Making a Play

by Victoria Denault

  I shake my head. “No, she lives in Seattle now.”

  “She’s shacked up with Jordan,” Luc offers helpfully.

  “Jordan Garrison?” Bri’s blue eyes get wide and I know she’s one of them—a puck bunny. There are a lot in Silver Bay, Maine. We produce a lot of hockey players so we produce a lot of girls who want to ride them all the way to the bank. “Lucky girl!”

  “When did they start dating?” Adam asks because, just like everyone who grew up with us, he probably knows that Jessie and Jordan had a few long years of not even speaking.

  “Physically, this year. Mentally, I think they’ve been together since high school whether they wanted to be or not,” Luc answers and I nod. He’s right. Jordan and Jessie were together even when they were apart.

  I casually eye this Bri girl and her blond friends, who all look so envious they might as well be turning green. I will never understand girls like them. I grew up poor and essentially orphaned. I wanted my adult life to be drastically different. But I still valued true love over financial security or social status. Callie made fun of my idealistic views on love and Jessie was amused by them, but I honestly believed in Prince Charming and a fairy-tale ending.

  “So, Rosie, wanna let me hand you your ass?” Luc winks and points to the pool table.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m willing to let you try.”

  He hands me a cue and motions for me to break. I lean over the table and do just that. I sink two balls off the break—a stripe and a solid, which means I can pick which color I want.

  “What’ll it be?” Adam asks, watching us as Bri walks over and sits down next to him at the table.

  “Stripes,” Luc answers for me. “Rosie is always stripes. Because there are no polka dots.”

  I laugh.

  “What?” one of the blondes asks, her ponytail swishing from side to side as she looks at Luc and then me and then back at Luc for an explanation.

  “We started playing pool when we were thirteen,” Luc explains to everyone, leaning on his pool cue, his bicep bulging sexily. “Our friend Kate’s parents had a table in their basement. Rose thought that there should be polka-dot balls instead of solids, because it would be cuter.”

  I roll my eyes but at the same time I’m touched he remembers that. Bri laughs a little too loudly at that, a perky grin on her face. “That would be cute!”

  As we play our game, though, the casual conversation between Luc and me turns inadvertently private. Bri, Adam and the others are unable to keep up and move on to their own discussions. We talk about Callie’s new gig as the wardrobe assistant on a pilot for a teen drama, how big Devin and Ashleigh’s son Conner is getting, and Cole and Leah’s upcoming wedding. We’re laughing and joking and it feels good. Eventually, it comes down to the last ball. I sink the eight ball, but the white falls in with it.

  “Damn!” I moan.

  “I win!” Luc says confidently.

  “By default,” I remind him, trying to take the cocky smile off his face.

  “Still counts.” He grabs the back of my neck, gently, and kinda just holds on. It’s old-school classic Luc and it makes my skin tingle.

  “Rematch?” he asks. “You can try and get your pride back.”

  I laugh and am about to take him up on it when Bri calls his name.

  “Luc, it’s almost midnight,” she says with a slight whine to her voice. “I gotta work tomorrow and I was wondering if you could do me a favor and drive me home. Adam is taking Jamie and Tasha.”

  He glances at his watch and then at me. “You want a lift home?”

  I shake my head. The idea of being in a car with him and this girl is not at all appealing. His expressive brown eyes narrow a little as he questions, “How did you get here?”

  “Esmeralda. I don’t need a ride.” In a low voice only Luc can hear, I add, “You can take your fan club president home.”

  “Meow,” he whispers with a chuckle and I smile despite myself. I was being catty. He hugs me. “Watch the drinks. No drunk cycling.”

  I laugh and kick his butt lightly as he walks away. Adam and the others wave good-bye and I walk back to the bar to join Cole. His cherubic face is smiling.

  “You and Luc are adorable together,” he tells me. “You’re like twins or something.”

  “Great.” I roll my eyes. The comment actually hurts. I’ve never wanted to be seen as his sister. Not by him or anybody else. “Another beer, bartender. And make it snappy.”

