Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4) (23 page)

“I’ll tell you anything. Just not my middle name.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is, in fact, worse than Shayne.”

“It’s okay, Shay. It won’t turn me off. Nothing could turn me off.”

I ignore him. “What else did you want to know?”

“Trey your only sibling?”

I nod.

His blue eyes dim and he looks thoughtful, like he’s contemplating what to say next. “How come Trey doesn’t play hockey?”

“He did.” I pause. I don’t know if I want to tell him everything. “It didn’t work out.”

“How come?”

I pause and then shrug, not wanting to share my brother’s past with him because it’s not mine to share, so I decide to give a nonanswer. “I’m glad he quit because he would always be under my father’s shadow if he made the NHL anyway.”

Sebastian seems to think about it for a minute, and then that smirky, devious grin covers his sexy features again. “Or he could’ve just eclipsed the crap out of Glenn Beckford and his records. Like I’m doing.”

“There’s the Frenchie I know. The one with the giant ego.”

I get up off the couch and walk over to him. He smiles down at me. “What can I say? I’m confident in my abilities.”

I put the mug down, glad the conversation took a turn, and not ready to go back to fifty questions about my life. So I do what I’ve wanted to do since he walked down the stairs looking all sleepy and sexy as fuck. I drop to my knees, taking his underwear with me, and say, “So am I.”

The flight to San Francisco was painless. I text Shay as soon as we land. Nothing special, just a “thinking of you” type of text. I knew she had yoga and nutrition classes all afternoon so I didn’t expect to hear back from her right away. The charter bus dropped us off at the hotel and after I settled into my room, I got a text from Jordan asking if I wanted to go grab food.

As I leave my room to meet him and Chooch in the lobby, Westwood steps out of his room and into the hall. I’m dressed in jeans and an untucked button-down shirt. Avery is still in his travel suit. He glances up at me and a guilty look passes over his features, and I’m wondering if he still feels like shit for what he told us at Jordan’s last night. I hadn’t thought about it much, thanks to Shay, but now it comes rushing back to me. The fucker is considering leaving the team.

“Hey,” he says tentatively as I pass, and he falls in step next to me. “You going for food?”

I nod. He rubs the back of his neck and then loosens his tie a little, thinks better of it and tightens it again. “I have to do press in conference room C, wherever the fuck that is.”

Avery swearing is a rarity, so I know he’s rattled. It weakens my resolve and I suddenly don’t want to give him the cold shoulder anymore. “Any new developments from last night?”

“Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Manhattan are interested,” he tells me, and I’m startled by how honest he’s being. Avery never talks about his business affairs with anyone, ever. “Winterhawks are willing to throw everything they have at me to get me to stay.”

I swallow. I know what that means. That means they’ll tie up all the money they can in him and others will be traded to keep the club under the monetary cap enforced by the league. Jordan, Chooch, and I all make almost as much money as Avery currently makes. If they want to give him more, they’ll most likely trade one of us or combine two other players. He’s staring at me waiting for a reaction. I just nod again.

We reach the elevator bank and I punch the down button as he keeps talking. “It’s not about the money. I mean, it’s not about my salary. It’s about a higher profile.”

“You’re the face of the entire league,” I remind him. “The only one of us that I’m betting ninety percent of North Americans could name. How much higher a profile can you get?”

“I mean for business opportunities and endorsements,” he mutters, and it sounds rehearsed and robotic, and I know he’s just regurgitating his father’s words.

I try so hard not to roll my eyes that it makes me grimace. I may think he’s being a fucking asshole right now, but he’s still my friend. And more than anything, he’s still my captain, and I can’t start an argument with him the day before we start our Cup run.

The elevator arrives and we both step in. I punch G and he scans the panel and then hits three, muttering, “I think they said three,” as he runs a hand over his dark hair, smoothing it.

Then he turns his dark eyes back to me. “Look, I know you probably hate me over all this shit. But I want you to know that no matter what’s going to happen in the future, I’m going to give this team one hundred percent right now.”

