The governor’s office has relayed to the news stations, which in turn have relayed to the masses, that everyone is encouraged to stay off the roads and inside. This means most businesses will be shut down, so no fancy dinner with Lexi.
Yet here I am at The Grind, because I’m worried about Lexi driving home.
She and I have texted several times over the last few days, and I was even compelled to call her after our game last night in New York. I knew it was late, but I also knew she’d be up, because I’d texted with her plenty of times in the late hours. During the phone call last night, I’d learned that she drives a very tiny car, which would surely cause massive injury and potentially death if she were to slide off the road or get hit by something bigger. So I decided to come here and rescue her with the intention of getting her home safely in my big Mercedes G550 and my own expert driving on icy roads.
The minute I pull the door open to The Grind, I can feel the emptiness before I even take note that there are no customers inside. It’s eerily quiet: no babble of people talking, no hiss of espresso machines, no cups rattling against tabletops.
I don’t see anyone, so I take a few steps toward the ordering counter, intent on calling out, when Lexi suddenly appears from a closed door behind the bakery cases.
“What in the world are you doing here?” she asks with a surprised grin.
“Came to drive you home,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes at me, and it’s cute for sure. “I told you I’m fine.”
And she had indeed told me that via text a few hours ago when I gave her a heads-up our date was looking like it was a no-go.
“I decided not to believe you,” I tell her with an answering grin. “And I hope to hell you don’t have to stay here and work until six. The roads are getting really bad.”
Lexi shakes her head as she bends down briefly behind the counter and pops back up with a heavy coat and her purse in her hands. “I’m actually ready to go. I just finished closing out the day’s books for Georgia. She’s out of town for a few days and I’m the only one she trusts to close the place down.”
“Good,” I say with relief as she puts her purse on the counter briefly so she can get her coat on. “Let’s get going then.”
Lexi comes out from behind the counter, pulling a set of keys from her purse. “You know, I really didn’t need you to drive me home. I am from Connecticut and have driven on an icy road or two before.”
“Yeah, but not with thousands of freaked-out southerners who do not know how to drive icy roads. Your car is too small to protect you if you were to get in an accident. Besides that, I like being bossy and doing the opposite of what people tell me to do. It’s this whole power-control issue I have.”
I pull the door open for her and she laughs as she steps out into the frigid air, giving a tiny shudder when it hits her. It makes me want to wrap my arms around her for warmth, which is a distinctly un-Roman-like thing, as I’ve never been much of a cuddler. A jokester for sure, a man who likes to fuck a sexy woman and get it on in the dirtiest of ways, and definitely I like to talk if the conversation is interesting.
But never a cuddler, since it’s just not something I’m used to. Never had affection growing up, and most definitely never saw it between my parents or other family members, and by the time I’d started playing the field with women, it was just odd to me. Not distasteful, but merely awkward, so I avoided it.
So it’s just a bit unsettling to have the urge to wrap my arms around Lexi right now as I watch her lock the doors behind us. When she turns around, I hold my arm out gallantly for her. It’s not a cuddle, but it does give me the opportunity for us to touch.
“Shall we?” I quip as I nod down toward my arm.
“We shall,” she says with a laugh, and tucks her arm into mine as she asks, “Where to?”
I turn her toward my SUV parked right in front. “Just five feet away, but hold tight. I almost broke my neck on the sidewalk earlier.”
She laughs again as she grips me harder, and I find I am becoming more and more drawn to that sound. She’s not the type of woman who giggles, but instead shows her amusement with that same husky tone with which she sings and talks, which means essentially anything that comes out of her mouth is sexy and amazing.
I get her to my SUV without incident or broken bones and manage to walk around the front without sliding too much and looking like an idiot.
You’d think as a hockey star I’d be able to maneuver on ice with more sophistication, but truly it’s the skates that make all the difference.
I merge carefully into traffic, which takes some time since it’s moving so slowly, then settle in for a perilous four-mile drive to the little garage apartment that Lexi rents from her boss, Georgia.
