Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4)

by Victoria Denault

  “Who?”

  I take a deep breath. “Sebastian Deveau.”

  My father’s reaction is priceless—at first. He blinks his big gray eyes. His mouth twitches, then falls open, and then slams shut. He looks confused, startled and quite frankly flummoxed. But then it becomes exactly what I dreaded—smug. “My little Shaynie is dating a hockey player?”

  I feel the anger make my body rigid. So rigid I don’t even respond with a nod. He laughs a big, deep belly laugh. Audrey must understand how this is making me feel, so she hooks her arm through mine again and says, “He’s a really great guy.”

  “Yeah, despite his profession,” I add bitingly.

  My dad stops laughing at that, but the smug smile doesn’t die with the laughter. “Oh, we’re all great guys when we want to be.” Then he steps forward and pats my shoulder as he pushes open the door to the arena. “See you later, honey. I don’t want to be late.”

  His words were condescending and flippant. And as we enter the arena behind him, flashing our passes at the security guard there, I watch him trot away, and I fight the urge to flip him off behind his back, in front of all the people milling about the concourse. Most of whom are recognizing him and pointing with excited smiles on their faces.

  “What the hell does that mean, that we all are when we want to be?” Josh asks to no one in particular.

  “It means he thinks Seb is acting like he’s not a womanizer but really is,” I mutter back. “Just like dear old Dad was.”

  Josh and Audrey don’t respond because, really, what do you say? Sorry your dad was a womanizing manwhore and just acted like a complete douche. I glance at the passes and the section marked on them and start heading down the concrete corridor in that direction, even though the last thing I want is to watch a hockey game right now.

  Two hours later and I’m regretting being here even more. The Winterhawks are about four minutes away from losing the second of two here at home, which would put the series at 2–2. The energy in the building is tense, and it’s even worse on the ice.

  The Winterhawks were up 2–0 early in the first and added a goal to that in the opening minute of the second period, but the Thunder captain, Levi Casco, scored two goals. And a defenseman named Duncan Darby stole the puck from Sebastian and scored at the beginning of the third to tie the game. Then the Thunder’s assistant captain, Jude Braddock, scored, giving the Thunder the lead. If they win this game, it’s going to be a nightmare going back to San Francisco. The Winterhawks will have lost the momentum and probably some confidence.

  There’s a faceoff just left of the Thunder goalie and Jordan wins it, shooting the puck back to Sebastian, who spins to get free of Darby and manages to get a shot off on net. The Thunder’s goalie blocks the shot, but the puck bounces off him and Seb clambers for the rebound shot as the Thunder team converges on him. He gets the shot off, but, unfortunately, the goalie gloves the puck. The whistle blows, but the shoving and swearing with the pile of Thunder and Winterhawks players in front of the net doesn’t stop.

  I can see, even from here, the frustration all over Sebastian’s face. The linesmen both get in there and start to tug on jerseys, breaking up the scrum.

  As the ref gathers the puck for another faceoff, I watch Sebastian glide toward Jordan. Braddock’s jaw keeps flapping, and he must say something that gets to Jordan, because he spins back to Braddock. They both drop their sticks but not their gloves and start shoving each other. Sebastian skates over, I think to break it up, and Braddock’s mouth starts moving again, and then suddenly Sebastian’s glove is flying over Jordan’s shoulder and Braddock is tumbling backward onto the ice after getting a solid punch to the side of his helmet.

  Whistles blow. Seb is hauled off to the penalty box and a second later so is Jordan because, even though the whistle had blown, he dropped his glove and skates at Braddock.

  “You’ve got a feisty one,” Audrey murmurs, and I can’t tell if she’s impressed or horrified. I don’t look over to find out. I’m too busy glaring at Sebastian in the penalty box.

  “He just cost them the game,” I whisper, more to myself than anyone else, but Josh hears me.

  “Yeah, you can’t pull the goalie and go hard to the net when you’ve got two guys in the box. This one is over.” He sounds like a kid who just found out Santa Claus isn’t real.

