Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4) (27 page)

As soon as class is over, Audrey marches to the front of the room and pulls me to her sweaty body. Normally I would fuss and push her away. I’m not one for PDA with men or women, but I’m on the verge of tears for the hundredth time in a week, which makes her embrace comforting. I hug her back, and she kisses the top of my head like a mom or big sister.

“Shaynie, call him,” she urges softly.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I admit, my voice wobbling. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make him change his mind. You didn’t see the look on his face, Audrey. He just totally shut down.”

“You were being a bit of a lunatic.” Audrey pats my head as she lets me go. “Men never know how to react to that, even if it’s justified. And in this case, it kind of was, Shayne. Don’t forget that. He should have told you about your dad.”

“Yes. He should have. It just triggered every negative experience and every stereotype I’d developed about hockey players and I just…” I pause and take a deep breath and wipe at my eyes because I think tears might fall again.

“You used it as an excuse to screw up something that terrifies the shit out of you anyway,” Audrey finishes for me as she bends to roll up my yoga mat for me.

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I did.” I sniff. “Maybe it was for the best. I mean the whole thing started off so crazy. He was a one-night stand, and then he wasn’t. He knew I hated hockey players so he didn’t tell me he was one. That’s lying. This whole thing started with lies.”

Audrey finishes rolling the mat and stands up but she doesn’t speak, so I continue. “I mean how many relationships become lifelong love stories when the people have seen each other naked on multiple occasions before they even know each other’s last names?”

“No idea,” Audrey replies as we walk over to the corner to drop off the mat. “But I’m sure not very many.”

She smiles at me, and it’s not sympathetic. It’s kind of supercilious, which I don’t get. But I don’t want to ask her about it because I’ve not finished my rant. I was up all night last night thinking of all the reasons why Sebastian and I had to crash and burn, why this wasn’t just me messing up something that was destined to be amazing. I even wrote it down. Just one giant cons column in a notebook while I sat at my kitchen table at four a.m. It didn’t make me feel a whole hell of a lot better but I figured if I expressed the facts to someone else, and they agreed, that would make me feel better.

“I let him and his ability to give orgasms cloud my better judgment,” I announce.

“Evil, evil orgasms.” Audrey is not even pretending not to mock me now.

“Audrey!”

We exit the yoga room and she wraps an arm around my shoulders as we head toward the juice bar. Jessie is behind it finishing off a super green smoothie for Mrs. Waters. “Let me finish this for you, because I know you too well.”

We sit next to each other. Jessie smiles at us and we twist our stools to face each other. “After you let the possibility of reoccurring orgasms override your ridiculous hatred of all things and people that have anything to do with pucks and ice, you then didn’t let yourself freak out over the fact that Sebastian was a serial monogamist.”

“Right! I mean with anyone, hockey player or not, the fact that his last serious relationship ended basically at the same time he met me should have had me bailing,” I agree and reach over the bar to grab two coconut waters from the cooler built into the bar.

“Yeah. It’s got to mean that you two couldn’t possibly have legit feelings for each other because there are rules to true love.” Audrey nods her head emphatically as if agreeing, but she’s actually being a sarcastic little brat. “A mandatory waiting period of three months between romantic encounters and a full oral history of your pasts as well as full names and family trees and debt history must be exchanged before tongues enter each other’s mouths…or other orifices. If all those boxes aren’t checked, your feelings can’t be real.”

She’s spewing so much sarcasm right now I’m surprised it doesn’t knock me off my bar stool.

“Hey, best friend, you need to read the manual again. You’re doing it wrong,” I quip, trying to make light of it, but I’m actually getting kind of pissed off. Jessie giggles at that so I know, even though she has her back to us as she chops fruit on the back bar, she’s been listening the whole time.

Audrey’s pretty face breaks into another smile but this one is sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Shayne. I really am, but I am not going to help you talk yourself out of trying to win him back. Because I think you should.”

I swallow a mouthful of coconut water and admit to her what I haven’t even dared to admit to myself. “I don’t know how to do that.”

She drops her hand on top of mine on the bar and squeezes. “You can start by talking to him.”

Jessie reaches under the bar and dangles the key to his BMW in front of me. “He still hasn’t picked up his car.”

She doesn’t have to tell me this, because I see it in the parking lot every morning.

“But he told me he wanted to pick it up while I was in a class,” I remind her, because I explained all this to her on the phone the day after it happened. Of course, maybe it wasn’t clear through my sobbing. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t want to fall in love with a hockey player.” Audrey winks and pats my hand again. “In the words of the Stones, you can’t always get what you want.”

Jessie leans closer and adds, “But if you try sometimes…” She and Audrey start to sing. “You just might get what you need.”

I can’t help but laugh at them, but it comes out as a nervous squawk because all the sadness in my body is being replaced with terror as a plan forms in my brain. The Winterhawks are in San Francisco for the next four days. They would leave tonight. They had to win tomorrow night or be eliminated.

