Anatomy of a Player (Taking Shots #2)

by Cindi Madsen

  Those were the days, when we were just a group of poor kids wiping the ice with preppy guys in name brand gear—I’d hated the season I’d had to play on a team with instead of against that type, even if my home life had been more stable for that nine months than it had been for the rest of my life combined.

  “Anyway, I played in high school, too, and once I found out that there were scholarship opportunities, I filled out hundreds of applications and even wrote a bunch of stupid essays—unlike you, I’m not good at the written word, so I worried they’d never take me.”

  “Well, while you were smashing guys on the ice, I was writing up fake news stories and digging for answers to hard-hitting questions like, Which of our neighbors is letting their dog crap on our yard and not cleaning it up? And the ever important, What’s really in the meat the school serves at lunch?”

  I chuckled at that. “Let me guess. You had a glittery pink notebook.” Except her serious, can’t-take-my-job-lightly side had probably prevented that, now that I thought about it. “Strike that. I’m sure you were too serious for pink or glittery nonsense.”

  “You got me,” she said. “Miss Serious Journalist at all times. You must’ve done okay at your essays, because you’re here now.”

  “BC didn’t make me write an essay, and lucky for me, they looked at my hockey stats instead of my less-than-stellar grades.” My junior and senior years I’d actually tried in school, because that was when I’d made up my mind to find a way to go to college, whatever it took. But like now, I’d struggled to keep up with everything—back then, living at home had added more stress than the hours of practice—and I’d had to sit out two games thanks to failing grades.

  Now history was trying to repeat itself, regardless of how hard I’d worked to deserve this opportunity, and despite the many miles I’d purposely put between home and myself.

  “I’m starting to worry about my grades this semester,” she said, her words coming out at a reluctant pace, and with the tone to match. “The classes are so dang hard, and I wonder how I’m going to get through them and do my job. How do you keep up? With classes and hockey?”

  I slowed for another light. The question dug at the thing I couldn’t stop worrying about, and since I usually opted to put on a front that I didn’t care, I wasn’t sure it was safe to trust this girl with the fact that I did. “I’m not sure that I do. Right now, the best I can do is try.”

  “Do or do not, there is no try.” Whitney crinkled her cute little nose and then laughed. “Sorry, sometimes random movie quotes come to mind and—”

  “Never apologize for a perfectly placed Star Wars quote.”

  She laughed again, and I laughed, too. “I watched older movies with my daddy, and so many times when I quote them, people just give me these blank stares.”

  “But Star Wars is timeless—everyone knows that.”

  “Unfortunately, not everyone does.”

  “Preposterous!”

  “I know!”

  We laughed again, and I cursed the light for turning green, because I never wanted the drive to end.

  Whitney scooted forward in her seat and pointed to the apartment complex on the right. “That’s my place, right over there.”

  Somehow she’d sidetracked the conversation, moving my questions about her to hockey, and I’d forgotten I’d started this conversation in an attempt to do my own digging.

  As soon as I pulled into the parking lot she put her hand on the door handle. “Thanks for the ride, I guess I’ll see you next hockey game.”

  “Wait.”

  She slowly turned to face me. “Look, Hudson, I really do appreciate the ride, and I enjoy chatting with you. I’m not going to say I’m not tempted to forget about my rules, but…what would it look like if I hooked up with a hockey player? Everyone would think I was only reporting on hockey to land guys, like, puck bunny, master level. Then no one on the team would take me seriously ever again.”

  With her last rambling sentence released, she finally sucked in a breath of air, and then she crossed her arms.

  “I admire your determination and dedication to your job, but I was just going to say that your keys slipped out of your pocket.” I reached over and picked up the metal key ring with…a tiny pink bejeweled shoe hanging from it. Why would a girl who only wore flats have a high-heeled charm? A very blingy one, too. Curiouser and curiouser. “I thought you might need them before the next hockey game.”

