Parker (Face-Off Series Book 1)

by Jillian Quinn

  “I’m just glad you’re okay. You were telling your dad no and shouting. I was worried about you. I thought someone was in here, hurting you.”

  Charlotte leans against my hand, her lips grazing my skin. It’s not sensual though. A single tear rolls down her face and onto my thumb. I wipe it away, but they keep coming, one after another, until she’s bawling her eyes out.

  What made her this upset?

  Every encounter with Charlotte, she’s been tough and composed. Now, I’m seeing her…vulnerable.

  A thousand things run through my mind. Did her father hurt her? Was she abused by him?

  I’m not sure what to say or do other than to pull her into my arms. “Everything will be all right,” I tell her.

  But will it? I have no idea what has her so unraveled.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  That seems to make her cry even harder. Her tears soak my T-shirt as she leans her head against my chest and continues to sob.

  Ten minutes pass with Charlotte hysterical and me stroking her back, trying to soothe her, before she calms down and mumbles, “I’m so glad you’re here, Alex.”

  “I’m here for you, sweetheart.”

  She wipes her face with her tank and then nudges me with her elbow with a playful smile. “You know I hate being called that.”

  I shake my head and laugh. “Would you prefer I call you honey or darling instead?”

  “Coach works for me.”

  “How about Charlotte?”

  Her nose scrunches together in disapproval. “Nah, Coach is better.”

  “Why not Charlotte?”

  She shrugs, her eyes focused on the chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room. “Because Charlotte is the person I used to be, if that makes sense.”

  “No, not really. Were you a secret agent in a previous life?” I quip.

  She doesn’t respond, her face expressionless.

  I follow her line of sight and see that she’s not looking at the chest but what’s on top of it. There’s a picture of a young girl in a frilly pink dress, the same long caramel hair as Charlotte, and she’s standing next to a man in a black tuxedo. He must be her father. They have the same hair color and bright blue eyes that practically jump off the picture. But her features are soft and feminine, sort of angelic, where his are hard and intense.

  A few seconds pass before she looks up and into my eyes and points at the frame. “Wanna hear a story?”

  “Um…okay.”

  Charlotte snuggles up against my arm, her eyes trained on mine. She drops her hand onto my forearm. I’m still shaking from the withdrawal, something she doesn’t bother to mention even though I have no doubt she can feel me trembling beneath her fingers.

  “Charlotte was innocent. She wore dresses her mother had picked out for her and attended hospital fundraisers with her father. Everything in her perfect little world was exactly that—perfect. Until, one day, Daddy came home and started drinking. He drank himself to sleep every night for months until he turned to drugs. Daddy loved his drugs too much to stop, loved them more than Charlotte. Then, Daddy lost his job, and Mommy started to get high with him. On Charlotte’s thirteenth birthday, Daddy promised to pick her up after school and take her ice-skating. Daddy never showed, and Charlotte went home to find Mommy and Daddy sleeping. Charlotte lay between Mommy and Daddy on the bed in their run-down apartment, trying to wake them up, only to find out they had been dead for hours. That was the day that Charlotte also died.”

  My eyes and jaw widen at the same time, and a chill runs through me. I hold her tighter against me, unsure of what to say. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “Not what you were expecting, huh?”

  I’m in complete shock. The fact that she was able to overcome something so tragic and at such a young age makes me want to never let go. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s grief. I’ve drowned my sadness over my father’s death in a bottle of whiskey and puck bunnies for so long that I can’t even remember the last time I was sober. Today was the first day in six months.

  “I don’t know how you did it.”

  She clamps down on my arm and gives it a quick squeeze. “You have to keep moving. That’s how I did it. Sometimes, life hands you rotten lemons, and you have to slap on a smile and throw enough sugar in the glass until you can drink the funky-ass lemonade.”

  Her unusual response makes me smile. “You’re not like other girls.”

