One More Shot (Hometown Players #1) (22 page)

T
he loud, obnoxious Quebec City Royales fans behind us are jumping up and down and high-fiving each other, clearly oblivious to the fact that everyone hates them. Either that or they just don’t care. I’m guessing Winterhawks fans would be just as belligerent if they were in the Royales arena and were embarrassing the home team.

“What the heck is happening?” Tori stares at me with confused blue eyes.

“They’re melting down.” I explain what I know she already knows. “No rhyme or reason. Sometimes a team just shits the bed.”

“Well, did they have to do it the day I got free tickets?” Tori huffs, and I give her a half-smile at that before turning my eyes back to the ice.

Jordan is skating around by center ice, waiting for puck drop. His eyes are glued to his skates. He’s beyond frustrated. I can tell by the scowl on his rugged features.

He still hasn’t returned my texts or calls since I received his early Valentine’s Day present. I was starting to panic about it. Maybe he’s given up on me. As wrong as I thought it felt to give into my feelings for him again, because I was still hurting over his past, it felt much worse thinking that he was actually moving on.

When we first got to the arena, Tori went off to investigate the VIP room, and I sat in the stands and watched warm-up with all the other fans. He had a delicious scruff peppering his strong jaw and dimpled chin—and his hair is gone! He cut it off! He looked devastatingly handsome. Sure, he was hot with the longer hair, but in a rougher, unrefined sort of way. Jordan with short hair is downright model handsome. It makes him look younger too—so much like the boy I’d fallen in love with. It made my breath catch and my heart flutter. His eyes looked bluer in the bright glare of the arena lights off the ice and, just like when he was a kid, he glided around the ice with this intoxicating mix of grace and intensity. He is such a big, intimidating force out there—I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on.

Throughout the warm-up his eyes scanned the arena seats. The crowd wasn’t huge at this point, and most people were plastered around the glass instead of in their seats, taking pictures of their favorite players. Finally, as the horn sounded indicating the end of warm-up and the players made their way off the ice, Jordan stopped to toss a puck over the glass for a kid and his eyes found mine a few rows up in my seat.

I smiled softly and gave him a small wave. He blinked, nodded and headed down the tunnel back to the locker room. The reaction was disconcerting to say the least and that dark panic I’d been trying to contain suddenly exploded and wrapped around my heart. Luckily Tori returned from the VIP room and distracted me with stories of all the free food and wine she’d consumed.

The first period had gone horribly with the Winterhawks turning over the puck repeatedly and the Royales capitalizing on it. Chooch was having an awful game and was pulled in the second period after he let in an easy shot from the blue line, making the score 4–0 Royales.

By the time the third period started, the game had gotten rough. The frustrated Winterhawks were playing aggressively because they clearly couldn’t play well, so there was an onslaught of penalties for late and cheap hits, hooking and tripping. Jordan had just gotten out of the penalty box for getting into a shoving match with a Royales defenseman after the whistle. While he was there the Royales scored again.

“The Winterhawks can’t score to save their lives. They’re hitting the post, shooting wide, breaking their sticks on breakaways. It’s like they pissed in the hockey god’s cornflakes,” Tori announces, and sighs dramatically.

I smile at her analogy but shake my head in frustration. The ref drops the puck again and the game resumes. Avery Westwood gets slammed into the boards near our seats and loses the puck. The Royales’ forward skates away with it. Tori covers her face with her hands.

“Ugh. I give up. I can’t watch the rest of this train wreck. Distract me!” She peeks at me through her fingers and smiles. “Tell me you’re going to take Carl’s offer of a full-time job.”

I smile at her. Yesterday our boss had come into our office and offered me a full-time position when my internship was over next month. He’d given me the weekend to think it over.

When I first took the job here, I’d never entertained the thought of staying in Seattle permanently. Even after I got settled in and realized this was a great facility with great people—both the patients and the staff—and that Seattle itself had a beautiful charm to it, I hadn’t considered staying longer than the internship required. It was Jordan’s home and I hated Jordan. When I started this job, the idea that I could run into him at any moment was so nerve-wracking, so suffocating. There was no way I could willingly live like that any longer than I had to. But now the idea of moving back to Arizona—or anywhere that Jordan Garrison wasn’t—that’s what was suffocating.

