by Avery Flynn
Nothing he could do or say would change his dad. The only thing he could do was kick him out of his life for good.
So he hung up without saying a word because it wouldn’t have made any difference, deleted the old man’s contact information, and blocked him.
That took care of one problem in his life but left a bigger one. How in the hell was he going to fix this with Shelby?
He had no fucking clue.
…
Shelby’s whole life was about to change. This morning she’d woken up, called Bill, and told him that if the offer was still open, she’d love to come to New Orleans.
Love.
If she’d been an idiot to fall in love with a man who not only didn’t feel the same but actually thought she was some kind of media double agent, then maybe she could transfer all of that to her work. Hockey had saved her before; it could save her again. It had to.
Now she had to give the hardest goodbye.
Dressed all in black, Shelby fit right in with the crowd at The Black Hearts art gallery for Roger’s latest show—well, except for the deep-pockets part. These people weren’t just suburban rich, they were straight-up own-a-good-chunk-of-the-city rich, like the Beckett cousins who were trying to outbid each other on Roger’s models, no doubt just to say they’d won if the tabloid stories about them were right.
Tonight was the first time she’d been out of her house except for work since the fight with Ian. It wasn’t like she was sitting at home with a pint of ice cream and sad songs cued up on Spotify. Okay, the melodramatic-ballad part was totally true. She was spending her time checking out restaurants in New Orleans. Bill hadn’t been lying. There were a ton of places she’d love to try out. In some ways that made her decision easier—at least that’s what she was telling herself.
She was standing in front of a gorgeous painting of a nude model in the back of the gallery when Roger found her. He handed her a glass of ginger ale with a slice of lime in it.
“How’s your motor running?” he asked.
She pursed her mouth to keep her emotions at bay. Damn. She was going to miss these little chats. “Not well.”
He took her arm and led her to a quiet corner near a Hudson painting and used his most Leave It to Beaver voice. “Tell Roger everything.”
It was just what she needed to make her chuckle. “You know it’s weird when you talk about yourself in the third person.”
“These rich people eat it up.” He looked over at the people walking around the gallery checking out his models. “They think it makes me sound more artistic and they pay higher prices for it.”
“I’m going to miss you so badly.” Understatement of the century.
He tilted his head to the side. “Where am I going?”
“You’re not. I am.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, doing her best to ignore that twinge in her gut warning she was making a mistake. The decision was made. She just had to stick to it. “I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow. The Cajun Rage offered me a deal I’d be a fool to walk away from, but the catch is that I have to start right away.”
“Is this because of that hockey player?”
“No.” She fiddled with her six-year coin in her jacket pocket. “Why would you think that?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Because I know you.”
And that was the thing about a good sponsor—and a good friend—they always did. She’d have better luck lying to herself than to Roger. “I love him.”
“You’d think that would be a reason to stay.”
She blinked back the tears that pricked her eyes. “He doesn’t love me, and even if he did, he’s not at the right place in his life for that. He’s got some stuff he needs to work out. The fresh start will do me good.”
They hugged, putting six years’ worth of ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies into one huge squeeze.
“You’ll always be my favorite Mustang.”
She swallowed over the lump of emotion clogging her throat. “Love you right back, Roger.”
Another quick hug and she hustled out of the gallery before she started crying. She’d never imagined leaving Harbor City. It was her place. However, she couldn’t turn around without seeing something Ice Knights related and she just couldn’t deal with that. Maybe in a few years she’d come back, but she couldn’t deal with it now.
A text buzzed on her phone confirming her Uber to the airport tomorrow. That was a good thing, right? She was moving on to bigger and better things. She could learn to love a new city and a new team. As for learning to love another man, she hoped she never did that ever again.
…
The sun was barely up when someone started pounding on the cabin door. If Ian had been asleep—or had fallen asleep at all—he would have been pissed. As it was, he was half in the bag and staring blankly at the now-roaring fire when the knocking started. He ignored it, but it didn’t stop. There was only one person he knew who was that obnoxious and he wasn’t going to stop until Ian answered.
The room didn’t spin when he stood up, which meant he needed more scotch. Still, he took his time getting to the door. It was the least he could do to be equally annoying.
His brother didn’t wait to be asked in; he just pushed his way past Ian and into the living room.
“Why is is hotter than hell in here?” Alex asked, pulling at the collar of his shirt.
“I started a fire.” Something that was totally obvious to him and he’d been drinking.
Alex looked from the fire to Ian. “Why?”
“Because there needed to be one.” And because it reminded him of Shelby, just like absolutely everything including breathing. “What are you doing here?”
“Coming to get you before you throw a complete and total pity party.” He looked around. “You haven’t started single Adele yet, have you?”
“She’s amazing.” He flipped off his brother and then flopped back down on the couch. “How did you find me?”
“Dad called.”
