“Who’d you meet?” I can’t help but ask.
“Does it matter? They’re all shades of the same, I’m willing to bet,” she counters, and drops her feet back onto the floor with a thump. “Jordan Garrison may be dirtiest birdie in the nest, but no one’s feathers are clean, if you know what I mean. Luckily he won’t be our patient forever.”
That was true. Jordan was progressing nicely. His conditioning was getting better and the ankle was definitely structurally sound. It was just the incision from surgery that needed to heal up, and the cream I gave him should have that looking better in a week or two. The idea of not seeing him three times a week kind of makes me sad, as much as I hate to admit it.
“He should be here any minute so if you’ll excuse me.” Tori stands up to leave but stops at my desk as she passes, picks up a pen and scribbles something on a Post-it. She sticks to my computer screen. “Username and password for my Warren account. Because I know you’re curious.”
“No. I don’t want to know any more gory details than I already see in the regular media,” I state emphatically and shake my head so vigorously the end of my ponytail whacks me in the face. “I have to work with him thanks to you.”
“Oh, come on…you know you want to check it out.” She winks at me and walks out of the office.
My cell phone rings again. I glance at the name and number on the display and roll my eyes.
“Oh my God, not you too!” I bellow into the phone.
“Sorry, Jessie. I’m being forced to call. They all seem to think you’ll be honest with me.”
“Oh, for God sakes, Cole. I’m being honest with them. NOTHING is happening.”
“Nothing?”
“I’m assisting with his therapy because I have to. That’s it. I swear.”
“Fine. I’ll report back and tell them all to fuck off,” Cole vows solemnly.
I laugh. “Don’t tell your mom that. Just everyone else.”
“Good point.” Cole clears his throat and then I hear Leah talking in the background. “Leah wants to know if you’re at least getting along.”
“Some of the time,” I admit quietly, and spin a pen between the fingers on my free hand. “When we avoid talking about our past, yes.”
He repeats my answer to his girlfriend and I hear more talking. “Leah wants to know if you’ll ever actually get past the past.”
“Tell Leah that I have no idea. Maybe one day we can be friends, but right now that seems iffy.”
He repeats the message and there is more whispering. I glance up and see Jordan standing there in the doorway staring at me. I sit up straighter and pull my feet off my desk, wondering how long he’s been there.
“I can’t believe you…no, I won’t tell her,” Cole says to Leah, and then sighs dramatically. “Fine. Leah says to tell you that the reason you can’t be friends with him is because you’re meant to be more than friends with him.”
I stare at Jordan in front of me as Leah’s words flow through Cole’s voice.
“Please tell your girlfriend that I love her, but she’s crazy.”
“I tell her that every day. Nice to know someone agrees with me.”
“I have to go, Cole,” I say, and Jordan’s eyebrows fly up. “I have a patient.”
I hang up.
Jordan keeps staring at me, leaning casually against the doorframe, his six-two frame clad in a puffy black down winter ski vest, which is open, and a clingy light blue waffle shirt that makes his pretty eyes pop and also shows off the definition in his chest and arms.
“Cole? My brother Cole?”
“Yes,” I reply quietly in case Tori is in earshot. “Apparently, answering your phone set off a shit storm.”
“Oh, I know,” Jordan replies, and rolls his eyes. “My mother called. And Luc. And even Callie.”
“Callie called you?”
“Well, apparently when she called you, you hung up on her,” Jordan explains, and gives me a smirk so sexy my stomach does a little dip. “So, since you wouldn’t listen to her tell you what a scumbag I was, she decided to tell me what a scumbag I was.”
“I didn’t even know she had your phone number.” I’m honestly shocked.
Jordan stares at me incredulously. “You’re kidding, right?” he says, suddenly serious.
I glance up at him, confused to see shock in his face tinged with what looks to be anger.
“Callie has had my phone number for years,” Jordan tells me frankly. “I gave it to her that first summer you were in Arizona.”
“What?” Now it’s my turn to be shocked. “Why would you give her your number?!”
