One More Shot (Hometown Players #1)

by Victoria Denault

  He grins and kisses my forehead before walking to his teammates. I scan the room, finding Sebastian exactly where I hoped I would—back at the monstrous island in the kitchen, pouring liquid into the martini shaker.

  When I plop myself down in the bar stool across from him, he grins at me and winks. “You want another of my drinks, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Because it’s a magical, fantastical concoction way better than Choochinsky’s?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I reply.

  “Well, you better say it or no drink for you!” He grins mischievously but slides a full martini glass my way anyway.

  I take a big gulp of the frothy drink he just placed in front of me. “Delicious,” I confirm, and he smiles knowingly.

  “It’s all about the lemon zest,” he tells me secretively and adds, “And if you tell your boyfriend and my teammates I know what lemon zest is, I’ll cross check you.”

  I choke a little at that and he reaches across the counter to pat my back. Boyfriend. Is Jordan actually, really, finally my boyfriend? I guess he is. I take another sip and notice Ainsley slinking toward us, like a jaguar hunting its prey in tall grass. She’s being trailed by two other girls in her pride.

  “Sebastian, vein avec moi, s’il vous plait.” A willowy blonde in a low-cut tank top loops her arm through his as she whispers these words to him in broken French.

  Seb raises his dark eyebrows just a little, clearly impressed. “You speak French?”

  “I do a lot of things in French,” she replies suggestively.

  Seb lets her guide him away, leaving me with Ainsley and a busty brunette I haven’t met. I meet Ainsley’s cool stare. I try to remember the feel of Jordan’s hands on me and the way he looked at me after he came in my mouth upstairs; that gives me confidence. He wants me here. I belong.

  “Having fun?” Ainsley inquires, but her tone suggests she doesn’t give a shit.

  “I was.”

  “You must feel like you’ve won the lottery,” she surmises. She starts dropping fruit into the blender, tipping vodka in after it. “A rich, talented boy takes you out on the town and another rich, talented boy makes you drinks.”

  I take another sip but don’t respond. Because if you have nothing nice to say…

  “Where did he meet you again? A bar? At the restaurant you work at?” Ainsley’s dark eyes are hard.

  “Let’s see…” I put my glass down on the marble counter between us. “I think it was Mrs. Howlett, our third-grade teacher, who first introduced us.”

  She looks perplexed. Her slutty sidekick looks downright confused. But Ainsley isn’t new to this mean-girls routine and recovers quickly.

  “Funny, Jordan never mentioned you. Ever,” she says with a shrug. “I guess you don’t matter that much.”

  The brunette sidekick reaches for the vodka and starts looking for a clean glass. Ainsley hands her the martini shaker with the last mouthful of what Sebastian had concocted for me.

  “Have some of Jessie’s drink,” Ainsley tells her friend, smiling. “You’ve shared men, you might as well share drinks.”

  I really wish I could appear unaffected, but I can’t. That jagged little revelation is cutting through my heart like the blade of a serrated knife.

  “Jordan’s good, isn’t he?” she asks with a smug smile. “At least he was for me. Every time.”

  “You’re not the first, Jenny,” Ainsley says, leaning over the counter so she can hiss it at me. I’m sure she got my name wrong on purpose. “And even if you stick around, you won’t be the only.”

  Without a word, I take my drink, slip off my stool and walk away. There is nothing else I can do. I can hear Ainsley and the other slut laughing at me. It takes everything in me not to turn around and punch them both in the throat.

  I wander through the house, feeling like I’ve been shot. I must look like it too, because Jordan abandons his foosball battle and walks over. Chooch screams, “Forfeit!” but Jordan ignores it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to go.”

  “What?” He’s upset now. “Why?”

  “I don’t belong here,” I tell him quietly, and then put my drink down on the coffee table. I start toward the front door. He follows me. When we get to the front hall, he grabs my shoulders and spins me around. It’s not rough, but it’s insistent.

  “Jessie, talk to me. Please. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here,” I confess in a choked whisper. “I mean, what the hell are we doing, Jordan?”