  And three minutes later it’s confirmed. The Thunder win 4–3, tying the series and ending this one with a massive brawl on the ice. Every single player on the ice is shoving or punching someone and the players on the bench are yelling at the other bench, sticks up and curses hurling.

  “We should go,” I say quietly.

  “I thought Seb said we should go downstairs after the game and meet him in the family lounge,” Josh reminds me.

  “I don’t know about that now…” I caution, my instincts from childhood kicking in. After losses like this, my mother learned to stay away. Just head straight home and don’t expect my father to join until the wee hours of the morning, if at all.

  But then our conversation from the other night, the one he started while taking off his clothes in my bedroom, comes back to me.

  “But there are two kinds of players. The ones that use it as an excuse to mistreat and ignore the people who love them, and the ones who find balance.”

  “Haven’t met one of those balanced ones yet.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say to Josh. “Let’s go down and meet him.”

  Chapter 40

  Sebastian

  Glenn Beckford waltzes into the room like he owns it as I’m tightening the knot on my tie. Most of the guys are in their suits now, but no one is really leaving the locker room yet. Everyone is still trying to come to terms with the way that game imploded on us before facing our families and loved ones. I know I’m not looking forward to seeing Shay. I know she won’t like what she saw. I don’t regret going after Jude Braddock and I won’t pretend I do, and I know she’ll like my lack of remorse even less.

  I grew up watching her dad lose his temper on the ice. He was a real pest: his nasty, personal attacks on the other team’s players often landed him in the penalty box without him even throwing a punch. By the time he retired, Glenn Beckford held the record for the most unsportsmanlike penalty minutes in the league. At least my penalty minutes are usually for my actions and not my words. I defend teammates and don’t take low blows with my fists or my mouth.

  He stands there and surveys the room.

  “Undisciplined loss out there, boys,” he lectures loudly, like he’s our coach or something. “You just made this whole series harder for yourselves, but you can rein it in and get it back next time. I know you can. Westwood, I don’t have to tell you it’s up to you to make sure of it.”

  Avery frowns at him but, ever the Boy Scout, he doesn’t tell him to shut up. Avery, being the captain, has already given us a lecture, as has our actual coach. Neither of those lectures did anything to improve my mood, so this third one isn’t helping either. I glance over at Jordan, who is shrugging into his navy blue suit jacket. I grab my own from the hook in my locker and turn to find Glenn’s eyes pinning me. He grins, but it’s not friendly. It’s dark and cool.

  “Deveau,” he addresses me. “You had some good chances out there. You probably would have had more if you didn’t have your ass in the box at the end.”

  “Yeah, well, next time,” I reply tersely and give him a smile I know looks as fake as it feels. Jordan walks up beside me and mutters something about finding Jessie, but he doesn’t walk away because Glenn is standing directly in front of both of us now.

  “What’d that little runt Braddock say to you two to make you so angry it cost you the game?”

  That’s fucking harsh. What Jude Braddock did was ask Jordan if his fiancée was as easy as her sister. Turns out Braddock and Callie had fooled around a few years ago. There’s a code on the ice: you can knock a guy about almost anything—their skill, their intelligenc
e, their looks—but children, wives or girlfriends are supposed to be off limits. So, yeah, Jordan wanted to kill him—and I went after him too, because I heard it and I will always back up my boys.

  Jordan bristles beside me now as he faces this over-the-hill blowhard. “He made a personal attack. Directed at my fiancée and her family.”

  Glenn’s expression doesn’t change. He looks as unimpressed as he did a second ago. “What? Did he claim to bang her before you or something?”

  I can feel the anger radiating off Jordan, but Glenn doesn’t seem to feel it. In fact he seems completely oblivious to the crassness of his words. “Guys will say anything to get under your skin on the ice. Even if it’s true, you have to blow it off. You can’t cost your whole team a game over some chick.”