  An adorable blush crept across her cheeks, visible with the help of the apartment complex lights and the full moon, despite the pitch-black backdrop. “Oh. Yeah, I need those. Um, thanks.”

  She reached for the keys, shaky palm up, and I dropped them inside. Then I curled her hand around them and brushed my thumb across her wrist. “You’re welcome. And if you do ever decide to break a few rules, you know where to find me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Whitney

  Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh. A clashing mixture of irritation, embarrassment, and attraction coursed through my veins as I rushed up the stairs of my apartment complex. I’d gotten caught up in the conversation, and how much I laughed when I was with Hudson, and I just assumed he’d been about to try to make a move.

  Actually, I doubted Hudson was the type to try—he’d make one, because while he might be “trying” to keep up his grades, I was sure when it came to hitting on girls, there was no try, and a lot of doing.

  Speaking of that, though…he’d pretty much admitted he’d been accepted to BC because of sports instead of grades. I wondered what his grades were like—what the entire hockey team’s were like—and if they’d earned them or if the professors rounded up.

  I put that thought away for later, because I wasn’t quite done feeling stupid and sorry for myself. Sure, he’d thrown out that line about how if I ever decided to break my rules, I knew where to find him, but it was more like he was throwing me a bone.

  Okay, bad example, as it was only making me think…well, about anatomy that I shouldn’t be thinking about. It wasn’t the first time he’d thrown out a flirty line, but I’d seen those girls he’d had wrapped around him at the beginning of the night. Why would he go for me when the twin-fantasy was an option? Was scoring with a straight-laced dowdy girl some kind of novelty to guys like him?

  I walked into my apartment, strode right to my bedroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. The outfit was as boring as I remembered, my swipe of barely-there mascara lost behind the fake glasses.

  I didn’t want to be like my mama, always relying on her looks, but man, did I feel like a sack of potatoes, especially compared to the other girls who’d been at the party. Not just felt, either, I looked like one. Lumpy and boring. No color, no glitter. I didn’t look horrible, but I knew how I could look with the right makeup, how the colors and right highlighting would bring out my best features. Plus, I liked bright colors and a little shimmer, in both my clothes and makeup.

  As much as I hated to admit it, I suddenly understood why my mama had always been so obsessed with looks, and why she’d go so far to keep them.

  I hated myself for it, but there it was anyway.

  When Hudson had made the comment about a glittery pink notebook, a happy swirl had spiraled through my chest—I did have that glittery pink notebook. I’d carried it everywhere, and when I’d see people in the school halls, I’d study them and try to guess what secrets they might be hiding. Then I’d jot it down—using codenames, of course, because I’d seen all those movies where an object like that was found and the owner was ostracized.

  But all my happy had come undone when Hudson had backtracked and said that I was too serious for glittery-pink nonsense. One, it wasn’t nonsense—it was called looking at something that automatically made you happy—and two, it meant that he didn’t see the real me. The investigative journalist in me should feel proud, and deep down, underneath feeling so blah, she probably was. But the girl who’d been flattered that Hudson had left behind the ditzy twins, and the
rest of the girls willing to throw themselves at him, to drive her home was disappointed.

  If I wore my usual clothes and actually did my hair and makeup, I could’ve easily competed against those girls. He wouldn’t even know what hit him. All it would’ve taken was a bit of flirting and drawing his attention to my lips with a few slow swipes of lip gloss, and the entire drive home he would’ve been thinking about kissing me.

  Those moves had landed me plenty of lip action before, but they’d also landed me guys who only thought about kissing and sex, with no desire to really get to know me, or to consider me as girlfriend material.

  So it was good that I needed to keep up this look and stick to light conversation—like facts about New York City newspapers, and movie quotes.

  I couldn’t help remembering his low, throaty laugh, and how I’d thought, hey, a guy who gets me! For a little while I’d forgotten all about the exposé and my Anatomy of a Player article, and I’d wanted the drive to stretch out and last forever so we could keep laughing and talking.

