Losing an Edge

by Catherine Gayle

  I shifted in my seat, itching to get home and see what card Cadence had selected from her box today. I hoped she wanted to go for a walk in the rose gardens or something like that. Spring had arrived, along with all sorts of new life. Not only that, but the weather was amazing today. I was itching to get out in it, and I had no doubt she must be, too.

  The doctors had cleared her to start skating again late last week, so she’d been easing her way back into the everyday. Instead of rushing home to find out how I could spoil her today, now I had to stay until Lord only knew how late.

  “We’re not going to keep you boys too much longer, but Jim has something to announce that you all need to hear.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat as our general manager came into the room. I wasn’t the only one suddenly shifting and trying to look more alive.

  He’d loosened his tie but otherwise looked the same as we ever saw him, complete with the bifocals perched halfway down his nose. He smiled when he came into the room. Anne Dennison followed him in, which was particularly odd, along with Rachel Campbell, which wasn’t odd in the least. Rachel had a stack of manila folders in her arms, which Soupy rushed over to take from her. He set them on the table up front and grabbed a quick kiss before returning to his seat.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Ghost winking at Anne. She looked to be intentionally avoiding making eye contact with him.

  Must be serious, then, whatever was going on here.

  “Bergy’s right,” Jim said. “I’m not going to keep you long, but I’ve got a very important announcement to make, and there’s no better time than when everyone’s gathered together like this. I asked Anne to join me because she’s going to play a big role in what we’ve got in store for all of you. As you’re probably already aware, close to half the other teams in the league already have behind-the-scenes web series that they produce and air on their websites. We’ve decided it’s time that the Portland Storm join that trend. It’s a great way for our fans and season ticket holders to see more of the inner workings of the organization. It’s also a way for their families to become part of our family. We’ve brought Anne on board to produce the series, so she’s going to be far more involved in your lives than she’s ever been before. She’ll be traveling with the team when we go on the road. She and her crew will be filming practices, film sessions, time spent with the trainers and doctors. She might ask for permission to follow you home some days to see what your life is like away from the team. She’ll be involved when we participate in charitable events. Anne is going to be the fly on the wall as far as everything to do with this organization, and I fully expect each of you to cooperate as much as possible.

  “Rachel’s brought in all the consent forms that need to be read and signed. Your contract with the Portland Storm organization obligates you to participate as we see fit. However, if we’re going to include your families, we’ll need consent to use that footage.”

  Hammer shifted in his seat up front. “So if my ex won’t consent to my kids being involved…?”

  “If we don’t have consent from all required parties, then we won’t use it,” Anne assured him. “That said, we’re hoping that as many of you who are willing and able will allow us to involve your friends and families. What Jim said is exactly what I’m hoping to show the world. I want them to see that this team is a family. Maybe a big and sometimes dysfunctional family, but it’s all a big unit. Everyone comes together.”

  Hammer nodded that he understood.

  A few of the other guys asked questions about whether this meant they needed to be sure they were fully clothed when the cameras were around, and what would happen if they cursed in the middle of an interview. Anne answered all of their questions to the best of her ability.

  “This isn’t about changing who you are or what you do,” she said in closing. “It’s about capturing each of you as you already are. So be yourselves.”

  Jim took off his glasses and folded them, holding them in his left hand. “If that’s all the questions you all have right now, I’ll let you get out of here. Except for 501,” he said, catching my eye. “I need a word before you go. Can you join me up in my office? As for the rest of you, Rachel’s got the forms she needs from each of you.”

  What the hell was this about? I didn’t have a clue why Jim needed to see me, and I wasn’t sure whether it would be something good, bad, or indifferent.

  Most of the guys got up and flooded toward the front of the room so they could collect their paperwork. Ghost headed straight for Anne to flirt with her some more. The guy couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “The fuck did you do wrong?” Koz asked from behind me, kicking the back of my chair. “Heading to the principal’s office.”

  “Might be he did something right,” Hammer said. He winked at me. “Go on. Go find out.”

  There wasn’t any point in sitting around and wondering, so I headed out and met Jim on the way up the stairs.

  “You’re due for a new contract this summer,” he said, smiling.