  I put a hand on Jordy’s shoulder and squeeze. “Go find Jessie,” I urge, because I don’t want him to start something with Shay’s dad. Oh God, this man is going to be in my life for a while. That realization fills me with dread.

  Jordan storms out of the room. I glance at Avery, who is eyeing the situation cautiously as he buttons his dress shirt. Our eyes meet and I see the plea in them to stay calm. I have to, he’s right, but I want to tell this jerk to get bent. I inhale deeply and try to excuse myself like Jordan did. “I have to go. I have friends waiting in the lounge.”

  “You mean my daughter?” Our eyes connect. “I saw her arrive in the car you gave her. Thanks for that, by the way. She won’t let me help her. Now if you could get her an apartment in a better area of town, I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”

  “I didn’t give her a car,” I reply, because I feel like it would matter to Shay that her dad knows she’s not accepting handouts from me either. “She’s borrowing it until this weekend when she gets her own.”

  He scratches the back of his neck while he absorbs that information. “Pity. I thought maybe she’d come to her senses and realize she can’t do this on her own. Not as a silly yoga instructor anyway.”

  “She’s also a nutritionist,” I remind him, and I can’t believe I have to defend her to her own father. “And an amazing human being, for the record.”

  His gray eyes land on mine again, and he breaks into a soft, friendly grin. “Deveau, you don’t have to prove your feelings for my daughter to me. I know she’s a wonderful person, albeit a bit too opinionated and stubborn most of the time.” He reaches out and cups my shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “I’m happy you want to take that on. I hope it works out for the long haul. But I’m warning you: she’s never going to be easy. She doesn’t play by the hockey wives code. Consider that carefully, my friend. You’ll be giving up a lot of your extracurricular activity.”

  “Glenn, why don’t you come to the friends and family lounge with me. I’m sure everyone would love to see you there,” I say smoothly, and without waiting for an answer, I escort Beckford out of the locker room.

  My girlfriend’s father has no clue how close I was to punching him. I’m not even sure I realize how close I was until Chooch, who was sitting across the locker room watching the whole thing, says, “Unclench those fists, Seb.”

  I relax my hands and shake them out before shoving them into my pockets. “Did that guy just honestly warn you that if you date his daughter she might not let you fuck other people?”

  “Yeah. Not because he cares if I cheat on her, but because she might.”

  “He made it seem like that fact was a fault in her character.” Chooch is also blown away, judging by the awed pitch to his voice. “Who the fuck thinks not being able to cheat is a bad thing?”

  “A man who thinks it’s okay to make out with his former teammate’s wife at his own jersey retirement ceremony,” I reply and watch Chooch’s jaw drop. But it’s weird because even though he looks fittingly shocked, Chooch’s eyes don’t seem to be focused on me. They’re looking past me.

  I turn and see Shay standing in the open locker room door.

  “What did you just say?” Her voice is low and serious and it settles over the entire room, covering it in an ominous silence as the few remaining players glance up.

  “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

  It’s the truth. Family and friends aren’t allowed in the locker room. But it’s the worst possible thing I could say. She’s staring at me with such intensity, such hurt and anger and pain that I just…panic. After the words leave my mouth she lifts the lanyard with her VIP pass from around her neck and says, “You couldn’t be more right. I knew I was never supposed to be here.”

  And then she drops the pass on the locker room floor and disappears.

  Chapter 41

  Shayne

  I make it all the way to the parking lot before I realize that I don’t want to drive his car home. If I drive his car home, I’ll have to see him again when he comes to pick it up. And I don’t want to see him again. Not now. Maybe never.

  I can hear him behind me so I turn, ready to give him the key, but he starts talking before I can. “What was I supposed to do, Shay? How was I supposed to tell you?”

  “You know how you tell me? You just do. You tell me. It doesn’t matter when or how, just say it,” I explain angrily. “Or do you condone his behavior? Are you following the old boys’ code? Covering it up because that’s what hockey brothers do.”

