by Avery Flynn
She let out a sigh. “I’m still gainfully employed, but I have been warned that my off-duty behavior does reflect back on the hospital, so I better watch it.”
Gina gasped. “Did they even care that the jerk put his hand on you and went into Creepy Dude Zone on Tess?”
Fallon shrugged. “Not so much.”
“I hope they get eaten by defrosted zombies,” Tess said as she added some green to her zombie’s bald head. “How did anyone even find out it was you?”
Now wasn’t that the sixty-million-dollar question. “My guess is someone at the hospital saw it on social media and ratted me out.”
The security guards at the arena had been nice once they reviewed the closed-circuit video feed, but by the time she’d gotten out of there, the whole thing was all over social media—not that that was the post-punch part of the night that had danced around suggestively in her subconscious as she slept. Oh no, that number one spot had been taken by one Zach Blackburn of the amazing chest and blinding biceps.
“Well,” Tess said. “At least you got a new sweatshirt out of it.”
Fire. Fallon’s cheeks were on fire. She clamped her mouth shut before she could add the fact that she’d slept in it last night—only because it was super warm and soft on the inside. Obviously.
Gina twisted in her seat and leaned over so that she was practically in front of Fallon’s painting. “Fill me in.”
Copying the other woman’s move, Tess scooted so that she was blocking the other half of Fallon’s painting. That meant all she could do was hold her hand under her brush covered in blue paint so it wouldn’t drip all over her jeans as her friends discussed her in low tones as if she wasn’t even there.
“I walked into the office to find our Fallon wearing a certain tattooed hockey player’s sweatshirt while he stood very close to her wearing only a pair of sweatpants that did pretty much nothing to disguise that he was thinking very hard about her.”
That wasn’t what had been happening. Fallon knew better. She definitely wasn’t the kind of supermodel girlie-girl who Zach Blackburn got worked up over. She was just the Crocs-wearing, scrubs-owning, cherry-Chapstick-is-my-makeup-routine woman he confusedly thought was his Lady Luck. And that was exactly why she’d sworn her bestie to secrecy.
“Tess,” she said with a groan. “You promised not to tell anyone.”
Tess sat back on her own stool and started back in on her zombie’s head. “We share a bestie bond with Gina. That doesn’t count as speaking out of turn.”
Fallon narrowed her eyes at the other woman, AKA her sister-in-law. “Don’t you dare tell Ford.”
“Are you kidding?” Gina shook her head and chuckled. “You and Zach Blackburn were all he could talk about after we got home from the Hartigan lunch the other day. If I told him this, the Hartigan family gossip bat phone would never stop ringing.”
Fallon’s gut sank. “I really need to move out of Waterbury. My life would be so much easier.”
Maybe there was an island somewhere that didn’t have cell phone reception or an airport that she could run away to in the dark of night.
“Are you kidding?” Gina snorted. “You’d miss Tess, Lucy, and me too much to ever do that. Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me everything about this hot kiss.”
Flames singed Fallon’s cheeks again. “There was no kiss.”
It wasn’t a lie. There hadn’t been. All of the snap, crackle in the air around them, the oh-my-God-yes reaction of her body, and the feel of him beneath her fingers. That had been all there was to it.
“My timing sucks,” Tess said with a sigh.
“Your timing was perfect.” And it had been. Really. For sure. One hundred and eleven billion percent.
After Zach left, she and Tess had hustled from the arena and out to the car amid cries of “Oh my God, there she is.” The whole experience had cemented her decision to never ever do that again—or go to another game until everyone forgot about Lady Luck, which was a crock of crap anyway.
“I’m sorry your work is being a bag of dicks,” Gina said, refilling their plastic glasses with wine from the bottle that Larry had just learned to leave by their painting stations. “That sucks.”
“So when are you going to another game?” Tess asked.
Fallon took a deep breath and turned all of her attention back to her painting, adding a little blue to the edge of the glacier. “I’m not.”
Yeah, this was exactly the conversation she didn’t want to have, not even with her besties, because the truth was, she wanted to go. She wanted to be the one who helped pull the Ice Knights—okay, specifically Zach—back from the brink. She couldn’t help it. It didn’t have anything to do with the kiss that wasn’t, no matter what her subconscious had tried to tell her during her steaming-hot, makes-you-come-in-your-sleep dreams last night.
Reviving people and bringing them back to who they were before fate had hit them with the bad luck stick was a simple definition of her job. It’s what she did. The problem was that she liked it a little too much, like she kinda wanted to just lose herself in that aspect of it, and that was a feeling she wouldn’t—couldn’t—give in to ever again.
“Is this about that girl,” Gina asked, her question soft and empathetic.
That girl. Fallon didn’t need more explanation than that. All three of them knew exactly who they were talking about, hence the concern in Gina’s question.
She put her paintbrush down in the water because she couldn’t hold it steady anymore. “Her name was Carson.”
“And you did everything you could,” Tess said, reaching out toward Fallon and then stopping, her hand hanging in the air between them.
Fallon let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, bracing herself for her friend’s sympathetic touch. It was the one thing she couldn’t take at the moment. It had always been so much easier to give comfort than to receive it.
