Playing to Win

by Taryn Leigh Taylor

  “Well, tough beans,” Holly said with a watery laugh, and she hugged him. He stiffened in her grasp, but then his arms came around her and she felt his weathered hand pat her shoulder. It was like she was six years old again. Like she had her dad back. “I miss her, too,” she confessed.

  “She would’ve been proud of you. And she would have told you to fight for what you deserve. When life knocks you down, you get up and punch it in the gut.”

  His arms tightened around her, and she heard an unmistakable sniff.

  “You okay?”

  He cleared his throat and pulled away. “S’nothin’. Just got some dirt in my eye is all. Now you gonna stop yammerin’ so we can watch the game, or what?”

  Holly smiled as he got up and brushed his knuckles under his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll stop yammering. How about I make us some popcorn to go with that game?”

  He nodded gruffly as he dropped into his beat-up old recliner. “I could go for some popcorn.”

  15

  “PAIGE! OPEN UP! I need to talk to you.”

  Holly banged on the door again, this time with more force. Paige’s phone had gone straight to voice mail—a regular occurrence, as her friend was notorious for forgetting to charge her phone. But Holly was desperate for counsel and she wasn’t going to let a dead phone stand in her way.

  “C’mon, Paige! I know you’re in there. Your car’s in the driveway. I really need your advice.”

  Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Holly heard the snick of the lock give way. Paige’s face appeared in the six-inch crack of the open door. “Holly, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  Holly shoved the door open all the way and barged past her friend. “News Now just called. They just gave me Corey Baniuk’s old job. I’m the new roving sports reporter for the six and eleven o’clock news.”

  “Wow, Hols. That’s fantastic! That’s your dream job, right? Interviewing athletes on TV. That’s everything you’ve been working toward.”

  Holly nodded, dropping onto Paige’s couch—a sleek, robin’s-egg-blue torture device that was built for style, not comfort. “I know!” She glanced over her shoulder at her friend. “So why am I not happier about it?”

  “Aw, sweetie.” Paige rushed over, wrapping the lilac sheet tighter around her before she joined Holly on the couch. “What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea. This is everything I wanted! And since the Storm fired me, I should be doubly glad because it means I’m not unemployed, trying to scrape by on ghostwriting sports articles.

  “I went for the interview this morning, and they offered me the position on the spot. But even as I was shaking hands and signing contracts, something felt...off, you know?”

  Paige nodded reassuringly, readjusting her toga. All of a sudden, her new job wasn’t the only thing that seemed off to Holly. “Wait a minute. Why are you wrapped in a sheet?” Holly stood. “And why did it take you so long to answer the door? Is someone here? Did I just catch you in flagrante?”

  She walked back toward the door, cocking an eyebrow as Paige rushed after her, blocking Holly’s path to the bedroom.

  “Do you have a sex crush of your own? And is he, or is he not in this house right now? Do not lie to me, Paige Marie Hallett.”

  “What?” Paige’s blush made her whole face blotchy, like she was allergic to the lie she was trying so desperately to formulate. “No, I was just... I mean I, I just...” Her eyes focused briefly on something to Holly’s left before they darted back to the floor.

  Holly glanced behind her. A familiar pair of worn Vans sat in the entranceway. “Those are Jay’s shoes.” She whipped around to face her friend. “You’re sleeping with Jay? You hate Jay! Since when are you sleeping with Jay?”

  There was a long moment of silence, before a deep voice sounded from behind the door at the end of the hall. “Since she already knows, can I come out now?”

  Paige sighed. “Yes. Come out.”

  The door to her friend’s bedroom swung open, and Holly could barely process the sight of her bare-footed cameraman wearing jeans and pulling his vintage Ghostbusters T-shirt over his head. His grin was sheepish as he ran a hand through his unruly brown hair. “Hey, Holly. Congrats on the new job.”

  The entire world had gone mad. Her dream job was making her miserable. Jay was sleeping with Paige. She was going to have to keep an eye on the sky when she left, because the odds of seeing pigs soaring over the clouds seemed pretty high right now.

  “I need some water.”

  Holly headed into Paige’s kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Evian from the fridge. She took a long swig of the cool liquid and followed it with a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, so you guys are sleeping together. I can deal with that. I’m an adult. Angry sex is a thing.”

  “Actually...” Jay slung an arm over Paige’s shoulders. “We’re kind of past the angry sex stage and on to the dating exclusively stage.”

  Holly knew he was telling the truth because Paige didn’t slug him. Instead, her friend’s bright green eyes turned imploring. “I’m sorry we kept it a secret, Hols, but we were trying to get a handle on it ourselves. I’m glad it’s not a secret anymore, though, because you deserve to know. This never would have happened if not for you and the Women’s Hockey Network.”

  “Say what now?”

  Paige smiled at her. “You think the Women’s Hockey Network was a joke, but the truth is you did great research and presented facts in a way that resonated with me. And with a bunch of people who aren’t usually interested in sports. You gave us a foothold in a world we didn’t understand. And not because we were incapable of understanding. You’re not dumbing anything down. You’re just coming at it from a different angle. Hockey got a whole lot more exciting for me when you snuck in a little medicine to the spoonful of sugar that is Luke Maguire’s abs.”

