Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4) (9 page)

She smiles and looks a little sheepish. “I wanted to work a little less than they needed. I’m planning my wedding and my fiancé is away a lot, so it’s a lot of work on my end. It’s happening back in Maine this summer so it’s a lot of phone calls and managing things from afar.”

My eyes fall to her hands and I see the giant sparkling ring on her hand. How did I miss that before—it’s gorgeous! “Beautiful ring!”

“Thank you.” Her already bright smile gets brighter and her green eyes sparkle. “He went overboard. But Jordan isn’t a subtle guy in general.”

“How’d you two meet?” I ask because whatever she did, I’m doing. I would kill for a wonderful guy that makes me sparkle brighter than a diamond ring, which is what Jessie is doing right now.

“We were childhood friends who reconnected here in Seattle,” she explains as we walk back into the foyer.

“What are the chances that you would both end up in same city on the other side of the country?” I can’t help but ask, and she laughs.

“Yeah. Fate is funny that way.” She laughs. “Trust me, I wasn’t pleased about it at first. When we both left Silver Bay, our hometown, we weren’t on the best of terms.”

I want to ask her more questions because it sounds like a very interesting story, but as we head into the women’s changing room, Audrey is heading out. She’s showered and changed into a pair of dark skinny jeans and a strapless white top. “Hey! You haven’t even showered yet? If you want me to drive you, get your ass in gear. I have to be at work in forty minutes.”

“I’ll bus it,” I say begrudgingly. “Audrey, this is Jessie. She’s going to be a therapist here.”

“Hey! Nice to meet you. I’m Shayne’s friend and the only reason she has more than yoga in her life.” Audrey and Jessie shake hands as Audrey laughs at her own joke, and I roll my eyes. “You guys should come by my bar for a drink when you’re done!”

The rest of the tour takes longer than it should because Jessie and I are talking a lot. I like her. Not just as an employee—and it’s clear she’ll be great—but as a person. She’s funny and smart and I haven’t clicked with someone this easily since Audrey. When we’re back in the lobby, she hesitates before leaving.

“Do you want to take Audrey up on her drink idea?” Jessie asks me shyly. “My fiancé is working, so I’m free for a few more hours.”

She’s so sweet and she’s smiling expectantly and I really could use a drink after what happened this morning. Besides, if I go home I’ll just think about Sebastian. I smile back. “Give me ten minutes to run through the shower.”

We lost—badly—and it was mostly Chooch’s fault. Of course no one would ever say that out loud—not the coach or the players—but it
was
his fault. He had a horrific game. Sure, one of the goals was a defensive meltdown, which I hold myself accountable for because I took a shitty hooking penalty and that was the reason for the power play that led to the goal. But the other five—yeah,
five
—Chooch simply shit the bed. Coach pulled him halfway through the second, when the Thunder led 6–0. Our backup goalie, Owensen, didn’t let in another one, thankfully. And even though Garrison scored one and I managed to deflect one of Westwood’s slap shots into the back of the net, we were slaughtered.

I hated losing to the Thunder more than to any other team. They knocked us out of the playoffs last year in a seven-game battle that turned dirty fast. Their assistant captain, Jude Braddock, was the kind of player I hated. He dove and embellished and he would constantly cross-check and hook me, and once he even punched me in the kidney when the refs weren’t looking. But the one time I dropped my gloves to fight him, he skated away like a bitch. On top of ending our playoff run, the Thunder went on to win the Cup last year and are in contention this year to do it again. So yeah, I hate them and I hated losing to them.

“How’s the eye?” Avery asks me as he pulls off the Under Armor shirt he wears beneath his jersey. He stares down at me, concerned.

I shrug like it’s no big deal but as my fingers reach up and trace the two-inch cut slicing through my eyebrow, it’s hard to hide my wince. I fought Duncan Darby near the end of the third when it was clear we weren’t going to come back from this. Duncan is actually a pretty nice guy. I’ve met him at league events over the years. But I was frustrated and he was battling with me in the corner for the puck and the guy is a fucking giant and it was like a massive redheaded meat blanket hanging all over me, and I just snapped. When he managed to get the puck I cross-checked him in the back—hard. He turned around, called me a fucktard and shoved me and I immediately dropped the gloves. Unlike his douche teammate Braddock, Duncan Darby dropped his right back.

I’m an enforcer. There’s no two ways about it. I have been since I played in juniors back home in Quebec. But what makes me valuable is I also score. A lot. I was the highest scoring defenseman in the league my rookie year. Still, I won’t give up the fighting. It’s as much a part of my game as anything else. I’m usually smart about it, though. I fight when I have to and I pick my partners carefully—other enforcers, not the stars, and guys who ask for it. But Darby didn’t really ask for it and he’s not an enforcer. He’s also not in my weight class. I’m six feet and two hundred pounds of muscle, which is nothing to laugh at. But Duncan Darby is six four and probably has about twenty-five more pounds on him.

