Defensive Daddy: A Bad Boy Hockey Romance Read online

  Nevertheless, we managed to get through breakfast time, and the meal of peanut butter toast and a glass of milk even resembled real breakfast food. Okay, so we’d had to sneak over to my apartment to add just a bit of chocolate syrup to the milk, but, c’mon, the babysitter had to be cool, right?

  After that, things were smooth sailing between him and I. That was the thing about young kids; they called it like they saw it, and once they were comfortable with you, you’re good to go. Anyone watching us from an objective standpoint might have thought that boy and I had known each other his entire life. If he was disappointed in being stuck with me instead of his father, he didn’t show it.

  In fact, the one and only time I mentioned Levi’s dad—I had to, my morbid curiosity was killing me—the answer I received was short and sweet.

  “Where’s your daddy?” I’d asked Levi simply. We’d turned unpacking some of the boxes piled in the living room into a game, and the little boy was currently half-dangling off the side of a huge cardboard box, reaching for whatever he wanted inside it so badly.

  “He’s busy.” Levi didn’t mention him again. Neither did I.

  The first time I pulled out my cell and glanced at the time, it was close to noon. That surprised me, seeing as the hours had flown by in a flurry of toy car chases, superhero tag-you’re-it (that’s what Levi called it; not tag, but tag-you’re-it), and unpacking. Levi’s eyelids were heavy by the time I laid him down in his bed for his afternoon nap, and he didn’t fight me on it at all.

  The second time I checked the clock on my cell, Levi had been asleep for nearly two and a half hours, and I realized I’d forgotten to ask Samantha how long I should let him sleep for.

  To her credit, she’d only texted me twice to ask how things were going. No capital letters, no exclamation marks, and no emoticons. Just the question.

  In response to her first text, I’d merely sent a selfie of Levi and me, two toothy grins so big it made our eyes squint.

  The second text, I sent actual words.

  Fine. Just curious how long I should let him nap?

  An immediate response came.

  Please tell me he’s not still sleeping?

  I checked the time. Almost four o’clock. Hmm, obviously I should’ve known better than to let him nap this long.

  Okay, I won’t tell you. ;)

  I sent it, waiting for the phone to ring shrilly, followed by Samantha’s frustrated voice as she ripped me a new one over my stupidity.

  But it didn’t come.

  Somehow, I wondered if that was worse. Maybe she’d save the shitstorm until she got home from work so she could berate me face to face.

  That was okay, though. Let her be angry. If I had my way, she wouldn’t be furious for long.

  The thought made me smirk. Samantha was feisty and independent and protective, but two could play at that game. She didn’t know it yet, but she had just met her match.

  ***

  I heard the key in the door just as I was putting the finishing touches on my surprise.

  “Levi!” I gasped with a grin, staying as quiet as I could. “Get up to the table, little man! Your mom’s home!”

  The little boy zoomed by me in a frantic scurry, his eyes wide, mouth set in a wide smile.

  “You ready?” I asked him, and he nodded, shoving his hands in front of his mouth in anticipation.

  I pushed his chair in, then stood behind him, in full view of the doorway.

  Samantha pushed the door open a few seconds later, fidgeting with the key to get it out of the door. “I didn’t expect the—”

  “Surprise!” Levi cried out cheerfully, his little arms opening wide to display the table before him. His announcement was a little premature, but it accomplished what it was meant to.

  Samantha pulled the key from the door, but she wasn’t focusing on it anymore. It hung open, almost as much as her mouth. She stopped in her tracks, staring incredulously at the dinner table, neatly set with a piping hot pan of lasagna in the middle of it, steam billowing into the air above it. Her eyes were the only part of her that moved, from Levi’s smiling face up to my own crooked grin.

  To say I had her attention was an understatement.

  “You...made dinner?” Getting those three words out seemed to pull Samantha from her trance, and she took a long glance around the apartment. When she’d left this morning, a daunting stack of boxes had been piled up near the table, still sealed with packing tape. Now, the stack was gone, and the cardboard boxes were broken down and tucked neatly by the door, just needing to be taken out to the recycling bins downstairs. I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes widened even further. “You unpacked my things?”

