“What the hell is that and how do you know any of this?” I ask and stare at her like she’s not my best friend. Because my best friend has never brought up hockey before in any conversation we’ve ever had.
Len is looking back at me like I’m the insane one. “You’re the only child, not me. My brothers have both been hockey fanatics since they were kids. My grandpa got them into it. And remember my college obsession?”
“Stuart?” I question. Len fell instantly and madly in love with a guy named Stuart who she went on and on about for all four years but never actually dated him or even said more than two words to him that I know of. “He was a massive hockey fan. Huge. Loved it. I started following it a little bit in school so I could have something to talk to him about. Not that I ever did, but it was there in my back pocket if I needed it.”
“You are a strange bird.” I shake my head.
She grins. “Yep. And you’re an even stranger bird for not thinking that boy is hot.”
I picture Alex Larue in my head. I have to admit when I first turned around to look at him in that coffee line, I was surprised. Tall, broad, sculpted, with that unkempt brown hair and those nicks and scars on his face. He looked like a model who decided to become a MMA fighter—and lost a few rounds. If he hadn’t been vulgarly giving a review of my ass, I might have found all those features attractive. But thanks to the demeaning way he was talking about me, I didn’t have that reaction. What I did react to, because I couldn’t control it, were those stormy blue eyes. When I looked into them, I had trouble looking away. Something about him commands my attention, even if I don’t think much of him, I’m oddly transfixed by him.
“Brie? Hello!”
“What? Sorry. What?”
“Where did you go?” Len questions. “I asked if you wanted coffee. I’m still going.”
“Umm…yeah. Thanks. Today let’s go for a half pump hazelnut iced latte with coconut milk.”
“Got it.” Len leaves and I walk out of the art room and head to my office.
Isaac, one of the sixteen-year-olds who has been living at Daphne’s House for almost year, walks in the back door. I smile at him. “Welcome home. Have a good day at school?”
“It was school,” he says with a shrug but gives me a small smile. “I’m going to try and get my homework done before the budget class so I can play video games tonight.”
I laugh. “Okay you do that.”
He heads straight for the stairs up to the living area. I pause and turn back to him. “Isaac! Have you ever heard of Alex Larue?”
He stops walking and scrunches up his nose as he thinks about it. “The hockey player?”
I nod. He smiles. “Yeah. That guy is cool. I saw an interview he did online with ESPN and he was funny. Why?”
“He’s going to be volunteering here starting Friday,” I explain.
Isaac’s smile gets bigger. “Sweet!”
He heads up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Okay…so I’m the only one who doesn’t like this guy.
Chapter 3
Alex
The first few road trips of the season are always a bitch for most of the players. They’re used to staying in one time zone all summer long. Since I don’t have a hometown with family to go back to when the season is over, I usually spend the summer jumping around the globe visiting teammates and friends everywhere from Canada to Sweden and all over America so travel is not exhausting to me. When you never stop traveling, you don’t get jet lag.
Because of that, I’m annoying the fuck out of Devin by being in his room right now when I know he’d rather be napping. But I hate sitting around my hotel room by myself and Jordan didn’t answer his cell when I called to see if he wanted to do something so I decided to latch on to Devin when I saw him in the hall. Being the great guy that he is, he isn’t kicking me out. Probably because I’m new to the team and as captain he feels like he needs to get to know me better and help me settle in.
“Find a place yet?” he asks me, his voice heavy as he lies on his bed with an arm over his face as if to block out the sun coming in through the open curtains.
“Yeah, actually,” I say and think back to that loft in Tribeca that the broker showed me. “Snagged a place in Tribeca.”
“You sure you don’t want Park Slope?” Devin questions.
“Nah, man. I need the city,” I reply and add cheekily, “I’m not an old married dad like you.”
Devin has a son from his first marriage, which sadly blew up a few years ago and he and his wife divorced. Callie happened to move to New York for work at the exact same time Devin’s life imploded and she helped him get through everything and, from what Jordan says, accidentally fell madly in love with him. Luckily he’d already fallen in love with her.
Devin chuckles at my insult. “I’m barely older than you, Rue, you shit. And if a girl like Callie ever gave you the time of day you’d be off the market in a hot second.”