Tess gave her a sideways smile as she dropped her hand back to her lap. “You can’t fight everyone’s battles for them.”
“But I want to,” she said, her shoulders sinking.
Gina gave her an encouraging, understanding smile. “If only we always got what we wanted.”
And that was the pain-in-the-ass factor of it all. If she could, then Carson would have gone to treatment the first five times Fallon had talked to the young mother at the Beacon clinic about her options. And if she’d done that, then Fallon wouldn’t have had to help as one of the ER docs at St. Vincent’s tried to save Carson’s son’s life after the toddler had found his mom’s stash. Sure, she wasn’t a social worker and couldn’t have done anything beyond advising Carson to go get help and having Child Protective Services open a file, but still, if Fallon could have fought that addiction battle for Carson, she would have. She would have fought that battle for Carson and her son.
Maybe things would have turned out differently, just like she was hoping they would this time with Zach. He might be lashing out in a different way, but he was hurting as much as Carson had—hence the self-destructive habits and snarly attitude. Fallon couldn’t shake the idea that maybe this time she could make a difference, she could fix this for him—and there was nothing scarier than that hope.
…
Zach padded around his big empty kitchen while two talking heads on the TV argued about whether his playing had turned a corner or if last night’s game was just a fluke. Really, he should be used to people talking about him like that by now. It came with the job—a sort of play on the genie in the kids’ movie who talked about his enormous power and teeny-tiny living space. But unlike the genie, Zach had no wish to break free of his bonds.
He wanted to play hockey. It was all he’d ever wanted. But now that it seemed like his skates weren’t covered in toxic sludge, he didn’t want to go back to playing like shit again.
He needed his Lady Luck—that’s why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. It wasn’t because of how he’d made the second stupidest mistake
in his life by almost kissing her in the security office. It definitely wasn’t because he was kinda pissed at himself for listening to reason on that. And most assuredly, it wasn’t because he’d spent the night wondering if she was still wearing his hoodie. She could wear it every day or burn it in her backyard, he didn’t give two shits as long as his luck didn’t turn.
She’d promised him one game. He needed more.
He grabbed his phone off the island and opened his contacts. She was right there under Zach Ate More Tainted Muffins. Yeah, that wasn’t going to do. He tapped on edit and changed the contact name to Lady Luck. Then he stared at it. Yeah. That made him sound like a twelve-year-old. He was not doing that. He shortened it to LL and tapped start message.
Zach: We need to reopen negotiations.
LL: You better not be ditching the appearance.
Zach: Nah, I’m there. Need you at more games.
The talking heads on TV had moved on to football, but he could barely hear them over the blood rushing in his ears. He needed her to say yes.
LL: Negotiations, huh? You wanna get your agent on the line?
He laughed out loud, the rusty sound bouncing off the bare kitchen walls. She was such a smart-ass.
Zach: I can take care of it myself.
LL: Okay. Tell me what you want.
What did he want? That seemed like a bigger question than he had an answer for at the moment. So he kept it simple.
Zach: Pre-game phone calls when I’m on the road and you show up in person to home games.
It took a couple of beats after he hit send, but the three dots in the comment bubble finally appeared.
LL: I do have a job, and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be at your beck and call like that.
Fair enough, but that’s how these negotiations went. His first contract had started off with his agent at the time asking for millions more than he as a rookie was worth.
Zach: So now is when you counter.
LL: Is that how negotiating works? You make an offer and I counter offer?
He didn’t need Fallon here to picture her body language at the moment. No doubt she had her arms crossed, one hip popped out, and a no-shit-Sherlock expression on her face. This is what he got for trying to be nice for once?
Zach: Do you always go for the sarcasm?
LL: Do you always treat people like they’re dumb?
Okay, that had all just escalated way too quickly. Instead of shooting off another text, he hit the info button and then call contact. It rang. And rang. And rang again. Finally, she picked up right before it would have gone to voicemail, but she didn’t say anything.
“I was not meaning to call you dumb,” he said, the words coming out in a rush because he spent most of his time getting out of having conversations—not trying to get people to engage. “I’ve just been through a billion negotiations. It’s not a me-Tarzan-you-Jane thing.”
“Sorry, I’m a little sensitive with all of the comments about how unacceptable I am that people I don’t even know are leaving all over social media.”
Shit. He was hoping she hadn’t seen them. He had. There was a whole man-hands meme going around, a poll on one of the social media sites asking if women like Fallon emasculated men, and a Photoshop challenge to give her a virtual makeover.
“I’m sorry.” And he was. Also? He was a selfish jerk for needing her to put herself out there anyway. If there was any other way, he wouldn’t, but everything was riding on him playing like he was now—and he’d find a way to protect her from the social media attacks. He just needed time to strategize.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re not the douchebag telling me to get my eyebrows threaded and you didn’t punch the guy out.”
“But I would have.” Hell, he still wanted to. “Making sure people know they can’t mess with my team is pretty much in my job description.”
She laughed, the sound a relief after the tension in her voice before. “Whatever, Zach.”