  She rolls her eyes. “That’s because the kind of girls you’re used to wear bra tops and skirts in a freezing cold hockey rink, so they can show you how much they love your hockey stick.”

  I laugh because it’s true. “I just meant that you’re different.” I continue to explain when she gives me an evil look, “Not all girls are puck bunnies, ya know. Of course, we have our fair share of them that follow us around like we’re some kind of prize for them to claim, but you…you don’t want anything from me. I can talk to you because you’re different. It’s not an insult; it’s a compliment. I don’t have to be afraid to be myself when I’m around you.”

  “Are you okay?” she asks, staring down at my arm that is less shaky than before, but only because she’s clamping down on it. “You need to see this through, Alex.”

  Knowing about her family and how her parents died makes me realize why she was so adamant about me living here for the week. I want to try even harder because of it. Because I don’t want to be another person who disappoints her.

  “I made it through day one. Practice is only a few hours away. That will take my mind off it for a while. I’ll probably hang out with Kane and Donovan after that. They want to give me a tour of the city.”

  She scowls. “That tour had better not involve strip clubs or bars.”

  “No, they’re taking me to get my first Philly cheesesteak. Of all the times I ever played against the Flyers, I’ve never had one.”

  “My dad was a lot like you.” She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “He was a successful orthopedic surgeon who could’ve been so much more. He lost a ten-year-old boy on the table during what should’ve been a routine operation. No one knew the boy had a rare disease that caused complications, leading to his death. The loss was too much for my father to bear. That’s when the drinking began, and the drugs didn’t come long after that.” Her grip tightens, and she moves close enough that I can feel her breath on my face. “You can’t let your father’s death be the end of you and your career, Alex. Your life is not over.”

  I’m embarrassed because, no matter how much I want to pretend that everything is all right, it’s not. My life is a fucking mess. If Charlotte could overcome such a horrific childhood, then there’s hope for me.

  “I won’t,” I promise. “I just need to get back on track. A midseason trade to Philly was sort of a wake-up call for me.”

  “I wish I could believe you, but your actions so far have proven otherwise. Kane and Donovan are both man-whoring pigs, so you’re in like company with them, but I know they don’t make a habit of getting shit-faced every weekend.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I counter, wanting to prove her wrong. “They were both on a first-name basis with the strippers at Scores.”

  “That’s because the club owner buys a lot of season ticket packs. You’ll see the girls at the games from time to time. I guess you could say their boss is an important man in Philly. He holds a lot of influence with people who matter.”

  She lifts her left thigh, drawing my attention to her legs and the fact that she’s wearing thin underwear that look like shorts. Her white tank top, still stuck to her chest from her waking up in a sweat, reveals the outline of her nipples. The material is thick enough that I can’t see the color or size, but they’re most definitely hard. It’s also cold outside, so there’s that.

  Before I can stare too long, Charlotte snaps her fingers in my face. “Eyes up here, Parker.”

  “Hmm.” I’m still checking her out, unable to
peel my eyes from her gorgeous body. “You know, you could probably model for fitness magazines. Seriously, babe, you’re in top physical condition.”

  Reaching for the sheet at the edge of the bed, she glances at me and frowns. As she pulls it over her legs and lowers her head onto the pillow, I lean over her, and she doesn’t seem to mind.

  But I don’t miss the irritation in the tone of her voice as she says, “Why must you ruin these nice moments when you stop acting like Alex, the professional hockey player, and start acting like Alex, the regular person? When you offered those tickets to Rico and gave him your jersey, I saw another side to you. Based on everything I’ve ever read or heard about you, I expected the cocky, arrogant womanizer, but instead, for a very short period of time, I got Alex, the man who likes kids. Then, tonight, I got the Alex who will sit in bed and hold me until the nightmares pass.”

  My stomach knots at her speech. She’s very good at giving them, and every time she lays into me, I swear, I want to be better, be someone worthy of a woman as incredible as Charlotte.

