“Great. Now I’m going to be Devin’s only target out there.” Jordan groans. “So are they doing surgery? How long are you out for?”
“They haven’t used the S word yet,” I reply and stand. “Just giving it some real time off first to see if it gets stronger.”
Jordan gives me a real, sympathetic smile as he stands. “I’m sorry, Seb. I went through this bullshit too. I know how hard it is not to play.”
Avery stands and starts for the door. We follow, grabbing our sticks from the equipment manager as we exit. As we wait in the tunnel, I see a group of people in street clothes at the end, near the door we use to hit the ice. Five people, two males in suits facing me and three females with their backs to me. They’re all in shadows, but I still recognize Trey, and the man standing beside him is Glenn Beckford, the legend himself. Standing side by side I realize they look incredibly similar. And the pieces fall in place like cinder blocks crashing heavily, one by one, in my brain. Trey is Glenn Beckford’s son, which obviously means…
I have that weird feeling, like the ground just shifted or I just lost a skate edge on the ice. My insides somersault. I push past Jordy and grab Avery by the shoulder just as the lights dim and one of the staff starts opening the panel that leads to the ice and do what she told me to do the other night in my car. “Is Trey’s last name Beckford?”
Avery blinks at me, confused. “Yeah. I didn’t mention that?”
I should have asked Avery sooner, but I was trying to push her from my mind and I was distracted by this damn wrist injury. I’m totally embarrassed and slightly horrified by the fact that I could tell you Shay has a beauty mark on the inside of her left thigh, but up until two seconds ago I hadn’t even thought to ask her what her last name was. The revelation that Shayne and I are doing this whole relationship as screwed-up and backward as humanly possible feels like a slap to the face.
The announcer’s voice booms over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen…” Avery moves to the front, just behind Chooch, who always leads us onto the ice, and we all march along behind him. “Your Seattle Winterhawks!”
I’m in front of Garrison now, behind Dixon, as we file past Glenn Beckford, who is beaming at us. My teammates all reach out and tap their gloved hands on his shoulder or against his outreached hand as they pass. A spotlight from above comes down and aims it on Glenn to show the fans the moment. I know it must be on the Jumbotron because the roar is deafening. My eyes are on the back of the long-haired brunette who, as soon as the spotlight hits them, takes a step back and turns away from her father and comes face-to-face with me. Our eyes lock.
“Hello, MissBeckford,” I whisper as I pass. She just stands there and stares at me, looking almost sad.
I pass her and smile at Trey as I gently tap my glove on Mr. Beckford’s shoulder. He smiles at me. My skates hit the ice and I glide across it to the other end. I find a loose puck, skate over to Chooch in the net, and release a light slapper. A sharp, quick bolt of pain sizzles up my wrist. Fuck.
Still I skate around, passing the puck to my teammates, gliding by the centerline and making eye contact with Devin Garrison, who levels me with a venomous scowl. My eyes keep drifting back to the corner glass, by the door we enter from, where the Beckford family is still standing, watching warmups. Glenn is talking animatedly. Trey is smiling almost forlornly. A pretty pregnant woman who must be his wife is holding his hand. The woman I can only assume is their mom, because she’s got Shay’s nose and wide mouth, is beaming as our PR manager talks to her. Shay is kind of off by herself, a few feet from her family. Her lips are a glossy peachy-pink and her eyelids shimmer. She looks fucking edible even with the unhappy look on her face.
I’m so confused. Why wouldn’t she tell me she was the daughter of a hockey legend? And why would the daughter of a hockey great hate the sport that made her father an icon?
I can’t help myself, and I skate along the boards behind Chooch’s goal and glide right by the glass where she’s standing. I’m flush with it and when our eyes connect, I wink. I look back over my shoulder after I’ve passed. She’s staring after me; her cheeks are pink and she’s got a faint smile playing on her lips.
Yeah…this isn’t as over as I thought it was. Not yet.
