Lexie’s pen stopped. She opened her mouth to ask if Marie had lost her mind when the arena dimmed and T.I.’s “Bring Em Out” blasted through the speakers. Blue and green lights swirled on the ice below, and the announcer said over the music, “Get ready, Seattle, for your Seattle Chinooks!!!” From the decks below, wild cheers filled the arena as the team stepped from the tunnel and onto the empty ice. They skated from end to end, tightening the circle with each pass. Lexie’s gaze landed on number 36 as he stopped at the players’ bench and stepped inside. She bit her lip to hide a smile as the lights came back up and the music died. The announcer listed the names of the referees and linesmen, then called out the Ducks starting lineup.
“Boo!” Marie yelled. Like Lexie, Marie had been raised around the Chinooks and knew all the insults. “You suck pond water.”
The roar of boos and insults turned to cheers when Seattle’s front line was announced.
“Number 36 . . . winner of the Conn Smythe and Art Ross trophies, Sean Knox!”
His team picture and stats flashed across the jumbotron as he skated to the centerline.
“Impressive.” Marie pointed her glass of wine toward the ice. “But I noticed he’s never won the Lady Byng for sportsmanship.”
A live feed replaced the photo, and he raised one hand in a single wave. His green eyes looked upward, and the usual dark scruff covered the lower half of his face. Lexie’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Holy balls, Dale,” Marie uttered.
Sean was handsome and could take a girl’s breath with just a smile. His touch made her skin tingle and made bad thoughts bounce around her head. “Holy balls” pretty much covered it all, and there was only one thing left to be said, “You’re Dale. I’m Hank Hill.”
“Call me Rusty,” Marie laughed.
Everyone rose for the National Anthem, and Lexie put her hand over her heart as it played. She’d discovered that Sean was an ASPCA member, and he liked Yum Yum enough to let her lick his jacket. More importantly, Yum Yum liked him enough to rest her head on his shoulder and stare up into his face. People thought Lexie and Sean were in love and made a perfect couple, but it was a lie. One she needed to remember.
“Where were we?” Marie asked when they took their seats again.
“When?” If she ever forgot, she was afraid she just might end up beneath him again.
“When you were outlining your memo.”
“Oh.” Now she remembered. “You think I should say something nice about the other women.” She took a sip of her wine, then added, “I’d rather get stung by bees.”
“Yeah, but you gotta do it or you’ll seem like a bitch.” Marie took a drink of merlot as she watched the puck drop. “I mean, look at it from their point of view. You didn’t have sex with him, yet you still won anyway. You got the ring and the big puffy dress that they all wanted. Then you ditched the groom at the altar and ran away with a superhot hockey player. For all they know, he swooped you up and flew you off to get reacquainted on the night you were supposed to start your honeymoon with Pete.”
The idea of starting up anything with Pete made Lexie’s nose wrinkle, and she highly doubted she would have consummated the marriage. As for what went on when they were taping the show—her lawyer had gone over every bit of the contract she signed before she appeared, and there hadn’t been anything in it saying she had to ever have sex with Pete.
Her thoughts were interrupted by action on the ice below. Paul Letestu passed the puck across the ice. In one fluid motion, Sean skated forward, pulled back his stick, and one-timed it on Badaj’s stick side. The Ducks goalie deflected it and the whistle blew.
“Try and think of one thing nice about each girl.” Marie pointed to the notepad. She was clearly not letting this go. “Create a subsection under Gettin’ Hitched bitches.”
Of the many things that Lexie and her best friend had in common, their love of detailed memos was near the top of the list.
Lexie figured that title was apropos. She’d been hurt and astonished, actually, by some of the things the other women had said behind her back and didn’t believe she owed them anything at all. “I don’t know where to even start.” Marie was right, though. Being nice cost her nothing. Looking like a bitch could cost her a lot.
“Start with Cindy Lee from Clearwater. Find something nice to say about her.”
Hmm. Cindy Lee had said Lexie never worked a day in her life. “How about, ‘Cindy Lee isn’t as big a bitch as Davina from Scottsdale?’” Davina had told the confession cam that Lexie looked like Sasquatch with dark roots. “Or that Summer’s teeth aren’t quite as yellow as corn.”
