One More Shot (Hometown Players #1)

by Victoria Denault

  “Chance.” The voice is hard and flat, like a stern principal talking to a delinquent student. I turn and realize Jessie’s still there. She’s across the hall standing against the wall. Her eyes are filled with tears but piercing as she stares at her ex-boyfriend.

  He stares back at her defiantly. “After what he just said, you’re going to defend him? He just made you look like a—”

  “Chance!” She hisses his name again and he shuts up midsentence, thankfully.

  Mick looks furious and completely lost at the same time. He turns to Jessie. “Miss Caplan, do you know what happened here?”

  “Jordan hurt his wrist.” She points to me but doesn’t look at me.

  Mick turns and realizes I’m holding my wrist. He swears, storms over to me and barks. “Come with me. Now.”

  I follow him, but my eyes stay on Jessie and hers stay on mine, until the curve of the hall makes it impossible to see each other anymore.

  Forty minutes later I shove open the door to the reserved parking with my one good hand—the one not wrapped in a brace thanks to Chance Echolls—and step out into the cold, misty Seattle afternoon. Mick had diagnosed the severe sprain in seconds and spent the next twenty minutes screaming at me. Then he went and got Coach Sweetzer, told him what happened, and Coach spent another twenty minutes yelling at me before storming out of the room to call some producer guy he knew at NBC to do damage control.

  He came into the locker room just as I was yanking my coat on. Although he looked furious, he seemed much less panicked as he barked, “Echolls isn’t going to talk. But this isn’t over for you. Expect a call from team management.”

  As I walk toward my car, a green Volkswagen Beetle parked a few cars away catches my attention even before the door swings open and Jessie gets out. She marches over to me, the hood on her jacket up.

  “Jessie. I’m sorry.”

  She shoves me hard in the chest and when I stumble back, she steps into me, rocking up on her tiptoes and pointing an angry finger in my face. “You’re a hypocrite, you know that?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  The wind picks up, the misty rain whipping us and causing strands of her long hair to blow into her face. She pushes them away angrily, causing her hood to fall back. “You think Chance was such a monster because he wanted to play me. You act like your intentions were so fucking different.”

  “They were!” I bellow.

  “Really? Because you got what you wanted and moved on,” she shouts. “You’re the one fucking half the free world, not Chance. You’re everything you thought he was in high school.”

  She shoves me again, but this time I reach up and grab her hands and yank her to me. I bow my head so my face is inches from hers and our eyes lock. “He cheated on you. He broke your heart.”

  She stares up at me, green eyes blazing, her breath huffing out in rage-choked gusts. Her hair, damp from the rain, looks dark as it sticks to her neck. I let go of one of her hands and let my fingertips trail over her neck, then gently lift the hair away. I can see her shiver and I know it’s not from the cold air. I fucking know it. It’s from the same lingering desire she won’t admit she still has for me. The same desire that makes me want to kiss her right now.

  I lean forward, my hand slipping back to touch her neck, but she abruptly pulls back and slaps my hand away, her palm making a loud smack as it hits the side of the plastic brace I’m wearing.

  “I’m nothing like Chance,” I call out as she turns to walk back toward her car.

  “No. You’re not,” she calls back as she keeps marching to her car. “You told Chance about our past because you thought he’d give up and go away. That’s what you did so you figured he’d do it too. Well, he didn’t. We’re still friends. Such good friends that he’s agreed to keep quiet about this as a favor to me. The NHL won’t know you’re a hot-headed idiot who picks fights with the media. You’re welcome.”

  She reaches her car and yanks the door open. Before sliding behind the wheel, she looks up at me again. “And if that hand needs extra therapy, call someone else because I quit.”

  And then she’s peeling out of the parking lot and I’m left standing there, rain-soaked and feeling like I’ve just been eviscerated.

