Chapter 8
Xander
The crowd roar as the buzzer sounds, declaring the reigning champions still undefeated. Coach Harris’ face is bright red from all the yelling he has done throughout the night. He claps each and every one of us on the back as we make our way off the ice.
“Fuck yeah,” Shorty roars as we make it into the privacy of our locker room. “That’s one way to guarantee some easy pussy tonight,” he declares.
We all crack into laughter, each of us high on the adrenalin of yet another win. I know my dream is to be a fighter but it still feels damn good to take out the competition.
I sit down on the bench and start taking off my skates and gear when the boys start on their usual after game chatter. “Where are we heading tonight, boys?” Bobby asks as he pulls his shirt up over his head and throws it carelessly into his bag.
“I vote for Micky’s,” Shorty declares as he pulls a towel out of his locker. Yep, I’m down with that.
“Nope,” Jaxon grunts with a frustrated scowl. “Not Micky’s.” Yep. I should have seen that coming. Some dickhead grabbed at his girl a few weeks ago so it only makes sense he wants to avoid the place, which honestly, I feel for the chick but us avoiding Micky’s really sucks for me.
“I know of a frat party not far from here,” Bobby suggests as he loses his pants, no shame at all.
“Yeah, I’m keen,” Aaron shrugs while Shorty murmurs a ‘damn’. The rest of the guys all agree to the frat party and it's settled.
Coach comes in and tells us just how great we did as we all finish getting cleaned up after the game. I head into the showers and return not a moment later, as fresh as a daisy.
We try our best to make it through the crowds of fans who wait by the door. Some asking for autographs while some want pictures. Some just want to say congratulations while others are waiting to hear where we are celebrating tonight.
I finally make it through the crowds and out to my truck with Shorty and Aaron on my heels. We throw our shit in the back and climb in. Aaron gives out directions and soon enough, were pulling up at the frat party.
The place is packed and the moment we walk in, I instantly lose the guys as they scatter off to find a drink or in Shorty’s case, probably the chick he will be screwing later tonight.
One-by-one the rest of the team show up and it turns from a house party into a massive rager. Within half-an-hour, the place is absolutely filled to the brim that the majority of the party has now spilled out into the street.
After an hour, I decide I’ve had enough. It’s been a massive week and I just want to unwind. I slip out the front, dig my keys out of my pocket and before I even know what I’m doing, I’m parking my truck at Micky’s.
It’s close to closing time and there is no doubt in my mind that she is working tonight. I slip in through the door, pleased to find the place is starting to clear out and I take a seat at the bar.
Charli has her back to me but I really don’t mind as I take in the view of that perfect round ass wrapped in those tight jeans. She turns around and gasps as she notices me sitting here. She acts as though my very presence hadn’t startled her as she reaches under the bar and gives me a good view down her tank top.
She pulls out a glass and begins filling it with beer. She silently places it down in front of me before moving on to fill her customer’s orders. I watch her with an intrigued grin as she goes about her duties.
I sit here for about half-an-hour and am shocked when a steak lands in-front of me but hell, I’m not going to say no. I watch as she smiles to herself as she walks away from the bar, clearly very proud of her doings.
I get stuck into my steak which just happens to be cooked perfectly and before I know it, the bar is practically empty and Charli is busily wiping down the tables, preparing to close. She heads into the back and turns down the music, giving the left-over customers the signal for ‘get the hell out of here’.
“You need a hand with anything?” I ask as she returns from the back.
She gives me a grateful smile but declines the offer. “No, it’s ok. I’m nearly done.”
I roll my eyes at her stubbornness and get up off the stool. I make my way over to her and smirk as she freezes when she notices my approach. I silently take the spray and wipe out of her hands and make myself useful as I wipe down the tables.
I feel those heavenly blue eyes on me as she goes about her duties, closing the bar.