“I know that,” I reply and meet his eye. “But honestly, Avs, I keep wondering when you’re going to give yourself one hundred percent.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means when are you going to stop doing what your management advises, what the team needs, what looks good? Just do whatever the fuck makes you happy. Do you even know what makes you happy, Avery? Do you know what happy is?”

My words are harsh, but I mean them as a friend. I am honestly worried about this guy. He’s always walked around like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders—I noticed that long before the NHL—but lately it’s like his shoulders are literally sagging from the pressure. He just isn’t handling it well anymore.

I clap a hand on his shoulder as if to prove I’m saying this from a place of love. His eyes are clouded, his brows drawn, his mouth set in a tight line, but I can see he isn’t angry with me. “Yeah. I know what happy is,” he replies, his voice deep as always but not steady. “It’s something other people feel.”

The elevator dings and the doors open on the third floor. He gets off with nothing more than a wave at me as he disappears down the hall. Wow. I actually feel bad for the bastard. Jordan is sprawled across a couch in the lobby staring at his phone when I get there. Chooch is standing next to him. When they see me, they both walk over and we head out the front floors. There are a few fans standing on the sidewalk; we pause long enough to take some photos and sign a few autographs but duck away quickly.

San Francisco feels colder than Seattle, and I zip up the front of my jacket as I tell the guys about my conversation with Avery. They both look grim. Jordan swears under his breath. “I can’t believe he’s really going to leave.”

“Well, if you think about it, he’s not happy anywhere, so what difference does it make?” Chooch says as we wait for a light to change. “I mean, at least if he does what his manager asshole father wants, he’ll have one less thing making him miserable. If he stays, it’s one more thing keeping him from being happy.”

“The only thing keeping him from being happy is himself,” I add.

Jordan gives me a crooked, smartass grin. “Look at you all wise and shit.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, well, I’ve never been one to deny pleasure or happiness.”

We cross the street and Chooch asks, “Speaking of…how’d things go with Bendy McTwisty yoga girl? You never came back last night.”

“Shay. Her name is Shay.” I smile. “Things are good. I think.”

I pull out my phone. Still no response to my text. But that doesn’t mean anything other than that she’s busy. I think.

“So are you two official?” Jordan inquires as we pull open the door to one of our favorite Italian places in the city. “Jessie asked me to ask you if you had ‘the talk’ yet.”

He puts the words “the talk” in air quotes and rolls his eyes. “You tell that nosy woman of yours that I’m so smooth I don’t need a talk.”

“Yeah, she’ll love that.” Jordan smirks. “She’ll call you a dumbass.”

We settle in, pulling off our jackets and taking seats around a round table with a red tablecloth. “We haven’t really had a talk, but she’s in this. It scares the shit out of her, but she’s in it.”

“I’m out of it,” Chooch suddenly mutters, and we both turn back to him. “I broke up with Ainsley. Officially. Completely.”

Jordan and I exchange looks. Chooch runs a hand over his shaggy hair and sighs. “She actually offered to have an open relationship. She thought it was random sex that I was missing, not, you know, a caring, loving partner who doesn’t act like a vicious bitch to everyone I know.”

Jordan’s face darkens. “So is she moving back to Alberta? Back to her family?”

Chooch shrugs. “Eventually. Probably. But until she figures it out, I’m letting her live in the house and I’m at the Four Seasons.”

Jordan and I exchange glances again. Having our goalie’s life in upheaval and living in a hotel during playoffs is a recipe for disaster. Especially when you combine it with the bullshit already happening with Avery. I’m opening my mouth and making the offer without even thinking about it. “When we get back to Seattle, you are moving in with me.”

Chooch looks genuinely surprised. “You don’t have to…” he starts.

“I have a huge three-bedroom house that is pretty fucking spectacular.” I grin immodestly. “It’s better than the Four Seasons and I’ll enjoy the company.”

“What about Yoga Shay?”

“She doesn’t come with the offer,” I joke and he laughs. It’s the first real laugh I’ve heard from him in a while. “We’ll be in lockdown mode anyway and I probably won’t see her all that much. When I do, I promise to try and keep the screaming to a minimum. But it’ll be hard because my mad skills make her vocal.”

Jordan and Chooch both groan; I smile and open my menu. But I can’t help but notice that my phone isn’t buzzing. Why isn’t she getting back to me?