  Chapter 18

  Jessie

  I laugh—really, truly, deeply laugh. And it hits me I haven’t even cracked a smile, let alone laughed, in the last five days since the disaster at the hockey arena. Man, it feels good. The bartender puts two more shots down in front of Tori and me. “These two are on me, ladies.”

  He winks at me and I smile back. He is so not my type—too short, his hair is too dark, and he’s too meaty looking. But hey, free shots.

  Tori and I giggle and clink glasses, powering through what are our fourth shots of the night. She’s been picking the poison, throwing names like “broken-down golf cart” and “honey badger’s foot” at the bartender. I have no idea what’s in any of the things I’m pouring down my throat, but they’re sweet and delicious so, whatever.

  “I’m glad you made me do this!” I admit, and hug her spontaneously. When she first suggested a girls’ night at her favorite bar, a place called the Nine-Pound Hammer, I was reluctant because I hadn’t exactly been in a partying mood lately, but I was enjoying myself for the first time in months.

  She hugs me back. “Well, you looked like you could use a night out. And I wanted to celebrate getting rid of Jordan Garrison.”

  I try to ignore his name. Ignore him. Thinking of Jordan would just ruin this night. I will not think of him.

  I haven’t seen him since that day he sprained his wrist. Either his trainers are handling the injury on their own or he had told them he wouldn’t go back to Sea-Tac. I didn’t care, I’m just glad to have some space. Now if only I can get him out of my head as easily as I’ve gotten him out of my physical space. I think about him all the time. I even found myself on the Winterhawks website, looking for updates on his condition. All it said was that Jordan Garrison was back on the injury list after “a freak accident at practice caused a severe wrist sprain.”

  An unknown number had popped up on my call display a couple times in the last week, but I didn’t answer it. Although no one would admit it, I assumed someone in our shared group of friends and family had finally broken down and given him my cell, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him again. I need to get my head straight and get my defenses back up. I’d almost let him kiss me in the parking lot, even though I was hurt and humiliated by what he’d said to Chance and how he’d said it. Chance was right, he’d made me look like a whore. What kind of crazy person wants to let a boy like that kiss her?

  “I need to tinkle!” Tori announces, and adjusts her silky blue strapless top. It’s barely keeping her ample breasts contained. “I’ll be back.”

  She bounces off to find the restroom. A few seconds later, the bartender winks at me and places some kind of yellow frothy martini in front of me.

  “Lemon meringue martini,” he says with a smile, and nods his head toward the other side of the bar. “From him.”

  I glance down the bar and see a stocky brunet with a mischievous smile and nice blue eyes. Not Jordan nice, but nice. I scold myself for even thinking of Jordan. I can’t help it though. I’ve been comparing men to him since I was a teenager. Even in those years when we weren’t speaking.

  I raise the glass toward him as a sign of thanks and he raises his beer back to me. That mischievous grin grows a little, as does the twinkle in his eye. I take a sip. It’s sweet, tangy and delicious. I watch him walk over to me over the top of my drink.

  “You like it?”

  I nod. “It’s good. Thank you.”

  “It’s the best drink in the house. You look like someone who deserves the best,” he says, and smiles.

  “Wow.” I nod and giggle. I’m getting very drunk. Not fall-down-barf drunk but flushed-and-flirty drunk. “That was quite the line.”

  He blinks, laughing. “L
ike I said, you deserve the best.”

  “I’m Jessie.” I extend my hand and he takes it. His handshake is firm. That’s hot.

  “Finally! A name for the pretty face,” he coos, and I’m not sure what he means by “finally.” We’ve only been talking for six seconds. “I’m Alexandre.”

  He says his name with a heavy roll of the “r,” and my drunken brain realizes he’s French. His accent is similar to but heavier than Luc’s. We stare at each other smiling and sip our drinks. I’m so not in any place emotionally to be flirting with a guy—any guy—but this one is adorable.

  “You’re Canadian.”

  His nice blue eyes flare in surprise. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “The accent. I have a French Canadian friend,” I explain, and sip the yummy drink again.

