Chapter 31
Hunter
I’m on the third leg of this six city tour, and I’m dying.
We won our first two games against Montreal and Ottawa.
We were skating better, our defense seemed like they were more motivated, and our offense was playing pretty aggressively.
Coupled with the fact that Montreal was coming off a five game streak and Ottawa played like they had never put on ice skates before, we crushed.
Then today, against Toronto, that momentum promptly crumpled.
Their team is more coordinated, practiced, and has more to lose.
They kept punching holes in our defense and leaving Jett in the goal to block every attempt.
Our offense was trailing behind the Maple Leafs, trying desperately to steal the puck.
Jett worked his ass off, sweat pouring off him, but there’s only so much a goalie can do when he’s on his own.
I did my part. I checked members of the opposite team into the boards at every opportunity, generally acting rowdy as fuck.
I did my best to defend Jett in the goal, shoving and cross-checking Toronto’s center and left wing, who wouldn’t stay the fuck out of the crease.
Thorne picked up on my attitude. He chirped, slashed sticks, and whacked skates like he was a born enforcer.
With the rest of the team struggling, even starting fights and tossing gloves wasn’t helpful. In the third period, I started scrums and chased Toronto’s captain like I was his fucking shadow, bumping, slashing, and talking shit. But it didn’t help.
Toronto won by a cringeworthy 4-2. After that crushing loss, the team gets screamed at by Coach Cross. We deserve it; the complete game was a fucking mess. I’ve never seen Coach’s face so red as he finishes his rant.
“Tomorrow morning before we load onto the plane, I want every single one of you to wake up and work your ass off in dryland training. We are going to run until everyone collapses.”
A dull headache throbs behind my eyes as I head back. I need to eat, hydrate, and focus on stretching before lactic acid sets in. I don’t want to get up tomorrow and already hurt before dryland.
The team has set up a team dinner for us in a private room on the ground floor of the hotel.
I’m not in the mood to see anyone’s face, so I grab two plates and load up on grilled chicken, tortellini with pesto, broccoli, and fresh fruit.
I grab a couple of bananas and a six-pack of Gatorade, then head up to my hotel room.
I collapse on my bed. Today really sucked all around. I’m glad that Juliet wasn’t here to see us drag ass around the rink. My head throbs as I wolf down my food and guzzle Gatorade. All I want at this moment is a little foam roller time and a fucking nap.
My phone buzzes when I’m halfway through my food. I check who it is, expecting to silence the call. But to my surprise, it’s Juliet. She didn’t text me at all today, which irritated me for absolutely no reason.
She’s not my actual fiancée. I can’t expect her to text me all the time.
But now she’s calling me. I’m a little taken aback because we don’t really have a phone call sort of relationship. I pick up her call, feeling a strange mix of excitement and dread.
“Hey, Juliet.”
“Hey. Do you… um… wanna FaceTime?”
I blink slowly. She wants to see me? “Sure.”
Juliet switches to a video call. I can see her relaxing on the couch, wearing a gray Seattle Havoc hoodie. My hoodie, I’m pretty sure.
“You look exhausted. I watched your game.” She wrinkles her nose.
I sigh heavily. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was a tough loss.” She props her head on her hand. “It seemed like you and Thorne were the only players who were awake other than Jett. It was hard to watch you guys skate yourselves into the ground while everybody else seemed sort of…”
“Fucking clueless?” I supply. I take another bite of pasta because, no matter how much I like Juliet, my stomach is still growling.
“Are you eating? I don’t want to interrupt. I can call back later…”
“Nah.” I shake my head. “Seeing your face is making my day less of a waste.”
Juliet hooks her hair behind her ear and gives me a sheepish smile.
“The apartment is too quiet without you here. There’s no one to turn on the blender at 4:30 in the morning. It’s weird,” she teases.
Warmth fills my chest. “Not to mention there’s no big tall man to help get things down from the kitchen shelves. What have you been doing without me there?”
She blushes. “Eating a lot of takeout. There are clean dishes in the dishwasher that are staying put till you return because they belong in the top cabinets.”