I got him twice with a decent left hook. He got me once, a solid punch just above my left eye, and my skin split instantly. The refs broke us up, and I spent the end of the period in the medical room. Stitches are a real bitch when they don’t use the freezing.

“It’s starting to swell,” Avery comments. “Better get some ice. It’ll help.”

“What’s going to help Chooch?” I mutter under my breath.

“He’s having a rough end to the season,” Avery replies. It’s the same answer he would give the media. Always politically correct and diplomatic. Drives me fucking nuts. “But he’ll bounce back. Playoffs are a fresh start. A different energy.”

I give him a hard stare. I would love to raise my eyebrows to show how much I think that’s horseshit, but it would hurt too much. Avery’s dark eyes glance around the locker room. The media has cleared out. It’s just the players now, half of whom are in the shower room. Chooch is sitting—and sulking—across the large oval room by his locker.

“This is about what’s happening off the ice,” I explain quietly. “And if he doesn’t figure out that shit fast, we’re going to be knocked out in four games in the first round.”

Avery grimaces, grunts in begrudging agreement. “So fix this.”

“Me?” I question.

“I don’t do this relationship crap. It’s all you do. So fix it,” Avery commands and heads to the showers.

“
Merde
,” I whisper and sigh. Jordan walks back in, hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist, and starts to dress beside me.

“You up for a drink?” I ask him as he shakes out his hair like a wet dog. Drops of water smack me in the face.

“Sure. Why the fuck not.”

I stand up and walk to the showers. As I pass Chooch I tell him, “We’re going for drinks. Don’t even try to argue. We’re going.”

Chooch doesn’t speak at all except to suggest Liberty. I don’t argue, even though that means I’ll have to see Audrey, which will remind me of Shay. I need to figure out what the hell went wrong between us. Why does she despise hockey players so much that she’s willing to deny our connection? If Chooch wasn’t in such a dark place, I would ditch him and Jordan and drive over to her work and demand answers, but there’ll be time for that later. Mike Choochinsky’s love life derailing our entire team is more urgent, unfortunately.

Twenty minutes later Jordan parks half a block from the bar, and we walk in silence down the dark, stormy street. It seems Seattle is about to have its first spring storm. The wind is strong, blowing trash and leaves around our ankles in angry little tornados. Luckily the rain is holding off because I didn’t bring a jacket other than my suit jacket. Jordan pulls open the door to the bar, and Chooch and I push our way inside. It’s busy and loud. I would have picked somewhere quieter, but this is what Chooch wanted.

Jordan, being the tallest of all of us by an inch or two, surveys the room and then points to a table near the back. We weave our way through the crowd and as we pass the bar Audrey looks up, her red lips parting in a surprised smile. I give her a smile and a wave but keep heading to the table. This is about Chooch. Damn it.

“Name your poison, Choochie,” Jordan says, slipping out of his heather gray suit jacket and dropping it on his chair as he begins to roll up his sleeves.

“Bourbon. Double. Short glass. No ice.”

Chooch doesn’t drink hard stuff, so I start to raise my eyebrow at that and then wince. Fucking Darby. Jordan glances over at me. “And you, Rocky?”

“Ha-ha,” I reply dryly and shrug out of my own jacket. “Just a Stella.”

He nods and starts to weave his way to the bar. I turn back to Chooch. His bushy eyebrows are knitted together and there are heavy lines through his freckled forehead. Chooch looks like the kid on the old
Mad
comic books, if he’d grown up and become a hockey goalie. I push my glasses up on my nose—I had to take out my contacts as soon as I was hit in case my eye swelled up—and I place both arms on the table and lean toward him.

“Talk to me, Michael,” I say softly but firmly. I only use players’ real names when I’m dead serious. Otherwise it’s Jordy or Chooch or Westwood. Or Shithead or Fucknuts, depending on my mood.

“I shit the bed.” He gives me a little shrug. “Bad game. It won’t happen again. If it does I’ll bench myself and give the job to Owensen.”

“But why did you have a shit game?” I push and watch him trace the wood grain pattern on the table with his finger.

“Off night.”

“But why?” I am not going to give this up, so he better just tell me the truth.

He sighs and finally lifts his eyes to meet mine. “I’m not going to say why. You guys already fucking hate her enough.”

