Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
McCabe
I ’m not sure what I expected to feel when I saw Chet again last night during Game 1. As AJ and I have grown even closer in the last week since the semifinals, and settled into a routine that has her basically living at my place with Abby and me, I expected to feel the same rage I felt the last time I saw him. Especially now that I know that his berating AJ in the hallway that day wasn’t a one-time occurrence, but rather a pattern of behavior.
But when I saw him standing behind the bench, sporting a clipboard and a receding hairline, I had no desire to pummel him again. In fact, I wanted to thank him.
He disappointed her in every way, leaving the door wide open for me to show her exactly how she should be treated. He never deserved her, and in the end, she’s getting someone who does. Or who is working every day to deserve her.
Scoring the winning goal in Game 1 last night was also its own kind of reward, and I made sure to skate past St. Louis’s bench and make eye contact with Chet after I did. My smirk and head nod had his face and balding head turning bright red.
But tonight, as I walk into this charity gala in downtown St. Louis with my teammates, I realize how difficult it’s going to be not to let my feelings for AJ show.
I wouldn’t care if my teammates figured it out. These guys are starting to feel less like people I work with and more like family. I’m pretty used to being a lone wolf, just like Renaud, which I suspect is why the two of us were always close. But this season without him has made me realize that hockey’s actually more fun when you open yourself up a bit to your teammates and step up and act like the captain they expect you to be.
But don’t open up so much that they realize you’re dating your boss , I remind myself.
“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Hartmann asks. “How are we keeping AJ away from her ex?”
“I think the best plan is just to make sure one of us is with her at all times. Hopefully then he won’t even approach her,” I say.
Colt eyes me, and it’s like I can see the gears turning in his head as he catches the protective tone in my voice. “You know we’re not only here for her, right?”
I shove my hands into my pockets as we walk across the ornate lobby with its walls of gilded mirrors, plush velvet couches and chairs, and chandeliers of crystal dripping from the ceiling. My high school prom was held here, and I’m pretty sure not a single thing has changed. “What are you talking about?”
“You clearly think she needs backup here, which means you know more than we do. AJ doesn’t share personal information about herself with anyone on the team. But she clearly has with you. So we’re here for you, too. And for whatever’s going on between the two of you.”
I suck in a sharp breath as I glance beyond Colt at the rest of my friends. Only Hartmann looks surprised. “Huh,” he says, as his head bobs with understanding. “I had often suspected some partiality, especially on McCabe’s side.”
“Did you just fucking quote Pride and Prejudice ?” Zach laughs.
“Yeah, Evie makes me watch it at least once a year.”
“Who the fuck is Evie?” Drew asks.
“Wilcott’s daughter?” Hartmann says. “My best friend.”
“Wait,” Colt drags out the word with laughter in his voice. “You’re best friends with Wilcott’s daughter? How...?”
“We grew up together. Her mom works with my mom, training equestrians.”
Frank Hartmann made his billions in business, but their family owns a lavish home on the North Shore that’s also an equestrian center. He throws a holiday party there every year for the team, and it’s like walking into a mansion from the Gilded Age—like you’re on the set of the Great Gatsby or something. It’s hard to imagine growing up with that kind of wealth, but Luke is somehow still well-adjusted and down to earth.
“Isn’t Wilcott’s daughter a figure skater or something?” Drew asks.
“Yeah. She’s a pairs skater. Just took third in a big competition in Europe, but she’s coming home soon. She’s always home for a month or so in the summer, before the training and competitions gear back up. Hence, the annual viewing of Darcy and Lizzie.”
Zach huffs out a laugh. “The BBC version, or the newer movie?”
“Always the BBC version. All eight hours of it,” Hartmann groans. “Why? Are you a fan?”
“I mean, Ashleigh’s made me watch both versions several times.”
“Uh, so back to the point,” Colt says, turning his head toward me. “This is... a thing ?”
I can tell he’s being careful not to use AJ’s name here, as we approach the doors to the ballroom, and I appreciate his discretion. “It’s a long story, and one I’ll tell you when we’re not here.”