  “Oh. Yeah.” That was the last thing I’d expected this to be about. “I thought you’d just call up my agent and talk to him about that, though.” I was still a restricted free agent. Basically, that meant I had almost zero negotiating power and had to take what they offered me or else not be eligible to play. Jim usually handled all the RFA contracts directly through the agents, and almost never while the season was still in full swing.

  Jim opened the door to his office and let me precede him in. He took a seat behind his desk and set his glasses down in front of him. “I will be calling him, but I wanted to see where your head is first. I assume you like playing here in Portland.”

  “Love it. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” Especially not now that Cadence and I were an item.

  “That’s good. The coaches and I have been talking a lot about you lately. We’ve all noticed how much you’ve improved this season. You’re starting to become the player we all knew you had it in you to be, and we want to make sure you stick around for a long time.”

  “A long time?” My tone was half-skeptical, half-hopeful.

  “We’ll have to work that part out with your agent, but I was hoping you’d be amenable to a long-term deal. Something in the six-to-eight-year range, with pay that would reflect the fact that we’d be eating into your unrestricted free agency years. Is that something you’d be open to?”

  Open to? I was about to jump out of my chair, that was how much I wanted what he was saying to be real. “I think that sounds like something we can probably work out,” I said, though, trying to maintain my cool.

  “Excellent.” Jim folded his hands into a steeple and gave me an appraising look. “I know you’ve struggled with believing in yourself sometimes, but I think you should know that none of us has had that same difficulty. We want you to continue your growth here. We want to see you become one of the cornerstones of this organization for a long time to come.”

  We talked for about five more minutes before he shook my hand and ushered me out of his office with the promise that he’d be getting in touch with my agent sometime in the next week so they could start hammering out the particulars.

  I thought about veering back toward the locker room to share the news with Jamie or Hammer, but changed my mind. There was no one I wanted to tell more than Cadence, so I headed straight home instead. When I opened the front door, I was greeted by the smell of banana bread that had just come out of the oven. That wasn’t even the best part. Cadence was in the kitchen wearing nothing but a T-shirt she must have dug out of the bottom of one of my dresser drawers. It was huge on her, almost like a dress, and her wet hair had darkened some of the fabric. She had headphones on and was humming along and dancing in the kitchen, oblivious to the fact that I’d caught her like this.

  I snuck up behind her, careful not to alert her to my presence, and grabbed her by the waist.

  Bad move. Seriously bad move. I should’ve thought that one thro
ugh a bit more, but I was too caught up in my own excitement.

  She used one of her Krav Maga elbow jabs and got me right under the ribs at the same time as she spun around, readying her leg to kick.

  “It’s just me!” I backed away and dropped my hands in front of my balls for what feeble protection they could provide.

  She stopped just barely in time to avoid kneeing my nuts, eyes as wild as her hair. Then, once I saw the recognition filter into her eyes, she followed it up with a sound punch to my ribs. “You scared me.” She ripped the earbuds out and flung her iPod on the counter.

  “So I noticed.” I rubbed the places she’d just left bruised.

  “I guess I should kiss you and make it better, then, shouldn’t I?” She’d flipped that switch again, only this time, instead of going from adorable to seductive, she went from fierce to sex kitten. She licked her lips, and I imagined that tongue landing on me.

  I was half tempted to let her go ahead and kick me in the nuts if it meant she intended to kiss me there and make it better. Probably a bad course of action. That didn’t mean I shouldn’t take her up on what she’d already suggested, though.

  “How about we start there?” I said. “And then I can fill you in on the new contract Jim wants to offer me. We can work our way around to how your day’s been, and finish up with you picking a card from your box.”

  “Hmm…” She slipped into my arms and stretched onto her toes so she could put her arms around my neck. “So it sounds like it’s been a good day all around.”

  “Oh, has it?” I dropped my head to steal a kiss, letting my hands roam all over her back and firm ass. I’d been right when I’d guessed there wasn’t anything under that shirt.

  “Mm hmm,” she murmured against my lips. “Anthony and I just booked our first competition for next season, and we got the rights to use that song I told you about. The one by The End of All Things.”

  I nipped her nose. “So all systems are go for skating again, then?”

  “Yes. And Dani Weber agreed to design our costumes for next season.” She slid her hands along my abs and tugged the shirt up from my waistband.

  “Did she?”

