Desiring you, p.1
Desiring You, page 1
DESIRING YOU
BROOKLYN KERR
Copyright © 2023 Brooklyn Kerr
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below:
info@beelievepublishing.com
ISBN: 978 1 922623 39 3 (Paperback)
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Cover design: Chaotic Creatives
CONTENTS
1. Phoebe
2. Ransom
3. Phoebe
4. Phoebe
5. Ransom
6. Phoebe
7. Ransom
8. Phoebe
9. Ransom
10. Phoebe
11. Ransom
12. Phoebe
13. Ransom
14. Phoebe
15. Ransom
16. Phoebe
17. Ransom
18. Phoebe
19. Phoebe
20. Ransom
21. Phoebe
22. Ransom
23. Phoebe
24. Ransom
25. Phoebe
26. Ransom
27. Phoebe
28. Ransom
29. Phoebe
30. Ransom
31. Phoebe
32. Ransom
33. Phoebe
34. Ransom
35. Phoebe
36. Ransom
37. Ransom
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Team Rosters
DEDICATION
To those fighting silent battles – keep going, never give up. You’re doing far better than you think.
1
PHOEBE
Ransom interrupted my rant. “Raven.”
A little shiver of happiness raced through me every time Ransom Pierce, my best friend and Charleston Cavaliers’ defenseman, called me by my nickname. Even though my name was Phoebe, he’d called me Raven when I started showing up in his bedroom window when we were kids. Now that I lived in Manhattan and he lived in Taylor Ridge, Minnesota, video chatting and texting were the best we could do.
“Yes?”
Ransom narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying to yourself in the mornings these days?”
I bit my lip playfully. “Wakey, wakey?”
He snarled. “Raven!”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I look at that picture of me with my mom when I was nine. I say good morning to my dead mom and then I tell myself to buck the hell up because there’s work to do.”
Ransom grunted.
I was making progress. I wasn’t always down on myself. Some days I accomplished something practically self-tolerant. On the days I wasn’t, I compared my figure to plus-sized models. Checking their measurements against my own, I found I was similar and sometimes smaller. While it should have helped, my screwed-up brain spotted the spectacular differences. Where they seemed toned, I jiggled. Where they had a nice ass, mine was flat. Oh, the irony of being a plus-sized woman lacking a juicy ass. No matter where I looked, though, there was just too much of me. At least that’s what my grandmother always said.
Ransom’s growl pulled me from my thoughts. “There’s not too much of you. Julia was wrong about that and so many other things.”
Oops. Guess I said that last part out loud. “I know, but I still hear her voice in my head.”
Ransom sighed. “You look incredible. Tell that inner voice to shut up.”
I snickered picking up the phone to hide his view of what I wore. “You’re so irritatingly positive.”
As I held the phone to look at my best friend, I admired his strong jaw, his dark brown eyes, and his long dark brown hair with natural highlights from the time he spent outside. He was always so sweet to try to get me to come to terms with my shape, my size, and my stubborn curves.
He blew out a breath. “I take up even more space than you. Does that mean something is wrong with me?”
I snorted. “You’re kidding, right? You’re the perfect specimen of a man. If you looked up demi-god in the dictionary there would be a picture of you.”
He pressed his lips together. “Phoebe Garrison …”
I tried not to drool over his bare chest. “What? I’m not wrong. You’re like seven feet tall.”
He crossed his arms with a scowl. “Six foot seven.”
Damn, he looked fine with a scowl. “And you have that long wavy hair that you wear up for games but is always soft and touchable when you wear it down.”
His arm muscles bunched with his frustration.
“And look at all those muscles,” I said pointing to my phone. “There are so many you stretch out your shirts and the thighs of your jeans!”
He growled. “I hate wearing jeans!”
I sniggered. “I know. How you wear them proves you have superhuman muscles like Thor.”
“Do not!”
“Do too,” I insisted giggling, “and your brain is filled with skills, talents, and split-second decision-making powers both on the ice and in business. You’re seriously a god among men, Chief.”
He hated when I used that nickname. I came up with it because he was bossy. “Phoebe, fucking stop! There’s nothing about me that’s perfect. I grunt instead of talking to anyone but you, I hate wearing socks and clothes in general, and I’m basically a caveman hermit.”
I snickered. “But you’re so good at that too!”
He sighed. “We all have flaws, but we aren’t defined by them.”
I grinned. “I happen to appreciate your flaws.” Especially when he went shirtless and barefoot. Oh, my damn!
He huffed. “I just want you to see yourself as the intelligent, beautiful woman I see.”