“Alright,” he says with another nod. “Top secret. Right, guys?”
They all mumble their agreement as I give the people at the doors our table number, and when we sweep into the room and all eyes are on us. This is a room full of St. Louis’s wealthiest residents, and I recognize a fair number of people who have connections to their hockey team.
“It didn’t occur to me that Boston players might not be welcome here,” I grumble as our group moves toward the bar.
“Fuck ’em,” Drew says. “They’re just pissed they lost you years ago and you scored the winning goal last night.”
I see AJ across the room and stop short at the sight of her. Her back’s to me, and she’s wearing a sparkly pale pink dress with a low V in the back. I know it has a matching V in the front, and as sexy as I thought she looked when she tried it on at that fancy department store a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t consider how I’d feel about other people seeing her look so gorgeous in it.
She does a lot to keep herself buttoned up and professional at work—suit pants and jackets, trousers and sweaters, and dresses that don’t reveal anything except the lower half of her muscular legs.
But tonight, with her hair curled in loose waves and pinned to the side so it falls forward over one shoulder, her back is on display and so are the curves of her hips and ass. I know that dress has a long slit up one side of the front, so when she takes a step, her entire leg will show.
Suddenly, as I watch her move from one group of people to another, I note the way men look at her and I’m feeling incredibly territorial. I want to tattoo my name across her collarbones so that anyone looking at her knows she’s mine.
“Put your fucking tongue back in your mouth,” Colt growls at me, and it’s only then that I take stock of myself. My tongue isn’t literally hanging out, but I have stopped, frozen in place, to gawk at her. My eyes slide around the room to see if anyone else has noticed, and at a table in the front of the room, Chet is watching me closely. He follows my gaze to AJ and his lips curve up in...I don’t even know what. It’s not a smile, or a look of disgust. It’s more likehe’s plotting something, and that thought has my stomach turning sour.
“Dude, you’re down bad,” Hartmann mutters with a laugh.
“It’s mutual, though?” Drew confirms.
“Yeah, it’s mutual.”
“Let’s go get a drink,” Zach says. “Maybe try not to gawk at her if you don’t want everyone in this room to see what’s now so obvious to us.”
“I’m fucking trying, alright?” I grumble, turning toward the bar off at the side of the room.
I manage not to scan the room for AJ while we order our drinks, and once we have them, we head straight to our table. As we arrive there, AJ approaches with a couple that I’ve never seen before. But I immediately know these are her parents—she’s got the same dark hair and eyes as her dad, though his is run through with gray now, giving him a distinguished look, and the same straight nose, full lips, and sharp jawline as her mother.
“Guys,” AJ says, nodding toward us, “I’d like to introduce my parents, tonight’s hosts for this event.”
She goes through a relatively formal introduction that has me wondering if she was a debutante or something, and when she’s done, her dad says, “I should have known my daughter would invite the opposing team tonight.” It’s said without pride or hostility, like he’s trying to break the ice and make us laugh.
But I watch the way her shoulders stiffen, and I know she feels slighted, or maybe even attacked. “Just the kind of ballsy move you’d expect from the best GM in the league, huh?” I say.
Instead of seizing on the opportunity to compliment his daughter, Mr. Jones says, “Well, that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
My free hand curls into a fist at my side.
“Nah,” Colt says, stepping up next to me, like he’s trying to make sure I keep my mouth shut. “We don’t need to wait for the final round of voting to know she’s the best. She proves it day in and day out with how she’s turned our team—and our whole organization—around.”
And then he’s spouting off statistics showcasing what she’s accomplished, and comparing her to other GMs in the league—even though now the final round of voting is down to only two people: AJ and her mentor, Joey Connelly.
Frank Hartmann and his wife walk up as Colt is wrapping up his pitch for AJ winning the GM of the Year award, and the way the Hartmanns greet the Joneses, I realize that they run in the same circles despite living in different regions of the country—which tells me even more about AJ’s background.