If this were my dad, the last thing he would want would be my mom, or any woman, distracting him. It wouldn’t matter what was going on, or how serious, he would be furious if his focus was pulled off of hockey for even a second. Dustin had been the same way. The one playoff run while we were together in college he barely even spoke to me. He told me he needed to be alone to focus, but he was actually off getting chlamydia between playoff games. But Sebastian isn’t Glenn Beckford or Dustin. He kept trying to prove that to me, and now I have to prove to him I am not going to hold other people’s mistakes against him.

As if she can hear my thoughts, Jessie leans on the counter and smiles at me encouragingly. “Go see him before they leave tonight. Do it for me. If you two get back together, then Seb will have a date for my wedding this summer!”

I laugh at that and her grin deepens. I pull myself off the bar stool and hand her my empty coconut water. “I need to take a shower and try to make myself decent. I have a plan, but I’ll need your help.”

“Tell me what you need and I’ll do it,” Jessie promises and glances behind her at the clock on the wall.

“Can you get me a Deveau jersey?” I ask, embarrassed.

She grins and nods emphatically. “Piece of cake!” Jessie glances at the clock on the wall. “They have practice for another twenty minutes, and then they’re heading to the airport. You get ready; I’ll get the jersey.”

Here goes nothing.

Jordan and Avery are pulling into the VIP lot at the airport at the same time I am. I park in the spot next to Jordan, get out of my SUV and head to the trunk to get my luggage. His playoff beard is in full, unruly mountain-man mode, just like mine. I know our crazy facial hair contrasts ridiculously with the suits we wear to and from games. We get weird looks from some travelers at the airport, but hockey fans get it.

“How’s the wrist?” Jordan asks me, and I look at my left hand with the splint on it.

“It’s better. It’ll be fine by game time.” I’d strained it again in the last game, but the doctors were confident it wasn’t serious. The splint was just a precaution.

He smiles at me and we start toward Avery, who is also yanking his travel bag out of the back of his car. “You wanna go through the main concourse?”

We fly private and so we’re at a smaller airport a few miles from Sea-Tac. The fans in recent years have figured this out and a dedicated bunch often show up to greet us when we land or see us off, especially during playoffs. We have the option of going through a different gate, one that avoids the main concourse where the fans congregate, if we’re not in the mood for autographs and pictures. I usually don’t mind it, but this afternoon, I’m not in the mood.

I shake my head no. Jordan’s smile deepens and he shrugs. “Tough luck, we’re doing it anyway.”

“What?” I blink. Avery falls in step beside us as Jordan puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me to the main entrance.

“He’s doing the fan thing, right, Avery?” Jordan says.

“Yeah. Captain’s orders,” Avery replies, and I glare at him. Something is going on; I just don’t know what.

I’m about to ask when I realize there’s no point. These two shitheads won’t tell me anyway. Jordan and Avery make small talk as we make our way toward the concourse. I keep my eyes on the tile floor in front of me and listen halfheartedly. Every airport staff member we pass wishes us a good game and I smile and nod at all of them. Then I hesitate, because once we pass through another set of glass doors we’ll be in an open hallway with fans lined up on either side of the rope the staff put out. I could walk to the right, out another door takes you to security but avoids the open concourse, and get on the plane without anyone noticing. Jordan must know I’m about to bolt, because I feel his hand between my shoulders and he gives me a small push toward the other door.

“Come on, Deveau. There’s some fans who want to see you.” He gives me his best lopsided grin. “And one I think you’ll want to see.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, but I find myself following along anyway without getting an answer. Jordan is first through the doors and I hear the fans cheer. I walk out behind him to more clapping and yelling. There are about forty people all huddled together behind the rope stanchions the airport has set up. Everyone is wearing something with a Winterhawks logo. There are baseball hats, T-shirts, tank tops and a ton of jerseys. I see a lot of Westwood jerseys and some Garrison and some Choochinsky and a few of mine. I stop at the first cluster, take a pen from a girl who is squealing, and sign the back of her Deveau jersey.

As I continue down the line, a forced smile that I hope looks natural on my face, I scan the homemade signs some people have brought. Most of them are wishing us luck; some are putting down the Thunder. I particularly like the one that says
Thunder Are Vomit
. One being held up at the end of the line catches my eye. It’s white cardboard with glittery blue letters and it says
Forgive Me, Frenchie
.

I freeze midsignature on someone’s jersey. The guy glances over his shoulder. “Are you done?”

“No. Sorry. Hold on.” I finish the signature and pose for a photo with his girlfriend and then march down the line, ignoring everyone in between me and that sign bobbing about the crowd.

Someone calls out my name, wanting me to stop, and I do, begrudgingly, and sign a T-shirt with my number on it. Then Avery, who has been hovering just inside the doors, steps out and the crowd sees him and goes wild. I’m invisible and I’m thrilled. I march toward the sign.

She’s standing there, at the end of the line, all by herself with soft gray eyes and a nervous look on her pretty features. Our eyes lock, and she gives me a soft smile before biting her lower lip as her cheeks turn pink. I let my eyes sweep over her—she’s wearing jeans and a Winterhawks jersey with my name and number. Her hair is in a long, low braid over her shoulder and I see her freckles are not covered up. Fuck, she’s perfect.