I felt my nose wrinkling. “Let’s not fight. I only have a few more minutes to chat and then I have to write this damn article on scarves. It’s due in a couple hours and I hate it. Your turn to talk. How are things at your company, Piercing Tides? And how is it that you can play professional hockey and run your own company anyway?”
He grumbled. “My company is fine. I have people I trust to run it. The day-to-day stuff isn’t mine to worry about. It’s almost Thanksgiving. Come see my new place in Taylor Ridge. Stay as long as you like to get your mojo back.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Stay with you? In Minnesota?” Then I felt the piggy snorts before I heard them. “Wait a minute. Did you just say ‘mojo’?”
He huffed. “Laugh it up.”
As my laughter died down, I felt my face scrunch up. “Minnesota?”
He growled. “Don’t be a snob. There’s nothing wrong with the Midwest.”
I set the phone down so I could get some coffee and still see him. “But the story I want to write is here.”
He pushed his hand through his dark, long hair flipping it to the side. “You can write anywhere. Being there is killing your spirit.”
I picked up the phone and rolled my eyes dramatically. “Killing my spirit?”
Ransom gave me an intense look.
I was teasing him, but the sincerity in his eyes made my stomach flip. “Okay, once I get this damn thing turned in, I’ll come for a bit.”
A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “One of the perks of being the CEO means the company plane is at my disposal. I’ll send it for you tomorrow. How long are you staying?”
I shrugged. “Couple weeks.”
He growled with a menacing look in his eye.
I snorted. “I have things to do here. I can’t just move to Minnesota.”
He grunted something unintelligible.
Then I understood. I gave him a shy smile. “I miss you too, Chief.”
He cleared his throat. “Can’t wait to see you. I miss your pretty face.”
It felt like all the air got sucked out of the room. “Okay, bye!” I hung up wondering what just happened.
Had Ransom just called me beautiful and pretty in the same conversation? No, surely, I was mistaken.
Ours was a friendship forged by shared trauma. He lost both of his parents in a car wreck when he was ten, so his Aunt Lori stepped in to raise him and his brother. I lost my mom to an aneurysm, then was raised by a sadistic grandmother when my father fell into a bottle and never resurfaced. Since junior high school, I practically lived with Ransom, Dominic, and his aunt. They became my true family, but they couldn’t shield me from my grandmother who pointed out my every perceived flaw every chance she had.
Over time, Ransom helped ease my anxiety, building me up at every opportunity and cheering me on louder than anyone else. And I made sure he had human contact at least a few times a day. We were always there for each other.
Even in my younger years, I never saw Ransom as a brother. Never ever. He was always gorgeous and completely out of my league. Despite my fantasies and daydreams since high school, we were nothing more than friends. I wanted more. I thought about it all the time. But there was no way someone who looked as spectacular as him would ever want someone like me as more than a friend. The sports world was clear on the type of girlfriend or wife a hockey player should have. Ransom neede
Sighing, I set the phone aside and with it the weight of my disappointment. Ransom wasn’t just handsome. He was aggressively protective and caring of those in his inner circle. He was delightfully quirky in his distaste for words, preferring to grunt. And he was miles away until I finished this stupid article.
Shaking my head, I set it all aside and focused on writing. Today was just another day in Manhattan where I worked in my five-hundred-square-foot apartment. Here I sniffed out stories and put pieces together to make a really great article. As I glanced down at the blinking cursor on my blank computer screen where words were supposed to come together about how to wear this season’s scarves, I couldn’t stop thinking about the thread I’d been pulling on lately on a different story. My gut told me it was important and it was rarely wrong.
I pressed a finger to my temple while I chomped on my pen cap. Young, newly successful models in New York City were dying. The police called them suicides. But I didn’t believe that for a second. Lately, I found other sources of the same mind.
Hopping onto an oft-frequented fashion blog, I looked to see what Starry Skies was up to today. She wrote under a pseudonym but trusted me enough to know she was a makeup artist who often helped with major photoshoots all around New York City. After reading my story exposing a man in the industry who was sexually harassing models, she saw I was a rare ethical journalist in a New York sea of cutthroat soft news piranhas who just wanted to make a buck. Opening up the messaging app, I shot her a quick text.
Me: I heard about Justine last week.
Starry Skies: Saw her not more than two weeks ago and she was so excited. No battles with anxiety or depression that I often see. She was happy about her new-found fame and bubbly about what was to come. No picking at scabs like a junkie or shaking on pills to lose weight like most either.
Me: If you hear anything else, keep me posted.
Starry Skies: Yeah, now you get the police to give a damn.
I flopped back against the sofa. How could I prove that they weren’t killing themselves when police already labeled their deaths a suicide?
