The Devil You Know: Devington Devils Hockey Romance

by Daphne Slade

  As I watch the two of them, my feelings toward her transition from begrudging admiration to mild resentment. At the very least she should take note of the fact that Noah is here with another woman.

  Not that I would ever in a million years….

  I cough pointedly to catch her attention.

  Her mascaraed lashes flutter in surprise and her wide eyes land on me like I’m a troll that just appeared from underneath the bridge.

  “I’ll have a glass of the merlot,” I say with a forced smile.

  “Oh yeah, right!” she says, brightening up as she remembers her duties in this happy little threesome. The professional smile she flashes at me eases into something more kittenish when she returns her attention back to Noah. “And what can I do you for?”

  And the hits just keep on coming.

  “Whatever IPA is on tap.”

  “Gotcha,” she says, flashing one last take me, I’m yours smile at him before spinning around to get our drinks.

  “Bold.” I cough out an incredulous laugh. “For all she knows, we could be on a date.”

  “Do you want her to think we’re on a date?” he asks with his perfect, white teeth gleaming.

  Aren’t hockey players supposed to have horrible teeth? Even Matt had a tiny chip in one on his bottom row.

  “Of course not,” I say too quickly. “It’s the principle of the thing. Shouldn’t that be the default assumption when two people are out together?”

  “Sounds like someone’s jealous.”

  “Why in the world would I be jealous?” I say, feeling myself get agitated. “You’re allowed to flirt with whomever you want. Heaven knows you’re probably an expert at it by now.”

  He just laughs in that infuriating way of his.

  I hate the way he never takes offense to anything I say, instead laughing it off like he knows it’s the surest way to drive me crazy.

  When his body stops shaking with amusement and he leans in toward me, there’s a wicked twinkle in his eye.

  “It’s okay to admit a little jealousy or envy right now, Grace. That’s to be expected. You’re feeling vulnerable and alone. Matt hasn’t come running back as you expected, and with women like Heidi around as a distraction, it doesn’t make it any easier for you. I’m not saying you couldn’t hold your own but—” He turns his attention to Heidi behind the bar. She catches him looking and sends a wink flying across the room. Noah turns back to me with a sympathetic smile.

  My mouth has been slowly dropping open during this little slap in the face and when he’s done, I snap it shut, if only to temper the boiling rage building inside of me.

  Screw that.

  Why not let it erupt?

  “So that’s what this is about? You brought me here to insult me under the guise of drinks? Flaunt your conquests in my face now that I no longer have someone of my own? ‘Look at this girl whose practically salivating over me, Grace. She’s a perfect ten.’” I practically spit out that last bit. “‘This is the kind of girl you have to compete with, which means you’ll never get Matt back.’”

  I stop when I finally notice that Noah is sitting back in his chair with a mild, contented smile on his face, like a cat lapping up my rant as though it were sweetened cream.

  “Perfect. That’s exactly the reaction I was going for.”

  I’m so blinded by rage I can’t even utter anything coherent.

  I’m so done with this.

  I stand up to leave. “I always took you for a useless waste of space, Noah, but this is low, even for you. I’ll be sure to send you a check for the wine I ordered and we can call it even. Make sure to read what I write in the memo section.”

  I hesitate for only a split second when I see that he remains perfectly unfazed, still smiling up at me as though hiding a secret only he knows about.

  Then I decide I don’t give a damn, and turn around to walk out.

  “If you leave you’ll be passing up the quickest and easiest way to get Matt back.”

  Chapter Seven

  Noah

  Just as I figured it would, that one sentence is enough to get Grace to stop before she’s even taken two steps.

  I can see the tautness of her shoulders as the internal conflict ensues.

  Should she continue to leave the bar and maintain her dignity? Or should she stay and satisfy the curiosity I just piqued?

  With her, it could go either way.

  When she slowly spins around to give me a warily angry, but interested look, I know she’s staying.

  She must really want Matt back.

  Damn him.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Before I can respond, Heidi is back with our drinks. All hints of flirtation have evaporated under the obvious tension she senses between Grace and me.

  “One IPA on tap,” she says setting the glass down in front of me. “And one merlot?” She gives Grace an inquiring glance, before deciding she’d rather not get caught up in whatever is happening here. She sets it down and quickly leaves.

  Grace’s eyes cut to her retreating figure and I see the resentment in them, it turns to pure venom when she slides them back to me.

  I feel like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars gleefully watching as Luke Skywalker threatens to succumb to the dark side.

  I do feel kind of horrible about what I’m doing. I came here specifically because I know the girls who work behind the bar are paid to flirt. Heidi was simply a fortuitous example, one that just happened to rile Grace up more than anything. In all fairness, disdain and resentment seem to be the surest response from her when it comes to me. It’s like she doesn’t trust me when I’m nice to her.

  And I still can’t figure out why.

  But this is working according to plan. Come tonight, she’ll hopefully have a slightly more favorable opinion of me.

  I allow another notch of grin to come to my mouth, which only seems to make her more irate. But hell if she isn’t just a tinge more curious as well.

