The Penalty Box (A Vancouver Wolves Hockey Romance Book 3)

CHARLIE STOOD at the bathroom door, a T-shirt hanging down to her thighs, covering the most delectable parts of her. From my place on the bed, I looked at her with interest. She blushed as she crossed the room and climbed in beside me. I wanted to laugh as she primly slid into bed and covered herself to her chin with the blankets.

I rolled over onto my side and lay one hand on her stomach. “Be honest. Is your new Frankenstein husband a turn-off?”

Her eyes widened. “No.”

“Oh good.” I leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her mouth. It hurt my face like hell, but I didn’t care.

“Wait.” She pulled her head back, putting unwanted distance between us. “We should talk.”

Words a man never wants to hear. We should talk.

I nodded and propped my head on my elbow. “So, talk.”

The sooner we got this talk over with, the sooner we could pick up where we left off this morning.

She stared at the ceiling, thinking. “I’m not sure if we should, you know…”

Her glance skirted across my face before moving somewhere over my shoulder.

I wanted so bad to tease her, but I could tell that this conversation was costing her. “You don’t think we should finish what we started this morning?”

Her cheeks stained hot. “I was thinking.”

I waited a few moments, but she added nothing to her cryptic statement. “What were you thinking?”

“You know.”

I brushed an errant curl off her forehead. “I don’t know unless you tell me.”

She took a deep breath. “We decided this marriage would be more of a roommate situation.”

Before I realized how much I wanted you. “Right.”

“And this situation is only supposed to last until the end of the season. Until your contract gets renewed.”

“That was our arrangement.”

She turned and stared at me. I could see emotions swirling in the depths of her gaze. “I like you.”

I solemnly looked back at her. “I like you too.”

“I’m scared.”

Her open admission to her fear about us felt like a sucker punch. I worked to keep my expression benign. “What are you scared about?”

Her nervous fingers plucked at the fabric of the quilt. “I thought this situation was going to be us living as roommates, but you act like a real husband would act.”

“I am your real husband.”

“But it makes me have these feelings. And I know that in a year, those feelings will be hard to let go of. I don’t want to get more attached.”

I studied her. “You’re afraid of getting hurt.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m certain I’m going to be hurt. I am trying to control just how hurt I am at the end of this.”

Her words felt like a hammer in my chest. “Charlie,” I breathed. “I will never hurt you.”

Her eyes dropped, hiding herself from me. “When we end, it will hurt.”

My life motto was to live life in the moment. I never thought past the next game, the next weekend or much of the future, especially in terms of my relationships. We were married now. So that was the space I lived in. I didn’t think about when we would have to move apart.

That Charlie was looking into the future, predicting our demise and doing what she could to protect herself, made me feel like a dick for not considering that. I tried to explain why this marriage had a shelf life, no matter how good it was between us. “I’m not the marrying kind of guy.”

Her breath hitched. “Is it because you can’t see yourself tied to just one woman? You need variety?”

I blinked at that question. That was the last reason I didn’t want to be married. “No. Why would you think that?”

She twisted the quilt in her fingers. “Because I think you’re used to dating a lot of different women and maybe you can’t see yourself ever committing to only one person.”

I suspected seeing Sabrina had something to do with this conversation. “If I found the right person, that wouldn’t be an issue. The issue is marriage.”

“Okay.”

Dammit, I was helping her argument. “I don’t want a family. Lots of women want kids. I never want to have kids.”

“You never told me why.”

There are so many fucking reasons. “I just don’t. It’s not in my DNA.”

She looked confused. “Okay.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy one year of marriage together.”

She gave me a sad smile. “I think we should be platonic. Otherwise, I will want more at the end of this. Exactly what you and Krista didn’t want me to want.”

She rolled over, giving me her back, effectively ending the conversation.

The question blurted out of me. “Do you want a family? Do you need kids?”

She rolled back and her eyes studied me. “I can take them or leave them.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “When I find a husband and a real marriage, then if he really wants kids, then I can see myself having kids. If he doesn’t, I’d be okay without having children. My heart isn’t set on being a mother.”

I clenched my teeth. The idea of her falling in love with another man, enough that she married him, made something ugly flow through my veins.

