One More Shot (Hometown Players #1)

by Victoria Denault

  He smiles and turns his head so we’re looking right at each other. Suddenly oddly self-conscious, I reach up and play with my hair, smoothing it down and tucking the left side behind my ear.

  “I don’t want to fight on Christmas, Jessie. That’s why I’m going to spend the entire flight with my knees at my earlobes. We need to talk this out.”

  I nod but say nothing. He just stares at me. Once the plane is barreling down the runway and the front end is lifting into the air, I swallow hard and take a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry about the Alex thing,” I blurt out quietly.

  “I deserved it.” He pulls the black wool cap off his head. His overgrown blond hair is all over the place, and he tries his best to smooth it down.

  “No, you didn’t deserve it.” I sigh and lean my head back against the seat. “I just wanted to hurt you. It was completely immature of me. I swear to you we didn’t have sex. We didn’t even kiss. I went home alone.”

  He nods and then turns his gaze to his hands in his lap. “I’m sorry for my meltdown. I just…the thought of you…I mean, I want you to be happy. But he wouldn’t have made you happy. And I just didn’t want to have to hear about it in the locker room.”

  “The way I have to hear about it at my work,” I can’t help but say. He looks instantly embarrassed, his eyes shifting downward and his stubbly cheeks turning a pale red.

  “I feel horrible about Tori,” he whispers gruffly. “I do remember what happened between us…now.”

  “I don’t want to know the details, Jordan,” I warn him. “I don’t ever want to know.”

  He nods. “Just know I intend to apologize to Tori. And I want to start over with you.”

  “What do you mean…start over?” I whisper, but I’m not breathing.

  “Look, Jessie,” he says in a deep gravelly voice as he picks at the edge of the bright blue tensor bandage that’s on his right hand. “I just want to be friends again.”

  I feel a pain in my chest. I do not even want to deal with what that means. He looks up at me, holding my gaze, his blue eyes so light, so round and so earnest.

  “You were so much fun to hang out with,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “Remember how much fun we had? And how easy it was to talk to each other? You were like family to me. I miss that. I just want to get it back.”

  I turn my head to look out the window. A year ago—hell, even a few months ago—I would have told him to go to hell and that I never wanted to see him ever again. But…this hate is exhausting. Maybe it’s impossible to get over the pain of what happened when we moved past the friendship. Maybe I’ll never have the answers I want when it came to why he did what he did afterward. But maybe I should just stop asking the questions and let go of the pain and get back what mattered to begin with—our friendship. When it came to friendship, Jordan had never disappointed me.

  “We are adults now. I guess there’s no harm in acting like it,” I say with a small smile. “And I really do miss your family.”

  He smiles at that. “So…Friends? Again?”

  I hesitate but nod. “I’ll give it a try if you will.”

  “I will.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment, and it suddenly seems way too intense on this plane.

  “Besides,” I begin, trying to lighten the mood, “I have a feeling that my sister is completely in love with Luc. So, our lives are probably going to cross more, not less.”

  Jordan laughs. Really laughs. Like he did that day in the therapy room. And this time I let myself completely revel in the sound.

  “I really hope you’re talking about Luc and Rose.”

  “Who else would I be talking about?”

  “Callie and Luc?” he tells me, and I make a barfing sound. “What? You know with Callie anything is possible! I mean, if she can hook up with Devin, why not Luc?”

  “Are you drunk?” I ask completely taken aback. “She never slept with Devin.”

  He giggles. He actually freaking giggles.

  “The year after I was drafted, he signed that big contract extension and we had a big party,” Jordan explains with a smile. “You were already gone to Arizona, but Callie and Rosie came. Callie and Devin got drunk and totally hooked up. I walked in on them in the barn at the back of our property.”

  I study his face intently. “You’re lying.”

  “Jessie, I don’t lie to you,” he says, and he means it. He means it so much the atmosphere around us starts to get intense again.

  “That little slut.” I shake my head and laugh. “I can’t wait to confront her on this one!”