And as the two couples chat, AJ turns toward us, walks through our half of the circle so we turn to follow her, and then stops to look back at Colt.
“You didn’t have to do that. But...” She takes a deep breath, then relaxes and gives us a small, relieved smile. “...thank you.”
I ’m headed toward the empty bar on my way back from the bathroom, when Chet steps into my path. I should move around him and keep walking, but I’m so caught off guard by how he popped out of nowhere that I stop.
“Still following AJ around like a little bitch, I see,” he says.
My jaw clenches, but I force myself to relax as I consider how I can manipulate his insecurities rather than react to his words. “Some people are born leaders; it makes it easy to support them. Not that you’d know anything about that.”
His face starts to turn red like last night when I scored the winning goal, and I realize how good the years have been to AJ, and how unkind they’ve been to him—not just in terms of their looks, but their successes as well.
“You think having her attention is something special? That the way she looks at you is some sort of prize?” he sneers.
I should be worried that he’s seeing something between us, but I’m not. I want him to be jealous. I want him to feel her loss so much that he can’t be happy. Because losing someone like Alessandra Jones is the kind of thing that could destroy a man. And I want to revel in his destruction.
I give him a smirk instead of a response.
“You’ll see what it’s like to live in her shadow,” he says.
“I’m not in competition with her,” I tell him. “I have my career, and I want her to achieve everything she sets her mind to in her career. I want her to be happy and fulfilled. The level of success she’s achieved...man, the only people who’d be threatened by that are those who are weak, those who can’t let other people succeed without trying to tear them down. So I guess what you have to ask yourself is: why did you have to make her feel small in order to feel good about yourself? Sounds like a personal failing to me.”
The way he shifts his weight, his body rigid, resembles a bull stomping his foot as he gets ready to charge.
“I should have pressed charges when I had the chance,” he sneers. “I thought forcing her to trade you instead would get you out of the picture.”
Blood thrums through my veins, adrenaline rushing my system. Instead of chasing the rush I’d feel if I pounded him into the ground again, I force myself to breathe deeply and stay calm—despite his apparent admission to blackmailing or bribing her to trade me.
I know that, more than anything, Chet wants me to react. He’s goading me, trying to get me to throw a punch like I did all those years ago. And as much as I want to take out my anger about AJ hiding this truth from me, I refuse to let this weak man provoke me.
“How’d that work out for you?” I ask instead. “Because she divorced your ass and ended up in Boston, so I’d say I ended up on top.”
“Of course that little slut would follow you.”
I shove my fists into my pockets, feigning nonchalance at his pettiness. Karma’s going to be such a bitch to him in the end.
“There was absolutely nothing going on between AJ and me back then,” I say. “But I’m sorry that you were so incapable of keeping her happy, of satisfying her, that you worried she’d be looking elsewhere.”
“Quite the opposite. I had to look elsewhere because she couldn’t give me what I wanted. You know she can’t give you kids, right?”
The selfish bastard doesn’t even try to hide his true colors.
“Of course she can. AJ was born to be a mom. Just because she can’t carry a baby herself doesn’t mean she can’t have kids, and only a spineless asshole with serious inferiority issues would think otherwise.”
“There you are, McCabe.” I hear Zach’s voice from behind me before he steps up next to me.
No one feels threatened by Zach; he has a Zen-like calmness about him that puts people at ease. But the one and only time I ever saw him lose his shit, fighting Ashleigh’s ex-boyfriend, I learned how deadly he actually is. And the tone in his voice that’s letting me know he has my back.
Chet doesn’t have the good sense to back down, even with my teammate standing next to me. “Just because you’re her newest fuckboy?—”
Zach’s hand shoots out, thumb and fingers splayed across Chet’s collarbones and resting at the base of this asshole’s neck. “I’m going to stop you right there. If you can’t speak with the appropriate level of respect about our GM, we’re going to have a serious problem. And I guarantee you, you don’t want to have a problem with us.”
Realizing that he’s in a losing position, Chet takes a small step back, looks me in the eye, and says, “This isn’t over.”