Prologue
Stephanie
Jessie Caplan and Jordan Garrison finally tied the knot. Their wedding was so amazing I didn’t want it to end. The bride was breathtakingly beautiful and her groom looked happier than I had ever seen any man look. Ever.
It was crazy that the calm, confident, beaming guy who got married tonight was the same train wreck playboy I met years ago when he first started playing hockey in Seattle with my brother, Sebastian. The whole night, from the dusk ceremony to the reception under the stars by the lake, had so much love you could feel it in the air.
“Explain to me again why I’m on a canoe in the middle of the lake rehashing the wedding that we just attended?” Avery asks.
I lift my head to level him with a hard stare. “The canoe was your idea,” I remind him, and tip my head back to look up at the starry sky. “Being teamless has turned you into a criminal.”
He laughs at that. The sound is deep and soothing, but it rocks the rickety canoe we “borrowed” from a dock. I spent a little bit of time with Avery Westwood while we were both in Seattle, and I have never seen him so relaxed. Maybe being a free agent agrees with him.
When he walked into the pre-wedding cocktail party Friday, it was the first time I’d thought of him since he left Seattle and went back to his hometown of New Brunswick for the summer. After congratulating Jordan and Jessie, he walked right over to me, and he hasn’t really left my side all weekend. It was probably just because we are two of the only single people here, but I was thrilled because he was different from the typical, distant Avery.
We were walking back to the hotel from the wedding reception, along the edge of the giant lake that sits in the center of Silver Bay, Maine, when Avery spotted the canoe and suggested we take it out. “The stars will be amazing out there and I bet it’s cooler,” he enticed.
I agreed because I wanted a break from the muggy weather, I wanted to see stars and…I wanted to keep hanging out with Avery. Out of the all Winterhawks players, or hockey players in general, Avery would not be most people’s first choice for a fun date. He doesn’t exactly have a reputation as being someone who knows what fun is. But tonight, I had a blast.
Even though he was my brother’s teammate, I never felt like I knew that much about him; no one really did. I only knew the basics: he was quiet, hardworking and superstitious. Then one day I’d learned he was also uptight, self-centered and a complete puppet to the whims of his father, who was also his business manager. That revelation came when I found out that one of his closest college friends had developed an addiction to painkillers. Avery’s biggest concern was how it made him look, so he walked out on his friend to make sure his image wasn’t tarnished. That’s when my opinion of Avery turned from indifferent to unfavorable. And unlike everyone else in his life, I wasn’t afraid to tell him. When I confronted him, surprisingly, he didn’t get offended or argue. He agreed he was an ass and then he went out and made things right with his friend, which made me realize he wasn’t all bad.
He shifts gently in the canoe and it rocks again, jilting me out of my reverie. He’s leaning back against one end of the canoe and I’m against the other. Our feet—mine bare because heels suck, and his in expensive dress shoes covered in sand—are resting next to each other in the center. He reaches up with one arm and points. “See those stars that kind of form a horseshoe? There.”
I follow the tip of his finger with my eyes. “Yeah.”
“That’s the Gemini constellation,” he explains.
“That’s my zodiac sign!”
He tips his head forward and smiles. “I know. That’s why I’m showing you.”
He knows my zodiac sign? He laughs at my expression of shock. “You mentioned it on one of our runs.”
Right. The running. For the last couple months of the hockey season, Avery had jogged in the park near my apartment, where I always worked out. We would cross each other on the running trail and he would always turn around and run with me.
“I’d point out your constellation, but you barely talked on our runs,” I quip with a teasing smile.
“I talked. I asked you questions,” he replies.
“Why is that?”
He thinks about it for a minute, his left hand hanging over the side of the canoe, skimming the water with his fingertips. “Sometimes it feels like I talk for a living. I liked listening to you. And besides, if you want to know anything about me, you can probably Google it.”
He’s right. Sort of. But there’s got to be more to him than what he gives away in press interviews. I pretend to dig my phone out of my purse as I say, “Please hold. Googling your astrological sign.”
“Aries.” He chuckles at me. “Any other questions? Ask away. I’m an open book.”
“You are this weekend,” I agree, and look back up at the twinkling sky. “It’s a pleasant surprise.” He was being witty, sarcastic and fun. He had opinions—and he was sharing them in candid, honest ways that I’d never seen him do with anyone else.
I look at him instead of tilting it back to the stars again. “So you’re definitely not re-signing with Seattle?”
He’s still looking up at the stars, the moonlight cascading down over his perfect skin, making his slight summer tan look more golden. His dark hair glints and his damn lashes are so thick and dark I can see them flutter from across the canoe even in this low light. In his dark summer suit he looks like model in a Ralph Lauren ad right now.
“In forty-eight hours I’ll be a free agent. I’ll be open to any team, anywhere,” he explains, and there’s not even a drop of excitement in his tone.
“And where does Avery Free Agent Westwood want to go?” I ask as I realize how much I’m going to dread running now.
“Los Angeles or Manhattan,” he answers, again with no joy or excitement