  Jordan puts that hat back on his head and shifts in his seat. He looks so ridiculously uncomfortable. As if to prove that, he groans in misery.

  “You know you can go ask for your seat back now. I won’t mind,” I tell him.

  “Nah. It’s fine.” He shrugs and gets that big mischievous grin on his face that makes his dimple appear and the cleft in his chin look deeper. “Besides, I can’t kick your ass at Scrabble from first class.”

  I laugh loudly at that. “Really? Jordy, you have never, ever beaten me.”

  “No, but I’ve had years of road trips to practice since we last played.” He pulls out his iPhone and opens his Scrabble app. I try hard to focus on how good it feels to be friendly with him and not how weird it feels.

  But as we get settled in our game and I start kicking his ass, what I feel the most over the weirdness is contentment.

  I just love being around him again.

  Chapter 24

  Jessie

  It started snowing,” Rose says gleefully, clapping her hands.

  I glance out the kitchen window, over her shoulder and smile. “When Jordy gets here I’ll make him start a fire.”

  “When Jordy gets here blah-blah-blah,” Callie mimics in a totally annoying whine. She’s been a barrel of bitchy monkeys since Jordan and I walked out of the Arrivals gate together earlier this afternoon. I stare at her as she rummages through a dusty box of ornaments we dug out of the attic earlier. She looks up at me, defiant.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” I remind her. “Stop being Scrooge and show some Christmas spirit because I invited him and Luc over to help us with the tree.”

  “Of course you did. Bah, humbug.” Callie shakes her head and pulls a bag of brightly colored bulbs out of the box. Rose rolls her eyes, annoyed.

  “If she can forgive him, who are we not to?” Rose demands, and I nod emphatically.

  Callie looks at me skeptically. “You forgive him, do you?”

  I falter. “I do. I guess. I mean, I just want to stop being angry with him.”

  “Why?”

  I go to the fridge to check the progress of a bottle of white wine we put in there earlier to chill. Lord, I need a drink suddenly.

  “Because I miss being his friend,” I reply as I dig in the drawers for the wine opener. “He was a great friend.”

  “Friendship?” she says as though she’s never heard the word before. “You honestly think you can go back to a friendship?”

  I find the wine opener in the drawer by the stove. Turning to her, I smirk and say, “Why not? You and Devin got along just fine after bumping uglies.”

  Callie looks like I just dropped a dancing gorilla into the middle of the room. Her jaw drops and her eyes look like they might pop out of her head.

  “WHAT?!” Rose squeals excitedly.

  I just laugh.

  “Who the hell told you?” Callie demands, her porcelain skin quickly turning crimson.

  “Who do you think?”

  “That little fucker!”

  As if on cue, the front door opens and his deep baritone fills the house.

  “Hey! We’re here!”

  Jordan turns into the kitchen from the entryway, just barely avoiding the plastic Santa Callie hurls at him.

  “Whoa!” He looks at me with wide blue eyes. “What did I do now?”

  “It’s not what you did.” I laugh and reach out
to block the ball of tangled lights Callie is now throwing at Jordan. “It’s what she did. With your brother.”

  “Oh my God, SHUT UP!” Callie screams, but she’s laughing, totally embarrassed.

  Luc is stunned. “You slept with a Garrison brother? Wait, which one?”

  “Devin!” Rose yells, still laughing. “Gross!”

  Jordan chuckles. “I’ll be sure to tell him you called him gross.”

  “You’re not going to say anything to anyone ever again,” Callie instructs him. “Ashleigh doesn’t need to know. It happened before she entered the picture. And it wasn’t really sex. You should have kept your yap shut!”

  “Sorry,” Jordan tells her honestly. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

  He looks over at me and his eyes slide to my shirt. Well…his shirt. He stares at the Silver Bay Bucks logo, and I know he knows it’s the one he left on kitchen floor so many years ago because when his eyes find mine again, they’re soft and his voice is deep. “Nice shirt.”

