I pick up my phone, tapping my foot as my fingers fly across the screen. My pulse is thrumming through my veins like a raging river, ready to finally take back what’s mine.
If Jordan Boucher thinks he can ignore me, he’s got another thing coming.It was one thing when his relationship seemed one-sided. I thought releasing that photo would drive them apart, but that clearly backfired. I don’t know what the hell they think they are doing, but they won’t survive everything I have planned.
Look who made the news again. I’m disappointed. Why won’t you listen to me? Since you seem to need the reminder, know this is my last message before things take a turn you won’t like. I’ll say it to you one last time.
Stay the fuck away from Kennedy Kramer.
part two
april
28
jordan
Gliding backward on the ice, my opponent comes straight for me, all my senses on high alert. Watching for the slightest shift in movement. Listening for his teammates calling out to him. Keeping my eyes directly on his chest to make sure I have him, while using my peripheral vision to focus on his eye movements to see if anyone else is in the way. I know Vladi is behind me, but my goal is for this puck to not get anywhere near his crease.
My senses may be locked on this game, but it’s nothing compared to when Kennedy kissed me. It’s been weeks since our date. Weeks since I held her hand. Weeks since she grabbed my face in the rain and pressed her lips to mine. That lightning strike that seemingly pulled us apart? That was nothing more than an electric shock jump-starting my heart to beat for her even more.
I’ve struggled to fall asleep every night, thinking about our kiss and wondering if she’s awake doing the same.Does she feel it too?Does her heart pound as fast as mine every time my phone buzzes, hoping it’s her? Does her breathing get so fucking fast when she sees me walking down the aisle of the plane, the same way mine does when I catch a glimpse of herat the other end? At least that’s one bright spot—shedoessay hi to me now. We’ve made small talk and texted here and there, making sure we had a plan and a story if anyone asked what we were doing or where we’d been. And we figured people would want us both to remain professionals on the plane, so no need to flaunt things there. But fuck me. If she were really mine? I would be flaunting her everywhere. Kennedy is everything. And that kiss did nothing but provide even more proof.She’s the one.But she still seems…annoyedthat we’re dating. That this is an inconvenience. How do I get her past this? How do I get her to see me in a different light?
And, of course, this is all happening during the playoffs. Which I’m happy to be in the midst of—hell, we even agreed we’d keep dating through these games—but there’s not a lot of time for socializing or figuring out how to woo the girl of my dreams into falling in love with me.How the fuck do I even do that?Shit. I’m so out of my element here.
Niko Koskinen from Green Bay passes to his teammate and whirls by me toward the net.Fuck.It’s game five in the first round of the playoffs. We’re up three games to one on the Bobcats. Win this, and we move on. What’s even more at stake, though? Win this, and my fake girlfriend isn’t going anywhere. My legs burn as I tear after him, my pulse thrumming in my ears louder than the fans. We’re up by one goal late in the third. It’s not do-or-die tonight, but we are itching to clinch. Having a few extra days of rest during these brutal rounds is a nice perk. You don’t want too much rest, but almost all of us are playing with some sort of injury, bad bruise, sprain, or are in a lot of pain, especially this late in the season, so a little rest is welcome. I myself am nursing a bruised ankle after I took a slapshot to the skate. It’s painful, but it’s the playoffs. We push through.
Right now, the only pain I’m focused on is the pain-in-the-ass Koskinen, from Green Bay, who is trying his best to get meoff my game. I’m crowding the douchebag enough that he can’t get a shot off, so he skates behind the net, and I get in a good hit right into the boards.
Then I hear it. The fucking whistle.Fuck.
“In the box sixty-eight,” the ref says as he skates up to me.
“What? That was a clean hit. What are you even calling here?”
“Boarding,” he says, skating me over to the box.
“He leaned into the boards!” My arms fly up in disbelief at this stupid-ass call. “This is horseshit, and you know it! That was a fucking clean hit.”
“Keep it up, Boucher, and I’ll toss you.”
Fucking fuck. The last thing we need right now is to be on the PK. I slam myself down in the penalty box and beat my stick against the glass. “Fucking piece of shit ref!” I continue to grumble well after the official has skated away to announce the penalty over his damn little pussy of a microphone. That was not boarding, and that damn ref knows it. I see Coach Cal trying to argue the call as the entire arena erupts in a chant of ‘ref you suck.’
But it’s no use. This isn’t a call they can review, so a face-off right in front of Vladi’s net is set to go down. Two minutes and thirty seconds. If they can just hold them off for the power play, we can return to full strength. I can barely keep myself seated on this damn bench, desperate to be back on the ice, but I need to rest my legs so I can go full throttle the last thirty seconds once I’m out of here.
Luckily, my teammates have cleared the puck out of our zone a couple times, but Green Bay is bringing the puck down the ice again.
Goddammit! I hate not being out there.
Fifteen seconds left in my penalty. Green Bay has gotten off a couple more shots, but, as expected, Vladi is playing out ofhis mind tonight. He wants nothing more than to bring a cup to the city that’s done so much for him. I want to do everything possible to help him with that. I watch the official in the box step over to the door, watching the seconds count down, jumping out of the box when the clock hits zero, and skating toward Vladi as fast as my legs can take me.
Number eighty-seven for Green Bay passes to his teammate just as I enter the zone. I intercept it, a smirk on my face, and pivot, heading toward Green Bay’s goal. I see Larsy racing toward their net as well, and we fly up the ice. It’s two on one. We have the puck. I could take the shot, but Larsy’s got the better angle, so I zoom toward the net and just as I approach the goalie, getting him to shift his weight to my side, I pass the puck back to Larsy, who pops it into the back of the net just as the horn sounds. Our home crowd screams, and our teammates clear the bench and form a giant dogpile on the ice.
We fucking did it! We’re moving on. God, this feels good.I love this team so much. It’s such a special group of guys. Even though they give me a lot of shit and call me dumbass rich boy names, I still love every single one of them.
And now it’s time to do the classiest thing in all of sports—shake the other team’s hands. It only happens at the end of a series, and it sucks to be on the other side of this receiving line, but the handshake in hockey shows how much respect we all have for one another. But waiting in the line this time, instead of thoughts of the next round, the next game, and what could be for our team, my thoughts aren’t on hockey.They’re on her.
I instantly spotted her in the crowd when I skated out during warm-ups, unable to stop the stupid grin from spreading across my cheeks.
She’s here with all the WAGs, because thanks to our arrangement—she is one. She’s not been to the away games. She’s doing her pilot stuff. And that’s her job, so I get it, buttonight is a home game—and she’shere.Is she thinking about me now?I smile like an idiot as I go through the motions and shake hands. They have no idea my grin is not sportsmanship, but about the woman in the stands, I’m anxious to see.