  “We unpacked, didn’t we, Levi?” I ruffled the boy’s hair, and he answered with a giggle.

  “Surprise!” he said again.

  Samantha’s purse slid slowly off her shoulder to the floor near the door, and she shuffled out of her jacket. “I, uh, didn’t expect...I mean, I figured your day went okay, but...”

  I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep my faint smirk from growing into a full-fledged grin. She was so damn cute when she was speechless.

  I took a few steps to the left and pulled out the chair at the end of the table, motioning to her to come and sit down. “Everything went great, Samantha. Really. I’m sure Little Man Levi here will tell you all about it.”

  She crossed the floor as though hypnotized, her gaze flitting between the meal on the table and me. She sat down without another word, and I helped her to pull her chair in, using the close proximity to lean forward and whisper into her ear, “You’re welcome.”

  When her head turned quickly so she could see me, I just winked and headed for the chair at the other end of the table, unable to hide my amusement.

  “You’re staying for dinner, too?”

  “Well, I’m so glad you asked,” I joked. “I’d love to.”

  She didn’t protest, but all throughout dinner Samantha wore the same shell-shocked expression. It might have grown fainter over the course of the meal, but it remained, nonetheless. It made me wonder when the last time was that someone had done something nice for her.

  Levi was as animated as ever, and his fork waved around frantically as he jabbered on about how he’d won superhero tag-you’re-it, and how he’d had chocolate milk for breakfast. That earned me an arched eyebrow, but I only pursed my lips together and shrugged. It was easy to tell after just a few minutes, though, that Levi was easily going to fall into his plate of lasagna if one of us didn’t clean him up and get him into bed. The boy’s eyes were heavy-lidded, and his head drifted forward, bobbing slightly whenever he wasn’t talking.

  “Someone’s tired.” Samantha put her own fork down and pushed her chair out. “Bedtime?” She held her arms out to him.

  Levi shook his head. “Cooper.”

  “You’ll get to see him tomorrow. He lives right next door, remember?” she assured him with a smile.

  “You can count on it, little man.” I reached over, holding out a palm for him to high-five.

  Levi did, but he shook his head. “No. Cooper’ll tuck me in.”

  I could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. I didn’t know what to say, and I damn sure didn’t know what Samantha would have to say about her son’s request.

  She paused, her gaze flickering over to me only briefly, but finally she nodded. “If he wants to, pal, Cooper can. Sure.” She took a step back, waiting for my own reaction.

  If this was some kind of test, I wasn’t sure whether I passed or failed, but I leaped from my chair dramatically, pushing Levi’s chair out and scooping him up in one fluid movement. He erupted in a fit of giggles as I held him high in the air. “Want to?” I said. “I’d be honored to tuck you in!”

  I made a game of it, first setting him up on the kitchen counter to wipe the tomato sauce from his face, then popping him up onto my shoulders as we made our way down the hallway. I stole a quick glance at Samantha, and sh
e was watching me—just as I knew she would be—but I couldn’t read her.

  I emerged from the little boy’s bedroom a few minutes later, and I tried to make a joke of it, brushing my hands off as though I’d just accomplished the world’s biggest feat. “His pajamas don’t match, and he might be asking for chocolate milk as a bedtime snack, but his teeth are brushed and he’s under the covers. He’s all yours, Mama Bear.”

  “You bet he is.” She smirked as she passed by me and headed down the hallway, but there was amusement etched in her features.

  I busied myself by cleaning off the kitchen table and beginning to stack dishes into the dishwasher. I was just sifting through the cupboard under the sink, looking for the bottle of detergent I’d unpacked earlier, when Samantha’s voice cut through the silence.

  “So, you babysit, you clean, you can cook like a dream, and my son thinks you’re Superman. Tell me, what’s wrong with you?”

  I rose to my feet, turning to face her. Samantha leaned against the counter, staring at me with a renewed interest. There was no venom in her words. It was a straightforward, serious question.

