Off-Ice Collision: Chapter 22

It’s been a few days since my brother tried to warn me away from Vaughn. I never was good at listening, especially when it wasn’t something I agreed with. Looking behind me as the wind blows my hair, I smile at Vaughn as he sits behind the steering wheel of his boat. His sunglasses cover his eyes, but he looks back at me and I watch the corners of his lips twitch.

When he asked me last night if I wanted to go out on the boat with him for the day, there was no way I was going to say no. This is what life on the lake is about and if it involves spending time with him, sign me up.

Vaughn motions for me to come over to him, so I abandon my spot on the front of the boat. As I reach him, he wraps his arm around my backside and pulls me down onto his lap in one swift movement. I settle on his thighs, leaning my back against his chest as he wraps one arm around me and the other hand holds on to the steering wheel.

“Where do you want to go, London?” Vaughn breathes against my ear. His lips brush the outer shell, sending a shiver down my spine. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

He’s entangled in my soul. “Take me wherever you want to,” I tell him, my voice breathless as I shift my hips in his lap.

“You better be careful,” he murmurs, nipping at the lobe of my ear. “Those words can be taken a couple of different ways.”

“Take them however you want and do whatever you feel necessary…”

Vaughn laughs lightly in my ear before he drops his lips just below and presses them to my neck. We take the boat through the center of the lake and spend the majority of the day cruising around. After stopping in a few coves to take a dip in the water, he drives the boat to the small island that we used to frequent at.

He pulls the boat up to the small dock and kills the engine before he lifts me off his lap. I go to the front end of the boat and throw the rope to him as he climbs off and secures it to the dock. He walks back to the side and extends his hand to help me off. As my feet hit the wooden surface, he doesn’t release me and leads me toward the island.

There was another boat at the dock when we got here, but neither of us paid much attention to it. This piece of land doesn’t belong to anyone else, so a lot of locals or people who come here for the summer end up coming here. There are a few spots along the water that you can swim in and then there’s the firepit through the clearing of trees.

“You remember the tree house?” Vaughn asks me as we walk through the wooded area.

Deeper in the woods, there’s an old tree house that our parents built when we were younger. It wasn’t just for us, as other people used it too, but in a way, it felt like it was our own little secret spot. We all used to hang out inside it when we were younger, but it’s been years since we’ve visited it.

I nod, looking up at him with a smile. “Of course, I remember. It’s been forever since we’ve been there.”

“Let’s go check it out,” he says, pulling me along the trail.

“Holy shit!” a voice calls from over to the left where the firepit area is. “Is that Vaughn Carter?”

Vaughn freezes and I stop beside him. His hand tightens around mine and he doesn’t look in the direction of the voice. Instead, he stares straight ahead into the trees, his body completely rigid.

“Who is that?” I ask him, my voice quiet as I hear footsteps approaching.

Vaughn glances down at me but his eyes are almost vacant. “Someone I haven’t seen for two years…”

His words confuse me for a second and then two guys are walking through the clearing, stopping directly on the trail in front of us. They both have their shirts off, showing their athletic, muscular forms. They’re both wearing swim shorts which are wet, probably from swimming.

“Dude, it’s been like two fucking years,” the one with messy dark hair says with a smirk on his face. “How the hell have you been?”

“Come on, come hang out with us,” the other with dark green eyes says.

I look between Vaughn and the two guys. Vaughn’s jaw clenches and his hand tightens around mine again. “What’s up, Hayden?” he says, his voice tense as he looks at the one with dark hair. “Cam,” he nods at the other guy.

“Who’s your friend?” Hayden questions him, tilting his head to the side as he looks at me with a smile.

“This is London,” Vaughn tells him in a clipped tone.

“Hayden!” a girl’s voice calls from afar. “Where did you run off to?”

Two girls appear through the clearing. “Vaughn?” they both say at the same time with confusion in their voices. “What are you doing here?”

“My family has a house here on the lake. What are you guys doing here?”