Marie frowned. “You’re not getting the point of this on purpose.”
Once more the whistle blew and it was game on again. Lexie’s gaze skimmed the ice, but she didn’t see number 36. “I get it. I just don’t like it.” She looked toward the Chinooks bench and saw him sandwiched between other players, their attention rapt as they pounded their sticks on the board, chewed on their mouth guards, and spit between their feet. Her dad stood behind them with the other coaches, their arms across their chests, their gazes lasered in on the players passing the puck and dumping it behind the goal.
The two men in her life. She counted on them both. One she loved and trusted with her life. The other she wasn’t even sure she liked. She couldn’t even trust him to follow the carefully outlined, super-easy memo she’d given him.
The whistle blew and the game stopped. “Crazy Train” pumped through the arena and the camera operator panned the crowd, stopping on Lexie and Marie and zooming in on their faces. All aboard, hahaha, Ozzy laughed. On all four fifteen-foot screens, she gave a little wave and smiled.
Another mission accomplished.
Chapter 11
•love is a battlefield
The retrofitted DC–9 took off over Seattle within a blinding ball of morning light. Almost at once, seventeen window shades lowered on the aircraft as it headed into the rising sun and a five-game, nine-day road trip. Twenty minutes into the flight, the seat belt light went off and coats and blazers were stowed in overhead bins, ties loosened, and breakfast was served from the catering service hired to provide the special diet for twenty elite athletes, coaches, and staff. While some of the hockey players ate omelets and bacon and hash browns, Sean stuck to a bowl of oatmeal, Greek yogurt topped with blueberries, and a vanilla whey shake. Each loaded up on carbohydrates and protein to begin the game-day process toward an optimal energy build. Their individual diets were dictated by years of conditioning and team nutritionists, but most of all by superstition. Adam Larson ate sausage but wouldn’t think of allowing bacon to pass his lips, on account of the 2010 final against the Rangers when he’d been carried off on a stretcher from a groin injury after the pre-game meal of a bacon sandwich. KO didn’t eat dairy, and Sean refused Gatorade on account of a neutral zone spew at the Air Canada Cup Nationals when he’d played in the midget league.
After breakfast, Sean pulled out his phone and watched game tapes of the Red Wings defensive line. When Howard was hot, he locked low and wide and committed with split-second timing. When he was cold, he hung out in the blue ice and lost angles and opened up holes. The question was, how to make a hot Howard turn cold?
“Hey, Knox.”
Sean lowered his phone and tilted his head to the right and glanced a few rows down the aisle into left defender Butch “The Butcher” Ferguson’s red-bearded face.
“Look what I found on my porch before I left this morning.” He handed something to Brody in the seat behind him. Brody passed it along to Adam, and he dropped it on the table in front of Sean.
Love on Ice. He looked down at the local section of the Seattle Times and the bold title just above the picture of him and Lexie. The photo of them sitting on the couch in his condo took up half the page. They both smiled into the camera, looking relaxed and natural. Seeing it, no one would notice the underlying tension or guess that it was all a lie. No one bu
t him knew that he’d tried and failed not to think of her naked the whole time. His arm around her shoulder had made him remember how she’d felt against his chest. Sitting next to her reminded him of how she’d looked sitting on top of him, the dip of her waist, her big breasts, and the deep blue of her eyes. Wild and the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He’d remembered how she’d felt, too. Soft and warm, their skin sticking together in the best places. She’d felt so good and tasted even better.
The photographer had captured a beautiful angle of her face, and Sean was relieved that he had a goofy look on his face. He unfolded the paper and read the caption beneath the photo: “I got a note from a mutual friend that Sean was waiting for me.” Lexie on why she left Pete Dalton at the altar. “He signed it with a little heart.”
The blood rushed from Sean’s head and the corners of his eyes pinched. Fuck.
“Sign my copy with a little heart,” the left defender said before his booming laugh filled the plane.
“Eat me, Butch.” Sean shoved the paper back down the row. It got as far as two seats before Tim Kelly paused to read it. “I never met a celebrity before.”
