Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)
L.A. Witt
Dedication
To Anna, who dragged me to the ice tractor races and—along with Annie—Jedi mind-tricked me into writing a hockey romance,
And to Petra for naming the Seattle Steelheads.
Chapter 1
Geoff
“They still haven’t forgiven you?” My partner, Officer Laura Wayne, shot me a sympathetic look from the passenger seat of our parked police cruiser. “It’s been, what, two months?”
“Almost three.” I sighed into my travel mug and stared outside at the fading daylight. “What can I say? They loved him.”
“Okay, I get that. I liked him before you told me what a colossal dickhead he is. But you were the one dating him. I mean, they got it when you divorced their mom, right?”
“Eventually.” I put my coffee in the cupholder. “But their mom was still going to be part of their lives. Marcus flat out told me—and them—that if I left him, that was it. He knew damn well how much those kids loved him. Hell, he made sure they loved him. Then he spun it to them that it’s my fault he won’t be in their lives anymore. And they bought it. Of course. Because it’s easier to believe that than to accept Marcus didn’t really care about them the way he’d claimed.”
Laura groaned. “Ugh. Can’t imagine why you didn’t want to stay with him.”
I grunted but said nothing. I’d vented to her for a year leading up to the split with Marcus and in the months since. She was the one who’d finally convinced me that if I was that miserable with my boyfriend, I should leave. The longer I stayed with him, the more attached my kids would be when I finally dropped the hammer.
As it turned out, they’d already been seriously attached. Marcus and I had been together for almost six years. He’d been there for the roller coaster tween and early teen years. He’d picked them up from school and gone to their extracurricular events when I couldn’t get away from work. He’d been a godsend during my daughter’s transition and while my son recovered from a broken foot. I would be the first to say the man had been, at least on the surface, a convincingly amazing stepfather.
An amazing boyfriend? Not so much.
Which was why, three months ago, my kids and I had traded Marcus’s big four-bedroom house in a swanky Bellevue neighborhood for a cramped apartment in Lake City, which was a less-than-great part of northeast Seattle. Marcus had been true to his word—I left, and he cut off contact with the kids. They’d barely spoken to me since.
“I know it’s rough,” Laura said. “But give them time.” She studied me. “How are you doing post-Marcus?”
I exhaled, letting my head fall back against the seat. “It’s a big relief. So of course that makes me feel even guiltier about Claire and David being this miserable.”
“That should just make you more pissed at Marcus. He totally played them against you, and you know it.”
“Yeah, I know that, but they don’t.”
“How much do they know?”
I stared out the windshield, silently begging someone to speed so I could pull them over and get away from this conversation.
“Geoff.” Laura’s tone was soft. She didn’t use her cop voice with me unless I was being seriously stupid. “They’ll probably understand if you tell them the whole story.”
I turned to her. “How do I tell my kids that everything he was doing for them, all the things he bought for them, was a means of manipulating me? He paid for David’s out-of-state band trips, and there’s no way in hell Valerie and I would have been able to pay for Claire’s transition without the money he gave us. And that’s just the financial shit. How do I tell my kids my boyfriend showered us all with love purely as a means of controlling me?” I shook my head. “Sometimes I think I’d honestly rather have them angry at me than feeling guilty over being the main reason Marcus was able to mistreat me for so long.”
Laura frowned. “Okay, I can see that. So maybe don’t tell them the whole story? Tip your hand enough that they know you didn’t just leave for kicks? They’re at an age where they’re going to be dating. They need their dad to be a role model for leaving toxic relationships.”
“I know. I know. And I’ve tried. Claire’s decided I’m too proud to be with someone who makes more than me, and David doesn’t get how it’s, quote, better for all of us to be miserable all the time than it was for me to try to make it work with Marcus, end quote.” I rubbed my stiffening neck. “It’s easier for them to believe that I’m a dick than to accept that Marcus stopped loving them.” Sighing, I pressed my head back against the seat. “Or that he never actually loved any of us.”
“Ugh. Reasoning with heartbroken teenagers. Good luck with that.”
“I know, right? But Valerie took them to a family therapist when she got remarried, and she’s going to get me in touch with her. Maybe a little professional help will get us somewhere.”
“It’s worth a try. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“So what about you?”
I turned to her. “What about me?”
“You thought about putting yourself out there again?” She held up her phone and grinned. “Maybe download Tinder?”