  I leaned forward as though to tell her a deep, dark secret. “Maybe I am Superman,” I whispered.

  She rolled her eyes, but she laughed quietly, and I considered that a positive sign. “You know what I mean,” she said.

  I took her in, leaned against that counter in her black slacks and fitted V-neck blouse, her auburn hair tied back tightly at the base of her skull. I wanted to reach out and untie it, letting her glossy locks fall freely past her shoulders, framing her pretty face.

  Instead, I purposely leaned across in front of her and plucked Levi’s Lightning McQueen cup from the counter, tossing it into the dishwasher. “You think I’m going to tell you what’s wrong with me after you’ve just painted such a flawless picture?” I said wryly.

  I poured liquid detergent into the dispenser, closed the dishwasher, and turned it on. When I turned back toward Samantha, she hadn’t moved, or spoken.

  “Why does there have to be anything wrong with me?” I laughed, realizing she’d been serious.

  “The term too good to be true is floating around in my mind, Cooper,” she admitted. “And I’ve just been burned by someone, so I—”

  “Levi’s father?” I pulled a dish towel from the drawer in which I’d put them in earlier, trying to make my questions sound less like an interrogation and more like innocent conversation.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” There was an edge to her voice at the mere mention of him.

  I nodded, purposely matching her stance, my back against the counter, one foot crossed in front of the other. “Mind if I ask what the deal is with you two?”

  “If I said I did mind, would that stop you from asking again?”

  “If I said no, would you throw me out of here?”

  Samantha’s lips curved up at the corners. “Not until you were done cleaning up, at least.”

  “Ouch.” I grinned, rolling up the dish towel and snapping it playfully at her shin.

  “I’m kidding!” she chuckled, leaning away from the towel’s trajectory.

  As much as I wanted to ask my question again, I left it unspoken, letting it hang between us like a veil as I focused on wiping down the kitchen table instead. I’d already seen flashes of hesitancy in her eyes a few times since I’d first met her, and I didn’t want her to feel as though I was pushing her in any certain direction, let alone towards me.

  So, I let the silence loom between us, and when Samantha finally spoke again, the edge that had previously been heard in her voice was gone, replaced by a well-controlled nonchalance.

  “Ethan is his name. Levi’s father, I mean. He was my—I mean, we were engaged. But it didn’t work out. He found someone else.”

  Her choice of wording earned her an inquisitive glance from me. “Is that the politically correct way of telling me the bastard cheated on you?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  I hung the dish towel back on the handle of the stove. “Well, it turns out I’ve never mastered the art of political correctness, so you’ll have to excuse me if I call things like I see it.”

  “There’s nothing much else to tell you,” she insisted, but her knuckles were white where her hands gripped the countertop, her fingers curled under it as she leaned back. “He lied, he cheated, and he found someone better because of it. Fast forward a couple weeks, and here I am, the newest tenant at Altaview Apartments.”

  “Whoa.” I held my hands up, halting her. “You’re wrong.”

  “What?” Her eyes narrowed. “I mean it, there’s nothing else to—”

  “I don’t mean about that, Samantha.” My gaze bore into hers, intense. “Yes, he lied, and yes, he cheated. But be damned if he found someone better. I don’t believe it, and you shouldn’t, either.”

  “Well, that’s what he thinks.”

  “Well, he’s a fucking idiot, then, isn’t he?”

  Samantha’s gaze never faltered, but amusement tugged her lips into a faint grin. “You’re right, you don’t do politically correct very well.”

  “Tried to warn you.”

  She held up her hands. “No warning needed. It’s just...refreshing, I guess.”

  I gave her my most debonair smile, puffing my chest out like I was the king of all men. “If you like that, you should see what else I’ve got up my sleeve,” I teased, waggling my eyebrows.

  Again, Samantha rolled her eyes. “God, you really do think you’re a superhero, don’t you? Levi has you brainwashed.”

  “I could think of worse things to believe,” I replied with a smile. Such as you thinking the woman your fiancé cheated with is somehow better than you.

