One More Shot (Hometown Players #1)

by Victoria Denault

  I click on Luc’s name next. The pictures are much more compromising than Devin’s. Mostly girls Luc kissing girls at bars or walking in and out of road-trip hotels with a variety of girls—sometimes more than one at the same time. A shot of him shirtless, standing on top of a bar holding a pitcher of beer in one hand and a short blonde’s ass in the other, makes me roll my eyes. I don’t read the stories, but there are quite a few. I feel like I don’t want to know about Luc because I don’t want Rose to see me look at him any differently. She’s been crushing on him since she knew how to crush.

  Then I do what I came here to do to begin with—I click on Jordan Garrison’s name. The thread is seventeen pages long. Seventeen! Luc’s was only five and Devin’s was two. I start to feel cold despite the cozy blanket I’m under and the warm booze I’m sipping.

  The next hour is a blur of stories and pictures—Jordan making out with two girls at once at a bar, Jordan making out with a girl in a cab, Jordan groping a willing girl in an alley outside a club. Jordan lowering himself into a hot tub across from two girls. The girls are topless and Jordan isn’t wearing a suit—I know because his half his bare ass is visible. The stories are graphic and, sadly, I can confirm from my own knowledge that a lot of them are true. They describe his anatomy, the noises he makes and the way he moves with a clarity that brings back my own memories. Every single post seems to scorch little holes in my heart, like cigarette burns, but I don’t stop reading. I click on the newest one, which was posted while he was in Silver Bay throwing himself back in my life. It’s from username JustJackie111 and starts by thanking a previous poster for telling her the Winterhawks players like to hang out at the Barnacle down on the waterfront near the arena. Then she explains how they showed up after a preseason game and how adorable Jordan looked limping around in his air cast. She talks in great detail about the flirting and the drinking and how he invited her to some other player’s condo after the bar closed. She then goes on to talk about the various positions and how many orgasms she had. She ends her kiss-and-tell session with “You girls were SO right! He does not disappoint!”

  Under her little blurb is a selfie—of her giving a thumbs-up, lying in bed next to a sleeping, clueless Jordan, the sheets barely covering his naked body.

  “Actually, he does disappoint,” I argue at the unknown girl like a pathetic loser.

  I log out of the website and close my laptop with a loud smack. I head to the kitchen to make another, stronger blueberry tea and wipe at the one tear that has managed to escape, despite my willpower, and slide down my cheek.

  Callie did me a favor. This guy—the one on this site—I don’t want him in my life.

  Chapter 15

  Jordan

  I lace my skates for morning practice while my teammates yammer around me. Despite meeting the coaching staff the morning after they got in from the road trip, running drills for them and then practicing with the team yesterday, Coach still said I would be a game-time decision. I was frustrated. I needed to get back on the ice. Hockey was the only thing in my life that made me feel right. It used to be hockey and Jessie, but then I lost Jessie. It had been hockey and only hockey ever since. This was the first prolonged amount of time I didn’t have it—couldn’t have it—and that, coupled with her reappearance in my life and her complete and repetitive condemnation, was making my life pretty much a living nightmare. I had to play tonight. I just had to.

  “Oh my God! There are two hot pieces of ass out there!” Alexandre announces as he wanders into the dressing room.

  “You’re late, Larue,” Avery Westwood, ever the team captain, chastises him lightly.

  “Sorry, I got distracted by les belle filles,” he says with a lascivious wink.

  Alex resorts to his native French whenever he’s making excuses or lying his ass off. I think he thinks it makes him seem adorable. Chicks seem to think so anyway.

  “Why girls here?” Igor asks in his broken Russian-English.

  “I don’t know.” Alex shrugs. “They’re talking to the trainers. They’re smoking hot!”

  “What do they look like?” our goalie, Mike Choochinsky whom we affectionately call Chooch, wants to know as he pulls his practice jersey over his head.

