Wildcat

by Rebecca Jenshak

  “Oh, I know that smile.” Cadence tries to peek over my shoulder, and I sidestep so she can’t see the screen. “Who’s the new guy?”

  “What did I say about not dating until your thirty?” Dad winks as he comes into the kitchen carrying his and Mom’s plates.

  “It’s Jade. She got a job with a local magazine, and that rule went out the window when this one got married at twenty-three and knocked up at… How old are you these days? Twenty-nine?”

  “I’m twenty-six, and you know it.”

  Cadence is not thrilled about creeping closer to the thirty mark, and I like to tease her about it any chance I get.

  “You met a boy?” Mom asks. We’re now all crowded into the very space I came to escape.

  “Boys are idiots,” Dad says. “Thirty. That’s about the time they start acting like men.” He’s still pissed at Rhyse. My parents only met him once, but he made a great impression. He always does. He puts on his media face—charming grin, saying all the right things, personable, likable. And it isn’t even fake. He loves his job and meeting people, being in front of a crowd. He was meant for a life in front of the camera.

  Cadence laughs softly. “I need to get going. I’m so tired these days, and I have to be in court first thing in the morning. The gift bag has an adorable I heart my grandparents picture frame in it with a photo from my first ultrasound.”

  “Oh!” Mom rushes for the bag and her first glimpse of the little bean.

  There’s a lot of oohing and ahhing over Cadence before she can get out the door, and then it’s just the parents and me again. Dad goes to his office with a promise that he won’t be long (We all know that’s a lie.), and I help mom clean up.

  “Don’t forget we have the party for the team tomorrow,” she says as I start to leave the room.

  “Do I need to be here?”

  “I think it would be nice,” she says. Translation: yes. Most girls would be dying to attend a party with a bunch of pro hockey players, but I have had my fill of professional athletes. Besides, it’s too weird now that my dad is the coach of the Wildcats.

  “Okay. I’ll be here, but I’m inviting Jade, so I have someone to talk to.”

  I text Jade to wish her congrats on the job, decline her invite to go out tonight because I need to edit some photos I took for Mike to keep up his new visibility and promo online, but beg her to come to the team party at our house tomorrow.

  The edits for Mike don’t take long. In fact, it takes me longer to select a few images from the hundreds I took than to do the actual editing. Either way, I’m happy to be doing something to work on my skills. I’m not sure Mike even cares about the photos that much. I think he just felt bad for not giving me more hours behind the bar. Since my first shift, I’ve worked two more afternoons, and they went about as well as the first.

  After I send off the edited images, I fall into bed with my phone and scroll for jobs. There are a few places looking for photographers, but I don’t feel ready for that yet. I check my messages, you know, just in case one came in from Leo, and I didn’t notice (groan), and then since I’m already feeling sorry for myself, I go to Rhyse’s social media page.

  Someone on his team posted a video from the race last weekend. He stands on the podium as handsome as I remember. It really doesn’t seem fair that he can go on living his life, winning, looking great, seemingly unaffected by our breakup, while I’m floundering with just about every aspect of my life.

  I scroll through his old posts. It’s weird to see his life like this, knowing I was there but not being in any of it. Half of the photos are ones I took, but I’m not in them. Rhyse’s team thought it was best to keep the focus on him. When we first got together, he snapped a selfie of us at some event and posted it, tagging me as his girlfriend, and the backlash from his fans was immediate and awful.

  He’d built an image—the hotshot Formula 1 racer and notorious playboy. He’d partied hard his first couple of years, dating women all across the globe. That’s who people wanted him to be. They didn’t want him to settle down and grow up.

  They came for me in droves. I had to change my social media profiles to private. He might have been ready for a serious relationship, but after seeing the reaction, his publicist thought it was best if we kept it quiet for a while. At first, it was only going to be six months until the end of the season. I didn’t love being his girlfriend in private only, then in public watching him keep up his single, fun image, but it was better than being attacked.