  “Sit and drink your wine. I’ll explain. It wasn’t a lie, I do have a solution to your Matt problem. As I said, the easiest and quickest solution.” I gesture to the chair she just vacated.

  She allows herself a few seconds of stubbornness before she grudgingly takes the seat again.

  Her eyes fall to the glass in front of her as though determining whether or not taking a sip would be a show of weakness. In the end, the wine wins.

  “Well,” she says, arching one eyebrow and taking a sip.

  I sit back up and lean my elbows on the table. “What is it every man wants more than anything?”

  She swallows hard and closes her eyes. “Good grief, Noah, if you’re going to talk in riddles…”

  “Answer me,” I urge.

  She gives me a sardonic look. “I can think of the most obvious thing,” her eyes deliberately dart to Heidi behind the bar.

  I breathe out a soft laugh. “Getting warmer, but even more than that? They want what they can’t have.”

  “Is that so?” Her tone is as dry as the look she’s once again giving me, but I hear the undercurrent of grudging curiosity.

  “Or at least what they think they can’t have.” I pick up my beer and take a sip. Even the bitterness of the IPA doesn’t compete with the much stronger taste of it in my mouth at uttering that qualifier. It’s obvious Grace is still Matt’s. All he’d have to do is pull his head out of his ass and ask her back and she’d come running.

  “So what was that all about?” She waves her hand my way, then in the general direction of Heidi.

  “You were jealous.”

  “What?” I swear if she’d had wine in her mouth it would be halfway across the table with that exclamation.

  “It’s okay to admit it, Grace.”

  “Jealous of whom exactly?” she retorts.

  I lean back again to give her a considering look. “I’m the last man on earth you’d ever want to be with.”

  “True.”

  I smile. A little too q
uick to agree there, Snow White.

  “And yet still, you found yourself annoyed at the intrusion of another woman.”

  “Heidi? With regard to you?” She coughs out a laugh. “You two can have each other.”

  “Of course we can. I can walk over right now and ask her out and she’d be game.”

  It’s almost imperceptible, but I note the way Grace’s gaze narrows and her nostrils flare. The surest tell is the way her fingers quickly whisper past her mouth, as though wiping away an imaginary crumb. It’s a clue I picked up from her early on, usually during those trips to the lake house when I first introduced my date for the weekend to everyone.

  “Is this going somewhere?” she asks in a testy voice before taking a long sip of wine.

  “It will work the same way with Matt.”

  “Is that so?” Her voice is full of skepticism as she eyes me over her glass.

  “Indeed. The best way to make a man think he can’t have someone is to have that someone be taken by someone else.”

  “And I suppose you’re the perfect person to fit that bill.”

  I simply lean back and spread my arms with a grin plastered on my face, as though everything about me speaks for itself.

  “This is…ridiculous,” she mutters, looking thoughtfully into her glass.

  “But you know I’m right.”

  Her gaze flashes back up to me, does a quick run across my face and body visible above the table, then drops back down to her glass. Her cheeks slowly begin to color.

  Hook. Line. Sinker.

  “You must really hate his guts,” she says.

  “Au contraire.” I force my face to remain perfectly neutral, tempering the resentment that rushes through me as I continue. “You and Matt were good together. I want him to be happy. If seeing you with me is enough to convince him to take you back, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  Now her eyes come to rest on me with something almost approaching appreciation and respect.

  “How do you think this will all turn out?” she asks.

  I know how I’d like it to turn out, and it isn’t with Grace and Matt ending up back together.

  “I don’t know,” I say with a shrug. “But I do know that he is a heterosexual male in the prime of his life who was given a Get Out of Jail card by his girlfriend.”

  She goes perfectly still as she stares at me, as though that reality is beginning to set into place.

  “The break wasn’t my idea,” she says softly.

  “I know,” I respond, just as softly.

  She nods slowly, as though she needed me to be aware of that fact.

  “I honestly don’t know what brought it about, do you?”

  I shake my head no, which is the truth.

  But now that I think about it, I do have a tiny inkling. Something that happened at the end of last year when we were up at Evan’s lake house.

  If Grace found out, she would have every right to blame me for this “break” Matt suggested. I’ll die before I give up that information, especially when the one I’ve always wanted is so close at hand right here before me.

  Matt had everything a man could possibly ask for in a girlfriend. It was the little things I noticed: Grace rubbing sunscreen on his back; Matt resting his head in her lap on the porch swing as she casually scratched his scalp while she read a book; how she’d automatically rise to get him another beer without him even asking; the way the two of them would naturally sit together at a party, Grace leaning into his side on the couch. It was like she couldn’t get enough of touching him or just being near him.

  I don’t even want to think about the things they did in private.

  Once again, I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with Matt.

  That doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to leave this gem that he’s cast away lying neglected on the ground.

  “So,” she says, straightening up and getting down to business. “Just how far would we be taking this little experiment?”

  She makes sure to give me a hard stare as though she knows my mind will go straight into the gutter.

  I return my trademark grin. “I don’t believe in limits.”

  “Well, that makes one of us, because I certainly do,” she says, twisting her lips into a sardonic smile.