  “Seriously, Paige? I’m right here,” Jay lamented.

  “Understanding the game made it more interesting to watch. Because of you, I suddenly understood offside, or why the whistle blew even though no one had touched the puck and why the face-off was happening somewhere other than at center ice. And that made me care more about the game.”

  Holly tried not to be touched, but to hear her sports-allergic best friend talking about offsides was kind of a big deal in her world. Damned if it didn’t make her a bit misty-eyed.

  “Basically, you made me realize what else I was missing out on. I mean, if hockey wasn’t as bad as I thought, what else might be better than I gave it credit for?” Paige slipped an arm around Jay’s waist. “Sometimes what you want doesn’t look at all like what you thought you wanted. Nothing about Jay and I makes sense, but we just fit. And I owe it all to you because I might not have figured that out on my own.”

  “You think that dumb fluff is me at my most insightful? My mom is probably rolling over in her grave.”

  “I think she’d respect you for it as much as I do, Hols.”

  If she was being honest, at some point during this whole farce, the Women’s Hockey Network had started to really matter to her. In her heart, Holly knew it was more than fluff, had known it for a long time.

  It was just hard to reimagine her future, to reevaluate her priorities. She’d spent so long convinced that real sports reporting was her destiny. The only route to make her dad proud. The best way to honor her mother’s legacy. But Paige was right, the only person who wasn’t proud of her was herself.

  “The thing that makes you great is that you care so much,” Paige continued. “You’re not supposed to be on News Now reading a teleprompter, you’re supposed to be making real connections and improving people’s lives.” She remembered the little girl she’d met at the bakery. Paige was right. She was making a difference. Sometimes miniscule, like making people laugh, and sometimes major, like helping two people f
eel closer to one another. But either way, it was rewarding. It was still sports, still her passion, but it was so much more than that, too.

  So she let go. All her expectations, all her goals, all her former dreams. Her chest felt light, as if her lungs were full of helium. Or freedom.

  For the first time, Holly wasn’t in someone else’s shadow, or seeking someone else’s approval. She knew exactly where her future lay and she had a phone call to make.

  16

  WAITING WAS A special kind of hell.

  Every morning, Luke expected to wake up to an angry phone call from his agent and an even angrier headline in the paper. And every morning, there was nothing.

  It was driving him crazy. He’d been sure it would have come by now. He’d worried about it through both of the Storm’s out-of-town games, constantly monitoring the internet for any sign that Holly had broken her story. But she hadn’t. Yet. The prospect loomed over his head like a guillotine.

  And now they were back in Portland after two tough losses in Wyoming. They were hoping to even things out tonight with the home crowd behind them.

  The tension in the dressing room was almost unbearable. His teammates were unusually quiet as they fidgeted in full equipment and waited for Coach Taggert to start his pregame speech. Instead, Taggert walked over to Luke, touched his shoulder pad. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  Holly.

  Her name popped unbidden into his heart. Was she here to apologize? Or to tell him she was going live with the story tonight? And why did the prospect of seeing her make his heart race with anticipation? He was mad at her. Furious, really.

  “Now’s not really the time, is it, Coach?”

  The gruff, burly man motioned toward the door with a shake of his head. “You wanna stay a part of this team, you do what I say and trust me when I tell you, you wanna take this meeting.”

  Luke obeyed. But when he stepped out of the dressing room, it took a long moment before his brain could fully register the sight before him. “You came.”

  “Yeah, well. There’s only so many places you can wear one of these jerseys, so...” Ethan shrugged.

  Luke hadn’t even noticed the damn jersey. The C on the front. The number twenty-eight visible on the sleeve. “Holly,” he breathed.

  His little brother nodded. “Yeah, it showed up in the mail the other day. Complete with a scathing letter that threatened me with bodily harm if I didn’t get my ass out to one of your games. She’s pretty incredible. Too good for you, really.”

  Luke couldn’t even process the joke. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Ethan stared down at the ground. “I should have come before. It’s been a really tough couple of years, Luke. Without hockey, I’ve got nothing. I’ve put everything into getting back on that ice, and every day it became clearer that wasn’t going to happen, and I couldn’t deal with that. But Holly helped me see that there are still opportunities to be part of hockey. Maybe not on the ice, but on the bench. Or in a studio. I can still talk about it, dissect it, coach it and watch my brother play it the way it’s meant to be played.” He looked up at that.

  “You’ve always been in it for the love of the game. That’s what makes you great, big brother. You do it for the right reasons. Not the fame or the fortune or the ladies. Because you genuinely love playing. You’ve got to stop giving a shit about my feelings, or what’s going on with your teammates and just get out there and do what you do. And know that it’s good enough, no matter what happens.”

  Growing up, he and Ethan had always been close, but the heartfelt words made Luke realize how much distance had crept between them since the accident. He’d been so busy trying to take care of things, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his brother.

  “Also, this is for you.”

  Ethan handed him a beat-up paper bag. Luke opened it and couldn’t help but laugh. “No way!”