  Callie marches up to him and shoves him. “Come make yourself useful and help me get the tree out of the truck.”

  I watch as she pulls him back out the door. Jordy throws me a glance like “Help me!” because he’s probably worried she’s going to run him over with the truck. And I’m not sure she won’t. But I just give him a shrug and hope for the best.

  Chapter 25

  Jordan

  Callie marches to the back of the truck while I stand on the porch and take a deep breath. The night sky is navy blue and peppered with stars. The air is that kind of clean, crisp cold that turns your cheeks pink upon contact. I hesitantly step onto the ground, snow crunching under my boots, as Callie pulls down the truck’s tailgate. I peer over the side at the bushy green spruce lying there, covered in a light dusting of snow.

  “I can’t believe you guys are going to this much trouble for a few days,” I can’t help but observe aloud.

  Callie glances up at me, her face as stern and dark as always. There was a time when she didn’t look at me with condemnation, but I can barely remember it.

  “It means a lot to Rose,” she explains quietly. “Out of all of us, she probably has the fondest memories of the Bay. And if she wants one last Christmas tree, I’ll give it to her. My sisters should get what they want.”

  “You didn’t always think that.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, creating a foggy puff of air between us.

  She stares up at me. The hard look in her eyes tell me she heard exactly what I said, but she questions it anyway. “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter now,” I say, and smile at her as a peace offering. “Look, I get why you didn’t want to give her my number that first summer I came home, even though I begged you to do it. But I want you to know that I just want to be her friend now. I promise.”

  She huffs then walks around to the open tailgate. She starts pulling on the trunk of the tree as she speaks.

  “You know, it’s weird. When we were kids, I swear you were the most honest guy we knew. Then you had sex with my sister and bam! Everything you say to me is a complete bag of shit.”

  “Come on, Callie,” I complain, and then move her out of the way because that tree isn’t going to budge for her. “What do I have to do to get you to trust me?”

  “Stop lying.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  I tug, and half the tree slides out of the bed. I glance up to find her staring at me with a somber look on her face.

  “Tell me you don’t love her.”

  I blink. “Callie.”

  “Tell me you don’t love Jessie. Tell me that you feel nothing beyond sisterly love for her now.” Her hands land on her slim hips. “Tell me that and I will cut you some slack. I’ll be your best buddy and biggest fan. I’ll make a freaking ‘I love Garrison’ sign for the next hockey game.”

  “You’re such a freak.” I shift my weight, the snow under me crunching, and I roll my eyes. Callie is making me really uncomfortable right now and I don’t like it.

  She sneers and a gust of air billows from her lungs, making a white cloud in front of her. “You still love her.”

  “But I’m willing to let that go,” I say sincerely.

  “Don’t you get it, Jordan? That’s why I hate you!” she says, raising her voice in frustration. She plants her hands on the front of my coat, trying to give me a little shake. I don’t move an inch.

  She hip-checks me out of the way and tugs on the tree again. It starts sliding out of the truck—and it doesn’t stop. I grab Callie’s arm and yank her toward me so the tree doesn’t slam her into the ground and land on top of her. The bushy pine hits the driveway with a thud. Callie looks up at me, and for the first time in a very long time, she doesn’t look angry. She looks…dejected.

  “Jordy, you give up on her too easily,” she whispers desperately. Her eyes dart toward the house to make sure she’s not overheard. “You know why I didn’t give your number to her that summer? I saw you about five times that summer and the only time you ever brought my sister up was when you were drunk. And after that night, you never brought her up again.”

  “You said she was seeing a new guy at college. She had moved on,” I argue. I will never forget Callie telling me that, even though I was drunk at the time. The pain of it had been sobering. I hadn’t tried to contact Jessie after that because of Callie’s words.

  “She was seeing a guy, but it wasn’t serious. But what was serious was how much she’d healed since moving to Arizona,” Callie informs me sharply. Her mouth—so similar to her sister’s—presses into a hard line for a minute before she continues. “She was starting to try to be happy again, and I knew one phone call from you would destroy that.”

