The Pilot and the Puck-Up

by Pippa Grant

“Your loss,” she says around a mouthful of food.

  I fucking love this woman.

  My mother’s practically in tears. “I’m so happy for you, honey,” she sniffles to me.

  Ambrosia rolls her eyes. “Congrats, asshole. All I got when I fell in love was a warning about getting arrested again.”

  Dad smothers a snort behind his newspaper.

  The rest of the pizzas are sausage or plain cheese, and we clean the shit out of those boxes. Once everyone else is so stuffed they can’t move, all sprawled out on my sectional, I pull out my frozen cookie dough balls.

  Yeah, balls. Heh. And I fucking made them myself. Secret family recipe.

  “Six or eight?” I ask Ares.

  He flashes two fingers, so I pluck out eight for each of us. He balances a dough ball on his nose. I snap a picture, set two in my eyeballs, and let him take a picture of me.

  Season’s starting.

  World’s got expectations.

  He smushes six of his balls into a log, presses the two remaining balls to the top, and puts his cookie junk sculpture where it counts.

  Yeah, that one’s going in Mom’s annual Christmas picture book.

  So’s the one of me that looks like I’m shitting cookie dough across my counter.

  “They were…interesting as children,” Mom says to Joey.

  My mom? Instant pass to heaven.

  “They still are,” Joey says. She’s been checking her phone every forty seconds. “Where’s his royal smiley ass?” she asks Ares.

  He shrugs.

  She pins him with a look that would make one or two of the rookies on my team cry, and they’re still fucking hard-ass hockey players.

  He grins.

  She makes a complicated hand gesture that looks like she’s asking for six fish to be delivered to the top of the water tower at midnight if he ever wants to see his chicken again.

  Ares goes pale.

  What the fuck?

  Joey tilts her head and crosses her arms.

  “Went out for cookies,” Ares says.

  “Fuck,” she mutters.

  “Break his dick?” Ares offers. He makes a hand gesture we all know that leaves me and Chase wincing, Mom crossing herself even though we’re not Catholic, and Ambrosia rolling with laughter.

  Pretty sure Dad’s asleep behind his newspaper.

  Joey sighs. There’s defeat darkening her eyes, which is a pretty fucking bad sign. She’s not saying anything out loud—not even looking at any of us—but it’s not hard to see what’s going on in her brain.

  She’s worried. Knows Gracie’s a grown-up. Can’t let go.

  Because Gracie’s hers.

  Joey takes care of what’s hers. I don’t know her middle name—fuck, I barely figured out Joey’s short for Josephine until a week ago—but it’s probably something like Loyal or Dependable or Don’t Fucking Mess With My People.

  “Wanna go find him?” I ask.

  Yes, her eyes say. “She’s a big girl.”

  “I’m sorry, did you just say Prince Manning is a girl?” Mom rubs her temples. “Men fornicating with pigs, my daughter in the slammer, and my sons beating up a bisexual hockey player. This year is going to heck in a handbasket…”

  “He asked for it,” I say. “Said Ares wasn’t pretty enough for him.”

  Ares grunts.

  Ambrosia cracks up again, Chase smiles one of those sappy lover smiles at her, and I suddenly want everyone to get the fuck out of my apartment.

  Because I hit the road with the team in a week. I’m out of town two days this week for pre-season games already.

  Even less time with Joey while Mom and Dad go home together, Chase and my sister go home together, and me and Ares dig into the grind of the show.

  He meets my eyes and nods. “Bedtime.”

  Way more going on upstairs than people give that fucker credit for.

  He pats Joey on the head, slugs Chase in the arm, noogies Ambrosia, and points to the door.

  I miss that fucker during the season.

  “You two disturb me,” Ambrosia says as she climbs to her feet.

  “You two too,” Ares replies.

  I snicker.

  Joey snorts but tries to stifle it. And fails.

  She’s so fucking everything when she smiles.

  Pretty isn’t the right word for it, because Joey isn’t pretty. She’s a fucking wonder woman.