“You wouldn’t resent someone if they didn’t want kids?”

“No.”

I couldn’t promise her a future. It went against everything I believed in. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

Her chin trembled. “I’m sorry.”

I hated this. It felt like we were deliberately breaking something between us that promised to be so good. “Don’t be sorry, sweetheart.”

She rolled over on her side, giving me her back again. I wanted more than anything to pull her against me, to snuggle her into my body, to make us both feel better, but I didn’t touch her. Instead, I moved to my side of the bed.

Long after her breath evened out, indicating that she had fallen asleep, I lay staring at the ceiling. What the fuck was I doing? Could I see this relationship going past a year? I didn’t have any answers, which pissed me off. I felt like I was screwing something up, but I didn’t seem to know how to fix it. Not without facing the things I didn’t want to face.

IN THE MORNING, I drove Charlie to work before going to practice. She was polite but subdued with me, and I could literally feel her pulling away from me. I didn’t like the feeling, but I didn’t know what to do about it.

At work, because my eye was still swollen shut, they wouldn’t let me skate, but I was allowed to do dryland training with my trainer. I was in a shit mood and my face hurt like a son of a bitch. I couldn’t get it out of my head that Charlie felt like she needed to protect herself from me. I couldn’t even argue that statement. I invited her into a platonic arrangement and then tried to make it something more to suit me. I felt like a complete asshole. I understood where she was coming from and I respected her approach completely. So, when she asked me to back off, why did I feel a need to fix things and make it work between us again?

I caught up with Ryan in the locker room.

I sat down beside him. “So, what would you do if you were in the doghouse?”

He gave me a mild glance. “You in trouble?”

I leaned my head back against the wall. “No. I want to do something nice for Charlie but I can’t think of anything.”

He looked thoughtful. “You could buy her something for Christmas.”

I groaned. Christmas wasn’t my forte. “Like what?”

“Maybe get her something special for your tree.”

“We don’t have a tree.”

He gave me a look that told me I was a dumb fuck. “Chicks dig Christmas stuff.”

“You saying I need to get her a tree?”

He shrugged as he took off his shoulder pads. “I have an SUV. I could help you buy a tree.”

TWO HOURS LATER, we were trying to tie the biggest fucking tree in the lot to the top of his SUV. He grunted as he pulled his end further onto the roof.

“If this scratches my roof, I’m going to hurt you.”

“It’s heavier than it looks.” I pushed the tree towards him, cringing as I heard branches scrape against the paint.

“Dude, the guy warned us that this tree was ten feet tall.”

“Charlie deserves the best.” That was pretty much how I felt about everything Charlie. She was my wife, and I felt this need to give her everything I knew she wouldn’t dream of asking for. Including the biggest tree on the lot.

Ryan’s laughing expression caught my eye. “You have it bad.”

“Define have it bad.”

“You have feelings for her,” he accused. “Like real emotions that make you do things you’d never do.”

I paused. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

“Ha.” He pointed at me. “I knew it.”

“I just said, I don’t know what I am feeling.”

“Which is guy code for feeling things you can’t define, so you are making over-the-top gestures to articulate them.”

“She’s scared of getting hurt by me.” It pained me to say those words out loud, but I needed some guidance.

“You’re high-risk.” Ryan finished tying his side of the tree. He looked at me over the roof. “No offense.”

“I’m a good guy.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t, but you have to see things from Charlie’s point of view. She doesn’t want to fall for someone that will not get invested.”

“I’m invested.”

“For how long?”

I glared at him. “How the fuck do you know all this?”

“Chicks talk.”

I blinked in surprise. “Charlie told Zoey all that?”

“I think Zoey reads between the lines, but yeah. That about sums it up.”

This issue wasn’t new to me. Charlie had all but said the same thing last night. The issue was I didn’t know how to fix it. “I don’t know how to make this right.”

“Give her what she wants.”

I was almost certain she wanted a future with me. I could never make a promise like that to her, not when I didn’t think I could keep it. “I can’t.”

He sighed and looked over the tree that hung over the edges of his vehicle. “Well, then keep on buying her big-ass trees and see if that keeps you in the game until you can.”