  He looks like I just stabbed him. “Of course I fucking don’t. Jesus, Shay, can’t you figure that out by now?”

  “The only thing I’ve figured out is we jumped into this ass backwards and way too fast,” I blurt out, and the scary part is I kind of mean it. Ever since I met Sebastian, everything I’ve done has been completely out of character. And the exhilaration of that has suddenly and completely melted into regret. I jumped out of the plane and now I’m realizing my chute might not open.

  He says something in French under his breath. I think it’s a swear word. “Shay, I saw him kissing a woman once.”

  “At the jersey retirement.”

  He nods. “Right after you had rejected me again. And then when you stopped rejecting me, I was scared that telling you would change that.”

  I press the palm of my hand into my forehead and close my eyes. “Not telling me changes that. Protecting his cheating does that.”

  When I open my eyes, he’s taken a step closer to me. “Shayne. You’re making this a bigger deal than it is. I don’t condone what he’s doing, and I would never do this to you. Or anyone. Ever. So don’t try and make this about us.”

  We’re right in front of each other now. Other people are in the parking lot too. Chris Dixon and his wife and kids are walking to their car. Jordan and Jessie are walking hand in hand toward their car. Sebastian watches them go and the turns to me. “Jordan and Jessie are in love.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s real, and it started with an undeniable connection, that they just couldn’t break no matter how hard they tried. And, trust me, they tried,” Sebastian tells me, and his baby blue eyes turn pleading. “Tell me you don’t feel that kind of connection between us?”

  I struggle to pull air into my lungs because suddenly breathing is impossible. I don’t answer him, exactly. “I need to be able to trust the person I am with, and after tonight…”

  “This is bullshit,” he says harshly. “You’ve been looking for a way to talk yourself out of this since I talked you into it. And you know what? I’m going to let you this time.”

  He lifts his eyes and gives me a look I’ve never seen on his face before—defeat.

  “I didn’t tell you what I saw your dad doing. I should have. I wanted to, but that isn’t enough for you.” He shakes his head and shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “So that’s it. This was always some sort of competition, I guess. I just never expected to lose.”

  My emotions are doing a one eighty. All that anger and regret I felt minutes ago is now confusion and fear—and loss. I’ve lost him. Oh God, is that what I really wanted? Because suddenly, now that it’s real, it’s not. It’s no
t at all.

  “Sebastian…”

  “Look, take the car home.” He takes my hand and drops the key back into it. For the first time ever his touch is abrupt. “I drove the Aston here anyway. I’ll pick it up from you in a few days or send Chooch to get it or something.”

  He turns and heads back toward the arena doors. I see Chooch standing there awkwardly, waiting for him. I want to stop him but I can’t. I know that it’s over. I can feel it in my bones, and the pain is literally immobilizing. So I stand there, his car key dangling from my hand, and watch him drive away.

  Chapter 42

  Shayne

  I’m blurry eyed with exhaustion as I ease off the freeway and into the upscale residential neighborhood I grew up in. It’s early, so there’s not a lot of traffic. My mom hardly sleeps, so I know she’ll be up, even though it’s not even seven yet. My dad will still be asleep. He’s always been a late sleeper. I lay awake half the night last night, which is why I’m heading to their house so early. I want to tell my mom what’s happening. She has a right to know. And I want to confront my father and tell him I know and that I don’t approve. It won’t make a difference to him, but I want to do it anyway. Fighting with him is still better than sitting at home thinking about Sebastian.

  My mind and my heart are stuck on Sebastian. I feel like I had a right to be upset with him for hiding my father’s infidelity from me. And in a way, when he said he was going to let me go, and I realized there would be no chase this time, it felt like a relief. A horrible relief. It’s the only way I can describe it. I no longer have to take risks with my heart. I don’t have to go against my safe, simple nature and trust this wild, complex hockey player. But at the same time, deep down where it counts, in the dark recesses of my jaded little heart, I don’t want to go back to safe and simple. I don’t even know if I can anymore.