  Ethan blushed as Luke held up a knitted replica of the Storm Jersey he wore, complete with “Maguire” and a big twenty-eight on the back and the coveted C on the front.

  “You made this?”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time to think lately. Had to break through some of that mental chatter. Figured if I was knitting, it might as well be something...not like your stupid thirty-foot lengths of nothing.”

  Luke shook his head. “You always gotta show me up, don’t you, you prick?”

  “It’s not my fault I’m so much better than you at everything. Now got out there and win this game.”

  Ethan’s words were still ringing in his ears as he stepped onto the ice. The game was going to be a battle. Down 2–0 in a series was not a great place to be, but for the first time since the play-offs began, Luke was in his element. He belonged there. Tonight, he was going to make sure everybody knew it.

  A minute and twenty-seven seconds into the first period, Luke snapped his scoring drought with a beautiful wrist shot to the top-left corner.

  * * *

  IT WAS A hard-fought, physical game. Players from both teams spent their fair share of time in the penalty box, and despite the Storm’s commanding first period, the Wyoming Stallions had battled back to a 3–3 draw with seven minutes left in the game.

  Luke had thought they were destined for overtime, but with forty-six seconds left on the clock, the rookie redirected one of Kowalchuk’s big booming slap shots, and the Storm had gone on to win it 4–3 in regular time. There was a tangible relief in the air as his weary teammates filed into the dressing room after the game. They’d held on, brought the series back to within one. Their dreams of the championship were still viable.

  It took him a moment to notice that his goaltender was walking in front of him hunched over with the air of a man who’d just lost it all.

  Luke grabbed his jersey, stopping him before he stepped into the dressing room with the rest of the team. “Hey man, you okay?”

  J.C. barely looked at him as he shrugged. “Huh? Yeah, no. I’m fine. Good goal. You relaxed and played the game. Just like I told you to.”

  Luke frowned. “For a man who was just part of an epic, kick-ass win, you seem pretty down.”

  He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just tired. Play-offs are pretty grueling.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Luke meant to drop it then, to give his goaltender—his friend—some space, but there was a niggling thought in his mind. A piece that wouldn’t quite fit. J.C. wasn’t acting like himself tonight. Hadn’t been since... “You went down.”

  “What?”

  “Third period. We were up 3–2. Johnson was coming in on his backhand and you went down. He scored top shelf. You never go down when Keith Johnson is on his backhand. You’ve been playing against him since we were fourteen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s you.” The realization vibrated in every cell in Luke’s body. He stood facing his friend in the middle of the hallway, betrayal burning like lava in his veins. “Holly was right. You let that goal in on purpose. What the hell are you wrapped up in?”

  For the first time, J.C. looked something other than listless. In fact, he looked downright panicked. He glanced around the hallway. “Would you keep your voice down?”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Calm down. It’s nothing.” He put a comforting hand on Luke’s shoulder.

  Luke shook it off. “Are you betting on hockey? Are you betting on us?”

  J.C. went from soothing to defensive in a split second. “What the hell’s your problem, Mags? It’s no big deal. It’s over-under stuff. We’ve got a real chance this year. All I have to do is keep the score a little closer than it should be in a few games.”

  Luke’s stomach churned with disgust. “I can’t believe you! You could go to jail for this! You’re about to get married. You’ve got a
baby on the way.”

  J.C.’s face twisted with ire. “Why does everyone keep saying that like it’s a good thing? Tania and I have been together for four years, and she wanted a ring or else. I didn’t propose, I followed orders. And when the doubts took over, I was all set to tell her I wanted the damn ring back. But then she dropped the bombshell that I was going to be a dad.”

  J.C. ran a hand over his play-off beard and his voice turned beseeching. “A dad, Mags. Me. I’m too young to be a dad. I wanted to leave her, and now we’re bonded together for the rest of time. And there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. So I went to the track. A few times. Just to blow off some steam. And I got in a little over my head. But they offered me a way out—a way to clear up my debt. And we still win. Everybody wins. C’mon, man. We’re the only ones left who know about this.”

  “What do you mean, the only ones left?” Realization dawned as soon as the words were out of Luke’s mouth. “You got Holly fired? You son of a bitch! You used what I told you on the plane and you sold her out, you sold me out. I trusted you. I’m in love with this girl.”

  “She’s a reporter, Mags.”

  “You’re the one who insisted I was overreacting. That she was harmless.”

  “That was before I knew she was only pretending to be stupid! She heard Tania yelling about me getting rid of the Porsche. It was only a matter of time until she put it together. No one can find out about this. It wasn’t personal, man. I was just covering my bases.”

  “J.C., what you’re doing is illegal. You’ve put this whole team at risk. Jesus.” Luke ran a hand through his hair. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking you had my back. Isn’t that what you always say? Put the team first?”

  Luke shook his head. He’d been so wrapped up in his guilt, so blinded by his insistence on protecting the team that he’d lost sight of what was important. “You think this is putting the team first? You crossed the line, man. You deserted your team, and as the captain, I can’t let that stand.”