  “The Alex you like is always in here,” I say, pointing to my heart. “I know that sounds cliché or cheesy, but it’s true. There’s more than one side to a person. Before we met, you acted like a hard-ass on the phone. Hell, you even counted off the seconds until you were hanging up on me, and then you hung up on me without saying good-bye. You were mean and rude, pretty much Mickey’s twin. But I’ve already seen that there’s more than the person everyone else in the sports world knows. Everyone knows Coach, but I want to get to know Charlotte.”

  “Wow,” she mumbles as she rubs the corner of her eye. “I told you…”

  I take her hand between my palms, and she locks eyes with me. She bites down on her lower lip to keep it from quivering. As much as I want to kiss her, I push the thought to the back of my mind.

  “I know what you said about your past, but I know that scared little girl is in there somewhere even if you don’t want anyone to know that part of you still exists. So…will you let me know Charlotte?”

  Clearly, she’s struggling with this decision, and judging by the tears in her eyes that have yet to spill down her face, she wants to let me in just as much as I want to open up to her.

  She lets out a frustrated sigh. “I knew your father. We met right after I tore my ACL. Most people recover within six months, but I had done more damage than what they originally thought. It took me about eleven months to heal, which meant I had to miss the rest of my junior and most of my senior year. Even after I was cleared, the doctor wasn’t convinced I should play again. My coach didn’t want to take the risk, so my last game was the one where they had to carry me off the court. I didn’t feel like myself after that, which is why I never attempted to go pro. My point is, it was your dad who told me about his injury and how he didn’t let it get in the way of doing something he loved. That’s when Mickey came up with the idea of me coming to work with him.”

  A wide grin tugs at her mouth, and she shakes her head, as if recalling a memory, lost deep in thought. I love when she smiles because she doesn’t do it often enough. “Originally, Mickey wanted me to work only with basketball players because he thought I’d relate more to them, but he eventually realized that I was knowledgeable in most sports and just as good with reading contracts. I told Mickey he was crazy and that no one would ever see me as anything other than his assistant. It’s not because I didn’t believe in myself because I did, but I honestly never expected to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field where men looked at women sportscasters and thought, I wonder what’s under her skirt, instead of if she really knew her stuff.”

  “We think it’s hot when you’re able to talk about the sport,” I interject. “It’s even hotter if you can play, and from what I remember, you were a really good ball handler.” I crack a smile, afraid she’s going to pummel me.

  Instead, she slaps me on my bicep. “Ha! Very funny, Alex. Like I haven’t had guys ask me if I was a good ball handler before. Nice try. Let me finish, will you? And stop interrupting.”

  I pinch my index finger and thumb together and bring them up to my lips, moving from left to right, as if I were zipping my mouth shut. My silly attempt at humor rewards me with her pouty face that’s so damn sexy, I want to kiss the expression right off.

  “Anyway,” she says, clearing her throat, “I was having dinner with your dad and Mickey when the idea was presented to me. I’m pretty sure the whole thing was John’s doing. I wasn’t so sure that knowing a sport was enough to sign clients and score huge NBA contracts, but it was your father who talked me into giving it a try. Do you know what he said to me?”

  As I contemplate all the inspiring things my father probably pulled out of his ass to get Charlotte to pursue her career, I get a little bit choked up. I wasn’t expecting this to be such an emotionally draining night. He always said the right things at the exact time you needed to hear them.

  “No, what did he say?”

  Her face lights up as she begins, “He told me, ‘You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.’”

  I can’t help but laugh. “He quoted Gretzky to you? Yep, that was my dad all right. He loved that quote, and he didn’t mind repeating it to me anytime I had even the smallest amount of self-doubt.”

  “John was a good man and a great coach. A good coach is able to inspire their players. You can fight this, Alex. I can help you get back to the person and the player you used to be. You just need a little direction.”