Just when he’d passed the new-guy hazing phase, this. He glanced toward the front of the plane to see if John had overheard the conversation. The only thing he saw was the sleeve of the coach’s shirt and part of one hand flipping through game tapes on his laptop.
“I met Adriana Lima at a Victoria’s Secret show,” Chucky bragged. “Never did get an article written about my love life, though.”
This wasn’t his love life. Sean pushed a big grin on his face like he wasn’t the least bit bothered by the story or the razzing. “Maybe you’re not as pretty as me.”
Brody upped the ante. “I met Scarlett Johansson after a Kings game a few years back.”
“Was that when she was dating Sean Penn?” Stony wanted to know.
“Why does that matter?”
“He put the dirty hippie taint on her,” Stony said. “It’s hard for a girl, even a girl like Scarlett, to recover from something like that.”
Several players laughingly agreed.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t do her because she dated Sean Penn?” Brody asked.
“No. I didn’t say that.”
“I met Milla Jovovich,” Adam boasted.
“She’s badass in Resident Evil,” KO said, and the conversation turned into a competition of who’d met the hottest celebrity.
Henrik Frolik, so fresh from the Czech Extraliga, said something, his accent so thick, no one understood a word. No one but ten-year veteran Martin Rozsival, who looked at everyone and said, “Petra Němcová.”
“Ah.”
“She’s hot, Henrik.”
Henrik nodded, and it was the next player’s turn. “I met Emma Stone at the last Spider-Man premiere.”
“I met January Jones when I played for the Rangers.” Paul upped the ante by adding, “And Kate Upton.”
“Kate Upton’s hot.”
“Did you see the picture of her cutting off her own shirt?”
“Yeah. Jesus.”
“I met Gordie Howe.”
A reverent hush fell over the plane. Meeting Mr. Hockey was better than meeting Gretzky or Messier or both. Better than three courses of Petra, Emma, and Scarlett, with a side of Kate Upton.
For the next few hours, the team settled in with their electronic devices, watching movies or game tapes or playing Big Win Hockey. The plane touched down in Detroit just before eleven a.m. A freezing wind whipped the tails of Sean’s coat and stung his cheeks as he walked from the plane to the waiting bus. A light snow flurry swirled around his dress shoes and he lifted his shoulders against the cold.
“Knox.” John Kowalsky caught up to him, his coat open and collar unbuttoned, seeming impervious to the cold.
Sean stopped and turned toward Lexie’s father, waiting. He and Lexie had stuck mostly to the truth the night they’d talked with her parents, but he was sure the newspaper article had dredged up a few more questions that Sean didn’t feel like answering. Mostly because he hated lying to John.
“Howard is sitting at 1.8,” he said over the wind as they moved toward the bus. “Decent. He’s worked blocker saves, but when he goes paddle down, he leaves his five open.”
“I saw that, too.”
John looked across his shoulder at him, creases fanning the corners of his eyes, with something that looked like a bit more respect. “I think if you go top shelf, you’ll find air up there.”
Sean liked this John a hell of a lot more than the man who’d called him a hotdog to his face and a nancy-pants behind his back. Guilt twisted and coiled inside his chest as he waited for the coach to mention the newspaper article and Lexie.
“That thing that happened the other night in my office.”
Sean had been waiting for this and mentally squared his shoulders.
“You keep your head in the game. We’re going to table that other thing.” John cleared his throat. “For now.”
The team loaded on the bus and John didn’t mention it. He didn’t say a word about Sean and Lexie when they all met for lunch and loaded up on pasta before the game.
Taking the ice in Detroit always tested a player’s ability to focus. The wave of boos and pelting insults surging from the Red Wings fans threatened to get inside a guy’s head and knock him off his game if he let it.
The insults from the players weren’t much better, but at least could be addressed.
“You want this? Huh?” the Detroit enforcer asked Sean as he tied him up against the boards. “You don’t want any of this.”
“You should have retired already.” Sean pushed back, fighting to keep his eyes on the puck. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
In the second period, the Chinooks were up a point and the insults got more personal. “You know the difference between your girlfriend and a walrus?” a Red Wing chirped as he jostled for position in the face-off circle. “One has a mustache and stinks like fish, the other is a walrus.”
