I keep my hands on her longer than strictly necessary as I do it. Because I can. Because she’s my wife and these are things I can do now: nuzzle her, touch her freely, be proprietary. Know that she welcomes my touches and leans into it.
I help her pull the cue back and launch it at a ball.
She sinks the shot and spins around laughing. I catch her by the waist before she takes someone’s eye out with the cue and kiss her again. Displays of affection, public or otherwise, have never been my thing, but I can’t imagine trying to hold back my affection for her for any reason.
“Should we get a drink?” Lila asks.
“I’ll get you one, sure.”
I’m about to take her with me when Cassidy and Sadie appear. They all head to the bathroom together, because that’s apparently what women do in groups, and I figure I might as well do something useful while she’s gone and fight my way through the crowd to get us some whiskey.
It’s a busy night and a long wait. Normally, I’m a patient man, but I’m eager to get back to Lila. When I finally have her whiskey sour in hand, I head back to the pool table in search of her.
I stop walking.
Boone Hutchins is standing there by the pool table. Talking to my wife.
He’s still built like the hockey captain he was twenty years ago when we were in high school together, with a belly softened now by a few too many rich dinners. The hardest workout he gets is probably at the golf course these days. Rumor has it he’s now running his granddaddy’s oil operation near the North Dakota border.
He’s leaning on the pool table with his drink, saying something that has Lila smiling, his eyes sliding down her body the moment she glances away.
I flash back to high school, when he made it his mission to hook up with any girl who even looked my way. It was weird then and I don’t like it any more now.
In fact, I fucking hate it. Because he’s talking to mywife, and the way he’s leering at her body has me seeing red.
Moving faster, I set the drink down and slide my arm around Lila’s waist. I tip her face to me for a kiss. Her eyes widen as I pull back and I wonder what look she sees on my face.
“Hutchins,” I say, stepping in, keeping my body angled protectively between Lila and him. I turn to her. I’m not going to stand around and introduce the person I care most about to a scumbag I despise.
“Let’s go, sweetheart,” I tell her.
Hutchins’s gaze slides to me. That old competitive assessment rearing to life instantly. “Rhodes.” An oily smile. “Heard you got married. Hard to believe the ultimate free agent went and yoked himself to the old ball and chain.”
Seriously, fuck this guy.
I’m usually good at hiding my true thoughts and feelings behind an impenetrable, neutral expression, but I must be losing my touch.
“No offense,” he says, obviously delighted by the murderous look that must be on my face. “Just surprised. You never were much for commitment. Couldn’t even stay on a team longer than a season. Ever get a psych eval for that?”
Hutchins was a good hockey player and an even “better” bully, and now he’s a successful businessman all for the same reason: he can smell blood in the water like a fucking shark.
He smells it now, no doubt.
Even drunk as he is, he can still zero in on people’s weaknesses.
I take in the looseness around his eyes, the way he’s listing slightly. I guess that hasn’t changed since high school. He always got sloppy and belligerent.
He takes a drink, bloodshot gaze fixating on me. “Slade Rhodes, married.” A chuckle. “I give it a year. Less. You gonna start trading in wives too? Every year a new city, new woman.Worse ways to live, I suppose. Too expensive, though. Just do like the rest of the players and get yourself a hot little side piece or two. Long as you give the wife a big fat credit line, she’ll tolerate a little tomcatting. What choice do they have? Hell, I don’t need to tell you. Ask your teammates.”
Lila stiffens in my arms and I tug her tighter against me.
This guy. Piece of shit once upon a time, piece of shit still. Some things never change.
“No hard feelings,” he slurs to her, his voice openly mocking. “Just the name of the game, Mrs. Rhodes.”
I won’t stoop to getting in a fight with some sloppy drunk. I just need to get my wife away from him. I’m steering us away from him when he reaches out and puts his hand on Lila’s arm.
Instinct propels my body instantly.