  I move closer, and her body tenses. Not because she’s afraid of me, but because I think she wants to kiss me just as much as I want to kiss her.

  “Maybe I just need a new coach. Do you know of any who are willing to take on a scandalous NHL player who drinks way too much and gets into far too much trouble?”

  Her lips pull tight into a straight line, but her smile is evident in her eyes. It’s obvious she finds this conversation amusing, and so do I.

  “I have someone in mind who might have room on her team for another player.”

  “Good. When do we start?”

  She sinks her face into the pillow, one eye open as she peeks up at me. “How about right now? Go get some sleep, and make sure you’re at practice on time.” Raising her hand toward the door, she motions for me to leave before setting it back down on the bed with a thud.

  I hop off the mattress, walk around to the nightstand next to her, and turn off the lamp. Then, I do something that feels right and bend down to kiss her on the forehead. “Good night, Charlotte.”

  At first, she doesn’t respond, and a few beats pass between us before she mutters, “Good night, Alex.”

  Coach

  “I still can’t believe Alex Parker is staying with you at your apartment.” Jamie’s voice is calm, but his disgust is evident in the way he looks at me, as though he just bit into a lemon. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I know he’s Mickey’s boy, and you feel like you owe him for everything he’s done for you, but you’re not Alex’s babysitter either. I don’t think it’s fair of Mickey to force this on you.”

  “He’s not forcing it on me, Jameson,” I say in a sardonic tone. “I want to help Alex. You should know by now that I don’t do things I don’t want to do. Alex is just an athlete who needs a coach. With a little bit of a push, he can be the player he used to be. Trust me, I know what I’m doing when it comes to this.”

  We’re standing side by side at center court in the recreation center gymnasium—Jamie facing one direction and me the other—as we each watch the scrimmage matches taking place. To help tackle one of our biggest weaknesses, one of which led to our last loss, I decided to split the boys into three-man teams to work on their man-on-man defensive skills.

  “Oh, do you now?” Jamie slides his hands onto his hips and bites the inside of his cheek. He has done the same thing every time he’s annoyed since we were in foster care together. “He’d better not hit on you or try to take advantage of you, or I’ll kick his as
s.”

  I laugh because the thought of Jamie beating up anyone, especially a man as large and fit as Alex, is comical. Jamie might help me with the team, but he’s not exactly a baller. His talents are better spent on video games and designing apps, but that’s also one of the things I love most about him. Jamie is the kind of man you admire for his brain and his kindness, not his rock-hard abs and ability to shoot a ball.

  “I’d really like to see you throw down with Alex. Maybe you can challenge him to a game of NHL 17.”

  “I’m serious, Charlie. If Alex tries anything with you—”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I can handle myself. Remember what I did to that guy who tried to jump us in Riverdale? What were we, about seventeen then? I’m even stronger now.”

  I glance in his direction, his attention still diverted toward the boys as he frowns. “That guy was a tweaker. I could’ve kicked his ass. You’re not exactly selling me on the fact that you could take on Alex.”

  “Junkie or not, you know I can handle myself. Alex could probably get laid ten times before he left my building if he really wanted to. He doesn’t need to hit on me, and besides, I have rules. I don’t date clients, no matter how good-looking or charming.”

  “Did you just use charming in a sentence about Alex Parker? You must’ve fallen down and bumped your head on your way to the gym.” He reaches over and feels my forehead with the back of his hand. “Well, the good news is, you don’t have a fever. The bad news is, you’ve lost your mind.”

  Jamie doesn’t consider my clients real people. He thinks of them as celebrities, the untouchable elite seated so high up on pedestals that no one can get near them.

  But what would he have thought about me if my dreams of going pro had become a reality?

  That was what we were working toward all through high school. He made backboards for me out of old plywood and the hoop with pieces of steel he’d somehow welded together at school. Jamie has never been athletically inclined, but when it comes to building things, he’s like MacGyver.