As soon as he walks into the police station my heart clenches. He looks absolutely frightened. The kind of pure, deep-rooted fear that grips every part of you. His shoulders are tense, his eyes are wild, and his jaw is clenched so tightly I’m scared he’ll break his teeth. I stand up from the uncomfortable chair I’m in across from a detective, and when his eyes land on me I can see a wave of relief flood him, relaxing every part of his body from his toes to his face.

He crosses the room in a blur and has me by the shoulders, shoving my face into his chest and crushing me to him. “Are you okay? You look okay, but are you?”

I try to nod but there’s no room against his torso. I place my hands on his chest and push. He gets the hint and stops hugging me, but his hands stay clamped on my shoulders. “I’m fine, Trey. I swear it was no big deal.”

“You were fucking mugged at knifepoint. That’s a big fucking deal,” he barks, and the detective arches an eyebrow at him. He shoots him an apologetic glance. “Sorry. I just…I told her she shouldn’t live there.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I argue calmly, even though I’m rattled to my core and I have to work really hard to keep my voice steady. “He cornered me, showed me the knife and demanded my wallet.”

“Your sister was smart. She handed it over and didn’t cause a scene,” the detective pipes in.

Trey looks down at me with approval in his eyes and he rubs my shoulder. “Well, if you’re finally going to listen to instructions and not talk back, this is the right time to do it. Thank God you figured that out.”

“I did, however, hurl my wallet at him and run like a bat out of hell,” I confess. “Because I’m brave like that.”

I know it’s stupid to be embarrassed that I didn’t put up a fight, but I am anyway. Trey hugs me again, slightly less forcefully. “You’re fucking moving.”

“No. I’m not,” I argue, even though I’m probably going to start to look at rental listings. Just in case there’s something else out there I can afford.

Trey lets me go and turns back to the police officer. “Does she need to go to the doctor? The hospital? Should we have her checked out?”

He points to me. “That’s up to her. She did take a bit of a tumble.”

I flex my left hand and feel the burn from where I turned the corner at the end of the block and tripped on the uneven sidewalk. My palm is scraped and my left knee and my yoga pants are torn, and I probably had a mild cardiac event thinking the mugger would catch me, but it turns out he wasn’t even chasing me. When I ran, he must have just grabbed my wallet and taken off.

“I’m okay. Just scrapes. I just really want to go home.”

“You’re not going back there!”

“Trey, it didn’t happen in my house or anything. It was a block away. I was taking a shortcut home,” I explain. At least being annoyed at him is helping me calm down. “When I get a new car this won’t happen again.”

I just don’t have the cash for a decent car right now. I’d been trying to decide if I should use what little savings I do have to move into an apartment in a better area instead of buying another car. This incident, which was terrifying, made me realize I have to act soon. But if I admitted that to Trey, he’d feel guilty and try to pay me more, which I know he can’t afford.

“And when, exactly, are you getting a new car?”

“Umm…shortly.”

He swears under his breath but before he can lecture me, I hear my name from an all too familiar, overdramatic voice. I turn and see my mother and father marching toward us. My mom is already crying. My dad’s face is set in a weird scowl or grimace or something.

“Shaynie. Oh my God!” She literally throws herself at me and I glare up at my brother.

“You were mugged,” Trey replies to my unspoken anger at the fact he called our parents.

I untangle myself from my mother, and my father stalks over and shocks me by grabbing my face in his big hands. He looks right into my eyes, and I swear I see anguish. “Are you okay?”

I nod because I can’t seem to find my voice. His hands press more firmly and he repeats the question. This time I manage to croak out an answer. “He didn’t hurt me.”

My father releases me and turns to the police officer, who clearly recognizes him, because he’s got that awed look on his face I know too well. “Can we take our daughter home now? Do you need anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I have her mugger’s description and a record of the incident. We’ll be in touch tomorrow or the next day with more information,” he says and pauses before adding, “I’m a huge fan, Mr. Beckford.”

My father’s face morphs into one of his trademark confident smiles. “Thanks, Officer…Seabrook. Very nice to hear. I’m hoping you can make a point of working hard to catch this bastard since it’d mean a great deal to me.”