“Why do you think?” he counters imploringly.
I had asked Callie about Jordan every time I talked to her the first year I was in college and Callie and Rose were still in Silver Bay. Every freaking call I asked if he’d come home to visit. If they had seen him. If he had asked about me. Callie always said she hadn’t seen him. Once, the summer after I left—the one Jordan is talking about—she said she had seen him at a local pub. He’d been with Hannah and never mentioned me at all. That’s when I stopped asking.
Jordan opens his mouth to speak, but I raise my hand. “Enough chitchat. Let’s get to work.”
I lead him down the hall to the training room. As he saunters along behind me, I get this weird feeling and glance over my shoulder and catch him checking out my ass. I frown. “Eyes up, Forty-four.”
He falls in step beside me, a cocky grin making his dimple appear, and he shrugs. “Can’t help it. You still have the best ass I’ve ever seen.”
I stop abruptly as we enter the training room and level him with a hard stare, even though I feel a ripple of excitement and my cheeks flush from the compliment. “This is a professional relationship. Act professionally.”
He rolls his eyes and the cocky smirk disappears. I run Jordan through the usual stretches, exercises and weights. He’s quiet throughout but he’s blowing through them with no trouble. When he’s working on the lifts on one foot, I grab a ball from the rack and toss it at him. He looks shocked but catches it with only a wobble, which is good.
“Toss it back while staying on one foot,” I command, but he doesn’t toss it back. He just stands there smirking.
“You want it, then you have to answer a question.”
“What part of professional relationship is confusing you?” I ask, and put my hands on my hips. “Throwing the ball is part of your therapy. It’s balance training.”
“I’ll throw it. Just answer my question,” he explains, and I glare at him. “Have you thought of me at all in the last six years?”
Wow. I stare at him as my brain and my heart bicker about what to answer. My heart says tell him the truth—that I thought about him every day. My brain says lie. Tell him he never crossed my mind. I bite my lip. He holds up the ball and wobbles slightly on his bad ankle.
“Yes,” I confess. My heart won the battle, but as soon as I see the victorious smile that starts to crawl up his face, my brain adds, “Hard to forget you when every sports writer and gossip site likes to snicker about how you can’t keep your dick in your uniform.”
“What?” His blue eyes cloud over and the smile falls from his face.
“Ball.” He tosses it back to me gently. “Everyone in my sports therapy program knew I was from Silver Bay. They all wanted to know about the superstar hockey players from my hometown. Especially the one who can manage to score fifty goals a season and still drink tequila out of slutty girls’ belly buttons at bars every night.”
He looks hurt by that comment. Good. It used to hurt me to hear about it. And then I remember Tori’s comment about how Jordan has more stories about him on the gossip site than any other player in the NHL, and I realize it still hurts me.
He forgets his exercise and puts both feet on the ground. “We need to talk about things, like Callie having my number. A friendship between us might not be as iffy as you told Cole it would be.”
I decide not t
o respond to that. Instead, I drop the ball back on the rack. “Treatment room,” I bark, and march down the hall.
He hops up on the table as I grab the heating pad and look at the surgery incision. It looks much better than a week ago. I flex my fingers, which are tingling in anticipation before I even touch his skin. I would never admit it to anyone, I hate even admitting it to myself, but I love this part. Touching Jordan. He’s lying back on the table, his left arm behind his head like a pillow and his eyes closed. When I grip his ankle and begin to massage it, he lets out a deep, heavy, completely sexy sigh that sends a shiver of desire through me. I’m so weak.
I force myself to be the professional I asked him to be earlier. I stare at his foot and mentally make notes. No swelling. Minimal redness. Minimal stiffness. Slight…
“Jessie.” I look up at him. He sits up and leans toward me, his face so close his breath dances across my cheek. “I gave my number to Callie to give to you because I’d been away from Silver Bay for almost a year, and I realized when I came back the thing I missed most about it was hearing your voice.”