  “There’s a tall blonde with a big rack,” Alex explains excitedly. “And then there’s the other one. Tiny but with a phenomenal ass. She is the reason yoga pants were invented.”

  “Brunette?” Chooch asks. “I like brunettes in yoga pants.”

  I grab my stick and check the tape on it.

  “Chatains rouge.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I ask, not because I care about the girls but because I’ve never heard the French words he just used.

  “Umm…” Alex is at a loss for the translation.

  “Chestnut and red,” Pierre, one of our French defensemen, pipes up as he gets up to head for the ice. “She has auburn hair.”

  I turn and stare at him and then Alex.

  “What?” Alex asks confused by the look on my face.

  “Great ass…” I repeat his words.

  “Yeah, man. Like perfect.”

  “What is she doing here?” I wonder aloud, knowing without a doubt that he just described Jessie.

  “You know her?” Alex asks.

  I leave the dressing room without giving him an answer and head down the hall.

  I peek into the training room but no one is there. When I make it down the tunnel to the rink, Mick, Tori and Jessie standing together in a huddle by the bench. I hit the ice and skate over toward them.

  “Garrison!” Mick says as he sees me coming. “You remember Tori and Jessie.”

  “Yeah, of course.” I try to keep my voice relaxed and unaffected.

  “They brought me the notes on your treatment,” he says as he holds up a file folder. “I invited them to watch practice.”

  “Great! Well, enjoy, ladies. Good seeing you again.” I keep my eyes on Jessie the entire time, even while I skate, backward, across the ice to join the rest of my team who are filtering onto the ice.

  Practice is light. Coach takes a lot more time with me than the others. I know his style—he’s diligent. He wants to make sure I’m ready, not just physically but mentally. I do everything he asks and say everything he wants to hear. I need to play.

  “Okay, Jordan, looking good,” Coach finally says with a flicker of a smile on his road-worn face. “I’m leaning toward yes. Let’s talk after practice.”

  I smile and skate over to the bench to grab my Gatorade. I suddenly feel happier than I have in months. Chooch is standing by the bench with his own water bottle. He looks at me and smiles deviously.

  “Larue wasn’t kidding, huh?” he says, and his eyes move to the girls sitting a few rows up from the bench. “They’re fucking hot.”

  “Yeah.” I say feeling that tight, cold clench in my gut I used to get when Chance would talk about Jessie in our high school locker room.

  Chooch puts his water bottle down and his eyes grow wide as he nudges me. “Oh! She’s moving. Look at that!”

  I glance over and watch Jessie make her way down the stairs. She’s moving fast and her perky little chest is bouncing lightly as her hips move side to side. Chooch makes a low appreciative growling sound, and it makes me think of the years and years I had to hear this from Chance and my other high school teammates. I like it even less now.

  Jessie reaches the bottom step and, without looking at me, turns and heads down the tunnel, giving Choochinsky a perfect view of her backside.

  “What a tail on her!” Chooch whispers. “Magnificent.”

  I shove him a little harder than I should. “That’s her. The girl I told you I knew. From home.”

  Chooch thinks hard because, clearly, my fucked-up love life is not noteworthy to him. Finally, his eyes flare in recognition. “That’s her?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow, man…I can see why you want that back.”

  Before I can respond Coach calls o
ut and points to the net. “Chooch, in the cage! Shoot-out drill! Hurry up, the Storm has the ice in fifteen.”

  I glance down the tunnel where Jessie disappeared and wonder where she went as I skate over to take my shots on Chooch.

  Chapter 16

  Jessie

  I’m making my way out of this place and away from Jordan’s sexy, sweaty body and intense, sultry stare. Watching him out there, doing what he was born to do, what I’ve watched him do his whole life, was…hot. More than that, it brought up all the feelings I had for him when I used to watch him in high school, like adoration and attraction. And those warm feelings began to war inside me with the cold reminder of why they went away in the first place. It was too much. I needed to get away. I need to clear my head and think, but I’ll be damned if I can find the goddamn door I came in. There’s a whole bunch of other exits, but none marked 14B, which is the one I’m looking for. I don’t want to try a different one in case I get even more lost.

