Delayed Penalty: A Pilots Hockey Novel (10 page)

Chapter 8

“He was such a jerk.” Kristen leaned forward to switch the radio station as I drove us through the streets of Grosse Pointe Woods, a suburb of Detroit. She landed on the country channel.

“Country? How are we even friends?” I asked, reaching over to turn the dial back to the local alternative station. “My car, my music.” I batted her hand away as she leaned in to change the channel again.

Kristen fell back against the passenger seat. “Fitness instructor, kid lover, charitable giver. I thought he’d be like you—but a guy, you know?”

“I told you, he was only helping at the center because of some frat’s community service hours,” I said. “And for the record, I’m not sure how I feel about you comparing your dates to me.”

“Chill. It’s not like I want to jump your bones. I just thought he’d be like you, all Mother Teresa and shit.”

“Get out of my car.” I shot her a sidelong glance.

“Mother Teresa wouldn’t have talked to me like that.” She snickered and pulled down the visor to fluff her curls in the mirror.

“Well, of course not. I don’t think she had a car either.”

“Ha-ha,” Kristen deadpanned. “Have you changed your mind about doing bad things with Crazy Hair?”

“He’s a client. Viktor would kill me.” Which was true, but allowing myself to do bad things with him was no longer an option after my breakdown at Kerby Field.

Breakdown at Kerby Field
had a nice ring to it. I’d have to keep that title in mind in case anyone wanted to make a made-for-TV movie based on my future book,
Memoirs from the Psych Ward
.

“Can
I
do bad things with him?”

“No!” I protested. Too quick and too loud. Was I scowling at her?

“You totally want him.”

“But I can’t have him.”

“We’ll see,” she sang. I turned up the volume on the radio.

We were on our way to pick up Scott and one of his friends whom we didn’t know. They were hitching a ride with us so they could meet up with friends of theirs in Canada. Lacy had a thing for Scott, and although she was in Marquette visiting her grandparents, we’d agreed to give him a ride anyway. I didn’t know what she saw in him. Scott was one of the biggest jerks I’d ever met.

“Hey, girls,” Scott greeted us as he climbed into the backseat. “Jeremy, girls. Girls, Jeremy.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Jeremy slurred, collapsing next to Scott.

Great. As if Scott wasn’t annoying enough, he and his buddy had already been drinking.

“Why do you go to Canada if you don’t even drink?” Scott tugged on a piece of my hair that hung over the headrest. I flicked my head to make him stop. As Lacy’s boyfriend, Scott had observed me on many nights restraining myself, and he never let a chance to tease me about it pass. He’d never graduated from seventh-grade dickhead mentality.

I shrugged. “I can still enjoy our neighbor to the south without getting plastered. A packed dance floor helps.”

I drank, but not very often anymore—a couple of beers here, a vodka and club soda there. I think I’d felt buzzed a few times, but I hadn’t been drunk in over a year. Bored with the getting-drunk-and-hooking-up part of my life before I even turned twenty-one. Plus, my sobriety ensured that we would have a safe ride home after partying in a foreign country tonight. Especially since no one else was volunteering.

Did my choice to rein in my drinking as a junior in college make me more mature or more depressing? Maybe that’s what Gram meant when she said I was an old soul.

“Isn’t Canada our neighbor to the north?” Jeremy asked.

“You have to go south to get to Windsor from here.” Scott held the back of his fingers to his mouth and stage whispered, “Jeremy’s from Ohio.”

“Ohhh.” I nodded.

At the same time Kristen said, “That explains it.”

“Fuck off.” Jeremy shook his head, but he was smiling. No love lost between Michiganders and Ohio…ans?—people from Ohio.

“Does Ohio have enhanced licenses?” I asked, tucking my hair behind my ear, concerned about Jeremy’s ability to get in and out of the country.

Michigan offered an enhanced driver’s license for residents to go back and forth between Canada and the U.S. without having to have a passport. I would have never thought to apply for one, but my grandparents surprised me with a trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto for my seventeenth birthday. It had come in handy a few times since then.

“Nah, I have a passport,” Jeremy answered.

“Ooh. Where have you been, world traveler?” Kristen twisted in her seat toward Jeremy.

“My dad got remarried in Saint Thomas a few years ago. It’s a US territory, but we all got passports just in case.”