Yeah, because if you weren’t such a sports icon, they wouldn’t even bother looking for a man with a weapon who steals from women.
Leave it to my dad to make my mugging about him. I give Trey another
thanks a lot
glare and start to untangle myself from our mother, who is hugging me again.

“I just want to go home and forget this happened, okay?”

My father and I both shake hands with the police officer who was helping me, and as Trey, my mom and I all make our way out of the station, my father stops for several selfies with officers along the way. Of course.

Outside it’s dark and warm, but I still feel a chill. I rub my arms. Trey unzips and shrugs out of his hoodie and drapes it over my shoulders. It feels as big as a blanket and I’m reminded of Sebastian’s hoodie that I wore this morning. God, I loved that thing, Winterhawks logo and all. I should have stolen it.

Sebastian. I dig my phone out of my coat pocket and check. Yep. He’s texted twice and called once, but there’s no voicemail. He must think I’m ignoring him. And as I take a deep breath of night air I’m thinking maybe I should ignore him. I know telling him about this will screw up his concentration. And being a hockey kid, I know the sport is equal parts mental game and physical game.

I shove my phone back in my pocket, and my mother clutches my arm. “I’ll make up your old bedroom.”

“What?”

“As soon as we get home, I’ll make up your bedroom.”

“I’m not going to your home,” I tell her firmly. “I’m going to mine.”

“You shouldn’t be alone after this, Shayne,” Trey says, and I want to punch him. “Especially not your home.”

“I’m a grown woman and I am going home. My home.” My father walks up just as I finish speaking and he stares down at me with a condemning stare.

“You’re moving out of that shit box,” he barks and runs a hand over his graying hair. “You can move in with your mother or you can live in the pool house. We renovated it a few years ago, you know that. It’s self-contained, got its own kitchen and bathroom.”

My mother had acted devastated when I moved back to Seattle after college and refused to live in the renovated pool house. She proclaimed she did it just for me and that it was my father’s idea. I would never live with them again; I don’t know how they didn’t catch on to that fact when I refused any of their money for school and when I didn’t even tell them I was moving back. Trey was the one who let it slip.

“Look, I appreciate that you two are trying to be parental and everything. I understand that being mugged is scary for everyone, not just me.” I was truly being serious here, but with every word I could see the flicker of anger behind my dad’s gray eyes grow brighter. “I’m grateful for the offer, but I am not, under any circumstances, moving back home.”

“Shayne, I’ve had enough with your bullshit,” my father spits out, so frustrated his face is turning red. “You’re holding a grudge at your own expense and it’s just dumb at this point. Grow up.”

He yanks his wallet out of his back pocket and shoves a wad of bills in my hand and leans in close to my face, his expression softening for a moment. “I love you, Shaynie. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

He kisses my forehead quickly and then stalks across the parking lot, back to his car. My mother, her lip quivering, shakes her head at me and whispers, “You’re punishing me too. Not just him, you know.”

And then she stumbles away after him. I hear Trey sigh next to me and I look up. He watches them until my dad pulls out of the parking lot. “I’ll drive you to that crack den you call an apartment.”

I roll my eyes but follow him to his car. I look down at the cash in my hand. It’s four hundred dollars in fifty-dollar bills. I try to hand it to Trey, but he shakes his head. “Use it to put a down payment on a new car or a deposit on a decent apartment.”

“No.”

“Well, you’ll have to try and give it back to him yourself, because I’m not helping you this time,” he says.

As we’re buckling up, my phone rings and I dig it out. It’s Sebastian. Again. I hesitate. Trey leans over and glances at the screen. I decide to answer the call rather than deal with the fifty invasive questions I’m sure he’s about to pepper me with. “Hey.”

“Shay, baby, I was beginning to think you were blowing me off.” His voice is soothing. It’s like the warm hug I’ve been craving.

“No. I wasn’t,” I promise and when I take a breath it’s shaky. “I had a really bad day.”

Trey snorts beside me at the way I underplayed that, and I raise my middle finger in his general direction. “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop,
ma belle
,” Seb confesses in a husky voice. “I hope you know as soon as this plane lands in four days I’m coming to see you.”