He paced a circle around the island, psyching himself up for what came next. There was pretty much nothing in the world he hated more than relying on someone else, but there was no getting around it. He needed Fallon.
“That brings us back to our negotiation.”
“Does it?” she asked.
“Yep.” He nodded as if she could see him. “So what’s your counteroffer?”
“No.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. That wasn’t how this went. He gave an option, she gave an option, and they kept going back and forth until they met somewhere in the middle. It was a negotiation. That was how these things worked. She had to give him something to work with. There were rules, playbooks, and game plans.
“That’s your counter?” he asked, incredulous. “No?”
“You got it.”
He could just picture the self-satisfied look on her face while she wore his hoodie and nothing else. Wait. Where had that last bit come from? He didn’t care what she was wearing—or not wearing. It didn’t matter.
“That’s not fair.” And that was the lamest of responses, but his brain was seriously fumbling for a way to respond after the mental image of his sweatshirt stopping just below her bare upper thighs.
Fallon snorted in his ear. “Neither is life.”
Shoving aside the picture of her walking with long strides so the hoodie moved higher with each step, he forced his brain back to the negotiation at hand. She may have thrown him for a loop with her “no” response, but this was hockey, and until the buzzer went off there was always a way to make a play happen. He just had to figure out which way to deke.
“I’ll have my counteroffer tomorrow at the fundraiser,” he said, resuming his circles around the kitchen island. “I even promise to be nice while I’m there.”
“You better, the clinic needs the funds badly. You’ve got to smile and everything.”
He didn’t bother to try to bite back his groan—he was, after all, the most-hated man in Harbor City. There was no way he wouldn’t end up with at least fifty people telling him he sucked. “This is going to be painful.”
“Just remember Baby Shark.”
“You’re evil.” That song had been in his head the entire first period last night.
“Don’t I know it,” she said with an exaggerated mwahahahaha laugh. “Night, Zach.”
“Night, Fallon.”
He hit the end call button, a smile on his lips, but a nugget of dread in his belly. He had to persuade her to keep being Lady Luck. Sure, it sounded dumb even when he didn’t say it out loud, but he couldn’t argue with the results.
With Fallon, he played like he did in the beginning—like it was all just for fun.
That’s what had made the difference.
Once he got her to agree, he’d make sure security kept an eye out for her at the arena, and he’d get with Kyle’s assistant to put a stop to the shitty social media posts. Lucy would see the things he’d missed, and he’d make sure those things were covered, too. There was a way to make this work for him and for Fallon. Maybe he could get the other guys on the team to make an appearance at the clinic during the next fundraiser. God knew everyone in Harbor City loved forward Cole Phillips—and for good reason. That guy was going to end up in the Hall of Fame someday.
He was still pondering when his phone vibrated with a notification. Since the whole Reese’s Pieces vs Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups debacle, he’d started to keep a closer watch on his social media.
Notification: Get Zach’s Lady Luck’s Effortless Style
He clicked. It was a story from the High Heeled Wonder, a local Harbor City fashion blogger, detailing Fallon’s outfit at the game last night with buy links for her jeans and shoes. That started him off on a rabbit hole of posts about his Lady Luck. Yeah, some of the comments were super critical, but the vast majority of them were supportive. Someone had already started a #TeamZuck (Zach + Lady Luck) Instagram account. That was weird, but just maybe there was a way to use all this fan energy.
The idea hit him like a high stick to the orbital bone. It was a high risk, high payoff play. But knowing Fallon’s snarky, take-no-prisoners sense of humor, she’d find the whole thing hysterical. Without giving himself a second to overthink his plan, he turned on the camera to do a live Instagram video and clicked start.
“Hey all! I just want to say thank you for your support of the Ice Knights and let you know that tomorrow I’ll be at the Beacon All Access Clinic in Waterbury for a meet and greet carnival fundraiser to help raise money for this amazing clinic. Come on by, hang out with me, and help the clinic meet its fundraising goal.”
And if he had any non-Lady Luck mojo, this would put him in the perfect position to score when it came to finishing the negotiations tomorrow.
Chapter Eleven
The Beacon clinic was tucked away on the border between a middle-class neighborhood and one where the cracked windows weren’t always replaced but fixed in a long-term way with clear packing tape instead. Zach’s Uber slowed down in front of the clinic ten minutes before Fallon had told him to show up. People, most of them in Ice Knights gear, were lined up down the block and around the corner.
“Damn, man,” the driver said. “Think they’re here to stone you or take pics?”
“Probably both at the same time.” The crowd looked friendly, but they always did until he got within a few yards and things turned growly. He’d been hoping for a good turnout, but he hadn’t been expecting all this. “I’ll give you an extra ten to drop me off in the alley.”
“You got it, man.”
The driver did, zipping his sedan down the alley and stopping in the employee parking lot behind the clinic. Zach pulled his baseball cap down low and hurried over to the back door. There was a keypad but no handle or intercom.
Shit.
He got out his phone.
Zach: Help. I’m at the clinic back door.
LL: Why?
Zach: There are a million people out front. How could you have missed that?
LL: Holy crap. Just peeked out front. Hope we have enough hot dogs and balloons.
Zach: Can you let me in the back?