Rafe Read online

  Tonight is the first time I’ve seen Mateo and Danielle Ramirez since I returned to Raleigh, though. Although I did see them infrequently over the years when I managed a quick visit to see my parents. They are as warm and welcoming as ever, not seeming to hold any grudges against me for breaking their daughter’s heart eight years ago. Of course, I have no clue exactly what they know about the situation, but if I were a betting man, I’d say they know everything. Calliope is incredibly close to both her mom and dad and I expect they helped her pick up the pieces when I shattered her.

  I also expect one of the reasons they might have put that all aside, making me feel welcome in their home right now, is because my dad is dying. Mateo is definitely the type of father that would take me aside and threaten to kick my ass for hurting his daughter, but he’s also a good man. He’s probably acting with some type of restraint, thinking that I’m facing a set of terrible circumstances right now.

  Regardless, we have a great time. Danielle makes Mateo’s favorite Puerto Rican dish of arroz con gandules and fried plantains. Growing up, it was one of my favorites, too.

  I know I’m not the only one who notices my dad picking at his food, not because he doesn’t like it but because his appetite is at an all-time low. He seems frailer today than he did yesterday and the day before, and I wonder if there will be any good days left.

  Still, he puts on a brave face, and there’s a lot of laughter around the table as the rest of us scrape our plates clean.

  It’s been three days since Calliope and I reconnected at Podden’s pond, and I’m not ashamed to say that she and I have been doing a whole lot more connecting since. The Cold Fury has been on break until the second round of the playoffs start tomorrow, and we take on the Boston Eagles, and I’ve been splitting my hours between spending time with my dad and hanging with Calliope. While she works at the hospital during the day, I attend team practices and meetings or sit by my dad’s hospital bed as we play cards or watch TV. In the evenings after I eat dinner with my parents, I head over to Calliope’s apartment.

  She greets me with open arms, sometimes wearing nothing but some skimpy underwear which I definitely approve of. This is the new Calliope, a woman I’m getting to know all over again. Lingerie wasn’t part of our teenage relationship. That was more about stolen moments when we could get them. But, fuck, I hate thinking about how she learned the art of seducing a man while wearing silk and lace.

  I put that out of my mind, which is actually easy because when I’m near her, I’m consumed. To say that sex is different with her is an understatement. Again, it chafes at me hard to know that the things she now knows how to do with her mouth and her body she learned somewhere other than with me. And while Calliope was always forward and adventurous during our young, immature sex life, now she’s openly wanton, and it turns me on more than anything ever has in my life.

  Just last night, there was a note on her apartment door when I arrived that said simply: I’m in the bedroom.

  What I found in there about had me exploding in my pants.

  Let’s just say that Calliope, naked in the middle of her bed, pleasuring herself with a vibrator had me seeing stars. I just stood there, transfixed as she brought herself closer and closer to orgasm. While her eyes were closed as she rolled and gyrated on the bed, that little pink toy between her legs, she knew I was there the entire time. She put on a show for me that drove me fucking nuts, and before I knew it, I was on her.

  The toy was flung aside, and my mouth was pressed to her pussy, lapping and sucking at her until she exploded against me with her hands fisted tightly in my hair so she could grind against my face. It was fucking erotic as hell, and when she came down from her high, she looked at me with amazement. “You’ve learned a few things too over the years.”

  Fuck if that didn’t rub me raw, too. The fact that we didn’t learn the pleasures of oral sex together.

  “So, Rafe,” Mateo says as he picks up his glass of wine and takes a sip. “How does it feel to be playing for the Cold Fury now?”

  “Honestly,” I tell him with an easy smile, “it wasn’t a hard adjustment. All the guys on the team are great, and it’s been a seamless transition.”

  “You played well in your first games,” he compliments me.

  “He should be on the first line,” my dad grumbles, and even though that’s not exactly true, it fills me with a rush of love that my dad has become my most fervent fan. I know he feels like he’s making up for lost time, and I need to let him know how much his words mean to me. But that’s a conversation for later while in private.