Of course. He grabbed his glass of scotch, the same one he’d been nursing for the entire night. “Did you tell him to fuck off?”
“What do you think?” Translation: Abso-fucking-lutely. Alex swiped his glass and carried it over to the kitchen sink, where he dumped it. “Let’s go, I’m taking you to the airport.”
The fuck? They didn’t have a game for two more days thanks to the length of that epic road trip. He was going to spend at least the next twenty-four hours sitting here in this hell-hot room and finishing the bottle of scotch. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Alex walked back to the living room, where he started to put out the fire. “She’s leaving.”
He didn’t have to ask who. There was only one “she” in his life.
“She’s going to New Orleans,” Alex continued. “Lucy said she’s going to start up a media content center for the Rage.”
If he had anything other than alcohol in his stomach at that moment, he would have thrown it up. Instead, he set his jaw and reached for the bottle of scotch on the coffee table. He’d just have to drink until he could puke and maybe that would numb the pain shooting through him.
He took a swig straight from the bottle, relishing the burn all the way down to his gut. “Good for her.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Alex glared at him. “That’s your reaction?”
“Why, because she’s going to support our biggest rival?” He took another drink, wondering how long it would take before he forgot what Alex had just said.
“No, you idiot.” Alex stormed over and grabbed the scotch from Ian’s grasp. “Because you love her.”
“I don’t love her.” And if he said it enough, he’d start to believe himself. Shit. What had he done? “I fucked it all up.”
“You have the drive back to Harbor City to figure out how to fi
x it.” Alex yanked Ian up off the couch and shoved him toward the door. “Come on. You don’t have time to waste. You’re paying the speeding tickets, though.”
Ian tried to process that. “You drove all the way out here just to drive me back?”
“Yeah.” Alex looked at him as if he was the dumbest person in the world. “It’s what brothers do.”
There wasn’t anything he could say to that. The beauty of it was, though, he didn’t need to. Instead, he nodded at Alex and his brother rolled his eyes at him in return. No translation needed.
If only figuring out what he was going to say to Shelby would be as easy.
Chapter Nineteen
The car was barely at a stop near the airport curb before Ian had the door open. Thanks to a call to Lucy, he’d gotten Shelby’s flight information and the tip that she liked to get to the airport two hours in advance. Of course she did. She carried around a flashlight Taser; she didn’t leave anything to chance. He glanced down at the clock on his phone screen. He was cutting it beyond close.
“Thanks, Alex,” he said as he got out. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“No shit,” his brother responded. “Now go fix your fuckup.”
Ian sprinted through the airport doors and through the crowd at the airport. He deked left and then right, making his way toward the security gates where a crowd of people waited in lines that barely seemed to move. It was as far as he could go without a ticket. There were two hours before her flight. She had to be here.
He jumped up on a trio of seats off to the side and scanned the crowd looking for Shelby. Trying to find one person in the room of wall-to-wall people was like trying to find a guy without a mullet in an eighties hockey video montage.
“Shelby Blanton!” he hollered, his heart hammering in his ears.
People turned and looked around, glad for some entertainment while they waited. Several training their phones on him, no doubt to send the video of the Harbor City weirdo at the airport to their friends back in Omaha. A few TSA agents turned in his direction and started toward him. He didn’t give a shit.
“Shelby, I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.” This was where that whole grunts-more-than-talks thing became a problem. When he needed the words, he didn’t know what to say. So he went with the first thing that came to mind. “I was an asshole.” Wow. He really should have made a plan, but it was too late to now. “I don’t have the right to ask, but I’m asking for another chance in every zip code. Please.”
“Sir,” one of the TSA agents said. “I’m gonna need you to get down from there.”
Fuck. “Just one minute more?”
The agent pulled out a pair of zip ties. “Depends on how curious you are about the inside of the airport jail. Stay up there and you’ll get the full tour.”
If it would mean seeing Shelby, he would have happily taken the arrest option, but nowhere in the crowd was a tall, dark-haired woman ready to tell him he was a dumbass and then hopefully forgive him.
“Flight six twenty to New Orleans, do you know if it got delayed?” he asked, still eyeballing the passengers in line, looking for Shelby.
The agent shook his head. “Some kind of storm system is moving through later, so they moved up that flight’s departure time. Turned this place into chaos with all those passengers trying to get through early. It has already boarded and is about to take off. You’re too late.”
The news was a punch in the gut that knocked all the air out of him. He flopped down into the chair, his legs not strong enough to hold him up under the staggering weight of the news.
“I heard a rumor, though, that they added another flight out tonight to make up for it,” the agent said.
It was the best news he’d ever heard. Whatever it took, he was getting on that flight.
…
Sitting in seat 14C on a plane destined for New Orleans, Shelby tightened the seat belt.
Then she loosened it.
Then she tightened it again.
