Ice Melts

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

S arah Cooper had a secret. Something she’d told no one ever, that she’d carried since high school.

But she was going to have to let it go.

And that might never happen if she kept her same career as a sports reporter… covering hockey… and the players… and their personal lives.

She sat with notebook in hand, her favorite pen and a pasted-on smile, waiting for the guys to gather so she could ask her questions and go. This article was going to be one for the books. Or at least the exposure would be.

Her respect for the players was meticulously hidden between many layers of professionality and journalistic smarts. This was not her secret necessarily, but she’d also never admit to admiring them, purely platonically, of course.

She certainly wasn’t attracted to them…

The guys came pouring out of the locker room and began to strip down to their shirts and tights right in front of her. Uh, what is going on here? She didn’t think giving up her thing for hockey players was going to happen any time soon.

What people didn’t understand about Hockey players was how fit they were. Their uniforms were bulky. No one saw the beauty beneath all those pads. But they were some of the toned most built athletes she’d ever seen and she didn’t think she’d ever get tired of seeing it.

She looked away. She tried not to notice. They were smelly, afterall. And arrogant, self-serving, overly hyped about their self-importance…so many things that a good set of abs did not address…or make up for. Mostly.

Not that she spoke from experience. She’d refused to date one since she was in high school, since her best friend’s brother had started playing hockey. That was the moment hockey became off limits as a romantic interest.

But then moments like this happened, when she was waiting for the press conference and somehow got a front row view of the guys. Turns out, pipes had burst in their locker room and someone had offered to take their uniforms to be washed. So, here she was, in the hall with the whole team while they started peeling away the uniforms.

A small smile curled at her lips no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

“Are you drooling over the guys, Sarah?” Their main team media liaison stepped up next to her, his eyes twinkling.

She frowned. “Of course I am. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’d never actually date one.”

Tiny, the player actually close enough to hear their conversation snorted. “You act like we’re some kind of specimen in a jar. Never date one, what does that even mean?”

“One as in, I don’t know, one of you.”

“Wow, just wow.” He shook his head and dropped a pile of wet sweaty clothes at her feet.

She stepped back, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not here to do your laundry.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to insult the guys she hoped to get statements from. She bumped shoulders with the media liaison. “Now look what you did. You made me insult one of the exhibits.”

Jorge, who had been working with hockey players his whole life and should have sympathized with her, should have gotten her joke, just shook his head. “Not a good move Cooper, not a good move.”

“Oh, come on, they have the emotional sensitivity of a…”

She noticed a few more of the guys with an eye in her direction. She cleared her throat. “Well, I’ll send Tiny a gift basket. Let’s get this press conference going, shall we?”

She hid her awkward embarrassment behind forced professionality. Her attempted smile of apology sent in Tiny’s direction only seemed to make things worse. Stick to the script, Cooper. If she were being totally honest and admitting her deepest secret, she didn’t have a thing for all hockey players, just one. The one she could probably never have, who didn’t see her that way, who was responsible for her greatest hurt in highschool... Focus.

Flat stomachs and rippled abs surrounded her. For the most part at this point, the players were all free of their uniforms, wearing wet-through tight workout clothes. And she had to admit they were excellent at what they did. To arrive at the professional level, an athlete was in pristine condition, especially a hockey player. She felt her cheeks flush. Perhaps she was being a bit unfair. Perhaps there was room for a hockey player to be a decent human being.

“Oh, come on Cooper, don’t tell me you’ve never seen a bunch of half-dressed athletes before.” The star forward, Trey, clipped her on the back like she was one of the guys and brushed past her, his body leaving a moist smear across her arm.

“Ugh!” She turned to Jorge but he arched his shirt away from her. “Don’t wipe that mess on me. Do you know how many germs are in a single drop of sweat? Not to mention waste...”

She held up her hands. “Okay, just stop.”

She had nothing to wipe it with so she left the glistening line on her arm to dry and stood taller, trying to maintain some level of professionality.

Jorge stepped in front of a make shift microphone podium and tapped to make sure the sound was working. “Okay, hey guys. Sorry about the locker room confusion. As a result of our ahem, lack of clothing, we will have cameras pointed this way only.” He waved his arms and pointed to himself and the reporters behind him. “But the audio is on, so as always, best faces for the camera, or in this case voices. Represent the team well.”

They groaned a bit but then the cameras started rolling, and a group of reporters raised their hands to ask questions. Let the press conference begin.

Mostly everyone wanted to know about the team’s plans for the future, what they would do about a run for the Stanley Cup, what happened to the injured player, what did they think about the fairness of the refs or the shootout from last game. But her questions would be different. When at last the others seemed to have died down, she raised her hand.

Jorge lifted a hand in her direction. “Cooper.”

“There has been talk of after game parties, specifically one last weekend. Can anyone give us some more information about a place called…” she pretended to check her notes. “Brogue’s Bando?”

The team was silent for the count of five and then the other reporters started shouting out questions relating to drug use and team morale and overdose. She waited and then leaned over the microphone. “I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.”

Jorge frowned at her, but his eyes were steel when he looked out over the players who were still silent. At last, Trey raised his hand. “I’m sure none of us know what you are talking about.”

