by Flynn, Avery
Zach: Can you let me in the back?
LL: On my way.
Thank Gretzky. The last thing he wanted was to do a meet and greet before he was mentally prepped. Some players took it all in stride. Not him. After what had happened with his parents, his biggest fear was having something slip and then being confronted with it out in public. At least his parents had kept their mouths shut about the whole fiasco, which had been an unexpected blessing. There was no way he wanted anyone to know what a fuckup he’d made, how stupid he’d been. The one-million-dollar kiss-off check he’d written to his parents had probably helped. They knew there wasn’t any more money coming because that had been the last of it and his broke ass didn’t have any more.
“Oh my God, Abby, you know Emma is just a judgmental hag.” The woman’s voice was coming from around the corner, but it wasn’t far off. “No one in their right mind thinks your butt is too big.”
He glanced back at the door and willed Fallon to open it right then.
“Then why did she just tell me that back pockets this size on my jeans were not recommended?” another woman asked.
The voices were getting closer. He took a step farther back into the shadows by the clinic’s back door.
“Abby, you have got to listen—oh my God, you’re Zach Blackburn! We came all the way from Huddleston to see you today.”
“That’s awesome of you.”
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “Can we get a picture?”
“I think they’re going to have a little table set up for me inside where we can take a pic after the fundraiser starts.”
“Oh, this will only take a second,” said the second woman. Abby, he was guessing. “Promise.”
“Heidi,” the first woman hollered loud enough to be heard three states away. “You gotta come back here, we found Zach Blackburn.”
The woman’s words had half a second to process before the sound of people—a lot of them—rushing around back reached his ears. He’d bet his grocery budget, which wasn’t exactly Whole Foods organic big, that this wasn’t how Fallon had planned for the fundraiser to go.
He may not know her super well, but he knew this: she was going to kick his ass for fucking up her plan.
The woman in front of him had her phone ready to go as the other woman approached him when the clinic’s back door opened. Fallon walked out wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair pulled back into a braid that fell over one shoulder.
“It’s Lady Luck!” the woman said, her voice going high-pitched and squeaky. “Oh my God, you work here? No wonder Zach’s doing this. Abby and I were talking, and we were trying to figure out why Mr. Never Signs Anything was finally doing an appearance. BAM! This explains everything.” She reached past Zach and held her hand out to Fallon. “I’m Sarah, but everyone calls me Sugar. You totally should, too, since we both have cool nicknames. At least I’m assuming your real name isn’t Lady Luck. That would be nuts.” She threw back her head and laughed while Fallon just stood there and blinked.
It was the first time he’d ever seen Fallon thrown off her game—a speed-talking fan could be a little overwhelming, though.
“I mean, could you imagine?” Sarah went on. “Still, you know someone out there has totally done that. And I really hope that kid is lucky because otherwise that would suck hardcore.”
When she took a second to suck in a breath, Zach jumped in. “Hey, Sugar, you still want that pic?”
The woman turned to him as if she’d totally forgotten he was even there before she gave him a smile big enough to be seen from space. “Yaaaaaasssss!”
He took a step closer, and then Sugar got really close—hip to hip, thigh to thigh, where-are-you-going-with-that-hand close. The first few times in his career that had happened, he’d reveled in it—nothing like a little female appreciation to enhance a horny twenty-two-year-old’s ego. After a while, though, he began to distinguish the overenthusiastic-but-harmless fans like Sarah from the how-can-I-work-this-into-a-new-car puck bunnies.
“Oh my God, you smell so good. Lady Luck, will you be in the pic, too?”
Fallon shook her head no, but that always-quick mouth of hers didn’t seem to be working so well at the moment. She wasn’t the first one to fall victim to the what-in-the-fuck-have-I-gotten-myself-into freak-out—that’s why most teams gave the players media training.
“How about if it’s just us,” Zach said, giving Fallon a wink when she sent him an appreciative look. “She’s not really used to all the attention.”
“Oh, I totally understand,” Sarah said at her signature fast clip. “I had this one Instagram post go viral this one time, and oh my God, the notifications were intense.”
Her friend took the pic, and then switched places with Sarah, and they did the chat and pose. And that was how it went for the next three hours as he chatted with one fan after the other. At some point, someone brought out a table and put it in front of a large sign with the clinic’s name on it. Cameron, the clinic administrator, ended up staying at the table with him and collecting the donations people dropped off before asking Zach to autograph something—he drew the line at signing someone’s butt—and then taking a picture with him.
As the line moved and flowed, he kept looking around for Fallon, only catching a glimpse of her for a second every once in a while. It was like she was avoiding him. Yeah, that’s not how negotiating went, and he wasn’t about to give up now.
“Hey, Cameron. I need to visit the head. Can I have a second?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “I’ll keep the crowd at bay.”
“Thanks, man.”
He ducked into the clinic and went in search of the woman who seemed to be dead set on avoiding him and almost slammed right into her. She was standing right beside a window that just happened to look out onto the table where he’d been sitting. He raised an eyebrow in question. She rolled her eyes at him, but her cheeks turned pink.
“Were you spying on me?” he asked.
She dropped her gaze. “No.”
