by Steph
His face must have shown his surprise because Scott nodded.
“I understand you and Cary have some history.”
Well, shit. Will made sure he didn’t look away and he didn’t falter. “We do. But that won’t be a problem.”
“Glad to hear it. I’m sure you’ll find some time to talk privately but let me just tell you, he agreed that you were the guy we needed after your name was floated.”
Now that was interesting. “Do you mind if I ask who that was?”
Coach’s smile spread. “You can thank our promotions manager. She put your name out at a staff meeting. She’s Doug Gardiner’s daughter and sometimes I think she knows the game almost as well as I do. She’s done great things for our marketing department but there are times I think she missed her calling. She’d make a damn good scout.”
Well, hell. How about that?
“I actually, uh, ran into her upstairs. She seems…nice.”
Coach nodded. “She is. And smart. She won’t be around long. Some NHL club’ll snap her up soon enough. Be a huge loss for the Redtails. Anyway, you’re bunking with Justin, right? Have you two met before?”
“Yes, but only briefly.”
Coach’s grin appeared again. “He’s a character. Great guy and a damn good player. Needs some polish, and I’m hoping you can help with that. I’m putting you and Justin together on the second line. He’s got skill but he’s not big and we need a big guy in front of the net.”
Being put on the second line was another shock. He knew the top defensive line of Marchenko and Mozik was white-hot at the moment but he’d been expecting third line because of his recent record. Which consisted of not a lot of ice time. And yeah, that had sucked. And made him doubt himself, which made him not play as well as he could.
The rest wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. He was a big guy and he knew how to use his body. But with the changes in the game in recent years, his style of play was falling out of favor.
Nodding, he waited for the rest of the speech. There was always more.
Coach lost his grin and his expression turned serious. “We’re looking for a leader on the ice, Will. That means controlling penalty minutes. You’ve had a problem with that in the past.”
Will held the coach’s gaze steadily. “I have but it’s something I’ve been actively working on.”
“I know, which is why you’re here. You and I have a lot more in common than you probably know, Will. Play hard but play smart. That’s what I need from you.”
Then Coach stood and held out his hand and Will rose to shake. “You’ll get it. I appreciate the opportunity.”
“And we’re glad to have you. Welcome to the Redtails.”
* * * * *
“Honey, I’m home.”
With a sigh, Jess dropped her bags on the chair by the front door then kicked off her shoes into the pile under the chair.
Saturday morning, like she did every week, she’d take that pile and put them back in her closet and start the process over again Monday morning.
A meow from the kitchen made her smile and change direction for the back of her town house.
“There you are. Sorry I’m late. I know it’s past your feeding time but if you want Mommy to continue to buy you food, then I’m going to be late occasionally.”
As she entered the kitchen, Jess saw Honey, her huge, battle-scarred former stray orange tabby, sitting on the counter. Where he was most definitely not allowed to sit.
Picking him up, she rubbed his head and snuggled her nose into his fur for as long as he let her. Then he leaped from her arms back onto the counter and stared at her.
Smiling at his regal stare, not at all ruined by his battered left ear and scarred nose, she dished his food and had just set the bowl on the floor when she heard her phone ring.
Her smiled widened when she saw the name on the screen.
“Hey, Dad. How’s it going?”
“Hi, sweetheart. It’s going. Got a game tonight in Nashville. Cold as hell here. Thought Nashville was supposed to be warm. Next week, Vancouver. I’ll need to wear three layers and I won’t even step outside the whole time. Hell, I’m going to request the Florida loop next time and screw Bill and his arthritis.”
Laughing, she started putting together her own dinner.
“So, I heard the Redtails signed MacDonald. You have anything to do with that?”
Suppressing a sigh, she rolled her eyes instead. “I guess you already know the answer to that.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. And you know I think you’re wrong. If he doesn’t work out, you can kiss any plans you have to be a scout good-bye.”
“You know that’s not gonna happen, Dad.” Now she did sigh. “And it’s not what I want. I love my job. You know that.”
“I know you’re good at it. But, sweetheart, we both know where your true passion lies.”
Well, shit. This was an old battle that she would never win. Mainly because there was no way any team would hire her to scout. She hadn’t played the game and she wasn’t the right sex.
And while her dad, of all people, believed she could be the one to break that wall, Jess knew it’d never happen. So she didn’t allow herself to even think about the possibility.
“So, Dad. Find any good new prospects?”
With a barely concealed sigh, her dad allowed her to change the subject.
And maybe she let herself silently consider a dream she’d never achieve.
Chapter Two
Will knocked on the door to his new apartment. Yeah, he had a key but he didn’t know his new roommate well, so…
From the other side of the door, he heard a couple of thumps that grew increasingly louder until the door finally flew open.
The guy standing on the other side had a towel around his waist and not much else. And he was dripping wet, shoulder-length brown hair streaming water down a broad chest covered with one spectacular black-and-blue bruise.
“Damn, thought you were the cable guy. Hey, I’m Justin.” He stuck out his wet hand. “You’re Will.”