  Man, how am I going to do this for a month or two, when I get so invested so quickly? Hopefully in time I’d learn to separate and distance myself, even as I was immersed in it—like doctors who could lose patients without turning into a crying mess.

  That optimistic twelve-year-old who’d decided she wanted to be a journalist didn’t realize that her empathetic nature would get in her way—not to mention her weakness for cute guys who never liked the real her enough to stick around.

  Okay, that’s enough sulking. I went to the fridge and tried to convince myself that all I wanted was an apple. But then I accidentally-on-purpose cracked open the freezer and found the ice cream. If I was going to wear baggy clothes to hide my figure, why deprive myself of ice cream?

  I parked myself on the couch with the carton and a spoon and dug in with one hand while I searched the Internet on my phone with the other, my exposé back on track. I wondered if teachers were told by the administration to turn a blind eye when it came to athletes’ test scores, or to at least grade on an extra generous curve.

  Sure, there might be professors who loved sports, but since they were in the education field, I was also sure there were plenty who’d spent their high school years feeling inferior to athletes, and annoyed by the special treatment they’d received. They’d probably be reluctant to talk about—much less admit—that they’d been told to give athletes special treatment, for fear of losing their jobs.

  I wonder if I swear that it’ll be anonymous, and that I’d never give up a source, I could get a few to talk to me about it.

  I dug out my notebook—being lazy about dropping my backpack here instead of putting it in my room had paid off, because now I didn’t have to move from the couch or abandon my ice cream carton to go get it.

  The first page had my notes for the Anatomy of a Player article. Not wanting to think about Hudson right now, I quickly flipped through pages until I found my other notes. After a day and night stuck open, my pages didn’t want to lay flat and in my attempt to smooth it out, ice cream dripped from my spoon onto the paper.

  “Shoot.” I shoved the bite of ice cream in my mouth, jabbed the spoon into the carton, and then wiped the page. The ink blurred right along with the smudge of chocolate, but at least the words remained legible.

  I added a note to the bottom about talking to professors, especially ones who had a high concentration of athletes—probably most of the general courses, since they’d have to take them, no matter their declared field of study, and the management and leadership professors.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans and grabbed my phone again—typing with two thumbs was much faster, and a couple of clicks landed me on Boston College’s faculty page.

  Ooh, I had Professor White last year, and she liked me. Surely she’d be the type to be annoyed by preferential treatment—she’d gone on more than one feminist rant in class, which of course made me a fan. She might be able to tell me more, from whether she’d been asked to grant athletes leniency, to which professors definitely gave it.

  I clicked the link to her email address and sent a message asking if I could set up a time to talk to her.

  With that done, I turned on the television. In a strange twist of fate—or maybe a twist of sabotaging-my-attempt-to-not-think-about-Hudson—Star Wars was on.

  I should’ve changed the channel, but it’d been a long time since I’d seen any of the movies, and I was instantly pulled in by the action.

  After all, this was all the action I was going to get for a long, long time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hudson

  For as long as the week had been, I was surprisingly awake. I thought about trying to study for about half a second, but I wasn’t that awake. Plus, I’d crammed in so many chapters before the game that it was already a jumbled mess up there. Definitions blurred until I couldn’t remember which word went to them.

  So I decided kicking back on the couch and watching TV was the better choice. I flipped through channel after channel, nothing really catching my interest. There were a lot of infomercials on this time of night, and I accidentally watched five minutes of one for Shake Weights. What with access to an entire room of more effective weights, it was the last thing I needed, but I couldn’t look away—they had women in sports bras demonstrating, their boobs jiggling as the weight bounced up and down. The move was quite suggestive, too. The allure wore off quickly, though, so I clicked the button again…

  Then leaned forward, smiling at the funny coincidence. I reached for my phone, wanting to text Whitney and tell her that there was a Star Wars marathon on, and if she was still up, we could watch it “together.”