Someone’s pants were on fire. “You totally were watching me.”
“You wish.”
He turned to the woman with two small kids standing next to Fallon. “She was checking me out, wasn’t she?”
The woman just giggled, but the little girl she was with nodded yes. He turned back to Fallon, not bothering to keep the triumph off his face.
“Out of the mouths of babes.”
“Antonia didn’t say a single word.” If a technicality was the best she could come up with, then Fallon was definitely flustered.
He kinda liked it. So it wasn’t just speed-talking fans that could get her out of her comfort zone. He’d done it. Why that felt like something worth celebrating, he wasn’t sure, but it was, and he wanted to do the toasting with her.
“About how much longer do we have before the fundraiser is over?” he asked.
“I told everyone you’d be gone an hour ago,” she said, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. Now that was the Fallon he knew. “Never expected you to last this long.”
“Ouch.” He smacked his palm over his heart. “Just for that, you’re picking up the tab during dinner.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m not going out on a date with you.”
“Good, because it’s not a date. It’s a negotiation, remember?” Business. That was all it was between them. She’d be his Lady Luck. He’d be her fundraising charm. Everyone would walk away happy at the end of the season. That was all it was, and he’d only flinched at her answer because he’d been surprised. “The line is winding down out there so let me get back out there and we’ll head out in a bit.”
She looked at him like she wanted to say no. His lungs were burning from holding his breath, but he did his best don’t-give-a-fuck stance and waited her out. Just as she started to open her mouth, the little girl who’d ratted her out for spying tugged on Fallon’s pant leg. She squatted down to get on the same level as the girl, who leaned in close and w
hispered in Fallon’s ear. Fallon’s gaze flicked back up to him before she closed her eyes and let out a sigh and standing up again.
“I’m only doing this because Antonia likes the drawings on your arms and because I’m hungry,” Fallon said, her voice harsher than the excited gleam in her blue eyes. “Well, that and you helped us raise more than I thought we could in a day.”
His breath came out in a whoosh. Hell yes. “Just wait until I come back with more of the guys, the line will be hours long.”
She gave him a skeptical look. “You could do that?”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure I could get some of the other players to come out for a meet and greet.” Where in the hell had that come from? He barely spoke to the other guys on the team, but if that’s what it took to get her on his side, he’d do it.
…
It wasn’t a date—Fallon was still in jeans. Okay, so the most she would have done was swap out into her nice jeans and a comfy shirt, but she hadn’t even done that. It was definitely not a date. They just happened to be in a booth at the back of Mama’s Place, the one it was rumored that the Lopez matriarch only let her favorite customers sit in.
Fallon knew this to be fact because she’d tried to have a girls’ night dinner with Tess in this booth and been told no. However, Zach had walked in the front door and was greeted by Mama Lopez herself, a Waterbury institution, with a hug. Fallon had gotten a hard once-over. Then, Mama had led them to the coveted back booth.
“You need to come by more than once a month,” Mama told Zach with a disapproving shake of her head. “You’re getting too skinny.”
Fallon tried to see what Mama Lopez was seeing when she looked at Zach and missed it completely. In his Ice Knights T-shirt that fit without being too tight or too loose and showed off his broad shoulders, muscular chest, and well-defined arms to perfection, skinny was definitely not how she would describe him. Not that she was looking at him that close. This was a sort of cool, even-handed clinical observation that just also happened to make it about ten degrees warmer in here all off a sudden.
Get a grip, girl.
“Don’t worry, I will take care of you,” Mama Lopez said with the wave of her hand. “I’ll be back with your dinner.”
And with that, she walked back to the kitchen without ever taking their orders.
Fallon looked around. None of the other waiters even glanced their way. “Is someone else bringing a menu?”
“Nope.” He leaned back against the curved booth seat and stretched his arm across the back so that his fingertips brushed her shoulder and the warm scent of his cologne—or maybe that was just his smell—surrounded her. “Mama will bring out a ton of food and we’ll feast.”
Her gut sank. That did not sound like something she wanted to do on her nursing paycheck, but there was no way she’d back out on paying the bill. A woman had to have her pride.
“And don’t worry about the tab,” he said as if he was reading her mind. “I was just giving you shit earlier.”
Nope. That wasn’t going to happen. She did not need people feeling sorry for her limited budget. Of course, that didn’t mean she could afford to meet the caloric needs of a professional athlete.
“You’re not paying for me,” she said, straightening her spine and doing her best to ignore the fact that they were practically hip to hip in the small, curved booth and that his pheromones were looking at her pheromones and saying hey baby, which was making it hard to think. “We can go Dutch.”
“It’s already paid for,” he said before dropping his voice to a volume level that would make it almost impossible for any of the other diners to hear. “I give Mama’s grandson hockey lessons, and she pays me in food.”
For the third time today, she’d been rendered speechless. That was some kind of record. Surprise had her pivoting in her seat to get a good look at him to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t, judging by the way he shoved his hand through his hair and set his face into a surly what’s-it-to-you snarl that just dared her to make something of it.