Chapter 23
Shayne
The ceremony is shorter than I thought it would be, which is a blessing. But they show a video—a montage of the great Glenn Beckford on and off the ice. It’s filled with a lot of fights and goals and the locker room after they won the Cup for the first time thanks to my dad’s goal in overtime of game seven. All of that is painless to watch. But it’s interspersed with images of our family, which my mom must have supplied. My dad trying to teach me to skate when I was four, my dad on the ice with Trey when he was seven. All of us gathered around the Stanley Cup at a party in our backyard. My dad’s not looking at the camera. His arms are around me and my mom, but his eyes were looking left, at the wife of a teammate he was screwing. I know because later that night, I walked in on them half naked in the upstairs master bathroom.
When the picture flashes up on the screen, my mother reaches over and takes my dad’s hand, and I want to burst out laughing. I told her, in tears, what I’d discovered and she told me, with no emotion at all except annoyance, to calm down and pull myself together. Now was not the time or the place. I heard them screaming at each other later that night and fully expected my mom to tell Trey and me we were leaving him, but she never did. My father, for his part, apologized for what I saw and promised he would never do it again. He meant the fucking in our bathroom part, not the fucking other women who were not my mom part. My family is a joke. My dad is a joke, and this whole ceremony is a joke.
My expression must reflect my feelings because Trey takes a small step closer and leans into me. “Shaynie, rein it in. You look homicidal.”
I blink and force my face to relax and look indifferent. It’s all I can do. Happy or even serene are unreachable emotions right now. I really don’t want to watch the rest of this, so I decide to look for something else to focus on. And that’s when I find him—Frenchie—staring at me from his position lined up with his teammates in front of the team’s bench. Those insanely blue eyes are focused on me, and when I meet them with my own he smirks his sexy smirk, and a wave of heat rolls through me and settles between my legs. But more than just sexual attraction, I feel calmer when I look at him.
Finally the video stops and they darken the lights and I can’t see Sebastian anymore. Then a spotlight focuses on the jersey, the one with my dad’s name and his old number, that they have strung up at the end of the ice, and they start to raise it with some ridiculously dramatic music. Trey is standing stoically beside me, his face passive. My dad has got his chest puffed out proudly and he’s smiling. My mom is fucking beaming and wiping at her watery eyes. Of course she is. Riding the coattails, or skate blades, of her husband’s success is all she’s ever had. It’s all she gets out of this marriage, and once again I feel a surge of willpower. I will not end up like her.
Now the speech part. My dad gets up there, and I focus back on Sebastian because the lights are on again. He’s still staring back at me, same smirk, same intensity in his eyes. And the same two feelings wash over me. Lust and peace. Or maybe it’s euphoria—some weird post-orgasmic flashback or something. Whatever it is, I’m just grateful it dissipates the anger and frustration that are clawing my insides and making me want to run from the arena screaming.
Chapter 24
Sebastian
I change into the light gray suit and purple tie I came to the arena in and make my way up in the elevator to the team-owned boxes. There are two, one for management and one for VIPs. Usually the players sit with the management and watch the game from their box, but there’s no rule that we can’t mingle with the VIPs, and so I pass the management box and head to the one next door. I would definitely prefer mingling with a certain VIP tonight.
The box is filled with people. Shay is in the corner leaning against the wall looking at her watch, not the game, with a white wine in her hand. Her father is at the buffet table set up near the back, and his face lights up when he sees me enter.
“Sebastian Deveau!” He booms my name, and everyone looks over. He marches right over to me but I keep my eyes glued to Shayne, who is staring right back. “The Winterhawks’ best defenseman since me. Why aren’t you on the ice?”
“Minor wrist injury,” I admit quietly, and he looks at my brace while I shake his hand. “I’m sitting this one out, so I thought I’d come say congratulations.”
“Thanks, kid,” Glenn beams. Shayne rolls her eyes. I try not to smile at that. “Have a seat, stay a while. Let me introduce you to my family.”