WHILE CHAIN-SMOKING FROM THE DECK, my mom supervised us as we set up the tree in the living room. The entire room smelled like fresh pine, and the tree looked majestic in the corner near the fireplace.

“Now what?” I stood back, my hands on the hips.

Ryan laughed and picked up Sasha, who was biting a low branch on the tree. “You get decorations. And lights.”

I looked at my mom. “Want to help me with that?”

“Isn’t it enough that I’m here?” she shot back, only partially joking.

Ryan made eye contact. “You also need to get gifts. Lots of gifts.”

My mind was already thinking about all the gifts I could buy Charlie. “That will not be an issue.”

I SPENT the afternoon shopping for Christmas gifts and tree decorations. I ended up buying enough lights and trinkets to cover five trees. I hid everything in the trunk and waited for her to come out of the office.

When she got into the car, I resisted the urge to lean over and kiss her.

She turned and looked at my face critically. “The swelling around your eye has gone down. Does it hurt?”

It stung like a son of a bitch. “Nah. This is just a scratch.”

Her lips twitched. “Why do hockey players have to always play it so tough?”

“We are tough.”

“Why don’t hockey players show they are hurt?”

“We don’t want to get pulled from the game.”

“Why not?”

“We want to win and we want to play, so we work to not get pulled from the game.”

She looked at me. “Do all players think like that?”

“Pretty much.” I changed the subject. “Do you like Christmas?”

Her voice was soft. “My mom and I used to love Christmas. It was our favorite holiday.” She looked down at her lap. “But after she passed away, I did my best to avoid the holidays. It felt too painful, you know?”

I was going to kill Ryan. I tried to think about how I could get rid of the tree before she came into the house, but the damn thing was so big, there was no way I would pull that off.

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. My best bet was to warn her about it and tell her I would get rid of it.

She kept talking. “Lately, though, I miss Christmas. It’s a nice reminder of her, you know?”

Thank fuck. We were back in the game. “I know it’s late in the season, but maybe we should try to celebrate the holidays.”

She twisted in her seat to look at me, asking in a hopeful voice, “Would you mind if I cooked a turkey dinner for the three of us?”

“I’d love that. I can help.”

Her smile lit up my car. “Thank you. It’ll be a nice tribute to my mom. She used to decorate every inch of the trailer. She was so over the top.”

Yup, we were totally back in the game.

CHARLIE CAME in the house and stopped short when she saw the tree. She covered her mouth with her hands and slowly walked towards it. When she looked back at me, tears were in her eyes.

“Did you do this?”

I wasn’t sure if the tears were a good thing or a bad thing. “If you don’t like it, we can get a different tree.”

“Are you kidding?” She flew towards me and wrapped her arms around me. “I love it.”

She spun out of my arms to go touch one of the branches. “My mom would have loved this tree. It’s so perfect.”

“Want to help decorate it?”

She sounded excited. “Do you have decorations?”

“I’ve got decorations.”

AFTER DINNER, Charlie was like a bubbly kid, exclaiming over the contents of each bag filled with decorations. I pulled Sasha away from chewing on one of the plastic bags while Charlie unraveled a set of lights.

I got a stepladder and together we worked to string the lights and hang ornaments from every branch. Charlie had put on Christmas music and pure joy radiated out of her as she decorated. I spent more time watching her than I spent helping decorate the tree.

My mom held Sasha in her arms, sipped vodka and watched from her seat on the couch. She spoke in Russian. “Love looks good on you, Mica.”

I responded in Russian. “I think the vodka is hurting your vision.”

She laughed and shook her head. “It’ll get easier when you stop fighting it.”

Charlie turned around, a smile on her face. “What are you guys talking about?”

“I was telling my son that he did good buying such a beautiful tree for his beautiful wife.”

Charlie’s eyes were shy as they moved to me. “It really is the most beautiful tree I’ve ever seen.”

That night, when we got into bed, she lay on her side, looking at me. “Thank you for your gift.”

We didn’t touch, we didn’t kiss, but the fact that she was facing me had made today worth the effort. She was no longer pulling back from me. “You’re welcome.”

She smiled as she shut her eyes. “I can’t wait for our Christmas dinner.”