Sean laughed as he easily hooked the puck and sent it cross-ice to Chucky. Sean knew for a fact that Lexie didn’t have a mustache and smelled like peaches.
Over the next two games, Sean took a few more insults directed at Lexie. It was part of the game and didn’t bother him. The same could not be said for Ozzy Osbourne and “Crazy Train.” Each time the song pounded through the arena, it filled his head with the memory of Lexie’s big beautiful breasts.
On day seven, the team landed in St. Louis, winning by two points but losing Butch due to a high stick to the cup that doubled him over and dropped him to the ice. As he lay curled on the ice, whistles blew, gloves dropped, and players mixed it up in the corners, resulting in a combined fifteen penalty minutes and a four-on-three advantage. Sean took three shots on goal, each deflected by Rask.
He took his place in the face-off circle in the end zone and crouched with his stick across his knees, waiting for Paul to get situated inside the circle across from the Blues center.
Blues defender Marty Holt bumped Sean’s shoulder as he took the spot next to him. “I almost didn’t recognize your girlfriend with her back shaved.”
If Sean had been in a good mood, he would have laughed. Lexie had a beautifully smooth back. Too bad he was pissed off, frustrated, and feeling the pressure to get one in the net while they still had the advantage. “You’re a slow dusty fuck.” He put his blade on the ice and kept his eyes on the puck suspended in the referee’s hand mid-circle.
The puck dropped and Paul dug it out from the other man’s stick and fed it to Sean. He passed it behind him to Chucky just before Hutchison hit him hard, but if he thought he could knock Sean off his skates, he was doomed to disappointment. Sean pivoted free in time for Chucky to shoot it back. He cushioned the puck in the curve of his blade, faked a wrister, but pulled a backhander out of his bag of tricks, finessing the puck between the goalie’s pads. The red light flashed and the goal horn blew. Some of the pressure li
fted from Sean’s shoulders as he lifted his stick in the air. At once, his teammates surrounded him and slapped him on his back and shoulders with their big gloves. “How’d you like that one?” he called out to Hutchison as he skated to the bench, bumping gloves with the other Chinooks.
“Suck it, you overrated pigeon.”
Sean laughed and looked up at the scoreboard. They were up by one point. He’d feel a lot better if it was two. He sat between Paul and Jay Lindbloom, a rookie so fresh his game beard looked moth-eaten.
“That was a beauty, boys,” John said from behind him.
Sean squirted water into his mouth and looked over his shoulder. The coach’s attention was fixed on the ice but a smile curved his lips. Sean swallowed and bumped knuckles with Chucky.
Being up by one wasn’t enough to satisfy the Chinooks’ bloodlust. The hits got harder, the verbal abuse more caustic.
“Good one, Lenny,” Stony called out, heckling the Blues winger when his pass bounced off his teammate’s left skate.
“Yeah, if you’re trying for the worst pass of the year,” Brody added.
With a minute left in the game, KO hit the Blues front-line forward, who had the misfortune of falling on his ass in front of the Chinooks bench.
Paul hit his stick on the board as the whistle blew. “Are you going to sit there and cry, little girl?”
Sean leaned forward and looked down at the guy, who’d raised himself to one knee. Before playing for the Chinooks, Sean had been on the receiving end of a KO hit and knew what it was like to have the enforcer knock the breath right out of his lungs. That didn’t keep him from saying, “Show some class. Get up, you fucking sissy.”
“Yeah. Show some class, you donkey baby.”
Sean looked across his shoulder at Jay. “‘Donkey baby?’”
The rookie shrugged his shoulders inside his big pads.
Sean and Paul laughed as they stood and scissored their legs over the board, onto the ice. Thirty seconds later, the horn blew and Sean was more than happy to put the game behind him. In the locker room, he took a hot shower, warming his muscles and soothing the hard hits to his body. The team’s assistant coach informed everyone that Butch was on the injured list and was expected to stay there for at least two more weeks.
The Art of Running in Heels Page 16