Once I’ve finished, I take my seat back at the bar and watch as she takes my plate off the bar and ducks into the back. The lights are turned out, except for the ones directly under the bar and the music is completely shut off. After such a long week, the dead silence of the bar sounds incredible.
Charli comes back out and pours me another beer before pouring one for herself. She comes around to my side of the bar and takes the stool beside me making me grin at her initiative, apparently I haven’t got a shy Charli tonight.
“Thanks for helping,” she says. “You didn’t need to do that.”
I shrug off her thanks. “Wanted to,” I tell her as I swivel on my stool to face her more directly.
“You had a game tonight?” she asks as she takes a sip of her drink.
“Sure did,” I say as a smirk takes over. “You keeping tabs?” I tease with a raised eyebrow.
Her whole face flames but she recovers quickly. “You’re the one who was parked outside the salon on Monday and you have the nerve to ask if I’m keeping tabs? You expect me to think that was a coincidence?” she fights back.
“Would you believe me if I said it really was?” She presses her lips together in a tight smile and slowly shakes her head as if I had just been caught out. I roll my eyes but continue anyway. “How was it?” I ask.
An excited smile completely takes over her face, lighting up her features like Christmas morning. “Amazing,” she responds. “I feel like I’ve already learned so much.”
“That’s great. Your teacher nice?”
“Yeah,” she says. “She gets a little grouchy if she misses her afternoon coffee but otherwise she’s great, really knows what she is talking about and the best thing is, the girls are really nice too, maybe even nice enough to make proper friends,” she grins. “What about you? Win any illegal fights lately?” She smirks.
I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, actually. Last night, I killed it.” I tell her as I launch into the details. “It was this big Scottish guy, people were still weary of me, you know, wondering if I got lucky last week but then I absolutely smashed this guy which means bets will raise again for the next one.”
Her eyebrows crease in concern and she begins to bite her bottom lip. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
She cringes before speaking up. “When you say you smashed him, you didn’t like, hurt him did you?”
I let out a breath. “No,” I tell her honestly. “It’s a dirty competition but I fight clean.”
“Oh,” she sighs in relief as a small smile comes over her pink lips.
“Besides, I want to go professional one day which means I can’t have anything that could come back and bite me in the ass,” I explain.
“… Apart from the illegal underground fighting thing.”
I chuckle as she gives me a smart-ass look. I shake my head at her but can’t help grinning as I do. I’m finding that I absolutely love uncovering these little traits of hers. First, it was the innocence, then the shyness and the blushing which dives me wild and now finding out she is a sarcastic smart-ass is just the cherry on top.
I haven’t figured it out yet but this woman pulls me in for some reason and for the first time it’s not just because of the killer body or stunning good looks, this woman has something more, something that all the others simply just don’t possess.
The one thing I do know is that I desperately need to figure it out.
I look her over and watch as she does the same, clearly trying to figure me out just as I am her. “What’s your story, Charli?” I ask softly, so she doesn’t think I’m prying and understands that I truly want to know her.
She considers me for a moment before her eyes drop to her glass and begins drawing patterns in the condensation on the side. She lets out a breath. “My dad died when I was 12, leaving me with a step mum and a massive debt. She wasn’t very nice but tolerated me. Well, she did at least until a few years later when she started drinking and I suddenly became a burden on her,” she explains.
My hand desperately wants to creep along the bar and take hold of hers but I hold it back, not sure if she is ready for that, so instead, I wait for her to continue. “She became verbally abusive, always letting me know I was nothing and that she was stuck with me. So, the moment I turned fifteen she pulled me out of school, deciding that the debt was my father’s so that makes it my responsibility.”
Fuck it. My hand has a life of its own. It makes its way across the bar and I place it right over hers, gently giving it a squeeze. An electric shock shots through my hand, right up my arm and into my body. Holy shit, who knew just touching this girl could have such an effect. Her hand flips over on the bar and I suddenly find my fingers lacing though hers. She looks down at our joined hands and I see something settle within her, though I’m not quite sure what, all I know is that it feels amazing. “You don’t have to tell me the rest,” I say, giving her an out.