  “We’re dating again,” he insists, his hands sliding to my upper arms in a loose grip.

  I laugh, but it’s mirthless and cold. “We never dated to begin with, so we can’t be dating again. All we did was have sex. Then and now. That’s all we did.”

  I pull my arms out of his grip and jab an accusing finger toward the living room. “Just like you did with her.”

  His blue eyes shift in the direction I’m pointing, and he sees the brunette across the room sipping her martini and smirking at both of us.

  “Bethany?” he says.

  “Oh, so you remember sleeping with this one?”

  He ignores the dig completely. “That was…nothing. And the last time it happened was a year ago.”

  I shake my head. “She wanted to compare notes.”

  “That’s because she’s bitter I’m picking you, not her,” he whispers hotly, reaching out for my hand.

  I pull away. “Look, I don’t regret having sex with you,” I tell him honestly. “Not then and not now. But we’re just not good at anything else.”

  “How can you say that?” he questions angrily. “You’ve never even tried.”

  “I haven’t tried?” I fire back, furiously pushing my hair back from my face. “I would have tried way back when, but you and Hannah—”

  “Tried from where, Arizona? Because you left, remember?”

  “Hey! It’s almost midnight!” Chooch calls out, unknowingly interrupting our fight. “Everyone get in here! We’ve got champagne!”

  We stare at each other for a long heated second as people walk by us heading for the living room where Chooch and Ainsley are handing out noisemakers and tiny bags of confetti. Without a word, he takes my hand and starts to drag me back to the party.

  “I want to leave,” I quietly plead.

  “And I want to stay,” he returns. “I’m bigger, so I win.”

  His old argument still rings true. I know if I pushed hard enough—both verbally and physically—he’d let me go. But I don’t. I just stand beside him as his teammates and their partners and Ainsley’s slutty friends start counting down to the New Year. They reach one and everyone cheers. Confetti flies. Noisemakers wail. People start hugging and kissing.

  Jordan turns to face me and wraps an arm around my waist. He lifts my chin and tilts my head upward. Before I can protest, his lips are on mine. It’s a hot, deep, needy kiss. I lose myself in it completely. All my anger, frustration and humiliation melt. And then I hear whistles.

  “Easy, Garrison,” Seb calls out. “Keep it PG, buddy!”

  Avery laughs and calls out, “Get a room!”

  “There’s a guest room upstairs if you need it!” Chooch happily suggests, garnering chuckles and claps.

  I break the kiss, flushed from the heat of it and also embarrassment at such a public display. My eyes fall instantly on Ainsley and Bethany, who are both shooting me death stares. Jordan refuses to let go of my hand.

  He drags me over to Chooch and tells the goalie we’ll be heading out. We then make our way around the room saying good-bye to various people. Well, Jordan says good-bye. I just wave, nod and smile.

  Seb reaches for me and hugs me good-bye. “Women all over Seattle are going to be crushed you took this boy off the market. Well, at least the three or four who haven’t had him.”

  I know he’s just teasing. He doesn’t mean to hurt me at all
, so I try not to frown. I let Jordan lead me through the house and out the front door. As soon as we reach his SUV, he pushes me against the back bumper and puts his hands on either side of my head, staring down at me.

  He brings his mouth close to mine—hovering maybe half an inch away—and then he just stops. My eyes are glued to his lips; his tongue slides out to wet them slowly. I have always loved Jordan’s lips. And the cleft in his chin. And the cool azure color of his eyes.

  I hold my breath and look up into those eyes. He’s looking at me with so much desire, it’s radiating off him. I can feel it. I can’t handle being this close to him. I can’t resist the need to touch him. I tilt my head and push up on my toes, pressing my lips to his. He kisses me, his hands moving to my hair, grabbing onto it, tilting my head back farther so my mouth opens and his tongue can gain entrance.

  I push my hands into his open coat and under his shirt. His skin is warm contrast to the cold night air. He flattens me against the back of the car, his body pressed firmly against every part of mine. My hands slide up his back. His groin pushes against my hip. He’s hard. I can feel it. And I’m wet. I can feel it that too. And then he does the unthinkable—he pulls away.