  And I was head over heels. I really thought it was temporary. Six months came and went, and I could see that he still wasn’t ready to risk his popularity taking a nosedive to really be with me. I held out hope for another six months, but on our one-year anniversary, I gave him an ultimatum.

  And here I am.

  I traveled all over the world with him, but there isn’t a single scrap of evidence I ever existed on any of his social media pages. If it weren’t for the ache in my chest, I could almost pretend it never happened.

  7

  SCARLETT MILLER IS YOUR DREAM GIRL?

  LEO

  Sunday, we get a day off from practice and workouts, and Coach Miller invites the team over to his house. We did it last year, right before the pre-season kicked off, to get to know the new head coach, and I guess now it’s going to be tradition.

  We’re outside in his back yard, where a bar is set up and there’s enough food inside to feed us twice (which is saying something). Everyone is on their best behavior tonight. Not that Coach doesn’t know we like to get rowdy and have fun when we’re on our own time, but this could be a big year for us. We’ve all been feeling it since that very first day we were on the ice together.

  Sure, we’re young, but teams that count us out because of that are going to end up icing their old man aches and pains while watching us in the playoffs come spring.

  “Hey, man.” Maverick corners me next to the bar where I’m standing with Ash and Jack. “Do you have any extra tickets for the home opener?”

  Ash speaks before I can. “I already asked. He’s saving them for his dream girl.”

  “Dream girl?” Maverick asks. “Is she real or fantasy? Because mine is very much real, and she’s thinking of flying up for the game with some friends.”

  “I’m going to call her tonight. Can I let you know then?”

  “Sure. Thanks, man.” He walks off with a salute.

  “Dream girl?” Jack angles his body, closing the small circle between the three of us. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

  “He’s being stingy with details,” Ash answers for me. “Met her at a college bar. She doesn’t know he’s a hockey player.”

  “What am I a toddler? I can answer for myself.”

  Ash smirks.

  “I met her at a college bar. She doesn’t know I’m a hockey player,” I repeat his words.

  Both of them laugh.

  “She was gorgeous and unexpected and…”

  The guys are hanging on my words and grinning like a bunch of idiots. Fuck them. I don’t even care.

  “Whatever. I’m going to call her tonight and invite her to the first home game and then out to Wild’s after.” I shouldn’t have put it off this long. It’s been more than a week since she left my house at sunrise, smelling like chlorine and sex, but I’ve been trying (and failing) to come up with a better follow-up date to our fuck-a-thon. Don’t get me wrong, I’m hoping that’s how the end of this one turns out too, but I’d like to spend some more time getting to know her.

  She was funny and enchanting, and I felt good hanging out with her. She liked being with me, not Leo Lohan. I forgot what that was like. But, I think my only option is to invite her to a home game and hope she wants to hang out after.

  “Why wait?” Jack asks. “That’s another almost two weeks. Give me your phone. Let’s text her now.”

  “No.”

  Jack thrusts his hand out toward me. “Come on. We both know I’m better at talking to
chicks.”

  He isn’t wrong, but I need to do this myself. I push my hand in my pocket and grip my phone. “I’ve got this.”

  “All right, but if she’s forgotten you or doesn’t answer or agrees to come to the game and then ghosts your ass, don’t say that I didn’t—”

  My arm slices through the air, and I place my hand on his chest, silencing him, as my gaze snags on the other side of the yard near the back door where more people are arriving. I have to convince myself my brain isn’t playing tricks on me as Scarlett steps off the porch, wearing a yellow dress. Maybe I’ve conjured her up by thinking about her nonstop.

  “That’s her. That’s Scarlett.” I blink a bunch of times, but she’s still there.

  “Which one?” Ash asks.

  “Yellow dress. Do you see her?” I’m still not totally convinced that I’m not imagining her.