While I wanted to keep following the story today, I couldn’t. I had to get back to the articles that paid the bills. My time to devote head space to non-paying endeavors was limited if I was going to pay my rent.
After two hours of concentration, prolific swearing, and copious amounts of sweat, I sent the idiotic article to my editor at Fresh Faces magazine. Good riddance. Within a few minutes, my email chimed with my next assignment. Lip Gloss Wars. Why couldn’t he ask me for something more substantive?
As I thought more about my call with Ransom, I wondered if he was right. Was I stuck in a fashion-sized rut in Manhattan? Maybe I needed to try something different, get back to my journalistic roots, and find something worth writing about again. Something that didn’t involve lip gloss.
Me: It’s official, Chief. Send the plane for me.
Ransom: Hell, yeah.
That settled it. Tomorrow, I’d be in Taylor Ridge. Closer to nature. Pulling clean fall air into my lungs and tromping through tons of snow. Staying with my best friend who I was totally in love with, but pretending I wasn’t. Regrouping. Deciding what I wanted to do next and finding it inside of myself to be brave enough to make some needed changes in my life.
2
RANSOM
Pushing out onto the ice, I warmed up with some laps. When I was alone like this, it reminded me of the peace I felt standing at the water’s edge in Washington State. When I lived in Seattle, as soon as I had my license I often took the two-hour drive to Ocean Shores to enjoy the surfing there. Cold water. Birds squawking overhead. Biting wind. Waves crashing on the shore. The only other time I felt that rush was in making the first scratches across the ice. Listening to my skates bite the surface. Flying across the space without distractions. The wind in my hair. Alone.
“Hey, Pierce!” Calder shouted.
My head dropped in disappointment and I stopped in front of him. He was a friend, a teammate, but he was always interrupting my solitude. Pushing at one of my leather bands, I tried not to sound as annoyed as I felt. “Hey, man, what’s up?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at his skates. “Could we run that drill Molly’s been pushing? The Finnish? I’m still shit at talking on the ice.”
Molly was Ilya Panchenko’s stepdaughter and teenage hockey whisperer. With her insight, we’ve improved exponentially individually and as a team.
I nodded, knowing I was still struggling with it too. “We all are.”
He grinned. “I have a couple guys coming to practice. Let’s give it another shot.”
As I headed for the locker room, I rounded up a couple defenders. Wasn’t going to get much more time to myself anyway, it seemed.
Back out on the ice, the forwards were already warming up. We joined them with a couple laps around the rink, then set things up to work. The whole purpose of the Finnish was to encourage communication between us on the ice. Problem was, all we could hear was the scraping of our skates and stick.
Calder ground to a stop. “Guys, we’re not talking. Molls said we have to talk.”
Nope, still silent.
“Maybe it won’t feel so forced if we’re going backward,” I suggested.
The other guys grunted what sounded like agreement. When we started going backward, we compensated by moving quickly out of each other’s way.
Kole threw his stick to the ice in frustration. “Who can do this shit?”
I understood the frustration. We were spinning our wheels making absolutely no progress.
Two forwards, Ilya and Chris, came out to help.
We all took our places on the ice, then watched Ilya and Chris practice around us. But instead of full sentences or anything, it was more short bursts, called opportunities when there was too much pressure and the puck needed to be passed.
“It’s just snips and snatches,” Kole said. “How does that help?”
Ilya grinned. “Instead of inanimate objects, now you’re all defenders. Listen and watch more than you defend, but provide a little pressure.”
While we took a basic defense formation, we listened as they used a shorthand way of talking to each other. Short grunts and barks, chin tips, and pointing with their sticks. So, even though there were more of us, they managed to get through our defenses.
“See?” Ilya said through short puffs of his exertion. “Keep your head up to check puck position, open ice, and watch for plays becoming available. Shout out if you’re open or where the puck is for those with their back to the play. Use your stick to tell someone you’re open or pointing to an open lane.”
Chris tipped his chin. “And if you’re going after an offensive player, use your head to show where you want to go with it and keep an eye on body language.”
Kole scoffed. “How many eyes you guys think we’ve got?”
Chris patted him on the bucket. “Just keep your head on a swivel. Don’t get stuck staring at one thing. You’ve got to keep looking around or you’ll miss something important.”
We practiced for a while until Molly arrived. Then, as the other guys filtered out onto the ice, we gathered around the coaches in front of the players’ box. Molly laced up her skates like always and stepped in front of us with her stick. We knelt to listen to her.
“Well, well, well,” Molly said, tapping her finger on her crossed arm. “Never expected anyone to take on the Finnish five without my insistence.”
