The Shots On Goal Series Box Set

by Kristen Hope Mazzola

  “You have to listen to me. I swear, Will—” Her shrill voice pierced through the stale air, fueling my rage and igniting the embers into an uncontrollable blaze of fury.

  “It’s all right here, Mindie!” I cut her off. I pointed at the printout before throwing it at the foot of her bed. “In black and white, plain as day. I mean, these things don’t lie. It’s all mapped out in the damn paternity test you had done. Couldn’t have figured out a better hiding spot than the drawer next to your goddamn hospital bed?”

  What am I going to tell my teammates and best friends? They were in the waiting room anxiously anticipating an introduction to my child. What a fucking ridiculous thought that was now.

  “It was only one time,” she said quietly, trying to defend her sorry ass. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  She was crying. The baby was crying. I was furious.

  My stomach turned as I rushed into the bathroom connected to our room. Blowing chunks into the toilet while the bastard wailed only feet away was completely awful. Is this real life? When the hell is Ashton Kutcher going to jump out of the closet and tell me I’ve been punked?

  Taking a few seconds, I stared at myself in the mirror above the sink.

  You can get through this.

  Just calm down.

  I dampened a towel and held it to my face. My little pep talk was futile. There was no way I was going to be able to calm myself down from this shit. I stomped back into the room, heaving the towel into the corner of the room on my way.

  I stopped at the foot of her bed, my heart thumping in my ears as my hands shook.

  “Will, can we talk about this? Please?” She wiped her tearstained cheeks with the end of the baby’s blanket. Fucking pitiful.

  “There really is nothing to talk about.”

  “Can I at least explain?”

  I shook my head, white-knuckling the metal footboard. “You were worried enough to get a paternity test to check it—what more is there to explain? And you had me sign the damn birth certificate anyway. Who the fuck is his father?”

  I thought about strangling my wife as she opened her mouth to speak, but that would be too easy for her. She was going to have to pay for this in some other way.

  “You don’t know him.” She looked so defeated. Her hair was in a messy, sweat-soaked bun, her skin was bright pink from crying, and she was shaking ever so subtly. Add in the hours-old child in her arms and if someone walked into that room, I would be taken out by the scruff of my neck for screaming at a woman in such a fragile state.

  “It doesn’t fucking matter anyway. I’m leaving—for good. I’m taking these with me, and you will have divorce papers in your hands as soon as I can get them to you.” I scooped up the paternity test and stormed out of the room.

  Being home alone was fucking awful. I just didn’t know where to go or what to do. Telling the guys in the waiting room was fucking ridiculous. Well, I barely told them. It was more of those guy-vague-conversations that they all knew to just take at face value.

  I took a shower, tried to watch TV, barely ate any of the BLT I made for myself. So, I did what any guy would do in my situation. I grabbed my coat and went to a bar.

  “Crosby, you look like shit.” Jordan was trying to be funny but all I could do was scowl and sit at one of the empty bar stools.

  “Hey, Bates. How’s everything going?”

  She shook her head. “I think I should be asking you that question. But first, what are you drinking?”

  “Do you have a drink for finding out your wife just gave birth to someone else’s kid but lied to you the entire time and tricked you into signing the birth certificate?” Saying it out loud made my skin crawl.

  “I think I have just the thing.” She poured me three fingers of Jameson neat and then looked over to her co-bartender. “Hey, Sara? I need to take twenty.”

  Jordan ushered me to a table in the corner of the room, the green bottle of amber goodness still clutched in her hand. “At least this way we will have a little bit of privacy. Do you even want to talk about it?”

  I ran my hand over my face. “Fuck, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  She put her hand on my forearm. “You start by drinking that glass down and not worrying about finding the words. We don’t have to even talk. We can just sit here awkwardly for hours.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  We sat in silence for a little while and after Jordan gave me two refills, I was finally in a sharing mood.

  “Did you know I was about to break up with Mindie right before we met?” I blurted out and Jordan’s eyes got wide.

  “You two always seemed so madly in love. Why’d you even stay with her? That was fucking over five years ago.” Leave it to Bates to be as blunt as possible. That was actually one of my favorite things about Jordan – she was honest and blunt. Two perfect qualities for amazing friends and fantastic bartenders, and she was both.

  “It was all an act. During my rookie season, I was traveling a lot and didn’t really want a relationship. Mindie and I were high school sweethearts and I was dragging my feet on breaking it off with her. The night I finally got the balls to end things, she told me she was pregnant.”

  “Wait. What?” Jordan’s hand flew to her mouth. I knew she could do math and also knew that I did not have any children.

  I leaned onto the table, chugging down the rest of my drink. “We got married the weekend after that at the courthouse and she lost the baby two weeks later. I should have cut and run then, but I had made a commitment.”

  “You’re a good guy for honoring your word, Will.” Jordan’s eyes were filled with pity and concern.

  “Well, look at what I have to show for it now.”

  Chapter 1

  Crosby

  Five years later

  “This is the night gents!” Gavin Hayes yelled as we got psyched up for another away game.

  “Aye, cap!” we roared in unison.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Give them hell!”