We move less than a mile in thirty minutes and talk is limited to sarcastic comments made about all the terrible drivers we see. We wince as cars start to slide off the road onto shoulders, and several accidents that occur, although they are more like fender benders, fortunately. On two occasions, cars slide my way and I brace for impact, but then they veer off, which is more from happenstance than from any real skill by the drivers. By the time we get close to our exit onto Wade Avenue, I make a decision and turn right into a residential neighborhood.
“What are you doing?” Lexi asks curiously.
“Getting us off the big roads before some idiot hits us,” I tell her as I glance at the navigation screen just below my dashboard. I’m vaguely familiar with this area, as I dated—fucked—a nurse who lives close to here, which is also how I found the pizza joint next to The Grind. I was starving one night after I slipped out of her house and had a pie all to myself after.
This was apparently a good idea, as hardly any vehicles are on the street. I see a few have slid off the road, gone up onto sidewalks and such, but for the most part the cut-through traffic is light. My navigation system self-corrects for a new route to Lexi’s house.
I drive extremely slowly, because even though my vehicle is heavy, I can still feel it sliding if I get much over five miles per hour. However, without all the traffic, I can relax a little bit, so I ease into some more personal conversation, since this car ride is probably the extent of my date with Lexi.
“So, care to tell me more details about Brian Brannon and how that all came about?” I ask her, daring to glance over at her. I see her hands are relaxed in her lap, an indication she’s secure with my driving, but her face is seriously studying the road before us.
“Like I told you the other night, my mom got really sick a little over a year ago. Pancreatic cancer,” she adds on for explanation.
“I didn’t say it the other night, but I’m really sorry,” I tell her, because that’s what you say in these situations although admittedly, it’s difficult to me to relate to what she might be feeling.
“She had been sick awhile and made the decision not to tell me about it, but I was planning on a visit home for Christmas and she knew she couldn’t hide it from me.”
“Where were you living?” I ask her curiously, because she’s told me she’s lived sort of all over the place.
“Pittsburgh,” she tells me, but then her voice gets a little tense. “I was bartending there, taking some classes at night. Partying and having a good time.”
“Nothing wrong with having a good time,” I assure her, because I sense some self-loathing in her tone.
“Not when your mom is dying,” she murmurs, and I can’t fucking help myself. It’s dangerous as hell because of the road conditions, and it’s antithetical to who I am, but I reach across the console and take one her of her hands in mine.
“You can’t blame yourself if you didn’t know, Lexi,” I say gently.
She reacts with a squeeze to my hand and a sigh. “I know. Logically I know that, but emotionally, I feel terrible she went through any of that alone.”
I can only imagine.
Seriously. That’s not a metaphor, as I just have never experienced loss like that.
“So you moved back home?” I ask, to move her forward a bit and not dwell on her guilt.
“Yup,” she says, and her voice sounds stronger again. “She was pretty bad by the time she told me. Was in a lot of pain, very weak. She went into hospice not long after I moved back, and I pretty much lived in her room until she died.”
“How long did it take?” I ask, stemming from a slight amount of morbid curiosity, but also because I want her to share the details with me. For some reason, I really want her to share those brutal details because perhaps that will ease some of her burden.
“Once she went into hospice, she lasted almost another two weeks. She was unconscious most of the time, heavily drugged to keep the pain down. She couldn’t talk to me. She couldn’t eat. Not even sure she knew I was there. I sat by her bed for almost two weeks and watched her wither away until she just stopped breathing.”
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. “That’s awful.”
“Yes, it was,” she agrees with me softly. “It was a blessing when she died.”
My mind immediately turns to my own parents who are back in Prague. My father, Cenek, is a software architect for one of the largest global investment providers. My mother, Hedvika, is an executive for Škoda Auto, an automobile manufacturer and subsidiary of Volkswagen. It’s one of the largest employers in Prague. Needless to say, my parents are fairly well off and we lived in what would be considered a luxury apartment on the banks of the river Vltava overlooking Old Town. As I was growing up, and to this day, my parents were immersed in work. It was what was most important to them. From an early age, I concentrated on hockey, which was at their insistence at first merely so I would be occupied and would not bother them. This means we didn’t spend a lot of time together. There were times when I was a kid that I wanted their attention and I would sometimes act out. It’s probably where I get my prickly nature and the driving need sometimes to do what I want to do without regard to the circumstances. But for the most part, we had a fairly sterile relationship that maybe has a tinge of fondness to it, but was and still is sadly lacking in any real bond.