There’s a sharp knock on the door and as I jump back so quickly I almost fall over. Tori marches into the room with a tight smile plastered on my lips. She glances down at his ankle and holds up his file that she’s carrying. “Things look great. I have a feeling your team doctor will clear you for play anytime now.”
“Seriously?” He looks relieved. “That would be amazing.”
“Uh-huh,” Tori mutters, like the news means nothing. “I’ve emailed your trainers to update them on your progress.”
“I’d really like to thank you for everything.” Jordan smiles at her and I almost laugh. He’s trying so hard to win her over because God forbid someone not be a member of the Jordan Garrison fan club. “How about I get you tickets to the next game?”
Tori’s scowl quivers. She was just complaining last week how she hasn’t been to a Winterhawks game all season because she’s trying to save money and the tickets are just too expensive. “You don’t have to do that.”
I know it kills her to say that.
“I insist.” Jordan grins that cute little grin he’s been pulling since he was eight. The one that makes him look innocent and adorable but yet completely devious all at once. My heart is starting to melt, but this has to be out of habit. I don’t actually feel anything for him again. Still. I’d have to be crazy to still have romantic feelings for him. “I’ll get you ice-level seats, right behind the bench. I don’t wanna brag, but I’ve got connections. How many do you need?”
Ice level behind the bench is an incredible offer but Tori doesn’t crack. “Give them to Jessie. She’s done all the work and besides, NBC is broadcasting it, her ex-boyfriend Chance Echolls will be there. By the way, he’s totally hot. I Googled him.”
Oh, fuck.
Tori smiles at me. “Maybe he’ll bring you up to the press box. I hear they have amazing food up there.”
I turn my attention to Jordan, who has completely lost that pretty little smile of his. “I don’t need tickets, but thank you anyway.”
“Yeah.” He jumps off the table. “I’m going to head out.”
“We’ve got heat therapy to do still,” I blurt out.
“Sorry, I have an appointment I forgot about,” he mumbles, clearly lying—at least it’s clear to me. “I have to get going. But I promise to put a heating pad on it tonight after I stretch it.”
He disappears out the door, pulling on his vest as he goes. I fight the urge to run after him. I know he’s upset I’m friends with Chance, but I’m not ready to explain to him how much easier it was to be friends with Chance and even talk about that failed romance because it didn’t hurt anymore. I didn’t want to tell Jordan how much it still hurt to think about us. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was some weird survival instinct. I had promised myself when I was in Arizona trying to get over him, feeling like I would literally die from losing him, that I would never let him know how much he hurt me. And I would never, ever let him do it again.
Later that day on my lunch break, I head outside and dial my sister’s number on my cell.
“Callie Caplan.”
“You’ve had Jordan’s phone number for five years and never gave it me?”
“You never asked for it,” she replies simply.
“Callie, I asked about him every day for almost an entire year. Why would you keep that from me?!” I’m pissed. Really pissed. More pissed than I have been at her in years. She kept us apart. Maybe if…
“He showed up at O’Malley’s while I was waitressing there one night,” Callie explains with a hard edge to her voice. “He was with Hannah. I’d heard rumors she was visiting him in Quebec all season too. And to make matters worse, there were, like, three other girls that night who were hitting on him.”
That news hurts. A lot. Did he really keep hooking up with Hannah when he was in Quebec? Was it really that easy for him? I was sitting in my dorm room in Arizona brokenhearted and he was banging his ex and flirting with everything who walked by—and badgering my sister for my number? What did he want to do? Add me to his entourage?
“He cornered me, drunk, and begged for your Arizona number,” Callie goes on angrily. “I’d seen him a few times already that summer, but the only time he ever mentioned your name was when he was drunk.”
I swallow. This news is ripping me apart.
“So I told him you had a boyfriend.”
“WHAT?”
“You’d gone on some dates with that guy from your biology class, remember?”
“Charlie. From my kinesiology class,” I correct, and grit my teeth before adding “And you shouldn’t have told him that.”
“He stumbled out of O’Malley’s with his arm around a skank and never mentioned you again.”
Callie pauses and her voice softens. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. Because you deserved better than him.”