  Chapter 2

  Luc

  Twenty minutes later, when Rose stumbles out of Last Call—and she truly is stumbling—I’m sitting on the hood of Claudette, my beloved 1957 Chevrolet Cameo pickup, with my arms crossed and an I-told-you-so smile on my lips. She sees me right away and stops stumbling. Her almost coal-colored eyes focus on me as her long, near-black, pin-straight hair blows around in the wind.

  “I knew you’d get shit-faced.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asks, a little bit of anger slipping into her words. “Where is Bri?”

  “I drove her home.”

  Rosie doesn’t say anything. She simply walks past me toward her bike, which is chained to the drainpipe on the side of the building. “The bar is technically closed but if you go in, Cole might give you one more anyway.”

  “I’m not here for a beer, Rose. I’m here to drive you home,” I reply.

  She keeps unlocking her bike. It’s not just that I think it’s ridiculous that she rides her bike in the middle of the night on dark rural roads. It’s that her bike is a ridiculous excuse for a bike. It’s this old 1970s Schwinn painted a weird teal with an actual banana seat and long, rolling handlebars that have rainbow tassels hanging from them. It had belonged to her mother when her mom was a teen. She dug it out of the barn when she was still in high school and she’s been riding it ever since. And as if it wasn’t ugly enough, she named it Esmeralda.

  It was cute during daylight hours when she’d ride it to the lake or to town. I would get calls every now and then because the chain fell off or she’d get a flat and I’d have to bail her out, which was fine. But at night, drunk, on dark roads, it was stupid, not cute.

  “I’ve got a ride.”

  I knew she’d say that. She glances over her shoulder at me and I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively and say, “Let’s take your ride and stick it in my ride.”

  A smile crawls over her pretty little face even though I know she doesn’t want to give in to it. I hop off the hood of the truck and walk over to her. She’s just finished tossing the lock into the stupid wicker basket attached to her handlebars when I pick the bike up and start carrying it away.

  “Luc! Stop!”

  I ignore her and lift it into the back of the truck. When I turn around she’s standing right behind me, arms crossed.

  “Rose, you’re too drunk to even stand and glare without wobbling.” I try not to smile. “I’m not letting you try and ride all the way home. It’s like a twenty-minute bike ride and it’s already after one in the morning.”

  “I’m not a child,” she mutters, staring at the ground between us. “You always treat me like a kid.”

  She’s right, I kind of do. There’s more than one reason for that. One being that I still see her as that small, fragile orphaned girl who needed protecting, and the other reason is because she’s no longer that and thinking about her as the sexy, smart, full-grown woman she’s become is dangerous.

  “You’re doing me a favor,” I explain softly and wrap an arm around her shoulder as I gently guide her to Claudette’s passenger door. “I used you as an excuse to ditch Bri when she invited me into her apartment.”

  Rose makes a face at that, which I ignore and continue. “I was only hanging out with those girls because Adam has a thing for Tasha and she and her friends are huge hockey fans. He used me to impress them.”

  Once she’s in Claudette’s cab, I shut the door and lean in the open window so my face is close to hers. Her big dark eyes are intoxicating.
She’s having one of those Rose moments where she looks like she’s seeing something about you that you haven’t even discovered yet. Seriously, this girl has been ruffling my sense of security with looks like this since I was a teenager.

  I clear my throat, push myself off the window and make my way around the truck. Once I’m in the driver’s seat, Claudette’s engine roars to life and I ease her out of the parking lot. Rose still has those eyes stuck on me. “Are you back with Nessa?”

  “What? No. That’s definitely done,” I confirm and think about my ex-girlfriend for the first time in over a month. Nessa and I had been a thing for almost two years and I hardly missed her. I doubt she missed me either. That’s why I call it a “thing”—we were definitely something, but in love wasn’t it. And that was just how we had both wanted it.