  As I follow the curving hallway, I hear a lot of rowdy male voices and I falter. It’s got to be Jordan and the team coming off the ice. I spin and start walking in the opposite direction.

  “Jessica?”

  I know the voice, but it’s not Jordan. He doesn’t call me Jessica unless he’s joking or trying to annoy me. I spin around and find Chance standing there in a slim-fitting charcoal suit, deep purple tie loosened just slightly at his neck. There’s a guy behind him with a camera and he’s holding a microphone. I realize he must have been doing an interview with a player. His ice-blue eyes are smiling at me as he hands the microphone to the camera guy and tells him he’ll meet him upstairs.

  “I have to say I’m surprised to see you here,” he says once we’re alone.

  Awkwardly, I blurt, “I’m working.”

  I know what he’s thinking—that I’m here because of Jordy. And in a way I am, just not in the way he must think.

  “I don’t care why you’re here. I just want a hug.”

  I hesitate. But then I remember how cool he turned out to be back in Silver Bay after the funeral. I hadn’t wanted him there, but when I burst into tears and started bawling after Jordy stormed out, it was nice to have someone to hug me. And that’s all he’d done. Hugged me and told me it would be okay.

  When I’d calmed down, we’d actually talked. A couple years ago, Chance had found me on Facebook, and I’d accepted his friendship. We sent a few emails, catching up on each other’s lives, but that trip to Silver Bay was the first time we’d had a long, in-person conversation since high school. He told me about how hard it was to not make the NHL but how much he was enjoying his job covering games as a reporter. And he apologized for what had happened with Amber. I told him about my job in Seattle and assured him the Amber thing was old news. I appreciated his apology but I’d forgiven him long ago. What I didn’t tell him was that I should have thanked him for cheating on me. I’d been dating him for all the wrong reasons, and the cheating made me realize that.

  So, now I walk over and hug him. He squeezes me hard and lifts me off my feet.

  “You’re working for the Winterhawks? I thought you were at a private facility,” he says, leaving his arm resting on my left shoulder as he looks down at me.

  “I am, but we were hired to rehab Jordy.” I give him a look that says I know how ridiculous it is.

  He laughs loudly. “So, did you rehab the beast? Is he playing tonight?”

  “They’re calling him a game-time decision, but my money is on yes.”

  He looks serious for a minute. “Well, here’s hoping he does something stupid so I can talk about it on national television.”

  I furrow my brow. “Come on, Chance. That feud between you two should be over by now. You’re both adults.”

  Chance gives me a smile that says he’s not buying what I’m selling. “I have a feeling seeing me show up in Silver Bay might have pissed him off.”

  “If he’s mad you came to support an old friend, he’s an idiot. He did the same thing.”

  “Jessica, I’m not stupid and neither are you,” Chance begins softly, his eyes narrowing. “Garrison’s had a thing for you his whole freaking life. He came to your grandma’s funeral for more than just friendly support. He came for you. He still wants you. You’re a prize he never got to claim.”

  Chance lifts his hand again and cups my face.

  “And Jordan’s pissed because he knows I went back to the Bay for the exact same reason.” Chance takes a step toward me “To try and get you back.”

  “What?”

  Chapter 17

  Jordan

  I wasn’t even looking for her.

  I had just assumed she’d headed back to work. Why would she want to stick around and watch me practice? She had done that a million times before as kids and she always seemed bored by it—and that was when she could stand me.

  I’m heading to Coach’s office, as per his request, to get the final yes or no about playing tonight.

  I wasn’t thinking when I headed west through the bowels of the building. I was just looking for the quickest route, and the fact that the media would probably be wandering that same hall after doing game-day interviews with our opposition hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  But then I look up just in time to see Chance standing in front of Jessie. His head is bent forward and his hands are on her face. It looks so intimate, and suddenly I feel seventeen again—and not in a good way.