  “Tell me you don’t want me,” he says in a hoarse whisper, fighting to catch his breath.

  “I do want you,” I tell him quickly, and then take a breath to clear my head. “That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what the hell is?!” he demands, his breath making white clouds in the winter air between us.

  “We don’t even really know each other anymore,” I mumble as he pushes himself off the car and away from me.

  “Are you different?” he asks in a hard tone. “Is orange no longer your favorite color? Have you finally stopped listening to nineties pop and started listening to hip-hop? Are you no longer scared of spiders? What’s changed?”

  “You’re different.”

  “Me?” He shakes his head dismissively. “I’m not different at all.”

  “Really?” I say, and now it’s my turn to have the hard tone. “The Jordy I knew didn’t fuck random puck bunnies.”

  He stares at me for a long moment, then rolls his eyes. “I slept around a bit. I won’t deny it and I’m not ashamed of it. I like sex, Jessie. I blame you for that. If it wasn’t so fucking perfect with you, maybe I would have been satisfied with one of these girls. By the way, no one—nothing—has ever made me feel as good as you do.”

  I say nothing. I mean, what do you say to that? “Thank you” seems a little ridiculous.

  He cocks his eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell me that you haven’t had sex? You’ve been a born-again virgin since our first time?”

  “My first time,” I bitingly correct him, reminding him I was the only virgin in the room that night. “No. I’ve had sex. Just not with everything that walks by.”

  “I would have just had sex with you this entire time, Jessie, but you left me, remember?” he says sharply, jamming his hands in his pockets. He kicks at the snow at the edge of the sidewalk in front of Chooch’s house. “You left me.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Jordan? It felt like everything you said was a lie!” I ask angrily. “I didn’t trust you and I couldn’t risk my whole future on you. I just…couldn’t.”

  “I’ve never lied to you a day in my life, Jessie.” His voice is low and deep, thick with anger and pain. “But somehow I’m always the bad guy.”

  “You let Hannah—”

  “There is no Hannah!” he yells, cutting off my words.

  “There was a Hannah,” I correct him. “And a Tori and a Bethany and a million others. Ainsley reminded me of that.”

  “Fuck Ainsley!”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t.”

  He swears under his breath, runs a giant hand through his hair and then balls that hand into a fist. His cheeks are turning red with anger, not from the cold.

  He opens his mouth and points at me. His eyes are blazing with anger and something else…rejection? Sadness? Something painful and dark. But before a word leaves his mouth, he drops his hand and presses his lips together. And once again, he’s that eighteen-year-old kid who can’t—who won’t—process his emotions.

  We stare at each other in silence. Jordan moves around me and opens the passenger door. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”

  I get in.

  We drive most of the way in silence. I keep glancing at him trying to figure out what he’s feeling and what he’s thinking. I have no idea. It makes me realize once again how much has changed. He pulls up in front of my apartment building and turns to me as he shuts off the car.

  I close my eyes and lean my head back against the seat. His words back there had left me colder than the winter air around us. I was chilled to the bone by the realization of how my actions had affected him. I picked Arizona because I was too scared to trust him. I needed to protect myself, and I really never stopped to wonder how that made him feel—because I’d convinced myself I had no other choice.

  “I’m sorry I felt I had to go to Arizona,” I whisper. “I’m sorry that it hurt you.”

  “It didn’t hurt me. It destroyed me.”

  “Then why do you want this again?” I can’t help but ask in a desperate, hoarse whisper. “Just go back to your women and your fun and forget this.”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” I open my eyes and look at him. He’s staring straight ahead at the steering wheel, his hands twisting in his lap. “For me to just drop you, or play you like you thought I was doing back then. Like you still think I did back then.”