  The smile on my face falls as Coach Miller embraces her. A sick feeling washes over me, settling like a rock in the bottom of my stomach.

  “No fucking way.” Jack cackles. He fucking cackles. “Scarlett Miller is your dream girl? Get in line, buddy. Coach will trade your ass faster than you can say, Stay away from my daughter.”

  His daughter.

  “I didn’t know.” I look at Ash.

  He shrugs. “Never seen her before. Are you sure?”

  Jack gives a definitive nod. “She was studying abroad the past couple of years. Paris or Australia or…”

  “London,” I say.

  I’m gonna be sick.

  As if she can feel me staring at her, she looks in our direction, eyes quickly flitting over and dismissing us, then snapping back to me. Her gaze widens, and she stops in her tracks.

  “Looks like she remembers you.” Jack slaps my back. “Congrats.”

  “Sorry, man.” Ash’s words are a consolation I don’t want.

  Fuck me. Did I get played? Was all of that guessing my occupation a joke because she knew exactly who I was?

  I move toward her, hoping I figure out what to say before I reach her. She’s just as gorgeous as I remember. Brown eyes framed with thick lashes and a mouth that looks like it was made to be kissed. I should know because despite being confused and irritated, I still have the overwhelming urge to drop my mouth to hers.

  I’m grappling for words when I reach her side, but I don’t get a chance to say anything. Coach’s voice booms with pride next to her as he introduces her to a couple of our assistant coaches. “This is my daughter, Scarlett. Just back from London and attending Whittaker.”

  She says hello and shakes each of their hands, then introduces Jade standing beside her. Jade. Fuck.

  “Hi,” I say from just behind Coach when her gaze snags on me again.

  “Leo.” Coach opens his stance to include me and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Honey, this is Leo Lohan, our newest captain. Leo, this is my youngest daughter, Scarlett and her friend, Jade.”

  The back of my shirt sticks to me as I start to sweat. How the hell did I get myself in this situation? His daughter!? Fuck me.

  Scarlett offers me her hand. “Nice to meet you, Leo.”

  The slight taunt in her tone when she says my name is the only indication that she knows me. Well, that and the snicker from Jade as she watches us pretend to meet for the first time.

  Coach falls into conversation with someone else, and I take Scarlett’s hand and practically drag her around the side of the house and out of view.

  “Slow down,” she whispers in a haughty voice that goes straight to my crotch. “These shoes were not made for running in grass.”

  “Did you know?” I ask, reaching for calm. Here she is. The girl I’ve thought of nonstop since she left my house. My fucking coach’s daughter.

  “I thought you were a college student still living with his parents, so no. Did you know? Is that why you were so cagey about telling me what you do for a living?”

  “I wasn’t cagey.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “Yeah, okay.”

  “I had no idea.” I run a hand through my hair. “I can’t believe this.”

  “It’s fine. I’m about as eager for my dad to find out I had a one-night stand with one of his players as you are. So neither of us says anything. Are we cool?”

  Are we cool?

  I’m silent for too long, and she adds, “We don’t have to make a big thing out of it. It was one night.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Umm… yeah. I have enough chaos in my life without worrying about a hot hockey player who doesn’t know how to work a phone.” The ice in her tone solidifies my fuck-up.

  Ah, shit. “I was going to call. Just now, I was talking to my buddies about it.”

  She laughs and lets her arms fall to her sides. “Let’s make a pact. I won’t tell my father, and you won’t pretend to care when I walk away and act like I don’t know you.”

  She starts to leave, and I reach for her, wrapping my fingers around her wrist. The contact sends tingles all the way up my spine. “I was going to call. I swear. My schedule is nuts right now, but I wanted to invite you to the first home game.”

  “You wanted to invite me to a game? A girl you didn’t even tell you played hockey.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. Damn, am I sorry.

  She shakes her head, making her brown hair move around her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason we need to run into each other again.”

  “Come to the game,” I beg.