“I expected as much.” I chuckle. “Just don’t get any of your other 6’6” fake fiancés to put the dishes up. I don’t want to share the space.”
“Oh, ha ha. You’re the only impossible bear of a man in my life at this moment.”
We share a look, part humor, part awkwardness. I bite my lower lip.
“So did you have a reason for calling? Is this a booty call?”
“What?” She sits up, looking alarmed. “Hunter!”
“What?” I smirk at her and open a new Gatorade. “A guy can hope.”
Her brow furrows. “You don’t actually do that, do you?”
“What, phone sex?” I consider her words. “No. But for you, I would. We’re breaking all the rules already. What’s a little video work, heavy breathing, and masturbation in the mix?”
She rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to get me all hot and bothered.”
“You called me,” I pointed out. “I can’t control where my mind goes after that.”
“You’re awful.” She pokes her cheek out with her tongue and then admits, “I miss you, though. You’ve been gone too long.”
My first instinct is to tease her again, ask how long it’s been since she’s touched herself. But what comes out of my mouth next surprises even me.
“After my game in Vancouver, come meet me for a weekend away,” I blurt out.
Her eyebrows rise. “A weekend away?”
“Yeah. No cameras, no team events, no reporters. Just... away.”
I don’t know where the idea came from, but suddenly I need it. Need to be somewhere with her that isn’t tied to hockey or PR or any of the reasons we’re supposed to be together. I need Juliet to say yes.
“Where were you thinking?”
“I know a place. A cabin up north. Nothing fancy, but it’s quiet.”
She studies my face for a moment, probably trying to figure out what brought this on. But all she says is, “Okay. That sounds nice.”
The cabin is owned by Mr. Greene and up for grabs to any player who wants it.
During the summer and the post-New Year’s snow, it’s busy.
But now, reading into the Thanksgiving holiday, it will be available.
It’s simple, rustic, the place where you can hear yourself think.
No wifi, no cell service, no distractions.
And most importantly, plenty of isolation. The idea of spending a few days holed up with Juliet, fucking her, teasing her, making her laugh… It sounds downright dreamy to me.
“I’ll send you a plane ticket and pick you up at the airport in Vancouver. The team has a week off after, so maybe I can convince you to stay for a few days?”
She nods slowly. “If the team has downtime, I should be able to get away. It’s not like I have an office to show up at or anything.”
“True.” I take a few more bites of food. “Tell me a story while I finish demolishing this food, Monroe.”
She laughs. “I can tell you about hanging out with the Coven at Ivy’s house. Ivy has wild taste in furnishings and even wilder taste in men.”
“Tell me all about it.” Grinning, I pull my plate of fresh fruit closer. “I’m going to stuff my face.”
* * *
“Wow. When you said this cabin wasn’t fancy, you weren’t kidding.” Juliet looks at the small A-frame cabin as I set our suitcases down to unlock the front door. I open the door and step back with a grin.
“For the next three days, it’s home sweet home.”
She sticks her tongue out teasingly as she heads inside. The place is small, with a tiny kitchen and cozy living room on the bottom floor. Up a corkscrew set of metal steps is a tiny library wall and the cabin’s only bed. A fire crackles as we make ourselves comfortable.
For me, that means three days of sweet, sweet sweatpants. For Juliet, it’s more yoga pants and my stolen hoodie. She still wears her heels, which makes me want to roll my eyes. Even at this remote cabin, Juliet needs to be done up.
She wiggles her eyebrows and shows off my hoodie. “You like?”
I’m not even mad that she stole it; she looks so tiny with the bulky sleeves shoved up that it makes me smile. Yeah, seeing her in my gear definitely does something to me.
“I really do,” I admit. “In a possessive, fucked up way, I don’t want you to wear anything else, ever. I like this better than a tight little skirt.”
“It smells like you.” She inhales a whiff of my hoodie and blushes. “I don’t hate it.”
I love seeing her like this, warm and soft and real. She doesn’t need anything from me here. Doesn’t expect me to perform or be on or manage my image.
She just wants to hang out with me.
We cook dinner together, something simple that doesn’t require much skill. She tells me about her first job out of college, working for a sports agency that treated her like a glorified coffee fetcher until she proved she was smarter than half the men in the room.