  Mateo and my dad start talking about the playoffs, while Danielle and my mom discuss planting their spring flowers. They’re both passionate about gardening.

  Picking up my wineglass, I sneak a glance across the table at Calliope, who sits directly opposite me beside my mom. Her return look is transparent and makes my blood heat. She’s counting down the minutes until dinner is over, and she and I can be alone together.

  “Are you and Calliope back together again?” Mateo asks me, and I’m so startled by the question that I choke on the wine I just took a sip of.

  My eyes slam into Mateo’s, and I see the overprotective father I’d been wondering about. I know just how easy he was taking it on me.

  His expression is clear, filled with both wonder and suspicion. Will I hurt his little girl again?

  I risk a glance at Calliope, and she stares back at me like a deer caught in headlights. We’ve not said a thing to our parents about our sexual affair, although my mom knows full well that I’ve been going to Calliope’s in the evenings. I mean, I couldn’t lie to her when she asked where I was going that first night after Podden’s pond, but she thinks it’s just a newly forming friendship.

  At least, I think.

  “Papa,” Calliope simpers as she looks at her father, sitting at the head of the table to her left. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “Because it’s obvious there’s something going on between you two,” Mateo retorts with a knowing look at his daughter.

  “You’ve been going over to Calliope’s in the evenings,” my mother points out, and my return glare calls her out for the traitor she is. She merely smiles sweetly back at me.

  “And you two haven’t stopped stealing glances at each other all evening,” Danielle remarks with a sly grin.

  “And you’ve been in an extraordinarily good mood the last few days,” my dad chimes in.

  Calliope ducks her head, hiding an amused smile.

  I merely take my napkin and wipe at my lips, stalling for time as I collect my thoughts. I need to tread carefully here, so as not to get any parent’s hopes up that we’re back together in a normal relationship. I don’t want to poke at Mateo’s ire either.

  Finally, I say neutrally, “We’ve rekindled our friendship. Calliope has been a great support to me since I returned home.”

  I glance around the table. Not one of our parents seem to be buying that lame statement. My dad actually snorts.

  “She’s been invaluable in explaining the medical details of Dad’s condition,” I assert, knowing in my heart of hearts that sounds even lamer. But I can’t stop now. “She’s a good friend. A childhood acquaintance. Those ties remained strong throughout the years, and—”

  “We’re friends with benefits now,” Calliope says, and my entire body flushes hot as my eyes snap over to Mateo, prepared for him to spring across the table and lunge at me. His eyes rest heavy and hard upon me, and I flush hotter.

  “Calliope Colleen Ramirez,” Danielle exclaims, clearly mortified by her daughter’s outburst.

  I turn my gaze slowly to Calliope, giving her a death glare. She reaches out and pats her dad’s arm. “It’s fine, Papa. Your little girl—who is, in fact, a woman now and doesn’t need protecting—knows exactly what she wants. Oh, and Rafe was also telling the truth...we are indeed friends, and I’m here to support him in any way I can.”

  God, the way she suppo
rted me last night with my balls heavy in her hands—

  I shake my head, clearing those thoughts because I’m apparently way more transparent than I gave myself credit for this evening.

  “Well, I for one think it’s lovely that the two of you have”—my mom struggles to find the right words and then brightens—“rekindled your friendship. You two have a lot of years of history between you, and it makes me happy.”

  “Me, too,” my dad says with a firm nod. “I’m glad Rafe will have someone to lean on when I’m gone.”

  And just like that, the mood turns from awkward and weird to somber. The silence around the table is heavy, thick with a gravity that’s hard to dispel.

  But, to my surprise, it’s Mateo who saves the day. Who takes the gentleman’s way out when he could have easily throttled me. He holds up his wine glass. “I propose a toast.”

  No one moves for a second, and then slowly, other wine glasses are raised.

  Mateo looks straight at me. “Here’s to friendship. Among all of us. To my extended neighborhood family—and in particular, to Calliope and Rafe—may they find exactly what they’re looking for while on this new path.”