Someone was feeling vulnerable. She could understand. Exposing her soft underbelly wasn’t exactly her bag of chips, either. So instead of pointing out to the most-hated man in Harbor City that he shouldn’t be embarrassed about doing something nice, she focused on the act itself.
“You give hockey lessons?”
His expression warmed a whole three degrees. “The kid’s actually really good. He’s got a scholarship to some private high school in the city, and I have him down to our practice rink every month to watch practice and then we skate around. The chances of a high school player ever getting drafted are low, but if someone takes a chance on him, they’ll end up with a solid defenseman.”
She didn’t know how to process this. Zach’s shitty attitude about any charitable work was well-documented in the tabloids—right along with his dating history and latest on- or off-ice brawl. His refusal to do pre-season appearances or interviews when he first arrived in town was the thing that saddled him with the most-hated man moniker in the first place. Losing only made it stick. But giving a kid hockey lessons? Yeah, that was totally unexpected. So she fumbled around for a response, because staring at him with a blank expression wasn’t going to cut it.
“You’re not going soft on me, are you?” she asked and immediately wanted to take back the words.
Way to sound like a real bitch, Fallon.
He laughed and patted his belly. “Only around the middle during the off season.”
“Was that a joke?” she asked, holding her hands to each of her cheeks and letting her jaw drop in a melodramatic expression of shock. “Did the most-hated man in Harbor City make a joke?”
He shrugged and shot her the bird. “It occasionally happens.”
They were both chuckling when Mama came back with chips, salsa, and the best guacamole Fallon had ever had in her life. Seriously. It was like an avocado and heaven had a baby. She was half tempted to lick the bowl after they ran out of chips but managed to stop herself. It was one of her harder-fought battles. Thankfully, that was when a waiter came by with another basket of homemade tortilla chips. For a while, the only thing that could be heard at the table was the crunch of chips.
“There is magic in this,” she said, relaxing against the seat, the back of her head resting against Zach’s forearm.
A sizzle of awareness went through her at even that simple touch, making her entire body take notice. It had officially been too long if just touching the back of her head to a dude’s forearm did this to her.
Of course, this wasn’t just any guy, it was Zach Blackburn, he of the serious arm porn, abs-o-rific torso, and the chin dimple that she kept dreaming about kissing. What in the hell was wrong with her? The guacamole had short-circuited her brain. It was the only explanation for why she hadn’t lifted her head so she wasn’t touching him anymore.
“Agreed. It’s totally magical,” he agreed as he scraped the last of the guacamole onto a broken chip and held it out within an inch of her mouth. “You want?”
“Was this part of your negotiating plan?” she asked, her lungs tightening as anticipation swirled around inside her, making her nipples pucker.
His gaze dropped to her already parted lips, and he sucked in a breath. “Definitely.”
Sure, maybe she could blame the whole-body bliss on perfect guacamole, but the truth was she didn’t think, she just reacted, opening her mouth and letting him feed her. He didn’t just shove the half chip in her mouth or hold it out, teasing her, though. Instead, he gave her exactly what she wanted and needed at the moment. And the gentle slide of his thumb to swipe up the dot of guac that had landed on the corner of her mouth? It sent a frisson of awareness skittering across her every nerve ending.
Flavor exploded on her tongue at the same time as the rest of her body woke up and said hello to the ill-advised possibilities of touching Zach. Food had always been just delicious fuel to her. She’d never understood the sensuality of it until that moment when
it hit her like a bullet vibe pressed right to her clit. It felt right and wrong and oh-so-fucking fantastic.
Luckily, Mama saved her from her own mutinous self by leading a parade of waiters back to their table with a billion and a half plates of food. There were chimichangas, enchiladas, rice, beans, and so much more. Even better? Every single bite tasted amazing.
“What’s it gonna take to get you to agree to be at the home games?” Zach asked between bites.
“Don’t forget you want me to call before away games also.” She was blaming the totally divine verde sauce for making her forget that they were on opposite sides of this negotiation.
He nodded, sending his hair falling forward into his eyes. “Yeah, that, too.”
This morning she’d woken up with absolutely every intention of never seeing Zach Blackburn again after the clinic fundraiser unless he was on her TV. She wasn’t his Lady Luck. She was just a nurse with an attitude. Then he’d fed her the best Mexican food there could ever be, told her he gave a high school kid hockey lessons, and he’d stayed at the fundraiser signing autographs and taking pictures long past when she thought he’d be gone.
Fuck. You are such a sucker at heart, girl.
She should tell him thank you and no right now before she ended up in way over her head. There was something about seeing him with his guard down like this that made her think there was more to him than the asshole everyone saw in the tabloids. Don’t go there. Be strong. Saying no was the smart move. It was exactly what she was going to end this little internal battle of the oh yes with—the smart answer of fuck no.
“Two more appearances at the clinic, at least one with more of your team,” she said.
Fuuuuuuck. She clamped her mouth shut before she could offer up anything else. That was not what she’d planned on saying.
“Done.” His satisfied grin showed off the never-before-noticed mini-dimple in his left cheek. “What else?”
The self-preserving part of her brain finally kicked into gear. “If I’m working, I’m working. No guilt-tripping me for not being able to be at a home game.”