Boldly by Elise Faber

Chapter Thirteen

Oliver

He droppedhis bag just inside the door and walked through his empty house.

Wide open spaces.

Large windows.

Furniture that wasn’t a bachelor pad, but instead was decent quality, not super expensive but still was something that wasn’t going to fall apart in a couple of years.

He liked his place.

But it reflected that he’d never really been good at letting people in. His home wasn’t lived in, not like Lexi and Luc’s with their plants and baby stuff and pictures cramming the walls. His space looked like a hotel.

Impersonal.

He’d thought he liked it that way.

But today, looking around at it, he realized that it had been a crutch, a way of bracing that barrier so that it wouldn’t fall.

He’d left Hazel at her car, and he’d wanted to follow her home, barrel into her house, to take her to bed and fuck her senseless then maybe make love to her if they had the energy after spending that hour breaking shit and then working the rest of the day. But she was more important, and she still hadn’t agreed to go out with him.

Even though she’d stroked a hand over his jaw, pressed a light kiss to his lips before telling him goodnight.

Now he was home, thinking about Hazel and how special she was and knowing that he wanted his place to be a home, to be someplace she would find warm and inviting, and he was wondering why he’d spent his whole life thinking he couldn’t have that.

His parents OD’ing. Foster care. Those were the obvious reasons.

Teresa and Alex’s house. His adoption. The car accident. Perhaps still obvious but also dug a little deeper. Because he hadn’t known his bio parents, but he’d known his adopted ones. And losing them had hurt.

But it had been easier to focus on hockey.

Because it had happened in the middle of the season, and the playoff push was real, so he’d organized their funeral, made sure the other kids they’d fostered were as okay as they could be under the circumstances, and then he’d gone back to work.

Skating was easier than dealing with the loss.

But now skating was gone, his leg was gone, and his job—which was going well—wasn’t taking up the same type of all-consuming attention that hockey had before.

He’d had hockey to get over Teresa and Alex.

His recovery and PT to push down what happened with his leg.

And now Hazel to forget that he’d lost hockey.

He wanted to make her his new obsession, to use her to chase all those demons away, and maybe he would have done it without quite understanding what he was doing and what it might mean to use her in that way.

But then he’d overheard her mom call her Darling Donut and ask about grandbabies and…

It was like Teresa had dropped down out of the clouds and shook him, had yelled in his ear to pay attention. He knew that he’d liked Hazel, liked her a whole hell of a lot. But she wasn’t a woman to just like. She was a woman to love.

A woman he could easily love if things kept going that way.

Which meant she deserved a home and a man without barriers propping up the concrete and barbed wire surrounding him.

He moved to his couch, wincing when he sat down, muscles he hadn’t used for months burning from his little show with the fake fruit and bowl—his obliques, the sides of his pecs, the tops of his thighs. And she’d given that to him without pressure, facing hockey in a way that he hadn’t been able to deal with yet (because it wouldn’t be the same, wouldn’t feel the same, he wouldn’t be the same).

It had been fun.

He’d found the joy.

And he meant to keep his promise he’d made on the sidewalk earlier that day, when he’d seen her hair shining and her eyes filled with happiness.

He was going to make her happy.

He just needed to get her to agree to a date first.

The following afternoon,he strode down the hall to the locker room and poked his head in.

Hazel had been in meetings all morning, and that meant he had time to enact his plan. The first part, he’d been able to take care of. The second part was…going to require a bit of assistance. Luckily, he knew exactly where to find a bunch of nosy fuckers who’d be happy to be part of something that they might be able to give him shit for later.

The guys had just finished with a short practice, just something quick and easy to keep the legs moving and keep the cobwebs off.

Smithy was sitting next to Marcel, a towel around his waist, his chest bare.

Honestly, Oliver was surprised the man bothered with the towel at all. Smithy loved being naked. Hell, Oliver had seen a lot of dick in his life in various locker rooms, but he’d seen Smithy’s an uncommon amount of times.

Marcel was mostly dressed—meaning he had boxer briefs and a T-shirt on—and the two of them were quietly talking. Well, Marcel quietly, Smithy was booming.

As usual.

At least until Smithy saw him.

Which was pretty much the same time that the rest of the guys saw him.

The room went silent.

So silent that Oliver could hear the water dripping into the drains in the attached showers.

He opened his mouth to say…something.

But Smithy beat him to it. “Get your ass in here, Ollie! We were talking about getting beers tonight. Fucking loss last night sucked. Can’t believe we gave up that lead. You’re coming with us.”

Not a request.

Oliver might have still treated it as one, if not for last night.

Home. It wasn’t just a place.

And yes, fuck, that sounded sappy as hell. But also, it was true. He was realizing that home was also this place, these guys, the joking and shit-giving, and God forbid, Smithy and his dick that never stayed behind a towel. It was on the ice and grabbing beers when they weren’t. It was video games at Marcel’s sitting on lawn chairs because his girlfriend had taken the furniture in a final fuck-you and he hadn’t gotten around to buying new stuff. It was…this team.

But not because they were a distraction.

Because they were important.

They’d showed up for him. In the hospital. Afterward. His fridge had been stocked. He’d been chauffeured around when he wasn’t ready to drive yet. And when the season started, they’d still checked in.

Less because they were working and the job of playing hockey professionally took a lot of time.

Less because he’d purposefully pulled back, knowing they needed that space to do their job.

But still there.

Smithy moved over and patted the bench next to him. “What’s with that face?” he asked. Another pat. “Come and tell Daddy all about it.”

“Ew,” Raph muttered, throwing a balled-up sock in his direction. “Let’s leave the daddy talk between you and your woman.”

“He’d need to have a woman first,” Luca quipped.

“Man. Woman,” Smithy said, flinging his arms wide. “I’m equal opportunity.”

The room reacted to this in the same way they had the first time Smithy had made the declaration. With shrugs, no acknowledgment, and then moving on to the next important subject at hand—namely not who Smithy fucked, but rather the fact that his dick was out. Again.

“Christ, man,” Raph grumbled. “I don’t give a fuck who you fuck, I’d just like to go one day without accidentally side-eyeing your dick.”

Smithy glanced down, but for the record, didn’t fix the towel. “It’s a nice dick,” he said. “I’ve been told it’s a nice dick.”

Marcel sighed and shook his head.

Smithy was beaned with several more socks.

“So.”

This came from Luca.

Oliver turned to glance at him, deliberately ignoring the spot next to Smithy and his bare ass—since he’d tossed the towel aside and was now slowly tugging on his socks.

Socks before underwear.

What was the man doing?

“Beers?” Luca asked.

Oliver considered that, considered that if he didn’t go, what it would mean.

Namely that he was pushing them away again.

He was done doing that.

“Beers,” he said by way of agreement. “But then I need your guys’ help.”

There weren’t that many guys left in the room—Smithy, Marcel, Raph, Luca, Theo, and Martin—the rest having gone off to do who knew what, but the guys who remained were those Oliver was close to. They were the ones who’d been there and the ones he’d pushed away.

But he didn’t doubt for a second that they’d be all in.

And his instincts proved right because they all nodded or voiced their agreement.

Though Smithy did this by pulling on his underwear.

Thank fuck.