  “I just… I mean you’re not with other girls and if you’re single…” Her sentence is left hanging in the cab between us.

  “I should be out there playing the field? Like Jordan did when he was single?”

  “Hopefully not exactly like that.” Rose wrinkles her cute little nose at that and it makes me smile. “Jordy was… an overachiever.”

  “You are adorable when you’re being tactful,” I tell her, and even in the dim light of the passing streetlamps I can see her blush.

  “But seriously, if you’re not with Nessa, then what gives?”

  I don’t respond right away. Claudette careens quietly down the dark, empty streets. Silver Bay is peaceful and serene, as always, and it fills me with a sense of calm I never have anywhere else. Being with Rose does that, too. I glance at her quickly and then shrug instead of answer. I don’t know how to explain my new philosophy on relationships and I kind of don’t want to because explaining it would also mean admitting failure.

  She smiles a little bit but I don’t know why. I’d ask her but I’m not sure I want to know so we drive in silence a little while longer, until we’re out of town and on the rural road that leads to the farmhouse she grew up in. The one my best friend now owns.

  “How is the Europe plan coming along?” I ask because the silence is starting to feel heavy.

  “Good. We leave September first. We’re going to start with a couple days in Paris and then I’ll go with Kate to Cap Ferret for a couple days. Her job starts September twelfth so I’ll probably leave then,” she explains, staring out the passenger window at the dark town beyond.

  “So you’re coming back here after that?” I ask. Rose graduated from the University of Vermont this year and she has said she wants to go to grad school but she’s taking this year off first. Her best friend from high school, Kate, was starting a teaching job in France and Rose was going to go with her for a few weeks.

  She nods absently. “I guess. To be honest, I was thinking of maybe going off on my own European adventure after that. Maybe head to Spain or Italy. Do my own ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ year.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” I admit and glance at her. “But the idea of you alone in Europe kind of scares me.”

  “Why do you try and take care of me?”

  I furrow my brow. “I don’t know… because I worry about you.”

  “Because you see me as a kid?” she questions softly.

  “No.”

  I glance over at her again as I carefully turn up the long, narrow, dirt driveway to the farmhouse. She’s staring at me and biting her lower lip; her brow is furrowed like she’s deep in thought. Claudette rumbles up the driveway and I pull to a stop near the barn.

  “Looks like Jordan and Jessie are asleep,” I murmur, looking through the windshield at the dark house.

  “Or still christening the house,” Rose mutters.

  “Nah. They’d keep the lights on for that.” I wink at her and that sexy pink hue crawls up her cheeks again.

  I open my door and jump out. She does the same and follows me to the back to retrieve that Esmeralda hunk of junk. I place it gently on the ground between us. She looks up at me in the dark; her eyes feel warm on my face.

  “I’m not a child anymore, Luc,” she whispers softly but firmly. “I can spend a few months or even the whole year traipsing around Europe by myself, sleeping with every hot Spanish, French or English guy I meet if I want to. I’m an adult.”

  I know I make a face when she mentions the sleeping around part and I don’t even care that she sees it. “Of course you can. And I can worry about you. Europe’s a dangerous place for American tourists. Didn’t you see that movie Hostel a few years ago?”

  She smiles at my absurdity. “That’s not a documentary, you moron. It was make-believe.”

  “Could happen.” I grin at her.

  She shakes her head, wisps of dark hair catching and dancing on the wind. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I could handle it?”

  She reaches for the bike, leaning toward me, bringing her face so close to mine that my vision blurs. We stare at each other for a long moment; the wind spins gently around us, taking a lock of her hair with it and whirling it around her face. I reach out and gently push it back, my fingertips grazing her cheek and temple.

  “I’m taking a break.” I’m not sure if I’m telling her or reminding myself of this.

  She steps back almost like my words caused her to stumble. My brain scrambles to find a way to make her understand without revealing every sordid, humiliating detail. “Taking a break from women… for a while.”

  “Because of one overdramatic model?” She looks so utterly confused and… adorable.