“Hi,” she says, barely above a whisper.

“Nice jersey,” I say, and she turns a deeper shade of pink.

She laughs and it makes me feel incredible, so I grin back. “What can I say, I’m a fan.”

I feign my best exaggerated and shocked expression. “Shayne Middle Name Unknown Beckford is a hockey fan! Everyone hunker down with canned goods. The apocalypse is coming.”

She laughs again. “I’m not a hockey fan. I’m a Sebastian Gabriel Maxim Louis Deveau fan. Big difference.”

I like that. A lot.

Her expression grows serious, the smile slipping from her face as she tilts her head up and looks at me with worried eyes. “I don’t want to bother you before a game, but I had to tell you before you left,” she explains.

“Tell me what?” I ask, feeling my usual playful attitude start to stir for the first time since our fight. “That sign is a demand, not an explanation.”

She grins at that. “Yeah, well, you know me.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do,” she confirms with a nod, and I notice the guy beside her has stopped looking at Avery down the line and is looking at us, so I take a couple steps away from the crowd and she follows me, the rope still between us. She takes a deep breath and then says, “You know me better than I thought. And I know you too. I know you’re loyal and supportive and caring and that you’re not like any other hockey player I’ve had the displeasure of knowing.”

She pauses and I fight a smile, because I don’t want to give in to her yet—even though I know it’s inevitable. The minute I saw that sign something in me that had broken felt whole again and I’m pretty sure it was my heart. “You’re finally using your brain, Shay. I’m impressed.”

“I’m not using my brain at all, actually. I’m trusting my heart.” She laughs. “My brain is an evil pessimist but my heart is a hopeful romantic. And my heart says you’re the one for me. And I’m the only one for you.”

I can’t resist touching her, so I reach over the rope and pull her into me. It’s supposed to be a friendly hug, but it triggers hormones that race through my body that are much more than friendship. She pulls her hands from her pockets and wraps them around my back briefly before letting go.

“I miss you,” she whispers.

The words are like a warm blanket wrapped around me. “I’ve missed you too.”

I let her go, because I’m about to kiss her, and that would create a scene. Then she reaches into her pocket and hands me the key to my car. I don’t move to take it from her. “What did you buy?”

“A bus pass,” she tells me, but before I can argue she adds, “And I used the extra money to rent an apartment in a better area of town. I move next week.”

She dangles the key in front of me again. This time I reach out to take it, and she notices the splint on my left hand. She grasps it softly and our eyes meet. “It’s not a big deal. Just a little sore. Most guys would pop some pain pills and not even notice it.”

“But you won’t?”

“I don’t take pain medication, or any medication if I can avoid it,” I admit to her. “My sister had a drug problem as a teenager and I just…I’m aware it’s a slippery slope.” She looks stunned. I smile. “We have a lot in common, Shay. We just never bothered to find out.”

“You know about Trey.”

I nod. “Avery mentioned it when you were in the bathroom at Jordan’s,” I explain. “I was really hoping you would open up to me about it. You can trust me.”

“I realize that now.” She slowly lifts the sign and shakes it at me with a small smile. “Forgive me, Frenchie?”

I pretend to think about it for a long moment. Avery is almost at the end of the line now, and once he’s gone to the plane I have to as well or else I’ll become the center of attention again. “I think I can give you a chance to win me back.”

She blinks at that, shocked, as her mouth drops a little. When I wink at her she seems to recover. “So there’s another inning left in us?”

I scoff at her use of baseball terminology. “No innings in this game. But I think we may have a third period left to play.”

She smiles, but bites her bottom lip and then warns, “I’m not great at this, as I’ve proven. So I can’t guarantee I won’t end up in the penalty box a few more times.”

I reach up and smooth back a lock of her hair that slipped loose from her braid and tuck it behind her ear. “I might end up in the box too.”

“Yeah, but I like you in the box,” she murmurs with a wicked grin. “As long as it’s mine.”

Our eyes meet. My hand, still by her ear, slides to her neck. “I want to kiss you so badly right now, but…”

“You can’t,” she finishes for me, and then her eyes glance at the other fans, who are mostly still distracted by Avery. When she looks back at me, she’s grinning mischievously. “But I can kiss you.”

She pushes up on her tiptoes, wraps a hand around the back of my neck and presses her lips to mine. She’s not playing either; this is a real kiss. Her lips open and her tongue sweeps over mine, and just when I’m ready to skip the flight and drag her back to my house, she pulls away.

Someone whistles loudly at us, but when I look over, there are only a couple of people who noticed, thankfully. I give them a small smile and turn back to her. “Something to think about when you’re alone in your hotel room.” She winks at me and takes a step back. “Go. Win some hockey.”

I nod and force myself to step away. Avery is beside me now, and he waves at Shayne before saying, “Come on, Romeo.”

I walk away, backward, my eyes still on her until we’re through the doors and she’s out of sight. I swear there are actual sparks in the air between our stares. My feelings for her haven’t smoldered at all. She still lights every possible fire inside me, mentally and physically.