“I want to go to the Virgin Islands.” Kristen grabbed my knee. “Save up for spring break senior year.”

“I can’t even afford a cell phone, KK. How am I gonna go on a tropical vacation?”

“Florida then?”

“Good compromise.” Scott scoffed.

Time to change the subject. Unlike Scott, not all of us had parents who would pay for international spring break trips every year.

“I remember my uncle talking about a bar Don Cherry owned. Is that place still open?” I asked. Scott always bragged about how often he hung out in Canada, so I figured he’d be the one to ask about the status of the bar.

“That place has been closed since we were kids.”

“Who’s Don Cherry?” Kristen asked.

“How are you two even friends?” Scott asked.

“He was a hockey coach. Now he’s a commentator,” I explained. “You know,
Coach’s Corner
?”

“The guy with the high collars?” she asked.

“High five!” I held up my hand. “I’m proud of you, KK. Very, very proud.” The obscene amount of
Hockey Night in Canada
I’d subjected her to in our two and a half years as roommates had paid off.

A prickling sensation sizzled through my body when we left the chill of the December night and entered the warmth of the club. Wicked’s concrete columns and blood-red walls enveloped me in its industrial comfort, and I fell in love with the place upon first glance. Exposed, matte black pipes formed a maze across the ceiling. The best part? Writhing bodies already packed the dance floor, and it was only ten-thirty. A lively dance floor early in the night was the saving grace for a designated driver. If I was dancing, I didn’t have to dodge the “Why aren’t you drinking?” question all night.

“Let’s dance!” I shouted, after Kristen and the guys tipped back shots. We all grabbed a drink before bouncing through bodies to the middle of the dance floor.

“You like to dance?” Jeremy asked as we claimed a somewhat open spot on the floor.

I touched his arm, leaning close to his ear so he could hear me. “Love it.”

Jeremy spun around and grabbed his crotch in what I can only describe as a drunk Michael-Jackson-wannabe move. Of course, I took it as a challenge and came back with the Swim, alternating my arms in front stroke movements before holding my nose and wiggling to the floor. Within minutes, we were entrenched in a battle of retro dance moves. For every Kid ’n’ Play and Shopping Cart he threw out, I returned a Tootsie Roll or Sprinkler. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.

“What are you drinking?” Jeremy asked, still breathing heavy from our dance-off.

“Just a club soda, thanks.” I appreciated that he would brave the crowd at the bar for me.

After less than a minute to catch my breath, “The Wobble,” a song with its own dance moves, came over the speakers. Kristen clamped a hand over my arm and dragged me toward a bar on which a few girls had been dancing during the previous song.

“Not tonight, KK.” I tried to pull away, but she was persistent, even pulling a bar stool aside to give me something to boost myself up.

“Oh, come on. You teach this dance. You have to get up there,” she coaxed.

She was talking about the children’s cardio hip-hop fitness class I taught at our university’s student center. I used “The Wobble” as the cool-down song in my class.

Sighing in defeat, I climbed up a rickety bar stool, and hoisted myself onto the alcohol-slick bar.

Totally sober. In a curve-clutching black minidress and stilettos.
Super classy, Auden
.

I hadn’t always been a good dancer. I used to have to count the beat, lip-synching through the numbers. But I’d been doing “The Wobble” for so long, the steps were automatic.

Jeremy waved to get my attention, and then pointed to the drink he’d placed on the bar for me. I mouthed
thank you
and gave him a thumbs-up. I watched as he and Kristen started talking, then walked away from the dance floor. So much for a Wobble partner.

Halfway through the song I got bored and carefully stepped onto the bar stool I’d used to get onto the bar. I stopped to grab my drink before setting out to find Kristen.

“Don’t you work tomorrow?” a voice yelled in my ear in Russian.

“Geez!” I tightened my grip on my drink so it wouldn’t slip out of my hand. My heart betrayed me, accelerating more from the excitement of seeing him than the surprise attack. The correct move was to quash that feeling. “Didn’t realize I had a curfew.”

“Why are you mad at me again?” Aleksandr asked.

“I’m not mad. I’m embarrassed,” I admitted, crossing my arms in front of my chest. Why didn’t I have a filter when he was around?

“Does my presence piss you off?” He nodded toward my stance.

“Just wondering how we ended up at the same bar in Windsor again.”