“No, I want to,” she says, finding the strength to continue. “Anyway, I was made to work her cleaning business while she stayed home each day drinking. It had gotten pretty bad by that stage and obviously, expensive, so she demanded I get a second job which is ridiculous for a 15-year-old girl, so I refused and that was the first time she hit me. I guess she must have liked it because it became her new thing after that,” she sighs as she looks away, almost as if she is embarrassed.
“I regret that I never once fought back, fearing I had no place to go, so I put up with it for years until she found her new boyfriend who introduced her to drugs.”
“Babe,” I say, cutting her off, fearing what direction this could go in.
“Don’t stress,” she says. “It doesn’t get much worse.”
I press my lips together, not sure I believe that but listen as she goes on. “She was on drugs, hitting and yelling at me. The boyfriend hardly came around so that wasn’t much of a problem, so I just stuck to my routine. I would stay out ‘cleaning’ as long as I could, come home, cook dinner and hide out in my room. She would pass out by nine most nights and not wake until ten or eleven the next day so I could generally avoid her in the mornings,” she says, then takes a breath.
“Anyway, a few weeks ago she had found a stash of money that I had been hiding to get myself out and blew it all on drugs. She had passed out for the night and they were just sitting there so I flushed them,” she says with a cringe. “She had misplaced drugs before and lost her shit at me and I knew for sure this time would be much worse, so I packed my things and ran. I walked for three or four hours during the middle of the night in the worst storm we’ve seen all year. Had no money and no phone so I could get help or call a taxi. I just had to keep walking. Anyway, I couldn’t find anywhere to crash so I stopped on a storefront where there was a bit of shelter from the storm and was approached by this really bad kind of guy.”
My whole body tenses and I’m pretty sure that includes my hand because she stops immediately and looks up at me in alarm. Suddenly she is the one soothing me. “It’s ok, nothing happened,” she practically coo’s. “He tried but I nailed him in the balls and kicked him down the stairs. I ran until I came across Micky’s. I pretty much broke his door down trying to get inside, I had no idea if the guy had followed me or not I just knew I had to find somewhere safe, and I guess the rest is history.”
“Fuck, Charli,” I curse, unable to calm down. Who the fuck would treat this beautiful woman that way. Literally, every person in her life has let her down in some way until she came here. I get up off my stool and take a step in her direction so I stand directly in front of her. I take her chin in my hand and lift her face so her eyes meet mine. “You are the strongest woman I have ever met,” I tell her honestly.
Her eyes grow watery and I realise being strong is something she has never considered of herself before but she needs to know. I am in awe of her, what she has been through and still managed to pull her life together. She has taken control of a shitty situation and turned it all around and set herself on a path to freedom which is something I desperately want to do for myself, take control and make the changes but I always hold back, only taking small steps at a time but Charli leaped, making her the most inspirational woman I know.
I look her in the eyes and watch as her eyes focus in on mine. My head slowly ducks towards her and she closes her eyes just as my lips come in contact with hers. I press down, feeling the softness of her lips under mine.
She lets out a soft moan as her hand leaves the bar and slides up behind my neck, pulling me in tighter. I let her take control, let her show me exactly what she is ready for.
Her lips begin moving against mine and I welcome it. She keeps it soft and controlled, never once losing herself, just as I had expected of her. She pulls back and I rest my forehead against hers and watch as a small smile plays on her lips. “There’s something about you that drives me wild,” I tell her.
She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and I see the need in her eyes and I know she wants to invite me upstairs but I know she isn’t ready and I’ll be damned if I push her too quickly and freak her out.
“I better go, Charli,” I tell her quietly.
She nods her head ever so gently and I take that as my sign to go. I press my lips to hers once more and leave before I convince myself to stay.