  “Pretty and smart,” he says. His praise makes me blush and giggle, playfully swatting at his chest. It’s rock hard under his black T-shirt. I let my hand lightly graze down his taut belly as I pull away, and his smile gets larger.

  “What are you doing all the way over here in Seattle?”

  “I work here.”

  “What kind of work does a pretty French Canadian boy do in Seattle?” I ask as I gulp down more of my frothy beverage. If my brain wasn’t doing the backstroke in alcohol right now, I would have known the answer to that. There’s usually only one reason an athletic French Canadian boy would be working in Seattle. Before he can answer, there’s another guy beside him. A shorter, even stockier guy with brown hair and brown eyes. He’s clearly as fit and muscled as my new friend Alexandre.

  “Dix!” Alexandre claps his buddy on the back. “This is Jessie.”

  Dix and I smile at each other and shake hands.

  “Chris Dixon,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Dix plays with me,” Alexandre explains. “But he’s not as good.”

  Dix rolls his eyes at that and Alexandre laughs. I smile and nod, but then I realize what he just said. I stop smiling. “Play?”

  Alex nods as his eyes twinkle playfully. “Hockey. You don’t recognize me? I recognized you.”

  “No,” I say firmly. No, because I really don’t recognize him, but it’s also a giant “no, this can’t be happening” to the universe. Because, seriously. No.

  “Yeah. Winterhawks,” Dix adds helpfully.

  I put my half-empty martini on the bar. Alexandre uses the opportunity to reach for my hand. “Seattle Winterhawks. The National Hockey League. But you know that. You’re a therapist, right? You worked on Garrison.”

  “I gotta go.” I yank my hand back and push my way through the crowd, looking for the restroom so I can find Tori and get the hell out of here.

  Alexandre and Dix are fucking Seattle Winterhawks. Just when I think my luck can’t get any worse…

  I see the restroom sign blinking neon above a doorway to my right and start toward it. As the crowd breaks apart making room for me, I see Tori. She’s leaning over a small high-top table beside the restroom. She’s face-to-face with someone, raising a shot glass toward them in a “cheers” gesture. The person in front of her is holding a beer bottle in a brace-covered hand. His blond head is angled so I can’t see his face, but I don’t have to. I know exactly who he is. I know even before his eyes find mine.

  Chapter 19

  Jordan

  I can’t find the guys. They were here a minute ago, but then I went to take a leak and now they’re not by the pool tables where I left them. I do one lap around the overcrowded bar, but I’m too drunk to continue the search. Not fall-down drunk, but unfocused, lazy drunk. I order a shot of tequila and a beer from a waitress and find an empty table by the bathroom. Eventually one of the guys is going to take a piss.

  I’d been in a shit-tastic mood since I hurt my hand. The team’s general manager had a lengthy, angry discussion with me about the incident. He was furious, obviously. If it had gotten out that I was brawling with a reporter, it would have been a press nightmare, not just for me, but for the entire team and even the league.

  He also said it’s not a bad thing I was injured because he would have had me benched anyway. He wanted to know what it was about. I wouldn’t give him details other than to say Chance and I had known each other a long time and this was an ongoing issue. It was explained to me, in no uncertain terms, it was not an issue I was to bring to work ever again.

  It was stupid and I deserved the scorn. I’d just…snapped. There was no excuse and no way to rationalize it. I was probably as angry with myself as Jessie was with me. I always wanted Chance to know what had happened between me and Jessie. I needed him to know he hadn’t hurt her as badly as he thought he had; that he hadn’t mattered as much as he thought he had. I also needed him to know that I mattered to her more than he thought I did. It was infantile and driven completely by my ridiculous ego, and I knew this. I wish I hadn’t done it. I’d been trying to tell Jessie all of this, but she refused to answer the phone. And the one day I went by her work was her and Tori’s day off. When I’d subtly asked the receptionist where she lived, she got suspicious and looked at me like I was a stalker or a serial killer so I’d backed off and gone back home to sulk.