  Mom hugs her. Don’t know if anyone else notices, but Joey’s eyes go shiny and she visibly swallows. Dad hugs her too, and now it’s time for everyone to get the fuck out, because I think my girl’s gonna lose it.

  And I’m not having anyone see.

  Ares notices though.

  He notices everything.

  He snags Chase by the collar and lifts him out of the chair, gives Ambrosia the you’re next if you don’t hurry your ass up look, and hustles everyone out the door.

  “Getting old, Ares,” Chase says affectionately.

  “Fucker,” Ares replies as I shut the door behind them.

  Joey’s disappeared.

  I find her taking deep, controlled breaths in the middle of my bed. Her knees are pulled up to her chin and she’s focusing on something on my wall.

  Meatball stain?

  Probably.

  I climb onto the bed behind her and dig my thumbs into the hard knots in her shoulders. Been a long day. Sucky game. Normal night after a game, I’d be about to crash on my face about now.

  But I don’t give two shits about me. Or the game. Or anything else.

  “We all got your back,” I say to Joey.

  “Why do you put up with me?” she whispers.

  “You see me.”

  Her shoulders loosen, and she leans back into me. “Everyone leaves.”

  “Not everyone.”

  She twists and looks up at me. Not at me. Into me. God, her eyes. There’s a whole galaxy in there. Strength and fears, balls and brains. “You won’t leave?”

  “Will you?”

  Her jaw tightens. I hit a nerve.

  “I don’t fucking walk out on the people I…care about.”

  I want to tell her the same, but she knows about the ten years Ares and I cut Chase out of our lives for screwing Ambrosia and getting her arrested. She knows it’s only been the last six months that I’ve seen my sister regularly again, even though I missed her ugly face a little more than I missed Chase.

  Words don’t mean shit.

  Action is what talks.

  “You know why I fucked around so much every season?”

  “Because that dick is a terrible thing to waste?”

  Yeah, I get it. Easier to not talk about it. Fuck, I hate talking too. Not like Ares does, but I’m still a dude. No talk is in our DNA.

  “Because I’m a fucking monster who’s too big, too loud, and too much of a freak to find forever outside of a circus or a zoo. Chicks don’t want me for this.” I tap my head. “Or this.” I tap my heart. “But you’re in both. To stay. I know what it’s like to stare down a lonely forever. You know what it’s like. I don’t want a lonely forever. I don’t want you to have a lonely forever. Not when we can have each other.”

  She studies me, those dark eyes taking everything in, weighing me, measuring me, deciding if I’m worthy.

  And I’m fucking holding my breath, because if I’m falling short anywhere—and fuck, I’ve fallen short everywhere with Joey—she’s gone.

  She strokes my cheek. “You’re not a monster.”

  My chest is swelling. Both because my monster heart’s getting bigger with every nugget of affection, and because it’s all hers.

  Every bit of it.

  “You might be the only woman in the world who sees through me,” I tell her honestly.

  A frown creases her dark brow. “Am I the reason you’re struggling on the ice?” she whispers.

  What? Where the hell did that come from? I’m shaking my head before I can find my voice. “No. No way.”

  Even sho
wing her vulnerable side, she can call bullshit with those eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m fucking sure.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Not because I’m avoiding the silent inquisition—she’s fucking good at asking questions with those hypnotic eyes—but because it’s torture to say it out loud. “I blew it in the play-offs last year. Tripped over my own two feet, took out two of my own guys, and we lost.”

  Ares sent her the fucking gif.

  Probably because he knew she needed to know, and he knew I don’t talk about it.

  She’s quiet until I meet her intense gaze again. “That was last year. Let it go.”

  Just like that.

  No bullshit. Let it go.

  She could do it.

  I should fucking do it too.

  I roll us so I’m pinning her to the bed. Her legs go around my waist, her fingertips go to my face, and I dip my head to kiss her.

  I love this woman.

  And I know she loves me.

  I don’t care if she never says the words. She doesn’t have to. It’s in her touch. It’s in her kiss.