  “Crosby!” Gavin hollered to me, “What are you going to do?”

  I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Keep my glove up!”

  Coach Hayes stood next to his son. “Let’s give ’em hell boys, and show these Chicagoans that they’re not safe in their hometown or anywhere!”

  The team burst out of the locker room like hellhounds on a mission. We were ravenous beasts ready to tear our opponents limb from limb—whatever it took for another victory.

  Cheering and booing greeted us as our skates hit the ice one by one. I loved leading the stampeding hoard into battle with our team’s captain, Gavin Hayes, right behind me. There was a thrill that washed over me before every game, and it burned a fury deep in my gut as I got ready to defend our honor—or rather, the net.

  The first period began and I was consumed by it all—the chill from the ice, the weight of my pads, the roar of the crowd. Within the first minute there were two shots on my goal; one made me go spread eagle, but both saves were clean.

  Harding skated behind the net to get the puck from me. “That bender looks like his ankles are going to snap under his own weight. He needs to get off the ice before I dangle him.”

  “Make his life hell, kid. Fire a clapper—their tender is scared of them!” I waved him on his way as he bee-lined it into enemy territory.

  Hayes and Cox controlled the puck for the better part of the rest of the period. Obviously, I preferred when my teammates were in control and taking shot after shot, but damn was it boring. I loved challenging games where I constantly had to be focused and on top of things.

  The worst part of being the goalie was having to watch from the other side of the rink when shit was going down with my team and know there was little I could do to help. Jesse Hendricks was rushing the opposing net as an enforcer came up next to him, checking him into the boards harder than necessary. Just as the left wing from the opposing tea
m got the puck, Hendricks screamed, hitting the ice hard. The referees flew to his side as he held his knee, writhing in pain.

  “What the fuck?” I yelled as my teammates flocked to him. It only took a few minutes for the paramedics to get Hendricks on a stretcher and take him off to get an x-ray done.

  Hayes skated behind my net. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I growled.

  It was terrible to watch one of your teammates be taken out of the game like that, but Jesse was young and resilient. Here’s hoping, anyway.

  Once we were up three to nothing, Coach decided to give me a break. Yeah, I was tired as fuck, but I hated when the second-string guy went into my net. It was mine, my responsibility, and I was forced to watch from the bench as Dereck Nilsson fucked up my shutout. I threw my gloves into the floor right before Coach Hayes snarled at me.

  “Crosby, get your ass back in there.”

  I hastily put my gloves back on and leapt out of the door. Nilsson skated past me with his head down and his tail between his legs. I wanted to curse him out, tell him how big of a fuckup he was, but he was going to beat himself up for the goal more than any of us could. All in all, I was proud to be on a team with him, but I hated knowing that eventually he was going to replace me. My expiration date was nearing faster and faster, and my aching joints reminded me of that every damn day.

  Jordan

  “Yes! That’s what I am talking about! Way to keep your glove up!” I yelled, jumping up and down behind the bar as my guests and coworkers cheered alongside me. One of the best parts of working at a bar – the game was always one.

  “Hockey fan, I gather,” Billy remarked. He was my favorite of the bartenders I was training—fast, skilled, and ravenous to learn new techniques and recipes. He was young and hungry to be the best of the best. The only problem was that he wasn’t fast enough and remembering drink recipes was not his forte.

  “Fan is definitely not the word. When your best friend growing up is Gavin Hayes, hockey is a way of life.” I was totally name-dropping and loved the shit out of it.

  Billy was catching flies.

  “Might want to go greet the new guests that just sat down at the end of the bar.” I motioned to the newcomers then watched as he picked his jaw up off the floor and did as he was told like a good little soldier.

  “Oh! Em! Geeeeezzzeeeee! Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.” I spun on my heels to see Bridget’s look of disgust as she pulled a dirty bar rag out from behind the sink. She was shaking it around, freaking out like a squeamish biology student on dissection day.

  “Gnashnab,” I muttered under my breath as I let my eyes roll to the back of my head while being super proud of my word-of-the-day skills. “It’s just an old towel.” I tried to incorporate as much lightheartedness into my tone as possible while taking the vile thing from her outstretched hand.

  “Gross.” Her nose was as high in the air as it could be.

  “I have definitely seen worse.” I threw the rag into the bin with the rest that were going to be sent out to be laundered in the morning—simple as that, and certainly nothing to get your panties in a bunch over.

  “I don’t even want to know.” Bridget hurriedly scrubbed her hands before ringing some of her customers’ drink orders into the computer. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a good employee, but I was getting really tired of her bitching about something or other every two seconds. If it wasn’t about a repulsive, dirty something, it was about bad tips or the bar being slow or too busy—there was just no pleasing her.

  Another night.

  Another bar.

  I was guest bartending once again for an up-and-coming hotspot in Manhattan. The new owners had just finished renovations and hired me to come in and revamp their bartending staff. It was fun. I loved my job—and the money wasn’t half bad either—but work was all I did. Yeah, I had a great group of friends, but they we were all growing up, moving on, getting married, having kids, and I was sick of being the perpetual single friend. I was one of the best, most sought-after training bartenders in the entire country, but that was all I had to show for my life—amazing drink-slinging skills and award-winning flare moves. Was it really enough?