  I went to the arena every day to do cardio and skate in an attempt to stay conditioned. When this hand healed, I didn’t want any reason not to get back on the ice immediately. I was on my best behavior. I barely spoke to anyone, and when I did it was only about hockey. Coach seemed relieved. Still pissed, but relieved.

  On my off time I was going out way too much. I’d go out with any teammate who had the urge. This week alone I’d been out four nights. I hated sitting at home. When I was home alone, all I could think about was Jessie.

  The annoying part was when I was out in public, no matter where I went or how many women were flirting shamelessly with me, all I could think about was Jessie. And then I would go home and jerk off—my thoughts on Jessie in her yoga pants. Or how it had felt to be inside her the one and only time I’d ever been inside her. I felt like a giant loser.

  The game the Winterhawks had played tonight hadn’t been an easy win, but I’d managed to convince Alex and Dix to come out despite the fact they had practice tomorrow and then had to get on a plane for the next away game. As I sit here now, by myself, I wonder briefly if they all went home. And as I sip my scotch, I think maybe I should just leave. Every time a pretty woman walks by, it reminds me how much prettier Jessie is. I should just go home, jerk off and feel pathetic again.

  Then suddenly, before I can register what’s happening, I hear my name being called and there’s a big-breasted, tall blonde towering over my table.

  “Hey, Tori!” I say, slightly glad it’s someone I know, but only slightly because, as usual, this girl has a dirty look on her face as she stares at me. “How are you?”

  “Better now that you’re not my patient,” she snaps.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Maybe it’s the booze or just the way my life has been going lately, but suddenly I’ve got no patience and no subtlety when it comes to this woman. “You’ve been cold and rude since I met you, and I have no idea why.”

  She stops and stares at me incredulously, blinking her big blue eyes. The waitress comes over and places my shot and beer on the table between us. She winks and says, “On the house, superstar.”

  I give her a grateful smile—the innocent kind that makes them think this has never happened to me before. The fact is, there’s at least one waitress or bartender in every bar in every town with an NHL team who comps a drink or two as a way of flirting. She’s beaming as she wanders away.

  “Whatever I did to offend you, I’m sorry,” I tell her because she’s friends with Jessie. She could be an ally, and right now I need all the allies I can find. I slide the shot glass toward her. “Let’s drink to a truce.”

  She steps closer, her eyes go to the shot glass, and a bitter smile flickers over her features briefly as she picks it up and stares at the clear liquid inside. Then she leans ac
ross the table. “The first time we met I wasn’t rude or cold to you.”

  I frown as my mind goes back to the meeting in her office. I’m about to shake my head to argue when she continues. “The first time I met you, I was downright giddy because I thought you were the hottest thing I’d ever seen and the most talented player in the NHL. And you were so charming. You liked my dress and the fact that I knew the difference between a slap shot and a wrist shot. You bought me one of these…actually you bought me two. And a couple margaritas. I was nice to you. I was a total fucking sweetheart all night long.”

  Is she crazy? Is Jessie’s coworker an escaped mental patient? What the hell is she talking about? I stare at her—really stare at her—my brain pulling out any fuzzy, confused memory in every corner of my mind. Did I meet her before? I can’t for the life of me remember.

  “You made it clear it was a one-night stand and I was fine with that. I really was.” She looks at me sincerely. “I thought one night with you would be a fantasy come true. I’ve had one-night stands before. They’re just good clean fun. But I haven’t had so many that I don’t remember.”

  Oh fuck. A fuzzy memory surfaces from the recesses of my mind. Tori in a Capitol Hill martini bar with slightly shorter hair and a tight red dress. Then I remember Tori out of the dress.

  I open my mouth but she lifts her free hand and holds her palm out in front of my face, commanding me to shut up. “No, seriously. I was fine with the one-night stand. I was even looking forward to joking about it with you when I found out we’d be working together. It was only when you looked at me blankly and I had to introduce myself that I regretted it.”