“Good,” I say, and I know I have to get off the phone. It’s not just that it’s awkward talking to him with my brother right beside me; it’s also that the way his voice is making me feel so warm and comforted is making the reality of what happened to me sink in, and I feel like I might cry. “Trey is driving me home right now. Can I call you back later?”

There’s a pause. “We have a curfew. I’m supposed to be lights out in ten minutes.”

“Oh. Okay.” Fucking hockey.

“Call me back anyway.”

“No. It’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s no big deal,” I tell him, and Trey chuffs sarcastically beside me. “Have a good night and a good game tomorrow. Bye.”

As soon as I hit the end button Trey starts in. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“With Sebastian?” I counter, and I decide to be my usual flippant self. “Well, I got an A in sex ed in high school and I got a little hands-on training in college.”

“Oh my God, shut up!” Trey demands and shakes his head in disgust. “I mean with your life in general, Shayne.”

“My life is fine.”

His eyebrow quirks and the look on his face is sheer disbelief. “You don’t have enough money to buy a car, you live in a crap area of town where you get mugged because you won’t take help from our father due to your morals against his profession and life choices, but yet you’re involved with someone who does the exact same thing for a living and probably lives the same lifestyle.”

“Sebastian is nothing like Dad,” I spit out hotly, and the suggestion has me furious. “You’re not cheating on Sasha, are you?”

“Of course not,” he says as he turns onto my street.

“Well, you were a hockey player,” I remind him. “And you aren’t like Dad.”

He gives me a quick, bitter smile. “Yeah, but I was. And I’ll be honest with you, Shayne, it’s hard not to be that way when you’re playing. Women are everywhere and your adrenaline is always high. After a win you want to celebrate and after a loss you want to commiserate and there are always more than a few pieces of tail willing to help you do it.”

“Never ever say ‘tail’ to me again. Never,” I tell him as he slows and pulls to the curb in front of my building. “So are you saying Jordan is cheating on Jessie?”

“No. I’m not. I’m just saying that the option is ever present.” He turns off the engine and crosses his arms over the steering wheel as he turns and levels me with a stare. “Deveau seems like a good guy. Hothead on the ice but smart and genuine off. Maybe he’s one of the good ones. But are you really going to be able to get past your own baggage to see it? I know you, Shayne, and that’s not going to be easy. You’re likely to fuck this whole thing up trying.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” I snap, and those tears from earlier are threatening to fill my eyes again. “Remind me not to call you the next time I need help, because if this is your idea of it, I’d be better off on my own.”

I unclip my seat belt and jump out. By the time I reach the door, my brother is right behind me. “I’m walking you in because I’m worried about you. Deal with it.”

I ignore him and unlock the front door. He follows me in and I storm to the elevator and punch the button. Trey puts his hands on my shoulders, but I shrug out of them.

“Shaynie, I love you, and I’m just worried that this isn’t going to end well for you.” I can hear the sincerity in his voice, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

“You don’t know him, and maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

The elevator arrives, and we step in as one of my sketchy neighbors steps out. It’s a dude who lives on the floor below me who I am pretty sure sells drugs. He glances at us as he steps off and I ignore him. Trey eyeballs him skeptically and then shoots me a horrified glare, but I ignore it.

As we chug up to my floor, Trey says, “Why didn’t you tell him about the mugging?”

“He’s starting playoffs tomorrow.” I step off the elevator and march to my door. After unlocking it, I swing it open and flip on the light in the front hall. “Hello! Burglars, rapists, murderers! I’m home!”

When no one responds, I turn to Trey. “Happy now? Go home.”

He ignores me and pushes into my apartment. I stand by the kitchen door with my arms crossed as I watch him wander from room to room. Finally he stands in front of me. “So what if he’s in playoffs?”

“So he’s got to concentrate. You know that.” How is he so stupid suddenly? “Remember when Dad was in playoffs he barely even spoke to us? Remember when I broke my arm in gymnastics and Mom called him to let him know and he was furious? They lost the series and he blamed family issues pulling his head out of the game. I’m not going to do that to Seb over a stolen wallet.”