“What I deserve is not your decision,” I snap.
“He gave me the number. It was my decision,” she counters heatedly. “And tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if it was me and some loser.”
I look up and see Carl and Tori walking toward me on their way back from Starbucks.
Callie goes on softly. “Jessie, I did what I thought was best. Think about it. Really calm down and think about it. He had wrecked you and finally, after a year away, you were doing well. I had finally stopped worrying about you.”
“I have to go,” I say shortly.
“I love you.”
“Yeah, so you say.” And then I force myself to add “I love you too.”
I hang up the phone and smile tightly as Tori and Carl walk by.
Chapter 14
Jessie
Later that night I’m curled up on my couch, watching the heavy rain hit my windows as my playlist titled “The World Sucks” blares from my iPod dock. It’s full of angsty, brokenhearted ballads—everything from R&B to rock to country. I’m feeling melancholy tonight, and the gloomy Seattle weather is making me want to wallow in it. If my sisters were here, Rose would curl up with me on the couch and try to hug it out of me while Callie would give me a shake and tell me to “get over myself.” She wasn’t always so insensitive, but she’d know this current mood was because of our previous conversation about Jordan, and she had zero tolerance for Jordan Garrison–related wallowing.
I sip my blueberry tea—not the kind actual made from blueberries, but the one made from amaretto and Grand Marnier. Lately I’ve needed some help falling asleep at night. Hot toddies always seemed to work. I know Callie means well. I know she wasn’t trying to make my life worse, but I can’t help but wonder…would things be different between Jordan and me if she had given me his phone number five years ago?
She’s right, I was dating someone—casually. As my first year at Arizona ended, a guy named Charlie Cohen, who was in my kinesiology class, asked me out. He was nice and it was comfortable, which is why I guess it somehow c
ontinued for several months. But it never really turned into anything serious. And if I’d known Jordan wanted to talk to me…
I sigh and pull my laptop off the coffee table, looking for some kind of distraction from the perpetual game of “what if” happening in my head. As I surf Facebook absently and Tori’s status update appears in my news feed, I remember the conversation I had with her earlier.
Warren. Because bunnies live in warrens. Clever.
I type the name into Google. It pops up as the first link. My finger hovers over my mouse and my heart starts thumping in my chest, every beat feeling like an ominous knock on a front door in the middle of a horror movie. But yet, just like the idiots in horror movies, I open the door—I click on the link.
It’s nothing but a pink page with little cartoon bunnies all over it. In the center is a space for a username and password. I didn’t have the Post-it Tori had written it on but I didn’t need to, it was seared into my brain. Username: Torilicious. Password: Winter4hawks4. I type it and hit enter quickly to avoid thinking about what I’m about to inflict on myself.
It’s a pretty basic website with a collage of candid photos of NHL players at the top above the menu and a welcome message from whoever runs it. Under that is a list of every single player in the NHL, every name a link that clicks through to their dedicated “stories” page. I click on Devin’s name first, because I don’t have the courage to click on Jordan’s. There’s many more pictures than stories. Devin walking to his car at the airport after a road trip, ordering coffee at a Starbucks, at a park in Brooklyn with Conner, and there’s even a one of him at the lake in Silver Bay, standing waist-high in the water, dripping wet and looking like an Adonis. The recent stories are about seeing him out but not doing anything with him, thank God. There are only two stories from girls who claim to have slept with him—one says it happened his first year in Brooklyn and that he has a giant penis. I scrunch up my nose at that because, ew…it’s Devin. The second says it happened on a road trip to Kansas City after he was married to Ashleigh, but the more I read the more I know the poster is lying her face off. She’s vague, and the details she does give sound like she stole them from an erotica book. Handcuffs and paddles? Not Devin’s style. Plus she said he came over to her house from the bar, and it’s common knowledge that although hockey players go out on road trips, they have to sleep at the hotel with the team. No exceptions. And the other posters call her out too, one of them explaining that Devin wasn’t even on the road trip in question because he was injured at the time.
One More Shot (Hometown Players #1) Page 13