  I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “Because I have to get out of this slump. I have to do better next year and women distract me from hockey.”

  Her eyes take on a soft, knowing look and her mouth sets in a pretty little line and I know she knows what I’m talking about. I know she’s seen the photos and the articles and the drama that was the last few years of my life. As Nessa’s career got bigger, our casual thing became gossip mag fodder. Vegas wasn’t a place with a large, rabid hockey fan base, but when a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model shows up at the games in a sequined pink jersey, well, people started paying attention to the team, but for all the wrong reasons—and to me for those same wrong reasons. And it affected my game, and my relationship with the team’s management. I didn’t realize that until it was too late… or at least it feels too late now. I hope it’s not.

  “Not all women are distractions,” Rose counters in a squeak more than a voice. “Jessie doesn’t distract Jordan. Ash doesn’t distract Devin.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I blurt out and instantly regret it. Rose may not be a child anymore but she definitely has niave views on love. I always told myself I didn’t want to be the guy to give her the painful reality check that would inevitably come, which is another reason why I never let anything happen with us. “Jordy and Dev handle it well, but they’re distracted by their relationships every now and then.”

  “But if it doesn’t adversely affect—”

  “Jordan’s fight over Jessie with Chance last year caused him to be injured and miss games, remember?”

  She bites her lip at that because she can’t argue. It’s a fact. “And Dev missed four games when Conner was born.”

  “He had a baby!” Rose says incredulously.

  “Most guys miss maybe a game, but Ash demanded he miss more,” I reply and take a heavy breath. “Look, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be in relationships. I’m just saying I shouldn’t. I’m the one who hasn’t made the playoffs since I was drafted. I’m the captain of a team that keeps getting worse every year instead of better. I’m the one with trade rumors floating above my head this summer.”

  She nods, nothing more than that, then takes Esmeralda and walks toward the house. After leaning the bike against the porch railing she gives me a small wave and disappears inside. I feel a weird mix of relief and remorse.

  It might make me a jerk, but I’ve always gotten an ego boost from Rose’s crush on me. She’s one of the sweetest, kindest
, smartest girls I know. But I’ve always known we weren’t right for each other, because we want different things from a relationship. I wanted sex and no strings and she wanted romance and commitment. I would never risk our friendship when I knew anything more would end in disappoint and heartbreak for her. And even though my relationship strategy had caused me professional issues, I knew the answer wasn’t jumping into a committed romance. It was staying the hell away from women altogether.

  Chapter 3

  Rose

  I wake up to the sound of laughter somewhere in the house. It’s joyful and melodious and I realize it’s coming from my oldest sister, Jessie. Half of me is elated by the sound. I love Jessie. She’s truly one of my very best friends. She’s also my hero. She was the only reason I didn’t end up in some psycho foster care situation when Grandma Lily decided to retire—from her job and from raising us—and move to Florida when I was just fourteen. Jessie ran the household in Grandma’s absence. Jessie made sure the school didn’t find out we were on our own. When Callie took on the role of chef and tried to keep us fed, Jessie made sure she didn’t burn the house down. Jessie is amazing and I was glad she was back for the summer. I couldn’t wait to spend time with her. Jessie had avoided Silver Bay like the plague since high school. We saw each other once or twice a year, either in Vermont where I went to school or Seattle where Jessie worked. One Christmas we even went to visit Callie in L.A. But this was the first time since we were teenagers that we’d be spending most of the summer together and I was looking forward to it. More important, she and Jordan had found each other again. I knew from the time I was very young that Jordan and Jessie were meant to be together. I wished for it for them before they even knew they wanted it.

  I hear a deep male voice speaking but can’t make out the words as I roll off my stomach and onto my back. The male voice must be Jordan. After all, this is his house now. I love Jordan like a brother, so a big part of me is thrilled to hear the sound of his voice too. I hear his baritone laugh at the same time Jessie also laughs again. They’re so happy. Finally.