  His words are hard and heavy, dropping between us in the car like bricks. I’d spent my whole life acutely aware that I could be let down at any moment—by anyone. Jordan had never failed me until I saw Hannah at the draft. He said he didn’t invite her, acted like he wasn’t a guy who would do that. I’d run anyway. So when I found out he’d gone on to treat his bedroom like a fast food drive-through, I assumed it was all the proof I needed that he was a bad guy. Was it? Was I just another one of the billions served, or was I different this time? Had I been different all along? I honestly didn’t know, and that was the problem.

  “Jordan, I’m incredibly attracted to you,” I confess quietly. “I’ve never been so attracted to anyone in my entire life. But…I don’t think I can just let that be everything.”

  I feel hot tears pricking at my eyes. He nods now, still staring straight ahead, still wordless, his fingers still tangling with themselves. Finally he mumbles, “So, this is happening? You’re leaving. Again.”

  “No!” I say a little louder than I mean to. He finally pulls his eyes from the steering wheel. “I just need some time. I want to be friends. I need to get to know you again.”

  He looks away again.

  “Please,” I beg softly.

  Finally, after a long time, he nods. “I’ll try.”

  I feel a wave of relief wash over me. If he had said no I would have been devastated. I impulsively reach out and touch his hand in his lap. I feel his fingers seize and become stiff. “Have a good road trip. Call me if you want, okay?”

  He nods, but I can’t help wondering if he actually will.

  I step out of the car and force myself to walk to my door. Glancing back once, I see him watching me through the window, his expression dark. As I put my key in the lock and pull open the door, I hear his tires peel away.

  Chapter 31

  Jordan

  I skate over to the face-off circle left of Chooch’s net as the TV network comes back from a commercial break. Devin is gliding along behind me. It’s another Garrison against Garrison draw. The media loves this shit so whenever we’re playing each other and Devin’s on the ice, Coach’s orders are I take the draw. Even if Westwood, arguably the best center in league, is out there too. Because the league isn’t just about winning, it’s about ratings, like any other televised sport, and brother against brother gets ratings.

  “What are we at, Mac?” I
asked the ref, Iain Macintyre, a silver-haired, gruff Canadian guy who had been in the league “since I was a gleam in my father’s eye,” as he once told me when I questioned one of his calls.

  “He’s won five. You’ve won three,” Mac informs me about the draw count between Devin and me. “You gotta pick it up.”

  Devin grins cockily at me as he skates into position. “Yeah, little brother. Pick it up.”

  “Why don’t you stop worrying about the draws and start worrying about your team’s inevitable loss?” I shoot back cockily as I lean over and lift my stick, eyes glued to the puck in Mac’s hand.

  Devin does score in the dying seconds of the game, but it’s not enough to win. The Seattle Winterhawks beat the Brooklyn Barons 3–2. More important, I beat Devin. It feels great, like it always does, but my first thought is to text Jessie about it. I love to gloat to her because I love how she loves to put me in my place when I do. But I’m not ready to text her yet…as her friend anyway.

  The locker room is loud and boisterous. We really needed this win. We’d lost our game in Atlanta last night in the shoot-out, which was a shitty way to start a road trip. Tonight’s win made us at least a little optimistic we could face Boston next, a team we hadn’t beaten once so far this year.

  As I’m shrugging into my suit jacket, my phone buzzes in the pocket. I figure it’s just Devin telling me to hurry up, but it’s Jessie.

  Tell Devin I say hi.

  I smile and type back, You mean the loser? Yeah. I’ll tell him.

  A second later she responds. Easy, egomaniac. That loser won six out of nine draws against you.

  I laugh. Whatever. Drinks are still on him.

  I head out of the locker room still smiling and glance up from my phone as Devin turns the corner. His dirty blond hair is damp from a shower, and he’s wearing his pregame suit including the ice-blue tie. “Are we going to church or a bar? Lose the tie.”

  He sneers at me and gives me the middle finger before tugging his tie off and shoving it in his pocket. I find it hard to believe he’s a married dad. He still looks so much like the big, scared eighteen-year-old who had moved to Brooklyn by himself and cried when he hugged our parents good-bye. I wonder how that big ball of dork managed to get someone to commit her life to him when I couldn’t even get Jessie to commit to being my girlfriend.