  I nod at Mateo and reach my glass to the middle of the table, where we all clink in acknowledgment of the toast.

  My eyes move to Calliope, her gaze shimmering with mischief as she stares back at me. Well, at least it’s all out in the open now.

  I guess there’s that.

  Chapter 10

  Calliope

  I’ve been to Houlihan’s numerous times over my life, many times with my family, a few times when Rafe and I were dating, but never on a game night. Since the Cold Fury franchise came to Raleigh in 1997 when I was just four years old, they set up Houlihan’s as their hangout since it’s right across the street from the arena.

  There is a large segment of fans that don’t bother going to the games but instead come to Houlihan’s where they camp out at the bar and dinner tables, knowing that many of the players come to hang out after the game.

  Over the years, it’s become a tradition, and the players rub elbows and mix with the commoners. It’s supposedly quite a treat, but it’s also a packed madhouse, so you need to be prepared to wait forever to get a table, and if you’re lucky enough to land that, then you have to wait forever to be served your food and drink.

  Mostly, it’s just people elbow to elbow, standing around, drinking beers and munching on chicken wings, waiting for the team to come in after a glorious five-to-two victory over the Boston Eagles to take game two of the second round of the playoffs. The atmosphere is electric, the mood jubilant.

  I check my phone and see a text from Rafe. Be there in five minutes.

  I have to wonder what I’m doing here. Not just in Houlihan’s, waiting to meet Rafe after he played an amazing game, racking up two assists. But here in general, at Rafe’s request to watch the game and then join him after at Houlihan’s so he can, as he put it, “introduce me to the team.”

  That smacks of relationship to me. Says he wants me to be at the game to cheer him on, and he wants his new mates to get to know me. It goes far beyond the boundaries I laid out regarding how this would be a relationship focused foremost on sex and would not move into any questionable type of intimacy.

  In fact, I had mentioned that to Rafe when he handed me the ticket he’d bought for me and said, “I’d really love for you to come to the game.”

  “But why?” I asked, actually confused. It happened to be my day off, and he’d stayed all night. When the subject came up, he was in the process of pulling on his pants, wanting to get home to have breakfast with his mom and dad before he headed off to the arena for a light morning skate.

  “Because,” he said simply, “I want you there.”

  “This is just sex,” I pointed out, sitting in bed and bringing the sheets up over my naked breasts. He’d just finished thoroughly wrecking my body with a morning quickie.

  Rafe spun on me, his eyes flashing with…something. Anger? Amusement?

  I couldn’t tell because he was back on me, and I was under him, pinned to the mattress. His face hovered, blocking out everything as he leveled me with a feral smile. “That’s not true, Poppy.”

  “Is so,” I whispered.

  Rafe shook his head. “No. You said we were friends with benefits. The benefit is sex, I’ll give you that. But we’re friends first and foremost. That comes before the sex. It always has, and as my friend, I’d like you to come to the game tonight. And after the game, assuming we win—which I know we will—I want you to come to Houlihan’s to meet my teammates.”

  “But—”

  He kissed me to shut me up. It worked, and I got distracted, but then he pulled back and rolled off the bed. Snagging his shirt and shoes from the floor, he moved to my door and threw one last look at me. God he was so gorgeous with his hair tousled and day-old stubble on his face. “Come as my friend, Calliope. But if you don’t, then I’ll get the message. It really is just sex and nothing more.”

  Man, those words had punched into me hard, leaving me so breathless I couldn’t even respond. Didn’t matter...he left, taking away any opportunity to even argue with him.

  And now here I am.

  I totally enjoyed myself at the game. By mere virtue of knowing Rafe my entire life and watching him play hockey for most of it, I’m a true fan. Dedicated to the Cold Fury, who have been a staple in our household since I was a small kid. Rafe and I used to watch them together on the TV with our dads, and on the rare occasion we’d get a treat...tickets to an actual game.

  I would admit to no one how excited I was when Rafe got his first assist. It felt like a victory for me. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs... “That’s my friend out there on the ice!”