  The way he’s got his hand against the side of her face makes me tingle with rage. I walk right up to them, ignore him completely and stare down at her. “I thought you were leaving.”

  She blinks up at me, stunned by my tone. I can tell I’ve hurt her, but I’m hurt too. Seeing her with him, here, hurts. Realizing she may have left my practice to go find him hurts even more.

  “Gee, this is a surprise.” Chance winks at Jessie and smirks at me. “Relax, Garrison. You can consider her my guest right now.”

  “This isn’t your arena. You don’t get guests,” I snap, and stare him down. I take a step toward him.

  “Chance, just go,” Jessie begs from in between us. She reaches out and places a hand on each of our chests. “I’ll leave, Jordan. Just back down.”

  “You need to let it go, buddy. Move on. Give it up,” Chance says to me, and rolls his eyes like he’s really annoyed.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to be letting go of?” I snarl.

  “Her,” he clarifies, and gets a cocky gleam in his weird-ass eyes that are so light they look see-through. How Jessie ever thought that was hot, I’ll never know. “She doesn’t want you that way. She never has. After all these years, you think you would have figured that out.”

  I shake my head and smirk at him. “Is that what you think?”

  “I know it,” he replies confidently. “She hates you.”

  “Chance!” Jessie says angrily. “Stop.”

  “She hates me now, fine. But did you ever bother to ask yourself why, Echolls?” I say, taking another step closer to him. I feel her hand fall away from my chest, and she takes a sharp breath, but I don’t look down. My eyes stay on him.

  “Because you freaked out like a fucking stalker,” Chance replies with a look that says he’s convinced that’s the truth. “That night I brought her home from work, you lost it because you knew she didn’t want you. Even after she dumped me, she still didn’t want you.”

  Something in me snaps. After all these years, all this time, his superiority still gets under my skin, especially when it comes to Jessie. I’m so filled with rage I get tunnel vision, aware of nothing but his smirking, arrogant face. My brain shuts down but my mouth doesn’t. “You never fucking loved her. You wanted her because all the guys thought she was hot and you wanted to be that one, the first to nail her. But she was too smart to take you back. And guess what? Even if she had, she wasn’t going to give it to you. ’Cause she’d already given it to me.”

  “You fucking asshole,” Jessie whispers, and stu
mbles back away from us. Her quivering voice breaks the bubble of rage I was in, and as soon as I see her cheeks tinge red and the watery look to her eyes, I realize I fucked up. Again.

  “Jessie, I didn’t mean…” It feels like slow motion but it isn’t. In seconds, Jessie turns away from me and runs down the hall at the exact same time Chance raises his fist.

  He goes to punch me, but I’m expecting it. Hell, if it was me hearing this, I would swing too. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him do it. Jessie deserves to punch me over this, not Echolls. I duck but he swings again and lands one on my cheek. Fuck, he’s gotten stronger.

  I want to hit him back but I know I can’t—not here. So I grab him by his suit jacket and try to shove him backward. I stumble, my left fist still tangled in his jacket. Someone yells. I hear feet slapping the concrete as people run to break it up. As he leans in to hit me again, he slips and crashes into me with his full body weight. I start to fall backward, with Chance coming down on top of me. I reach back to stop my fall, my right hand landing on the concrete floor to brace myself. I know right away it’s not a good angle. And then Chance falls down on me and my hand takes all the weight of both our bodies. I feel a lightning bolt of white-hot pain flash up my forearm. Oh fuck.

  And then Mick is yanking Chance off me and Seb is there, helping me to my feet. Chooch is there too and he lunges at Chance, shoving him and threatening him, like he would if I was punched on the ice. Teammate until the end. I’d thank him but the pain in my wrist is all I can think about. That and the fact that Chance is telling everyone he’s going to report that I attacked him on national TV.