  Then I remembered that I didn’t have her number.

  Damn, maybe I was losing my touch. Considering she’d preemptively shut me down tonight, she’d probably say exchanging numbers crossed a line.

  I could always use the “just friends” angle. It wasn’t totally false, even if the “just” was a bit misleading. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a conversation with a girl where I wasn’t simply nodding at the right places, waiting for the conversation portion to be over so the kissing portion could start. It’d been a long time since I’d been attracted to a girl’s personality. Probably because I’d been hanging around the wrong girls, but they were less complicated, and I needed uncomplicated. Especially now. Dates would cut into study time and hockey time.

  Dates? Where the hell did that come from? I’m not going to start dating her, great personality or not.

  She’d just say no anyway.

  When she’d said “hooking up with a hockey player,” even though it’d been in the context of how she couldn’t, my mind dove right into the gutter. I’d wanted to yank her to me and kiss those lips that had mesmerized me all night until she couldn’t remember her rules.

  Dane barged into the room, the door slamming against the wall before swinging closed. “Bro, I saw you leaving with Whitney—you seal the deal?”

  I could lie. Then he’d leave me alone about it. Now that I was getting to know Whitney, thinking about my bet with Dane sent guilt pinging through me, each organ it hit suddenly heavy. I’d shoved away plenty of guilt in my day, so I shoved it back to hang out with the rest.

  “Not yet. See, unlike you, I know how to be smooth.” I made a big show of looking around. “Or did you bring home a girl, and she’s just invisible?”

  “Funny. Maybe I just got back from her place. Did you think about that?”

  “I might have, if you hadn’t added the ‘maybe.’ Besides, it’s been”—I glanced at my phone—“like, twenty minutes since I left. So if you did, you really need to work on your stamina, dude. Quickies are for amateurs.”

  If Whitney and I had hooked up, we’d still be in the midst of it. Images flooded my mind, of kissing her neck and undoing that bun, and desire heated my blood. Later I’d let my imagination run wild, but right now, I needed to calm down before I ended up with a hard-
on.

  “Whatever. I’m not listening to someone who came home alone himself.” Dane flopped next to me on the couch, making the cushions dip. “Why don’t you just admit defeat and hand over your Lundqvist jersey now?”

  “I’ve still got six weeks—not that I’m even going to need that much time.” There I went, digging myself in, nice and deep, instead of using the opportunity to climb out of the douche hole.

  The door swung open again, and as soon as Ryder stepped inside, Dane immediately shot up on the couch. “Guess what? He didn’t seal the deal.” At Ryder’s confused face, Dane added, “With the uptight reporter. Although, tonight she was actually pretty cool. Who knew?”

  I did, I wanted to say, and a predatory urge I’d never experienced before drifted up. Suddenly her earlier comments about hooking up with a “hockey player” were too vague. Me. No one else.

  Ryder shrugged, tossed his keys aside, and then headed up to his room without comment. The disappointed look on Dane’s face made me laugh.

  “Laugh it up,” he said. “That’s what I’ll be doing when I’m strutting around the place in my new signed Rangers’ jersey.”

  That competitive edge that usually helped me during hockey games, but screwed me over with pretty much everything else, rose to the surface. Regardless of the number Whitney was doing on my head, I needed to focus. With ineligibility to play a few failing grades away, and my goal of earning a sociology degree slipping through my fingers right along with it—not to mention the constant phone call reminders of what waited for me at home if I couldn’t pull it together—I refused to surrender that symbol of everything I hoped to be one day.

  I couldn’t lose that bet.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Whitney

  Another day, and another boring outfit. On top of that, I’d fallen asleep at my desk last night, and the crick in my neck wasn’t going away. Add the strain of carrying my laptop and all my books and there wasn’t any float-walking going on. I felt like a hot mess—strike that. Not even a hot mess anymore. Just a mess.