No matter what she did, though, it felt wrong, but then again so did everything. Packing up her belongings and sticking the boxes in the building’s basement storage until she found a place in New Orleans made her eye twitch. Putting her carry-on stuffed with a week’s worth of clothes in the overhead bin made her queasy. The Ice Knights home screen on her phone made her weepy.
And the idea that Ian was out there somewhere and that she wouldn’t see him again? That was fucking terrifying.
Every nerve in her body was screaming and her fight-or-flight response had gone to full-on get-the-hell-out-of-here mode. All she could think of was Ian. The night he taught her how to skate. How he’d stuck up for his brother even when he was so mad, he couldn’t talk to Alex. The breathtaking way he looked at her after making her come so hard she was surprised her toes weren’t still curled.
She had to get out of here.
She had to get to Ian.
On the verge of hyperventilating, she unfastened her seat belt and stood up. On the inhale, she popped open the overhead bin and on the exhale, she had her bag and was heading down the aisle as the other passengers stared at her and wondered aloud what was going on.
She’d made it almost to the front when a flight attendant blocked her way.
“The cabin doors are about to close,” he said with a testy smile. “You have to sit down.”
“I need to get out of here.” She had to get to Ian.
“Ma’am.” The flight attendant straightened his glasses and gave her an imperious glare. “We’ll be taking off soon.”
Yeah, that was exactly why her heart was going a bazillion miles an hour, her brain was in full panic mode, and she had been rushing toward the jetway. “I understand, just let me off before you do.” She paused, gathering up all the fear and hope for what was going to happen next and putting it into the most important word. “Please.”
The flight attendant’s demeanor changed in an instant and he ushered Shelby to the front of the plane. “Is everything okay? Do you require assistance?”
She shook her head. The only person who could get her out of this mess was herself, but help with Harbor City traffic would be appreciated. “Not unless you can get me a cab and through rush-hour traffic to the Ice Knights arena in less than an hour.”
He raised both eyebrows so high, they got lost behind his perfectly coiffed hair and gestured toward the walkway. “You’d need a miracle for that.”
“Then that’s what I have to hope for.” And she took off down the jetway, knowing she was probably on a fool’s mission, but she had to try.
She loved Ian Petrov and if there was a chance—even a small one—for a happily ever after with the sexy, grunting, stubborn man with enough family baggage to fill a 747, then she had to try.
Hustling down the jetway, she regretted every step of the way that she’d decided to wear heels. She barely made it to the gate before she took them off and started sprinting for real, the tiny wheels on her cheap carry-on making the case bounce and swerve as she ran.
The TSA agent sitting at the checkpoint between the secured and not-secured area stood up as Shelby neared and eyed her suspiciously as she moved to block her exit. “Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to slow down.”
Getting arrested for causing an airport disturbance was the last thing she needed right now, but when a person figured out what needed to happen next so they could start the rest of their life, they wanted it to start now.
“I’m sorry.” Shelby held up the hand with her black heels. “I just have to get out of here as fast as possible.”
The agent put her hand up to the walkie-talkie on her shoulder, body language loose but ready to rumble. “Why do you have to do that?”
How in the hell was she supposed to explain what had happened with Ian in the shortest amount of time so she could get out of the air
port, hail a cab, and get her ass to the Ice Knights arena? There was no fucking way, but she had to try.
Coming to a stop six feet away from the TSA agent, Shelby sucked in a deep breath, ready to get it all out as quickly as possible when she looked over the agent’s shoulder and spotted Ian on the other side of the do-not-cross line.
All the adrenaline pumping through her system vanished in an instant. He was here. Ian Petrov was at the airport. He’d come after her. “I have to go tell that man right there that I love him.”
The agent looked over at Ian and then back at Shelby and what she could only assume was the 100 percent over-the-top goofy grin on her face. Shaking her head, the agent walked back over to her chair.
“I have been waiting years for this to happen.” She sat down. “Go ahead, honey, I’ll be rooting for you.”
Shelby wanted to, but all of a sudden, her feet stopped working. All she could do was stand there with her shoes in one hand and the handle of her suitcase in the other, looking at the man she loved and trying to figure out what to say.
Ian looked like hell. His hair was going every which way, as if he hadn’t been able to stop ramming his hands through it; he had at least two days’ worth of beard growth; and he was pacing back and forth while talking animatedly to someone on the phone.
“What do you mean, there aren’t any open seats tonight for a flight to New Orleans?” He let his head fall back as he grimaced. “It’s a major tourist destination—there has to be at least one spot.”
“Why are you going to New Orleans?” Shelby asked from her side of the do-not-cross line.
Ian spun around, his eyes wide, and hung up his phone without saying goodbye to whomever was on the other line.
“I have to tell you something,” he said, looking at her with such love in his eyes that she nearly melted right there on the spot. “But I still don’t know what to say.”
…
Okay, he’d royally fucked that up. Could he make this any worse? Well, considering she was staying on her side of the do-not-cross line, probably not.