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“Good night, Juliette,” he said quietly before turning to head across the hall to his condo. I stood in the doorway in nothing but a towel as I watched him unlock his door. The silence was heavy and the air between us was thick with tension. I thought last night would have eased some of the tension, but it was almost as if the sex only made it grow tenfold in intensity.
Thor greeted Mac as he opened his door, and I watched as his face lit up. He mumbled something to the dog before half stumbling into his home. Just as he was about to shut the door, he glanced over his shoulder at me. His expression was unreadable and the smile from just moments before had since vanished. Instead, the flames were back. The fire was burning fiercely within. He gazed at me for another moment before disappearing into his condo, softly shutting the door behind him.
Turning around, I went back into my own home, locking myself inside. I didn’t want to feel, but Mac was relentless. He was making me feel things, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. But there was one thing I was sure of…
Mac Sullivan was going to be my undoing.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MAC
Frustration was deep-seated inside my bones as I followed Lincoln down the tunnel toward the ice. It had been over two weeks since I stumbled over to Juliette’s condo after going out to the club with Lincoln. There was a part of me that regretted it, so I felt compelled to pull away from her. I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea.
We were having fun and I was fairly certain I went and fucked that up by letting it look like I had feelings for her. There was no reason for me to even tell her that I went out and Lincoln tried to set me up with someone else—not that the other woman even mattered. I wanted nothing to do with her. The only person I wanted anything to do with was Juliette.
I didn’t know how she managed to do it, but she was rather successful at avoiding me at all costs. I finally caved and texted her two nights ago. She wasn’t very forthcoming or warm with any of her responses. Instead, she was short, giving me the briefest answers before telling me she was turning in for the night and would talk to me again soon.
I never heard from her after that and I didn’t press the issue.
Not yet, at least.
Juliette didn’t strike me as someone who scared easily, but I also knew she was the type to always have one foot out the door. If there was something she didn’t like, something that made her uncomfortable, she wasn’t going to entertain it.
She tried to make it seem like she didn’t care when I confided in her two weeks ago, but her face betrayed her—as did her voice. She told me she didn’t care, but I could tell that she did. The way jealousy filled her eyes. The way her tone changed when she admitted she didn't know why I felt nothing for the other woman.
She was trying to protect herself, and I couldn’t fault her for that. There was a reason for that, though… Juliette had her own feelings she didn’t want to share. Hell, I would be willing to bet she didn’t want to even acknowledge that they were real. This girl was going to avoid me until she couldn’t anymore and I knew I had to wait it out. I had to let her come to me.
But how long would it take before my resolve broke?
We all filed out onto the ice, each of us skating off in a different direction on our half of the ice as we began to warm up for the game. I watched Nico and Wes as they skated over to the bench where Harper and Charlotte were standing. They came to most of our games. Discontentment pricked at my skin. I was envious of what they had, even if I didn’t want it for myself.
“That’s not a good look on you, Macky Boy,” Lincoln said softly as he skated over to me, shifting his hips as he abruptly dug his edges into the ice and came to a halt, spraying snow as he did so.
I looked over at him as I toyed with my glove like there was something wrong with it, directing my focus to it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you didn’t go home with Mia,” he said as he began to skate backward with me moving forward. “Mia told me the two of you bailed. You went home to Anderson’s daughter, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him with a shrug of indifference as I attempted to brush it off. “That ship has sailed.”
The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but I ignored it. Lincoln didn’t need to know that Juliette was occupying every single one of my fucking thoughts. If he knew how she had situated herself under my skin, he wouldn’t have approved. The less he knew, the better. Fuck, it was something no one should have even known about.
“Oh, really?” Lincoln prodded, cocking an eyebrow as he grabbed a puck with the toe of his stick and spun around to skate forward. “Why is she over there behind the bench then?”
His words hit me unexpectedly. Whipping my head to the side, I gave myself away, my heart pounding erratically in my chest as I looked over to the bench. Sure enough, there was Juliette, sitting in the row directly behind it. It was the first I had ever seen her show up to a game. Perhaps her father had invited her.
A smile pulled on my lips as I scanned her from where I was standing on the ice. Her hair was hanging in soft waves, framing her face. She had a white turtle neck beneath the Orchid City Vipers jersey she was wearing.
“What’s she doing here?” I said quietly as I began to turn away. Lincoln caught my eye, overhearing the words I mumbled to myself.
He tilted his head to the side. “You didn’t invite her?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t talked to her in, like, two weeks. I don’t know what she’s doing here.”
Lincoln smiled. “I guess you’ll just have to find out.”
“Are you encouraging me to break the rules, Matthews?”