  It’s in the way she comes to see me, sends me text messages, and calls to ask how practice went.

  Joey doesn’t bullshit around. She doesn’t stroke egos. She doesn’t waste time with shit that isn’t important.

  She’s here because she cares.

  It’s my job to make sure she knows that’s all I need.

  33

  Joey

  “There’s something different about you.”

  I look up from the notes on my flight brief this afternoon—our last day of being just two chicks with a flight adventure company before Zeus’s best friend invests a shitload of cash into setting us on a path to the moon—to find Peach leaning in my doorway. “There’s nothing different with me. How’s Meemaw?”

  “Flirting up a storm with the hot manny we hired to keep her in line. And you’re smiling.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m—”

  She holds her cell phone on selfie mode to my face, and I gasp.

  Fuck.

  I’m smiling.

  And I’m—dammit. I’m fucking pretty when I smile. Like Gracie. Eyes all sparkly, cheeks flushed, even my lips are rosy.

  I try to scowl, and now I look like I’m a sex kitten inviting the entire hockey team to come over to my place for cupcakes.

  Yeah, that kind of cupcakes.

  Because I’m not smiling over a business deal. I’m smiling with fucking hearts in my eyes. And now my nipples are popping lady boners.

  Fuck.

  I push Peach’s phone back at her. “Stop it. You’re freaking me out.”

  “Joey, my dear, you’re in love.”

  I’m aware. And it’s fucking terrifying. “I said stop freaking me out.”

  “Why do you think I waited until after your flight?” She plops onto the corner of my desk, bending her knee so her whole left leg is crushing my paperwork. Only her foot dangles over the edge. “Deep breaths, sugar-pie. This is gonna be okay.”

  “I’m not hyperventilating.”

  “On the outside.”

  Some days I hate my business partner.

  “You tell him yet?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Joey.”

  I know. I know. He’s told me he loves me dozens of times. Over me plowing through a carton of Ben & Jerry’s. When I bent over and gave him a view of my ass while we were goofing off in the gym in his building. When we’re falling asleep after one of the rarer and rarer nights that one of us sleeps at the other’s place, because he’s up to his eyeballs in hockey shit and the work keeps piling on here too as we get ready to take Chase on as a mostly silent partner.

  But I haven’t told Zeus I feel the same. Because once it’s there, you can’t take it back.

  The more you love someone, the more it hurts when they leave.

  I press my palms into my eyes. “Regular season starts in a week.” I barely recognize my own voice. “We’re about to be pulling eighteen-hour days here, and he’ll be traveling the country until at least April. Maybe June if the season goes really well.”

  And I’m terrified.

  I fucking hate being terrified. I don’t know myself when I’m terrified. I’m a badass. I was the mother my sister didn’t have. Served my years in the military. Defy gravity every single week.

  And I can’t say three little words to a man who’s constantly on my mind and has been since the moment he walked into that clubhouse.

  Because what if he ever stops loving me back?

  “No risk, no reward,” Peach says softly. “And, honey, love’s the biggest reward there is. Finding your person? That one in a billion who makes it okay for you to be you? If he didn’t walk away when me and Gracie kidnapped him with a battery-operated tarantula, you really think him being on the road is gonna change his mind about how he feels?”

  I drop my hands and stare at my business partner, suddenly contemplating murder. “You kidnapped him with a fake spider?”

  She doesn’t scoot her butt off my desk, cower in fear, or show the barest hint of remorse. No, she grins.

  She fucking grins. “He should really talk to someone about that arachnophobia.”

  “You have two seconds to get the fuck out of my office before I rack you in the lady balls.”

  “See? You’re still Joey, even when you’re in love.” She slides off my desk and steps out of arm’s reach. Out of leg’s reach, and out of my leaping range too. And don’t think I can’t fucking leap all the way to the door from this desk if I want to. “And you know what happens if he breaks your heart?”

  Fuck.

  The thought makes my chest squeeze so bad my lungs go inside out.