  “Mm hmm.” Cadence got her hands under my shirt and splayed them over my ribs, exploring in a way she had to know would drive me wild. “And that’s not all.”

  “No?” I followed her lead and tugged up the hem of the T-shirt she was wearing. “What else?”

  “She’s going to make me a wedding dress. She said once she finishes this semester at school, she’s moving back to Portland to start up her own fashion line, and she wants to dress me. Free advertising or something.”

  I picked her up and set her on the kitchen island, tugging my T-shirt off her as she worked on the fly of my jeans.

  “Just promise me something,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  I reached up and pulled my own shirt over the top of my head, tossing it on the floor to join the other items we’d already shed. “Swear you’re not going to let Jesse take over the planning of the wedding.”

  She laughed as her hand wrapped around me, her eyes dancing like flames. “Do you really think either of us is going to have any say in it, other than the date? Sara, Katie, Laura, and Dani have already dug in their heels about the venue. Mom and my sisters are setting up Skype calls with them to talk details, leaving me out of it. Your mother is emailing them constantly with suggestions and questions. Jesse’s the last thing we need to worry about with all of this going on.”

  “Hmm. I see your point.”

  She put her hand on the back of my head and dragged me down for a kiss, her tongue delving inside my mouth to dual with mine. When she backed away, she said, “I don’t care, though. You know why?” Her hands both went beneath the waistband of my boxers, and she shoved them down my hips to get me as naked as she was.

  “Why?”

  “As long as I’m married to you, the rest doesn’t matter. The wedding is one day. The marriage is forever.”

  I dug a condom out of the drawer we’d stashed them in, since we tended to end up having sex everywhere but in bed most of the time. “Forever’s a long time,” I said, rolling it into place.

  Cadence drew me between her thighs and welcomed me in, holding me right where I belonged. “It’s a long time. But not nearly long enough.”

  Catherine Gayle is a USA Today bestselling author of Regency-set historical romance and contemporary hockey romance. She’s a transplanted Texan living in North Carolina with two extremely spoiled felines. In her spare time, she watches way too much hockey and reality TV, plans fun things to do for the Nephew Monster’s next visit, and performs experiments in the kitchen which are rarely toxic.

  If you enjoyed this book and want to know when more like it will be available, be sure to sign up for Catherine’s mailing list. You can find out more on her website, her blog, at The Sin Bin, at Hockey Romance, at Facebook, on Twitter, at Instagram, and at Goodreads. If you want to see some of her cats’ antics and possibly the occasional video update from Catherine, visit her YouTube account.

  LOSING AN EDGE is Book 8 in the Portland Storm hockey romance series written by USA Today bestselling author Catherine Gayle. If you enjoy it, look for the other books in the series in the following order.

  BREAKAWAY

  ON THE FLY

  TAKING A SHOT

  LIGHT THE LAMP

  DELAY OF GAME

  DOUBLE MAJOR

  IN THE ZONE

  HOLIDAY HAT TRICK

  COMEBACK

  DROPPING GLOVES

  HOME ICE

  MISTLETOE MISCONDUCT

  LOSING AN EDGE

  There are also currently two boxed sets of books within the series, if you would prefer to purchase them in that way.

  PORTLAND STORM: THE FIRST PERIOD (Contains Breakaway, On the Fly, Taking a Shot, and Light the Lamp)

  PORTLAND STORM: THE SECOND PERIOD (Contains Delay of Game, Double Major, In the Zone, Holiday Hat Trick, and Comeback)

  GAME BREAKER will release on August 11, 2016. DEFENSIVE ZONE will release on February 9, 2017. Also, join Catherine’s mailing list to receive ICE BREAKER, a Portland Storm short story prequel that you can’t get anywhere else.

  Want to join in the Portland Storm discussion? Join the Facebook reader group.

  If you enjoy this book and want to try more of the same, be sure to look for the spinoff series, the Tulsa Thunderbirds. Book 1, BURY THE HATCHET, and Book 2, SMOKE SIGNALS, are out now. Book 3, GHOST DANCE, will release on May 19, 2016, and book 4, RITES OF PASSAGE, will release on November 10, 2016. The T-Birds also have a reader group on Facebook.

  Interested in buying your own customizable Portland Storm and Tulsa Thunderbirds jerseys, T-shirts, and more? Find out how here.