  “I’ll be there… for my dad.”

  “How about after?”

  “You don’t need to do this. I’m a big girl, and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into the other night.” Her eyes drop, and she does a sweep of me from head to toe. “Just not who I was getting into it with.” She inhales sharply. “All the things I told you. Oh god. Please don’t say anything about me dropping out of school. I will tell him. I just haven’t found the right time.”

  This is what she’s worried about? That her dad will find out she quit school, not that she spent last weekend riding my dick? Well, that feels… honestly, I’m not sure.

  “Your secrets are safe with me.”

  She tenses. “Ditto.”

  I imagined this moment—seeing her again—a whole lot differently. For starters, I thought the expression on her face would read more excitement than repulsion.

  “I don’t have any secrets. Don’t get me wrong, your dad may very well send me across the country if he learns what I did with his baby girl in my hot tub, but I’ll tell him myself right now if it means I can do it again.” I bring my hand to the curve of her neck. “You’re all I’ve thought about for the past week.”

  Her lashes flutter, and her pulse races under my touch.

  “Scarlett.” Jade appears around the corner, a warning in her gaze as she waves Scarlett over. “Your mom is looking for you.”

  She nods, walking away from me, and toward her friend. I have so many more things I want to say, but this isn’t the place, so I don’t follow. Before she disappears, she glances over her shoulder to find me still staring after her. “See you around.”

  She can count on it.

  8

  THE INTERNET SUCKS

  SCARLETT

  Jade brings the bottle of wine from the kitchen and refills my wine glass while peering down at the screen of my phone. “Stop torturing yourself.”

  “It doesn’t even look like him. Seriously. Would you have known this guy was Leo?” I hold up the Wildcats roster photo of him. His hair is shorter, and his eyes are wide, like someone startled him seconds before they took the photo. I’ve never seen a more perfect “deer in headlights” impression.

  My best friend drops into a chair across from me in the living room. I’m hiding out inside, trying to convince myself that I don’t care, Leo, my hot Leo, is actually Leo Lohan, Wildcats star forward, and currently in the back yard of my family home.

  “You know I don’t follow sports, but he does look be
tter in person.”

  I groan, drop my phone, and bury my head in my hands.

  Her voice is the calm to the chaos raging inside of me. “Do you think he really would have called and asked you out again?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’ll never know now. I blocked him.”

  “You blocked him? Why?”

  I slump back into the couch. I haven’t blocked him yet, but I’m seriously considering it. “He plays hockey for my dad. He’s a professional athlete. He lied. Pick a reason.”

  “Lied is a bit of a stretch.”

  I glare, and she snorts a laugh.

  “Sure, now that he knows who I am, he can’t stop thinking about me and wants to see me again. Where was all of this a week ago when I was still hoping he might call?” No one is so busy they can’t find a second to text. I replay his words earlier and try to make them line up with the facts. He was full of sweet words, but was it all just to save his ass?

  “So, are you mad because he plays hockey for your dad and seeing him again would be complicated or because he didn’t text when he said he would?”

  The back patio door opens, and I lower my voice to keep our conversation private. “I don’t know. Both. Why?”

  Her gaze lifts, and she looks behind me over my head. “Because he just walked in.”

  I hold my breath as his footsteps approach. He stands in the space beside me. I don’t look directly at him, but I know it’s him. I hate that after only one night together, my body is so tuned to his. Goosebumps race up my left side where he stands closest.

  “I’m going to go… anywhere else.” Jade gets to her feet.

  Neither of us speaks in the time it takes Jade to cross the room and exit the same way he came in. I’m too agitated to sit, so I stand and move to the kitchen with my wine. He follows.

  “What are you doing in here?” I ask. I finally look at him and then wish I hadn’t. He skipped the hat today, and his light brown hair sticks up like he might have been running his fingers through it recently. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, but even so, he looks every bit as good as I remember. His roster photo really doesn’t do him justice.