I think about my parents, who are lovely people and very nice, but almost like strangers to me, and I honestly don’t know how I’d feel if they got sick the way Lexi’s mom did. While I can’t seem to muster any real empathy for my own situation, I know I feel a tremendous amount for the sassy woman beside me who has persevered through some really bad times.
“She told you about Brian before she died,” I say as a statement, as she told me that much already. “Why did she keep it hidden from you?”
I can see Lexi shrug from the corner of my eye and her voice is light when she says, “I think she had a bit of a broken heart when he cut things off with her. He was still hung up on his dead wife and couldn’t give my mom what she wanted. Plus, my mom was just one of those people who didn’t like to impose or be a burden, as evidenced by the fact she kept her illness hidden from me.”
My tires slide a little, alarming me enough to give her hand a quick squeeze before releasing it to move it back to the steering wheel. I could downplay this with Lexi, but that’s not my style. I’m bold in my opinions, but hopefully deliver them with a measure of tact. “It was wrong of your mom to keep knowledge of your dad from you, and I know you have to be reeling over all of this. But not sure she was wrong about sparing you her illness. That was purely her protective instinct kicking in.”
“I agree with you on all of that,” she says simply. “I’ve had a lot of time to process all of this and try to come to grips with it. This past week has been a little wild having just met Brian and Gray, but I think things will even out.”
“What do they say about all this?” I ask curiously.
“Brian is fully on board,” Lexi says, and I can hear the affection in her voice. “He’s chosen to believe what my mom told me on her deathbed, that she had not been with anyone else and I was definitely Brian Brannon’s child.”
“What about Gray?” I ask, and I’m mildly surprised by the slight harshness in my tone. Gray and I don’t see eye to eye and I’m poised to take offense at what Lexi might tell me, especially when I saw the way Gray treated her in the locker room.
Lexi lets out a sigh. “She’s a tougher nut to crack. She has moments when I think she’s cool with everything, then she’ll turn right around and remind me that nothing’s been proven yet.”
“A DNA test?” I ask.
“We sent it off about a week ago,” she says lightly. “Hopefully the results will be back end of next week.”
“She didn’t treat you very nicely in the locker room the other day,” I observe just as my nav system advises me I’ll need to take a right in five hundred feet. At the speed we’re going, that could take awhile.
“I know,” Lexi says with resignation. “And it got worse when we went up to her office. She point-blank asked me if I was after them for money.”
“What the fuck?” I practically bark, and Lexi’s head snaps my way. “She actually thought that’s what you were after?”
Lexi doesn’t respond, and after a few moments of silence, I risk a quick glance at her. She’s staring at me with her head tilted to the side, as if I’m a great mystery.
“What?” I ask as I look back to the road.
“It’s just…” she says with a little hesitation. “Why would you jump to my defense? You don’t know me any better than Gray does. It could be a legitimate concern.”
“No way,” I say adamantly. “You’re not like that. And that was uncalled for…for her to attack you like that for no reason.”
“How do you know?” she presses me. “How could you possibly know?”
I throw out the first thing that comes to mind. “Because you didn’t fall all over yourself to go out with me. You don’t have ulterior motives.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” she says dismissively. “I could have been using reverse psychology on you to make you think I wasn’t all that interested, just to lure you and your riches and fame.”
I snicker at her quick wit and I don’t give that scenario any credence.
“So lay it on me, Roman,” Lexi says even more seriously. “How can you even defend me when you don’t know anything about my character?”
Damn, she’s persistent.
I like that too. Admire it actually, so I decide to be truthful.
I blow out a breath and lay it all out. “Because you’re a woman who plays a ukulele in a coffee shop for tips and I’ve never seen anyone happier in their existence.”
It’s as fucking simple as that.
Lexi gasps softly, but I don’t turn to look at her.
And damn if my chest aches just a little when she says quietly, “I’m glad someone sees me for what I am.”