  My lover.

  Used to be the love of my life. My best friend.

  But now...just a friend that I have sex with.

  I realize how ridiculous that all sounds, but really, I’m just protecting myself. We can phrase it however we want, and we can put it in a pretty package with a bow and call it a friends with benefits deal. But when it boils down to it, I’m merely protecting my heart from Rafe. I don’t want it to be broken again.

  If you’re protecting yourself, then why the hell are you even here? Why are you letting him draw you back into his world?

  I have no answers, only that I want to be here, and I fully believe that I’m merely being a good friend by doing so.

  I move farther into the crowd, trying to make my way to the bar, but it doesn’t take me long to realize there’s no room for purchase. People are packed in like sardines.

  But then something happens. The noise level rises incrementally, and the crowd seems to swell and shift. Things loosen up, and I even spot a small path right through to the bar.

  It’s then that I realize the swell of people are actually moving like a tide toward the doors, and it hits me then that some of the players must be coming in. I rise to my tiptoes, able to see nothing but the tops of the heads of the Cold Fury players. There’s no way I’ll be able to even get near Rafe with the throng of fans pressing in on them.

  I pull out my phone and whip out a quick text to him. I’m in the back of the restaurant near the restrooms.

  Once sent, I move that way, intent on waiting for Rafe to have time with his jubilant fans. I watch in amazement, wondering if he’s used to this kind of fame and adoration. It’s a life I would have led with him, but who knows if I would have ever gotten used to it. Right now, it seems alien and slightly scary, being at the center of such a huge spotlight.

  I lean against the wall that separates the entrance to the alcove that holds the bathrooms and watch the celebration at Houlihan’s play out. Then I sense the crowd seem to swell again, pushing outward and then miraculously splitting apart.

  Suddenly, there’s Rafe, eyes locked on me, walking purposely toward me. People try to get his attention for photos or an autograph, but for the moment, he ignores them all. />
  When he’s ten feet away, he reaches a hand out to me, and I’m powerless not to reach back. Our fingers touch, and then they lace together. Rafe steps into me, lowers his head, and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Didn’t want to leave you alone. Let me sign a few autographs, and then we’ll get a drink.”

  “Okay,” I murmur, completely thrown that he’d even bother to make me a priority right now. He’s got fans to cater to.

  As soon as I’m tucked into his side, he lifts his head and smiles openly at the first fan approaching. A woman—very pretty—standing with three of her girlfriends. She holds out a game program and a Sharpie, silently requesting an autograph.

  Rafe signs her program, then her friends’. They gush and welcome him to the team.

  “Can we get a picture with you?” one girl asks and hands her phone off to a fellow fan to take the picture.

  “Sure,” he replies easily and moves to stand in between them. Two women flock to each side, and he puts his arms around them, giving a wide smile as they get their picture taken.

  People start to swarm, moving in front of me, wanting to be next in line to get Rafe’s attention. He sees it happen and immediately jumps into action.

  Pulling away from the women he was taking a photo with, he shakes his head and chastises the crowd. “Hey...hey...she’s with me. Don’t push her back.”

  Everyone freezes, and then Rafe is once again reaching for me, his hand locking tight on mine. Once again, I’m by his side, and he resumes catering to the fans.

  A mere forty minutes later, he has me at the end of the bar and is buying us beers. The furor has died down, most of the fans now back in their groups, drinking and celebrating.

  A couple joins us, and Rafe introduces me to Garrett Samuelson, one of the best players in the league.

  After we shake hands, Garrett introduces me to the beautiful blonde at his side. “This is my wife, Olivia.”

  We barely get our own handshakes and pleasantries completed when more of the Cold Fury team starts to crowd in around us. It’s a bit overwhelming, meeting these stars that I watch on TV, and it’s utterly surreal that they treat me like the closest of friends because I’m here with Rafe. It’s clear by some of the knowing looks that I get that Rafe may have told them something about the history of our relationship, or at the very least that we are lifelong friends.