  Samantha pushed away from the counter and turned to pull one of only three wine glasses from the cupboard. I hadn’t found a forth in any of the boxes to complete the set.

  “Do you want a drink, Cooper?” she asked without looking at me. I watched her head to the fridge and pull a bottle of white wine from it.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk already?” I pressed my hand to my heart, feigning shock. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

  She held up the bottle, revealing that it was less than half full. “If we shared this, you’d get less than a quarter bottle of wine to yourself. If you can get drunk off that, you’d better go home, Cooper, because I won’t be able to resist making fun of you for being a lightweight.”

  My hand was pressed against my chest again, and I took the bottle from her. “Jesus, first you insinuate I’m not a superhero, then you call me a lightweight. I’m really not doing a very good job of making a decent first impression, obviously.” I poured a generous amount into one of the glasses and handed it to her.

  Samantha took it with a nod of gratitude, her eyes shining with humor. “You made my son smile from ear to ear, cooked supper, and cleaned my house. Yet, you think you haven’t made a good impression?”

  I pushed the bottle onto the counter, pushing the second wine glass away with it. The movement also brought me closer to Samantha, and I found myself close enough that I could smell the sweet scent of her perfume, lingering tones of vanilla and sugar. “Trust me,” I said in a low voice, my mouth dangerously close to her ear. “I could definitely leave a better impression.”

  It may have been a figment of my imagination, but I thought I heard her gasp. Just a sharp little noise as she sucked in a breath, but it spoke volumes.

  “You’re not going to have a drink?” she stammered, trying to cover it up.

  “I rarely do, to be honest.” Without thinking, I reached my hand up and gently brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t indulge.” In anything, I wanted to say. Whatever you want, Samantha, I’m game.

  The way she was looking at me, her gaze hovering somewhere between my hand and my face, I thought maybe she was reading into what I’d said, too, and I paused, waiting for her to make the next move. I didn’t w
ant to come on too strong, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I could step away from her now and risk her thinking I’d second-guessed myself.

  When her words came, though, they weren’t the ones I’d hoped for. “Your turn,” she said, sounding breathless. “What’s your story, Cooper? Because men like you aren’t exactly a dime a dozen.”

  “Men like me?” I quirked a brow.

  She lifted her wine glass between us and took a long drink, forcing me to distance myself from her a bit. “Men like you,” she confirmed. “Highly attractive, domestic gods with a professional hockey career and their head on straight.”

  “Domestic god?” I bit my lip. “Shit, Samantha, I’m going to need you to say that more often, because it’s kind of stroking my ego,” I laughed. “Hell, maybe I should get you to call my mother, too, and tell her what you just said. I think she’d be proud.”

  She laughed. “You don’t think she’s proud enough that you’re one of the most sought after hockey players in the NHL?”

  “Thought you didn’t watch hockey?” I narrowed my eyes.

  “Google knows everything.” Samantha slid from between me and the countertop, chuckling, and I followed her into the living room. As she took a seat on the beige leather sofa, she said, “You’re stalling, Cooper. Which tells me there’s a story there somewhere. What’s the deal?”

  I contemplated glossing over the details, or even giving a vague answer, focusing on the subject of hockey, but Samantha had been upfront and honest with me. It was only right I offered her the same. “You’re not the only one who’s been burned,” I admitted, taking a seat beside her. “I’d been with Zoey for two years. We lived together.” I pointed toward the wall, indicating that we’d both lived in the apartment beyond it. “I thought we were on the same page, that we were happy with what we had together.” I lifted my gaze to Samantha, a sad smile on my lips. “I was wrong.”

  “I’m sorry,” Samantha said softly, staring down at her hands. “She left because she wasn’t content?”

  “If there were signs she wasn’t happy up until that point, I missed them.” I shrugged and tried to keep my voice light, but I’d rarely spoken about my breakup with Zoey since it happened more than five months ago, and it still wasn’t easy to now. “But, there really isn’t any other way to interpret a rejected marriage proposal after our son was born, now is there?”