“That’s me.”
“Come on in.” Justin stepped back, slid on the wood floor, probably because of the trail of water, and righted himself just before falling. “Sorry, thought I’d be out of the shower before you got here but I got tied up at the gym.”
“No problem.”
Will walked through the open door, lugging two huge duffel bags full of his belongings, shaking his head when Justin turned and headed toward the back of the apartment, grabbing for his towel as it started to slip off his hips.
“Your room’s back here on the left,” Justin yelled as he closed the bathroom door behind him. “Riley was kind of a neat freak so you should be good.”
As opposed to Justin, apparently. The common areas of the apartment didn’t look too bad but when Will glanced into the room across from his, he shook his head.
Holy hell. Justin’s closet must have exploded. Only explanation for the piles of clothes on every available surface.
With a shrug, he walked into his room. Place was spotless. Guess Justin wasn’t wrong about Riley being a neat freak.
Tossing his duffels on the floor, he sighed and fell on his back onto the queen bed. Home sweet home for the next however long.
Hopefully, he’d be here until the end of the season at least. Be nice if he lasted more than a season. He was getting too old to be moving all the hell over the country.
“Hey, a couple of the guys are getting together tonight for dinner at Jake and Lad’s place,” Justin yelled from the bathroom. “We’re hoping you’ll show.”
And there went his plans to spend the night doing absolutely nothing except sleeping.
But he recalled what Coach had said about him being a leader, and he knew he couldn’t say no. No better time than the present to get started on that.
Which is how he found himself surrounded by seven twenty-somethings, laughing his ass off with a beer in his hand a couple of hou
rs later.
“So I told him, ‘You need to check cooler. I think your dick is there.’ He was so drunk, he looked. I shit you not.”
Jake Mozik put his hand over his heart, his expression a study in absolute sincerity. But there was a gleam in his eyes that made Will laugh even harder. The guy was seriously yanking his best buddy’s chain to the amusement of the other guys in the room.
Jake’s linemate and butt of the joke, Lad Marchenko, just sat there, shaking his head, waiting for the laughter to die down so he could defend himself.
The two defensemen were tighter than knotted skate strings and played like psychic twins on the ice. Off ice, they acted like bickering teenagers forced to share a bedroom.
Will had gotten the rundown on the players from Justin on the way over. Jake, cocky but hilarious. Lad, Jake’s straight man with a dry, intelligent wit. Derek Flaherty, Boston Irishman and resident smart-ass. Ian Clark, youngest guy on the team with the most skill, voted most likely to be a virgin. Robbie Lindback, amazing puck handler with very few social skills and a stutter that made him almost silent, unless he was on the ice.
Dirk Bennett, stable and laid-back, and Tony Dellafranco, the excitable Italian, were both a little older than the other guys, but still eight years younger than Will. The age difference didn’t matter, though, because the language of hockey was universal among players, no matter where they were from. The guys had made Will feel at home, first by welcoming him and second by proceeding to rag the shit out of him. Mostly about his age, which didn’t bother him because he could give as good as he got. His ex-girlfriend would’ve turned up her nose and told him it was because he was the mental age of these kids.
Which was part of the reason she was the ex. There’d been other problems, like the fact that she was a cheating bitch who’d traded up for a career NHL player who’d been snowed under by her stunning beauty. By the time she’d left, Will had been damn glad to be rid of her toxicity.
And he actually pitied the guy who’d ended up with her because Will knew, sure as shit, she’d cheat on him, too.
While most of these guys were too young to be married, he wasn’t surprised when the conversation turned to women. Or rather, the lack of sex among all of them.
Apparently, since none of them had been getting laid, superstition had set in. And hockey players were insanely superstitious. Everybody knew you didn’t mess with a streak. If you weren’t getting laid and your team was winning, well, then, you did without until you started to lose.
“The only one of us who gets any is Franco, the bastard.” Jake motioned toward Tony with his water bottle. “He has regular girlfriend and gets laid before every game. The rest of us only love ourselves.”
As the rest of the guys cracked up around him and threw chips at Jake, Will shook his head and grinned. He’d already figured out that Jake deliberately butchered the English language for dramatic effect. But he couldn’t deny the guy was funny as hell.
But since Jake had brought up the subject…
“So I ran into Jess Gardiner today in the hall—”
A chorus of groans went up around the table.
“Dude, don’t even.” Justin shook his head. “You’re totally not gonna score there. Not ever. She’s really nice but you are so not gonna get anywhere with Miss Jess.”
Will frowned. “Miss Jess?”
Derek huffed out a sarcastic laugh, dark red hair falling over into his eyes as he shook his head.
“Man, she’s hockey royalty. You know that, right? The legendary Doug Gardiner’s daughter. Seems nice but she never gives players a second look off the ice. Probably thinks she’s too good for us.”
“She does not appear stuck up.” Lad leaned back into his chair as they all crowded around a table made for four. “But no one has cracked her case yet.”
“Or figured out how to get in her pants— Ow!” Derek rubbed the back of his head where Tony had smacked him. “What the hell, dude?”