“You have good luck?” Aleksandr’s mouth was so close to my ear that his lips touched it every third word. I was keenly aware of the soft tickle against a very sensitive body part.

“I get enough of your jokes at work. Can’t you tone it down during my leisure time?”

“I can’t seem to tone myself down around you at all. I thought I established that when I told you my life story.” Now I felt his lips on every second word. And this time his nose brushed the skin behind my ear.

His presence had the bees buzzing in my stomach like they’d mistaken Death Wish coffee for nectar, so I took a slight step to the side. I silently reminded myself that Aleksandr was a player, not someone I should get involved with. He’d told me himself that he was with a different puck bunny every night. And I didn’t want to step into an uncomfortable, immature pattern of hooking up with someone I still had to see every day. I didn’t. Even if the over-caffeinated insects wreaking havoc on my insides had their own agenda.

“You are beautiful.” Aleksandr took a step closer. A larger step than the one I’d taken away from him. His firm, flat stomach pressed against my arm when he bent to speak into my ear again.

“You are drunk.”

He laughed, a sexy, husky growl. “I am, but I’m not blind. You looked so fucking hot dancing on that bar.” He hadn’t been yelling this time. His voice was just above a whisper, with a guttural rasp.

Instinctively, my shoulder rose to my ear, itching the tickle of his breath. I tried to stay composed, despite being turned on by the knowledge that he’d been watching me.

“Thanks.” I took a long gulp of my drink to halt the words on the tip of my tongue. Confessing that I thought he looked hot every minute of every hour of every moment I spent with him might give him the wrong impression. I couldn’t respond to his flirting. Not when he thought of me as a conquest to screw and dump.

“Blah.” I raked my teeth against my tongue a few times, trying to get the taste off. Nothing like being saved by a disgusting drink.

“What is it?” Aleksandr asked.

“I asked him for plain club soda. They must’ve put gin or something in it.”

“Who’s ‘him’? All the bartenders are women,” Aleksandr asked, taking the cup from my hands and bringing it to his nose.

Of course he’d know all the bartenders are women. He’d probably had an orgy with all of them.

“The guy who came with one of our friends bought me a drink.”

Aleksandr tossed my cup into a nearby trash bin and grabbed my hand. His warm fingers laced through mine, squeezing so we wouldn’t disconnect as he weaved us through a group of people hanging out in front of the bar.

Aleksandr nodded his head at a bare-bottomed bartender. “A shot of vodka and a plain club soda with three limes.”

Skimptastic winked at him before turning around to get cups. Her shorts, which were barely there in front, were nonexistent in the back, just two high-cut half moons that showed off her ass-et. Sure, she had fishnet stockings underneath, but did holey tights leave anything to the imagination?

No reason to be jealous. He’s not yours,
I reminded myself. Rather than picture Aleksandr and Skimptastic screwing on the bar, I rooted around in my purse, hunting for my wallet. Aleksandr put a hand on my arm, stopping my search.

“You don’t pay when you’re with me.”

“Why wouldn’t I pay for my drink?”

“Consider it a gift for putting up with my shit.” He smiled, that perfect white smile, which I now knew was partially dentures.

“Sorry.” I shook my head, holding out a ten I’d found. “Can’t accept gifts from clients.”

“Please,” he said. “It’s a club soda. She won’t even charge me.”

When Skimptastic came back with our drinks, Aleksandr accepted them both before handing one to me.

“Thanks, Sasha.”

“I’m Sasha now?” He poked me in the rib cage, a smile creeping across his face.

“Yes. When you do nice things like get me a new drink,” I responded, pushing his arm away with an elbow. His teasing made me want to giggle, but giggling was not an option.

“I’ll do nice things more often. Shouldn’t be a jerk to my beautiful translator.”

“Yeah, let’s get back to that.” I turned to face him, ignoring the shiver of lust that shook my body when he’d called me beautiful. “You never begged for my forgiveness.”

“I wouldn’t beg for forgiveness.” Aleksandr leaned closer. His fingers skimmed the back of my leg where the hem of my dress hugged my thigh, and I gasped. “Your permission? Definitely.”

Damnit!
Why did I have to react to his touch right in front of him? Was I so hard up for a guy’s hands on me that I couldn’t hold in a damn gasp?