  As Callie moves to the tip of the tree, her eyes fix me. “She loves you, Jordan. She always has. But you didn’t deserve her then and you don’t deserve her now. Jessie isn’t perfect. She’s got issues. Our childhood gave them to her, and she has every right to have them.”

  “I know,” I reply because I really do know.

  “And yet you still walked away every single time she needed someone to do the opposite.”

  “What?”

  She sighs loudly. “You want Jessie. I know you still do, so then work for it! Show her you’re not King of the Man Sluts anymore and then give her the time she needs to actually believe it. Be there and don’t give up.”

  We stare at each other, the tree between us and the snow falling all around us.

  “You guys need help?” Luc calls as he lumbers down the porch steps.

  Callie breaks our stare and turns to my best friend with a smile. “I’ll let you two do all the work.”

  “Did you let Dev do all the work too?” Luc quips, and wiggles his dark eyebrows, grinning.

  She starts back to the house but stops in front of him and shoves him ass-first into the snowbank by the porch. I see Rose and Jessie on the steps smiling. Jessie’s eyes meet mine and suddenly, I can’t swallow.

  Two and a half hours later I’m kneeling in front of the massive brick fireplace in the living room placing another log on the fire, Callie’s words still bouncing around my head. She had marched off to bed shortly after the tree was decorated, claiming jet lag, and Rose and Luc had gone to Last Call to meet up with Leah and Cole. Jessie had asked me to make a fire, and as I dug around for a match in all the weird ceramic boxes and bottle Lily kept on the mantel, Jessie asked me if I was hungry.

  “Starving,” I’d replied, and she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Now as I lean back and admire my work, the delicious scent of bacon wafts into the room. She turns the corner with a tray full of grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches and two beers. My face lights up as Jessie places them on the old pine coffee table. “Donna used to make a loaf’s worth of these for you after practice. You loved them.”

  “I can’t believe you remember that!” I say, walking over and plopping down on the plaid couch beside her. I re
ach for half a sandwich and she grabs the other half, and we sit in silence and eat, her eyes on the fire and mine on her.

  “You know, this place kind of feels comforting tonight,” she murmurs as she reaches for her beer and her eyes move to the Christmas tree. “I bet once we get rid of all of Lily’s ugly junk, it’ll actually be a nice place and buyers will be able to see its potential.”

  “I always liked the place,” I confess. “Bad plaid, gaudy sunflowers and all.”

  She laughs and then, as I devour a second sandwich, she reaches out suddenly and pulls my Winterhawks cap off my head. I reach for it self-consciously.

  “What’s with the hair, Jordy?” she playfully demands as she puts the hat on her own head.

  I shrug. “I’ve never had long hair. Why? You don’t like it?”

  She reaches out and runs her hand into the floppy mess. Her fingers graze my scalp. It sends a ripple of electricity down my spine and up my cock. I should pull away but there is no fucking way I can make myself do that.

  “I don’t mind it, but I’m used to you with shorter hair. You look so much like my Jordy when it’s cropped and neat,” Jessie replies, and my stomach flips at the term “my Jordy.” “Callie says the long hair makes you look like you’re letting yourself go.”

  “Tell Callie to bite me,” I retort with a smile. She laughs under her breath.

  “I think you’re going to miss her giving you a hard time after we sell this place,” Jessie muses. “Because you know once it’s done she’ll never leave California again. She loves it there too much.”

  I open my eyes. She’s smiling at me, but it’s sad. Sad because she sees the potential in this place—the warmth, the possibility—but she’ll never get to enjoy it, and I hate that. I also hate that if a stranger moves into this house, Jessie won’t have a place to stay in Silver Bay. Why would she ever come back?

  “Speaking of houses…I need a place. And you’re selling a place…” I let my statement trail off and hang between us. Her body tenses. She looks ridiculously adorable in my hat and my shirt from when I was eighteen. Her eyes land on mine. I stare back.