Somehow he’d screwed up things with Riley and Izzy, which made him feel like a first-class shit.
No wonder his uncle wanted to send him away.
This road trip had been brutal. The Sockeyes won three out of five, but not without fighting for their lives in every one of those wins. Cooper had aches in places he didn’t know a guy could ache. He had bruises on top of bruises, and he was bone-dead tired. Two more games, and they’d be flying home. Or to Seattle, because he’d never call Seattle home.
Even though he just had.
Jesus.
He must have moss on the brain already—or his brain cells had molded in the Seattle rain.
“Are you still a full-time dad?” Brick asked, interrupting Cooper’s inner dialogue.
Cooper glanced up from taping his stick for the night’s game. “Just for a short while longer.”
“Yeah, he’s been saying that for a few months now,” Cedric interrupted.
“I’m not right for Riley. I’m never home, and I’m not good with him.” Cooper concentrated on his stick and tried to block them out. He didn’t need his teammates butting into his business.
“If I was a fourteen year old, I’d love living with you,” Brick noted.
“Seriously?” Cooper snorted. “You don’t know me very well then.”
“Well enough.” Brick shrugged and sat back against his locker space, stretching his long, bare legs out in front of him. “He gets along with Izzy, and you two are practically married. So what’s the holdup?”
“Izzy and I are over.” Cooper’s stomach twisted when he said those words. Hell, he’d been denying it ever since she’d broken it off with him, but facts were facts, and pretending it didn’t happen didn’t alter the facts.
“What’d you do to screw that up?” Matt LeRue asked, turning this into some kind of team interview session, and Cooper had no intention of becoming fodder for these idiots.
“We both want different things.” And why was he even answering these questions?
“That means she gave him his walking papers,” Drew Delacorte snorted.
“Whatever happened to that cute redhead who had you wound up so tight you couldn’t find the puck on our last road trip?” Cooper shot back.
Drew colored bright red, while several of the guys chuckled.
“She dumped him,” Mike Gibson happily answered for his buddy. Drew shot him a murderous glare, but Mike kept smiling. Not much bothered Mike. The guy had nerves of steel and ice in his veins. Sometimes the guys called him the Robot because he never got riled. Hell, even in the few fights he’d been involved in, he’d thrown his punches with mechanical precision and very little emotion.
“She did not,” Drew argued, “and what about Candy? Huh?”
“We were never an item, just fooling around.”
With a smirk, Cooper went back to his stick. He’d safely deflected their questions about Izzy and Riley by pitting them against each other. He was a great captain.
Cedric raised an eyebrow at him and grinned. Cooper just shrugged. Cedric knew, and Cooper didn’t try to bullshit him.
Cedric leaned close to him. “You’re in love, you dumbshit. Glad it’s you and not me.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly plan on it.”
“No guy ever does, but a lot sure fall prey to a pretty face and a hot body. I’ll never be that guy, but you, buddy, are screwed. You might as well beg her forgiveness because your play isn’t up to par when you’re pining for her.”
Cooper glanced up at Cedric. “My play has been pretty damn good lately.”
“Yeah, but I know you, and something’s off. You know it, too. Maybe you’re still good enough to be better than most, but you aren’t you.”
“I’m fine,” Cooper growled, denying Cedric’s statements. He’d been scoring, and he’d been playing good hockey, even though he knew Cedric was right.
At least he had everyone else fooled.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Cooper was supposed to come home early in the morning, and Izzy would go to Betheni’s with nothing more than a hi and bye.
Only it didn’t work that way.
Izzy had packed her bags, left them by the front door, and fallen asleep on the family room couch watching a sad movie with Joker on her chest, purring loudly.
She startled awake when Cooper bent over her, his blue eyes dark with a little concern and a lot of lust and affection. She knew that look. It was the same look that’d gotten her into trouble on too many occasions with this man. He was all sorts of trouble, and her body loved his brand of trouble.
“Izzy?” His big hands rested on her shoulders, and she could smell the soap he used after the game that night.
She opened and closed her mouth, unable to clear her hazy brain enough to form words. It wasn’t sleep that fogged her brain, it was the nearness of Cooper and his incredibly hot body. Yet, her attraction to him went beyond that body and that sexy lopsided smile, and she’d be a fool to deny the chemistry between them.
She’d be a bigger fool to let that chemistry drag her back into a relationship with him a fourth time.
He knelt down next to her and cupped her cheeks in his hands, his stormy blue eyes searching her face for answers she couldn’t give him. When his lips touched hers and ignited her body and soul, her ability to resist sizzled and burned with the rest of her body.
One more night couldn’t hurt.
She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled his mouth harder against hers. Their kiss deepened and intensified, while Cooper’s strong hands slid under her shirt and up to her bra. Izzy moaned as he rubbed little circles around her nipples.
She whimpered and tried to press her body closer to his, an action which rolled her off the couch. Laughing, she fell on top of him onto the floor. A second later, he’d swapped their positions and straddled her, all the while kissing the hell out of her.
Finally coming up for air, he propped himself up by his arms. His gaze roamed her upper body, resting on her breasts, which were heaving.