And there it is. Exactly what I suspected. I exhale loudly and give him a short nod. I search for a tactful way to respond. “It’s not like we want to hate Ainsley. We’d love to love her, Chooch. We would. All of us. The wives, the girlfriends, the players, the fucking staff. We
want
to like her.”

He laughs bitterly at that and gives me a hard smirk. It’s odd on his youthful, goofy face. It makes him look older than his twenty-seven years. “But she gives you no reason to like her,” he admits. “And lately she’s been giving me no reason to like her either.”

Jordan appears next to me, two bottles of beer in one hand and Chooch’s glass of bourbon in the other. He hands me a beer; Chooch grabs the bourbon and finishes half of it in one gulp before Jordan can even lift his beer to his lips.

“So…” Jordan says tentatively, and he glances at me as he sits down. “Are we at the part where he admits his girlfriend is ruining his game, or are we still in denial?”

I try not to smile. I fucking love Jordan Garrison. He has this ridiculous way of being charming and a trainwreck at the same time. Before he settled down, it used to get him an outlandish amount of tail. Of course back then he was more trainwreck than charming, but still. It worked for him. That’s never been my goal, hooking up with girls whose names I don’t know, but it was still oddly impressive.

What’s more impressive, though, is what he has with Jessie. I first met Jordan when he was drafted to the Hawks. I’d already been on the team a year, after spending my first year after my draft in the minors, and this tall blond kid with the crooked smile just walks right on and takes a starting forward position. I’d heard of him, of course; any kid coming up in amateur hockey knew about the legendary Garrison family. Every kid was a better player than the next. I hated him before I met him because I’d busted my ass to be good at hockey. It had never come easy. And I didn’t have his perfect siblings. I had one sister who was a high school dropout with drug problems and I had divorced parents. But after about a week I realized you couldn’t hate Jordan Garrison. He was a hardworking, solid teammate and just generally a nice guy. And I saw what others might miss: a dark, sad look that came over him when he thought no one was paying attention. That’s been gone since Jessie came back into his life.

“As usual, Jordy, you’re a soft shoulder to cry on,” Chooch mutters and takes another swig of bourbon.

“Choochie, I love you like a brother,” Jordan begins and pauses to sip his beer again. “But you and Ainsley are…worse than ever. And I don’t even know how that’s possible, because it always seemed pretty shitty to me.”

Chooch cringes. I can’t help but cringe too, even though it’s the truth.

“We used to be good together,” he explains, the frustration evident in his voice. “I don’t know why the hell things changed.”

Jordan reaches over and squeezes Chooch’s shoulder. “I don’t like seeing you miserable, man.”

“I don’t like being miserable,” he admits and swirls the drops of brown liquid left in his glass. “It’s got to pass. It’s always passed before.”

I put my beer down on the table and say quietly, “Has it really ever passed? I mean…if this isn’t the first time she’s made you miserable, then…it’s not going to be the last, Mikey. I think the only way it’s going to be the last is if you make it the last time.”

His eyes meet mine, and I watch a flurry of emotions tumble through them—anger, frustration, denial and a glimmer of recognition. That glimmer means, deep down, Chooch knows I speak the truth. But still he shakes his head. “I’ve been with her since I was fifteen, Seb. You don’t know what that’s like.”

“No. I don’t,” I admit freely. “But if the spark is gone—”

“You always say that,” he cuts me off, with an edge to his tone I can’t ignore. “I love you, Seb, but you’re not the person to give me relationship advice. You haven’t had a real one yet.”

Wow. He’s being a fucking dick. I take another swig of my beer. “I know real love isn’t torture, Chooch. Tell him, Jordy.”

Jordan glances between us with an awkward expression. “You really want my opinion? On love?”

“You’re in it, right?” I reply as I reach up and loosen my tie.

“Yeah.” He smiles and I know he’s thinking of Jessie. “But that doesn’t mean I know shit.”

“Just regale us with your take, okay?” I demand.

“True love shouldn’t torture,” Jordan says and scratches at the blond stubble peppering his face. “But it should have the potential to be. Like, the thought of living without her is torture. Not the thought of living with her.”

We both look at Chooch. His dark expression gets darker. Like midnight dark. “I need another bourbon.”

“Allow me.” I stand up, grab his empty glass as I swallow the last of my beer, and turn to push my way through the crowd to the bar.

I reach the bar, which is crowded, and wait until two guys at the end get their drinks from Audrey and clear a space. She doesn’t see me yet. She’s spun around to the other side of the bar to serve some other customers. I glance at them while I wait. Long brown hair, big kitten gray eyes. A vibrant smile that sends a jolt of desire into my pants. She’s here. I smile. What fucking luck.