“We all came here for the weekend and found this sweet island,” Cam, the one with dark green eyes offers as he slings his arm around one of the girl’s waist. “We had no idea you were staying here or we would have called.”

Vaughn snorts and directs his attention back to me. “This is Hayden King and Cameron Sawyer. We all used to play hockey together at Wyncote.”

The dots connect and it all makes sense. The sudden shift in Vaughn’s mood and why he’s being standoff-ish to these guys. From what I’ve been told, it was an opposing team that had the player who caused the accident with Vaughn. I don’t know of any bad blood between him and his friends, but seeing people from his past can’t be good for his mental health.

Not when he spends so much time living in the past and being angry about everything that happened.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you guys,” I tell them as I step forward and shake their hands.

“I’m Eden, Hayden’s wife,” the one girl says with a smile as she gives me a small wave.

“And I’m Aspen, Cameron’s wife,” the other says, still standing underneath his arm.

“We missed you at both of our weddings,” Cam says quietly. “You got the invitations, right?”

Vaughn is silent for a moment. “Yeah.” He simply leaves it at that and the air around us grows awkward. They both invited him to their weddings, yet he didn’t even reach out to them? His problems run deep… deeper than I realized.

“It’s all good,” Hayden offers in a light tone. “You were pretty fucked up after the accident, so there was never any hard feelings.”

“Hayden…” Eden scolds him in a low tone, a warning lingering within her voice. Hayden glances at her, his eyebrows pulling together as he shrugs.

Vaughn’s body is still rigid and I know he’s uncomfortable with these four right now. It still confuses me. They spent a lot of time together and played on the same team. From what I’ve gathered, it was like they were all family. These guys are just happy to see their old friend, yet Vaughn looks less than pleased to see either of them.

“I hate to be the buzzkill here, but I actually forgot I was supposed to be home soon,” I tell all of them apologetically before turning my attention to Vaughn. “Do you think you can give me a ride home? I know my mom is waiting for me to go to that dinner she had planned.”

It’s all a lie, but I can’t stand seeing Vaughn like this. It’s literally breaking my heart, watching him struggle to hold it all together. If one thing about hockey is brought up, I don’t think it would take much for him to break himself.

“Sure,” he says, his voice flat and void of any emotion. “I’ll see you guys.”

“It was good seeing you, Vaughn,” Cam says, his voice filled with a sense of sadness. “We need to get together and catch up sometime.”

“Yeah, let us know when you’re free and we can try and coordinate our schedules,” Hayden adds.

Vaughn gives them a curt nod and I wave to the girls before we turn around and head back in the direction of the boat. His hand is still in mine, yet it feels like he’s miles away. I don’t know what to say to him or how to reach him right now. There’s been a shift in Vaughn and it’s not for the better.

We walk to the boat and Vaughn helps me get on board before he undoes the rope that had it secured to the dock. He climbs on and finds his seat behind the steering wheel. He doesn’t make a move for me to sit on his lap and he’s completely guarded as he white-knuckles the wheel. Feeling deflated, I take a seat on one of the bench seats and stare out at the water as he races back to his house.

Vaughn knows damn well that I didn’t have anything planned with my mom, but he doesn’t say a single word about it. Hell, he doesn’t speak a single word about anything. He docks his boat at his house and helps me off before he leaves me there alone. I’m confused and hurt as I watch him stalk across the yard and up the stairs onto his back deck.

He doesn’t stop to look back at me once, and then he’s disappearing into his house. I collect my things and my shoulders sag in defeat as I head back over to my own house. Maverick is sitting by the pool smoking a joint when I walk past. He raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t question anything. I know he just saw whatever the fuck that was that just happened.

He doesn’t give me a look of satisfaction, instead a wave of pain washes through his eyes. He didn’t want to be right about Vaughn, even though he was just trying to protect me. And maybe he was right. Vaughn isn’t in a good place mentally, and I’ve been lying to myself this entire time.

Vaughn was doing much better, but all it took was seeing people from his past to set him off. He’s retreated back into his shell…

And I’m afraid I might be losing him now.