  After a very busy dinner shift, I wiped off the bar top and collected the tip left for me by my last patrons. The night was slowing down and it was getting time for me to get the heck out of Dodge.

  “Hey Vince?” I called into the back hallway. “Closing time!”

  The short, graying bar owner waddled out of his office with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. “Jordan, it has been a lifesaver having you here.”

  He patted me on the shoulder as he walked by to round up the rest of his staff in the dining room. “Great work tonight everyone. I am extremely impressed by how much all of your hard work this past week has paid off.” He turned to me. “And we owe a great deal of this to the incredible Jordan Bates.”

  They all clapped and I wanted to hide under the bar. “Aw, shucks.” My face was hot as I fidgeted with the towel in my hands. “You guys have been putting in all of the work. Teamwork makes the dream work, and all of you have proven that tenfold.”

  I was terrible at being praised; compliments embarrassed me to no end. Working in restaurants, especially behind the bar, was a team effort, plain and simple.

  After making sure the tips for the night were divvied out and everything was cleaned, restocked, and put away, I ventured out onto the energetic city street. The humid night air draped me as I pulled out my phone to text Gavin.

  Me: Way to crush it in Chicago!

  It only took a few minutes for him to respond.

  Gavin: Thanks girl! We’ll be home tomorrow. Celebratory drinks at Brayden’s house?

  Me: Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

  Gavin: Myla and Karla are setting it up.

  Me: I’ll get the details from them and see you tomorrow.

  Chapter 2

  Crosby

  The driveway and street in front of Brayden’s house were packed. Thank goodness for Uber. I got out of the back seat of the town car and made my way into the old Victorian. Right after ringing the doorbell, I was greeted by a sight for sore eyes: Jordan’s beaming smile. She opened the door and helped me inside with the ice and beer I brought.

  “Always a pleasure, Ms. Bates.” I gave her a quick half-hug standing in the foyer of Brayden’s house. I could feel the goofy smile that had taken over from just the sight of her, and all I could do was hope it didn’t give away my feelings too much. There was something about Jordan Bates that sank deep down into me, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell her. The trepidation of rejection was too strong, and the dread of ruining our friendship was more than I could bear.

  “The pleasure, like always, is mine.” Jordan’s honey-coated tone infused her words as I followed her into the crowded house and went straight for the kitchen. “Hey, that was a great game yesterday. I was able to catch most of it while I was working.” She looked over her shoulder at me as she poured ice into the open cooler on the floor.

  “Eh, it was Hayes and Cox that really did a number on the ice to be honest. They really made my job easy.”

  She laughed a little as I limped over to lean on the counter next to her. “I’d say that pulled muscle would beg to differ with your argument.”

  Her laugh.

  Her voice.

  Her smile.

  I caught myself staring before anyone else seemed to notice.

  “Hey, there he is!” Brayden called over to me as he came into the kitchen with a few empty beer bottles and threw them into the recycling bin next to the refrigerator.

  I shook my teammate’s hand. “Thanks for having all of us over.”

  He shrugged. “Thank the wifey—Karla is the brains behind this entire operation.”

  “Hey now, what am I, chopped liver?” Myla came up next to her brother, jabbing him in the ribs with a sharp elbow. She was wearing one of her many Otters shirts that had Mrs. Hayes
on the back. It was adorable how proud she was to be the captain’s wife.

  “Myla, I hear congratulations are in order.” I hugged her quickly.

  “Hey Crosby. Yep, pretty soon we’ll have another rug rat scampering around this place.”

  Brayden shook his head. “Just what this lot needs—more screaming, jumping, psycho children.”

  Myla shooed her brother into the other room before turning to me with a crooked grin. “Nice defense. I was so pissed when you got subbed out.”

  Myla was a spitfire if I had ever seen one in my life, tiny but mighty as hell. She was the sister of Brayden Cox and the wife of Gavin Hayes so she had to be tough to put up with the two of them. It could have been argued that she loved hockey and our team even more than we did as players.

  “Yeah, trust me, I know the feeling, but I did need a little bit of a break and the other guys deserve some ice time, too.”

  Myla reached up with her tiny hand and patted me on the shoulder. “You’re nicer than I am to have a thought process like that.”

  I gave her a quick wink before she bounced over and ducked under her husband’s arm. Gavin and I raised our beers toward each other before he turned back to the group he was chatting with. I looked back over to where Jordan was, relieved that she hadn’t left the kitchen yet.

  The sunlight danced in through the window over the sink to show that Jordan had done something different with her hair. To say something or not—that was the question that plagued me. Would it be too much to tell her I noticed the subtle hint of crimson infiltrating the jet-black pixie cut she was rocking?

  I chugged my beer for the sheer excuse to get next to Jordan and the cooler again. “How’s work been?” Simple and easy – the desperate attempt for small talk.

  She looked up at me while mixing tequila and lemonade together. Just the thought of those two liquids together was enough to make me want to gag. “It’s work,” she sighed, “The bar I’m training at right now is doing really well, so I guess work is great.”