“You would leave me?” Tori pouts dramatically. When I just roll my eyes, she tries a different tactic. “You would leave Jordan?”

Before I can answer, the crowd lets out a collective gasp and the ref’s whistle fills the arena. I turn to the ice and see Jordan at the far end, near the Winterhawks’ goalie, doubled over with his gloves to his face.

“Oh my God! What happened?” I whisper, and jump to my feet for a better view.

“He got a puck to the face,” the burly overweight guy beside me explains and points to the Jumbotron above center ice.

Tori and I both glance up in time to see the replay. In the video, the puck is being passed around between Royales’ players. Jordy is on the ice, but not near the player with the puck, who is pulling back his stick for one hell of a slap shot. The puck sails forward and hits the stick of Jordan’s teammate, Seb, who is trying to keep it from reaching their net. After the tip, it redirects to the right at a weird angle and nails Jordan in the face. He crumples to the ice instantly, and I gasp and throw my hand over my mouth.

My eyes return to the ice. Jordan is still covering his face, and I watch in horror as red drops start to leak out from behind his glove and hit the stark white ice.

“Why isn’t anyone helping him?” I shout, and Tori puts a soothing hand on my shoulder.

Finally, a trainer hustles onto the ice with a towel and Jordan holds it over the left side of his face. He starts to make his way off the ice. My feet are already moving—led by my heart even before my brain realizes what I’m doing. I’m climbing the concrete steps two at a time and I’m already in the concourse area before Tori reaches me.

“Where are you going?” she asks as she latches onto my arm.

“I’m going to see him. We’re his physical therapists. We can help.”

“The Winterhawks have a team physician and incredibly qualified trainers. We can’t do anything about a puck to a face, Jessie.”

I march toward the main elevators, not even sure if that’s where I need to go. I have no idea how to get down to the private staff area where the medical rooms and locker rooms are located. I’ve been there before but from the players’ private entrance, not the public area. I put a hand to my chest, pressing on my galloping heart, trying to keep it from slamming into my rib cage repeatedly. Tori pulls me to a stop and turns me to face her. Her big round eyes are soft and sympathetic; her lips are turned up at the edges in a little hint of a smile. She looks like she’s amazed or perplexed by something.

“You’re in love with him,” she says with a little bit of awe in her voice.

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry and tight. “I am. I’m in love him.”

“When did that start?”

“It never stopped,” I confess, and that dark cold ball of feelings in my gut—a mixture of panic, fear and desperation—is suddenly mixed with elation.

“I love him,” I repeat quietly, and I know I sound scared. I am.

Tori hugs me.

“Don’t tell
me
,” she advises in a soft voice, patting my back as she breaks the hug. “Tell him.”

“How? How do I get to him?”

I feel frantic. Panicked. Like I’m in the middle of something I can’t control. Something I
need
to control. It’s like when I was eight and my mother died. She was just gone, and it was the last thing in the world I wanted. I would have done anything and everything to change it, but I could do nothing but watch it happen.

Tori yanks on my arm, turning me toward a small set of doors next to one of the concession stands. “We can get to the VIP area through there. It’s on the lower level so once we’re down there, we just need to sweet-talk a security guard to get into the training area.”

I nod and follow her toward the doors. Tori pulls our VIP passes out of her back pocket and flashes them at the guard. He opens the door. On the other side is a small marble-tiled area and an elevator. Tori punches the down button and we wait impatiently. I hear the final buzzer go off, signaling the end of the game.

He has to be okay. This can’t be a serious injury. Players have lost part of their vision taking pucks to the face, and because he had his gloves to his face, I don’t know where it hit him. He doesn’t wear a damn visor so it could have hit his eye.

Once off the elevators, we have to show our passes to another security guard and then we charge down the hall toward the VIP room. There’s a velvet rope just past the door to the room, sectioning off the VIP guest area from the locker rooms and training and medical facilities. There’s yet another security guard standing there.