“I’m not your dude and no wonder you can’t get a girl to go out on a second date with you. Your fuckin’ mouth is a disgrace. Grow the fuck up.”
“I’ve heard some of the other guys say she scouts for Coach.”
Everyone turned to Robbie like he’d returned from the dead.
“Holy crap.” Dirk huffed out a laugh. “Don’t use up all your words for the month at one shot. There’s still another three weeks.”
Robbie rolled his eyes and shot Dirk the finger, though Robbie’s cheeks turned bright red.
“No, no, he is absolutely right.” Jake smacked Robbie on the back, hard enough to make the guy pitch forward. “I hear same thing. She has good eye, they say. Knows more about hockey than most men in front office. I think she is very hot but lesser men could be threatened. I would not be threatened.”
“And you, my friend, have tried and failed.” Lad raised his beer at Jake.
“She mistakenly believes I am too young for her.” Jake shrugged. “Not a bad problem.”
“So how old is she?” Will asked.
“Probably too young for you, old man.”
Justin’s wide grin made Will laugh along with the table, but he had to wonder if Justin wasn’t right.
* * * * *
Jess had her head bent over her desk, her entire attention focused on the sketch she was working on Wednesday morning.
The team had a game tonight and she should be running down her checklist but she’d started this sketch and couldn’t seem to stop.
So when she heard a man say, “Apparently, I have you to thank for my job,” she gave a short, sharp scream and embarrassed the hell out of herself.
Her head shot up to find six-plus-feet of amused player standing in her doorway.
And when she caught sight of Will’s grin, she wanted to take the pencil in her hand and poke him with it. Nowhere that’d injure him, of course. The team needed him.
“Oh my god, are you seriously going to sneak up on me every time? I’m going to get you a little bell to wear around your neck.”
The damn man’s smile grew even wider and she had to admit it was a pretty nice smile. Totally transformed his face. She’d watched enough film to know Will’s game face was intense. When he was on the ice, he was all business.
She’d expected him to be as serious and intense off the ice as well so she was taken off guard by his easy smiles.
And, if she was honest with herself, she had to admit the damn man was sweetly adorable when he smiled. Maybe someday she’d tell him that.
Today was not that day.
“Blue’s my favorite color.”
She shook her head, trying to figure out what the hell his favorite color had to do with anything.
“And why do I need to know that?”
“In case you want to buy me that bell. I don’t want to make you mad at me every time you see me. And it goes with my eyes.”
Of course, that made her look even more closely at his eyes. Damn him, he had beautiful eyes.
Which meant absolutely nothing.
“Can I do something for you, Mr. MacDonald?”
Leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, he looked so at ease, she couldn’t imagine that this was a guy who had a reputation for being an enforcer.
Yeah, he was big but he wasn’t huge. He wouldn’t be out of place in a goalie uniform these days. Years ago, when her dad had first started scouting, goalies didn’t need to be the massive walls they were today. But back when she’d first started going to games with her dad, every team had a guy they called an enforcer. The guy you put on the ice when you needed to retaliate for a bad hit or you needed to rile up your team.
Will had been that guy for several teams, but in the past few years, the game had changed, at least at the NHL level, which had trickled down to the AHL. The fighters had gone by the wayside for the most part and the skill guys, the ones whose highlights you saw on SportsCenter, were more in demand than ever.
But you still needed guys like Will, the guys w
ho the team knew they could rely on to stand up for guys like Robbie and Ian, who skated like the hot shots they were but didn’t know how to land a punch to save their soul.
“Just wanted to say thanks.”
She frowned, confused. “For what?”
“For recommending me to Coach Scott.”
She blinked. Oh shit. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
He watched her so intently, she had a few seconds to wonder if Coach had actually told Will she’d recommended him.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you do know what I mean. What I find interesting is that you don’t want anyone to know.”
Shaking her head, she raised her eyebrows and tried to look…well, innocent. “Still not sure what you’re talking about but I’ve got to get this sketch finished—”
“So you do it but no one’s supposed to know about it.” Walking into the room, Will shut the door behind him and draped himself into the chair across from her desk. “Damn, that must suck.”
Refusing to give him the upper hand, she sighed and made a production out of dropping her pencil and leaning back in her chair. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be a good boy and leave.
And she had to admit, the view wasn’t bad. Like most players, he came to the arena for practice dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. But even in shapeless nylon and worn cotton, there was something about him that made her want to put her hands on his chest and pet him like a cat.
A little ping of regret hit her low in her gut because that just was not going to happen. Because no, he wasn’t wrong. It did kind of suck. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. MacDonald? Otherwise—”
“Well, first off, you can call me Will. We’re both adults. And I’m not that much older than you.”
The slight emphasis in his sentence made her look a little more closely at him. Was he actually asking how old she was?
Does he think I’m too young?
Shit, not what she should be thinking about.
“Okay, Will. Is that all?”
“Actually, no, it’s not. Come out with me after the game tomorrow.”