  And I certainly love a challenge. I laugh and drink my beer.

  At least this time she just purses her lips and takes a sip of wine, which means she’s coming around to the idea.

  “You do realize this will make you seem like a perfect asshole,” she says after swallowing.

  “Oh come on, Grace, let’s not act like you don’t already think of me as a perfect asshole,” I say, falling back into character.

  “Well, you’re certainly going out of your way to prove it true.” She arches an eyebrow, but surprisingly I see the subtle glimmer of respect in her eyes.

  She thinks I’m throwing myself on the sword for the sake of true love.

  That couldn’t be further from the truth.

  This is no sacrifice on my part.

  This is a war.

  And I’ve just won the first battle.

  Chapter Eight

  Grace

  I sip the last of my wine to mull over Noah’s suggestion.

  It’s not a completely terrible idea.

  I’m fully aware of how envious Matt is of Noah in many ways, most notably when it comes to hockey.

  I was always more than happy to support Matt at every game. Especially afterwards when he had to watch as Noah got most of the accolades from scoring goals. I had to constantly but gently remind Matt that of course a center is going to score more than a defenseman, but that without his contribution, the team is just as likely to lose.

  Even the girls jangling along Noah’s side like so much arm candy didn’t get a rise out of Matt as much as hockey. If anything, the female attention seemed to make him all the more publicly affectionate toward me, which I adored. Usually, the most I’d get out of him is an arm draped casually over my shoulder.

  This? It would definitely make him notice.

  Of course, it would only be for show.

  Just ten minutes ago, I was ready to walk out the door and hopefully never talk to Noah again.

  Now, I’m considering…what exactly?

  My eyes reflexively snap to Noah again as he leans back in his chair to sip his beer. The t-shirt does nothing to hide the muscles of his shoulders, chest, and abs, if anything it highlights them even more. He does have a point; he would be enough to make anyone jealous.

  But his best friend?

  How would Matt feel knowing Noah’s latest conquest was none other than the girlfriend he is on a break with?

  I inadvertently take another glance at Heidi. She’s laughing with some guy sitting on a stool in front of her at the bar. I’ll never admit to being jealous, per se. But there’s no denying my visceral reaction.

  “So when do we start?” I say without thinking.

  “Tonight.”

  “What?” I sit up straighter in my seat and stare at Noah.

  “I did say quick and easy.”

  “Wait, is that what the box you sent me was for? If you think I’m going to dress up and play sexpot Barbie just to—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he interrupts, laughing as he holds both hands up in protest. “Let’s just call that a mood enhancer. After all, you are trying to show Matt the, ahem, new and improved you, aren’t you?”

  I ignore that taunting little jab. “How do you even know my size?”

  “I have a pretty good eye,” he says with a wink.

  I feel my cheeks burn with the memory of that night. I’m not stupid enough to think he had his eyes closed as he leaned over me to uncuff me, and I certainly don’t need a reminder of how much he saw up close and personal.

  “Just try it on when you get home. Correction, when I take you home after this.”

  “W-what?” I stutter, instinctively placing my hand to my neck to clutch at imaginary pear
ls. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, Grace, when a boy and a girl go on a date it’s customary for the boy to drop the girl off at home and make sure she gets safely to her front door. Then, if she thinks he’s really groovy, she’ll let him give her a chaste goodnight kiss and—”

  “Oh shut up.” I try to bite back the smile that threatens to come to my face.

  Noah laughs. “Goodnight kiss wasn’t a euphemism. I’m not going to try and boink you the first night.”

  “Boink? Is that the kind of dirty talk you used with Heidi?”

  “My relationship with Heidi is strictly professional.”

  I’m sure. “So what’s a Devil’s Kiss?”

  “Bacardi Black Rum, Kahlua and a splash of Grand Marnier.”

  “Sounds terrible.” My tolerance for alcohol began with beer and ended with wine.

  “Sounds more like you need to expand your horizons.”

  Before I can reply to that, Noah has twisted around to get Heidi’s attention. She wastes no time skipping over, eyes atwinkle with anticipation.

  “Heidi, we’re going to take you up on those Devil’s Kisses after all. One for each of us.”

  “Are you allowed to join in?” I blurt out. I’ve heard that’s what this bar is known for.

  Boy, the innuendos just keep rolling.

  Her attention snaps to me in surprise and a bright smile appears on her face. “Absolutely! I’m not allowed to say so but joining in on the fun is pretty much why I was hired.”

  I raise my brow. Noah stifles a laugh. It takes Heidi a moment to realize how what she’s said can be interpreted and she laughs. It’s a depressingly pretty laugh, as attractive as the rest of her.

  “Great, then one for you too,” I say, to help ease the embarrassment.

  “That’s awfully open-minded of you, Grace,” Noah says with one eyebrow cocked suggestively.

  Heidi giggles. “I’ll get right on those.”

  When she’s gone, I turn back to Noah. “That was just to show you that I am in no way, shape, or form jealous. When Matt and I are back together, you’re going to need a soft, warm bosom to take comfort in, and she seems like a nice girl.”