I walk right up to him and try my best to appear calm and professional. “Hello, sir. My name is Jessie Caplan. My colleague Tori and I are physiotherapists. We’ve been working with Garrison. Number forty-four. He was just injured so we’re—”

“Pass,” he barks gruffly, and then frowns when I show him my VIP pass. “This doesn’t give you access to the training area, sweetheart.”

I try not to get ruffled by his condescending tone. Behind us, I hear a group of people chatting as they wander by, heading to the VIP room. I look back to the security guard and take a deep breath. “I’ve known Jordan since I was eight. I’m here because he gave me tickets. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

The security guard smirks. “First you’re his therapist and now you’re his childhood friend. Save your breath, honey. I’ve heard all the excuses you pretty little things can think of to try and see these jocks in the showers. You’re not getting in.”

Tori steps forward, her eyes shooting daggers at the guard, but before she can say anything someone calls my name. I glance behind guard and see Chance walking toward us. He’d emailed me a few times asking for me to call him, so we could talk about what he said the last time he was in town and punched Jordan, but I’d ignored him. In the messages he told me he was serious about wanting a second chance with me, even after what Jordan had said.  I’d hoped to never run into him again but right now I couldn’t be happier to see him.

“Hey, gorgeous!” He gives me his typical wide smile that Rose always told me looked more like a sneer. I never saw it before but I see it now.

“Hey!” I take a step toward him but the guard holds out his arm, blocking my path. I glance up at the scowling guard.

Chance doesn’t even hesitate. He flashes his own pass to the guard. “These two are with me.”

The guard hesitates for only a second before stepping out of the way.

As we slip by him, Chance wraps an arm around my shoulders. “You want to see the media room? I just finished my postgame interviews so I’m all yours.”

He winks and I shrug out of his grasp. “Where are the medical rooms?”

He stops in the middle of the hall and frowns. “Please don’t tell me you’re looking for that putz, Jessica.”

“Where is he, Chance?” I say, ignoring his comment. “Is he still getting stitched up? Did he have to go to the hospital? Is it serious?”

He rolls his ice blue eyes. “The bastard is the luckiest unlucky person I know. It was just a nick above his eyebrow. He’ll be fine. Probably won’t even miss a game.”

The fact that Chance sounds disappointed that Jordan wasn’t more gravely injured creates a wave of anger. I glare at him. “You’re a dick, you know that?”

“Relax,” Chance says, and tries to look innocent. “I’m just kidding around.”

“Sure you are,” I bark back sarcastically. “Now, where is he?”

“Haven’t seen him. He refused to do interviews. Diva.”

I ignore him and turn back to Tori. She looks around the hall and points to the sign that says “Training Room.” “I’m going to try and find Mick, the trainer we worked with. See if he can find Jordan.”

I nod but before I can follow her, Chance reaches out and takes my hand in his. His face is sincere and his eyes are pleading as he says, “Jessie, he’s not the one for you. I was the one for you in high school and I’m the one for you now. Just give me a another shot.”

Before he can say another word or I can tell him to fuck off, Tori calls out, “Jordan!”

I turn and see Jordan’s big frame coming down the hall. As is the norm with hockey players before and after the game, he’s wearing a suit. Well, most of one. He’s got on charcoal gray pants and a crisp white shirt, but he’s missing his tie and jacket.

His eyes land on Tori and then slide toward me. Chance and I standing together, my hand still in his. I know how this looks, and it causes a flood of panic to wash through my veins like a tsunami, yet all I can think is Jordan looks fucking gorgeous. Even with the angry red slice and dark, blood-crusted stitches just above his left eyebrow where the puck got him, he’s the most beautiful man in the room. In the world.

“You’re kidding me,” he says, his eyes fixed to where Chance is still grasping my hand.

Chance smiles smugly and squeezes my hand tightly. “How’s the face?”

Jordan ignores him and stares at me—right at me—with eyes full of contempt and pain.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” he repeats in a hiss.

“I’m only here to find you,” I tell him, and yank my hand away from Chance.

“It’s true.” Tori backs me up. “She’s looking for you.”

Jordan looks at Tori, at Chance, and then back at me. His teammates Seb and Dix have wandered out into the hall. They’re dressed in suits too. They both stop short at the scene in front of them.