“The managing partner called me into his office one day,” she says, stealing a piece of the garlic bread I’m making.
“He told me I had potential, but that I needed to be more collaborative. He said I was too aggressive in meetings.” She points the bread at me.
“I was the only girl there and definitely the only one under 5’8”. It was humiliating.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked him if he’d ever told a male colleague to be less aggressive. He said that was different. I need to learn how to talk to men, I guess.” She shrugs. “I had a new job lined up by the end of the week.”
I love watching her talk about work. The way her whole face lights up when she’s describing a satisfying negotiation or the strategy behind a successful campaign is something to see. It’s not ambition for its own sake. It’s a passion and an art.
Later, we’re sitting on the couch in front of the fire, a card game discarded on the table in front of us, and she laughs at something stupid I’ve said about the terrible movie we’re half-watching. It’s not a polite laugh or a professional laugh. It’s real and unguarded. Completely hers.
I think, I want to be the reason she keeps doing that.
The truth guts me. This isn’t supposed to be about what I want. This is supposed to be a business arrangement with convenient chemistry on the side.
But sitting here in this quiet cabin, watching Juliet curl up against my side like she belongs there, I can’t pretend anymore.
I’m falling for her. I’ve been falling for her since that first night she let me hold her. Maybe I’ve been holding a torch for her since college.
We have sex that night, but it’s slower than our usual pace. Reverent. Almost shy, like we’re both afraid of breaking something precious.
“Hunter.” There’s something in her low, throaty voice I can’t quite name.
“Yeah?”
But she doesn’t finish the thought. She traces patterns on my chest with her finger, like she’s trying to memorize the feeling of my skin under her hands.
I hope, just a little. Maybe this thing between us could be real. Could last beyond the five months we agreed to.
The thing is, I’ve been here before. I’ve let myself believe that someone cared about me, that I mattered to them beyond what I could provide. And every time, I’ve been wrong.
Every time, I’ve stood there wondering what I did wrong, why I wasn’t enough, why love always seems to come with conditions I can’t meet.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Juliet murmurs against my shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Come back to me.”
The way she says it, like I’m somewhere she can reach if I just let her, makes my throat tight.
“I’m here,” I say. I’ll try my best to make it true.
The next morning, I wake up before her and spend a few minutes just watching her sleep. She is wearing my hoodie with the hood pulled up over her head, the long sleeves drowning her hands. It’s cute.
I make coffee and sit on the porch, breathing in the crisp mountain air and trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing.
Five months. That was the deal. Five months of a fake engagement, then we both get what we need and go our separate ways.
But I don’t want to go my separate way anymore. I want to wake up next to her every morning. I want to make her coffee and listen to her talk about work and be the reason she laughs.
I want to keep Juliet Monroe in my life.
And that terrifies me more than any opponent I’ve ever faced.
Wanting something this much means someone can take it away. It means I can lose it. I could lose her.
“Morning,” Juliet says, appearing in the doorway with her own mug of coffee. She’s wearing my sweatshirt and nothing else. The sight of her bare legs makes my brain short-circuit for a moment.
“Morning. Sleep okay?”
“Best I’ve had in weeks.” She settles next to me on the porch swing, pulling her feet up under her. “This place is perfect. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She looks out at the trees, at the mountains in the distance. “It’s nice to be somewhere that’s just ours. No cameras, no expectations. Just us.”
Just us. Like we’re a legitimate couple instead of two people playing pretend.
Maybe we are. Maybe somewhere along the way, the pretending became real.
“Juliet,” I start, but she cuts me off, shaking her head.
“I know,” she says quietly. “I know this is complicated. I know we have rules and contracts and expiration dates. But this weekend... can we just be here? Can we just be us without all the rest of it?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
Because I want that more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I would like to exist in this bubble where she’s mine and I’m hers and nothing else matters.
Even if it’s only for a weekend.
Even if it’s all I get.
We spend the day hiking, holding hands like teenagers. And I let myself pretend that this is real. I act like this is my life and push the rest of my thoughts away.