  “You heal, Joey. You remember the good times. You move on.” She pauses in the hallway. “And we break his kneecaps after we plant spider eggs in his bedroom.”

  I stand.

  We’re signing paperwork with Chase Jett tomorrow. We have forty billion things to do to get ready to take over the world.

  And Peach is right.

  She’s fucking right.

  I love Zeus Berger. And if anyone deserves to know he’s loved, it’s a man with a heart the size of the moon overlooked by the world as a big ol’ hockey-playing dumbass.

  I can do love.

  I can fucking do love like nobody’s ever done love before.

  I’m going to own the shit out of doing love.

  “Going somewhere?” Peach asks.

  “Shut up and go get your work done.”

  She’s grinning again. Just like fucking Manning. “You’re lucky I—”

  I stop in my tracks.

  Peach is my sister from another mister. My best friend. One of only two—three—people in the world who know me well enough to understand what a big deal love is.

  “I love you, Peach.”

  She blinks at me, and her eyes go shiny. “Shit, Joey.” She tackles me in a hug. “Took you damn long enough, you hard ass. Make sure you’re back before the lawyers get here, because you know what I’ll do if I have to entertain those boys myself.”

  “I’ll be here.” But first, I’m going to go get my man.

  34

  Zeus

  I hang up my phone and stare at it, like the call I just got from my agent is going to change if I stare long enough.

  But it’s not.

  The world’s spinning. I’m hunched on my sectional, knees wobbling, lungs heaving for air.

  Two months ago, this would’ve been fine.

  Two months ago, I would’ve been pissed. Both at the Preds and at myself, because I know this is my fault.

  I fucked up the play-offs. I’m fucking up training camp—even though I’m getting better this week—but it’s still my fault.

  Now I’m paying for it.

  New York’s better than Vancouver, but fuck.

  I can’t drive to Huntsville on an off-day from N
ew York.

  A key in my door startles me. I bolt upright, bang my shins on the coffee table, and I’m cussing a blue streak when Joey pops her head in. “Hey.” She’s smiling, but the way she shifts on her feet like she’s nervous sends a mix of not good roiling through my pulse. “Bad time?”

  They traded me to the Rangers.

  They traded me to the Rangers, and I don’t know when the fuck I’m going to get to see Joey enough.

  Fuck, I just had my bathroom redone. I don’t want to move.

  Tomorrow.

  Fuck.

  “Get your ass in here and kiss my booboos,” I tell her.

  Get in here and tell me we can work this out.

  Her smile fades. “You okay?”

  “Didn’t know you were coming. Only have a couple pounds of beef thawed.”

  Shut up. The way we eat, it’s a legit problem. Fuck, what am I going to do with all the shit in my fridge? They’re expecting me in New York in twelve hours.

  “I’ll order something,” she says.

  Because that’s Joey.

  Solving problems.

  I sink back on the couch.

  Joey can solve this.

  Please, Joey. Please solve this.

  She crosses the floor, phone in hand, but she’s not looking at it. “Zeus? What’s going on?”

  I grab her and pull her into my lap. Jupiter leaps to attention. She trails her fingers down the back of my neck, scratching lightly the way she knows I love.

  “Bad day?” she asks.

  I don’t want to say it. Saying it makes it real. I bury my head against her shoulder and breathe. She’s got this crazy cool scent—like flowers and hot dogs and a hint of jet fuel—and I need it.

  “Got traded to the Rangers,” I confess to the cotton of her Weightless T-shirt.

  Fuck.

  I know it’s business. It’s the game. But it still stings like being kicked out of your own family. I’ve been with the Predators for six years. I fucking picked them when I was a free agent.

  “You…” Joey’s fingers stop. Her whole heart stops. I can fucking hear it, and it’s not beating. “When?” she whispers.

  “Report tomorrow.”

  Her entire body goes rigid.

  Not the good, I’m having my brains fucked out and I’m going to come so hard the fucking moon feels it rigid. That was last weekend.