“Oh, that’s interesting, since I am in possession of multiple pictures that were almost about to go on someone’s social media account.” She hugged a folder to her chest. “I’d hope the team would take accountability and action against players knowingly breaking the law.”

The coach motioned that the cameras be cut and that the meeting was over. He was a tall man, still much in his physical prime even though his white hair said he was also much in his fifties. He approached her and held his hand out for the folder.

But Sarah shook her head. “These go to press.”

He did not drop his hand. A pair of wrinkles appeared between his eyes. “Don’t do this Cooper.”

“Why not?”

“Because you know it won’t help a single thing. Let me handle it. I’ll talk to the guys.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“And administer suspensions as needed.”

“Player accountability would go a long way. These guys are role models…or should be.” She held his gaze for another moment and then nodded. “I can’t do anything about the press that will already go live because of my questions.”

“I know.” He took the folder from her hands. “You know where I think you can go Cooper.”

She lifted her fingers in a delicate wave. “See you next time.”

He turned from her and she left the room with great satisfaction, fueled by the glares at her back.

On the way home, her assistant, Molly, called her. “I leaked the conference with some key talking points and accurate speculation.”

“That’s why you make the big bucks.”

“I actually don’t make any bucks.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that…”

“You have?”

“Actually no. But thank you! The good people of America would thank you if they respected what we do.”

“Which they don’t.”

Cooper could almost hear her leaning back in her chair with a large smile. “Good thing I get so much personal satisfaction from this.”

She laughed with her friend. “It’s important though. Accountability of these athletes might just save their lives, stop a small portion of the demand for the sick products they consume and maybe keep a few teens off the streets and out of prison.” She nodded to herself as if this justified the work she did. Mostly she was justified. Nobody was going to like the reporter who told the hard stories. It didn’t mean she wasn’t doing the right thing. At least that’s what she told herself every day even when the backlash hit.

She was viewed as a sensational reporter, the bottom of the barrel of reporting. But unlike some, she was accurate, meticulously so. And was therefore gaining a reputation as an expert investigative reporter. She’d moved apartments to get better security when she felt like she was being followed.

Signs of a good hunch turning into a full-on accurate investigation could also be uncomfortable and dangerous. She shivered. But she wasn’t exactly scared. It was exhilarating.

“Thanks Molly! Until next time!”

“You know it.”

She hung up the phone and then it immediately rang again. But when she saw who was calling, she couldn’t pick up. Her best friend Tatum would want to talk about the latest buzz she just created.

Instead, Sarah pulled up a picture of Tatum on her phone. She loved her even more than someone could love a sister if that was possible. They had done everything together their whole lives, even now, they were close enough she knew what perfume was still Tatum’s favorite. She knew what restaurants she haunted and she knew the minute she went out on a date. But she didn’t pick up the call.

Sarah couldn’t talk to her about work. There was something about her best friend that brought out brutal honesty, and Sarah much preferred viewing herself as a saintly sort of person saving the athletic world from drug overdose.

While that might be partly true, what she was really doing, was hoping for a little attention from one hockey player in particular, pure and simple. And what Tatum didn’t know about her secret lifetime crush on her brother wouldn’t ever hurt her. Sarah was going to make sure of it.

So she didn’t pick up the phone, not yet.

Surely Tatum had seen the press. Surely Travis had seen the press.

Tatum’s brother Travis was her secret crush. The one thing Tatum didn’t and could never know about Sarah Cooper was that she was fatally and forever in love with her twin brother Travis, and there was nothing anyone in the world could do about it. Nothing that Sarah was willing to do about it. And therefore she was stuck hating hockey players while secretly in love with one of the best more famous and talented players in this decade. Travis Jenkins played for the Seahorns and was basically the best thing that ever happened to hockey. He was amazing on the ice. Whether defense or offense or somewhere in between, he did what needed to be done. He was the top draft pick and remained the most sought-after player in the NHL. The one thing he did not yet have, was a Stanley Cup. And Sarah suspected this was his year.

The main reason Sarah had kept her secret so thoroughly for all these years? Travis could get any woman he wanted. And Tatum had been used by enough women trying to get a chance with Travis. Sarah would not ever be that woman. And…well…they couldn’t know because he’d broken her heart once already. She closed her phone and placed it face down on the seat bedside her.

It was not a true heart break. It had been prom. And it was a long time ago. But she’d agreed to go with him because they both didn’t have dates. Only, then, he’d gotten himself a date and blew her off like it didn’t matter.

But it had mattered. She’d been counting the night as her one chance with him, to go from friends to more. She’d used half her savings on a dress. And she’d ended up not having a date at all.

When Tatum had found out, she’d reamed out Travis. He’d come over and apologized after prom, but she’d promised him and Tatum that she had no feelings for the guy and never would.

And she’d stuck by that lie for at least a decade now.

The other reason? Hockey players were a dangerous breed to date. They had too many women, too much fame, way too much money and no real need for anything steady in the romance department.

No way was she going to be hurt by Travis again, or by any other hockey player in the meantime.