Chapter One Jamie
(I Met Him on a Friday Night)
I’m craving something greasy. Heavy. Spicy, maybe. Savory, at the very least. I want too much of whatever might make me regret giving in, and I want to smile all the way through, like nothing could hurt me.
Once upon a time, late August would’ve been the end of that kind of thinking.
An entire staff and a locker room full of teammates in Los Angeles had expected me to be better to my body by the time September came.
Rigorous training and the need to remain among the best had been reasons to demand it of myself.
Rules that had relaxed through June and July usually tightened right about now, my late-summer hunger met with meals that wouldn’t leave me questioning my choices in the middle of the night, a beer too many no longer washing them down.
But once upon a time hasn’t mattered for about five years now, and nobody will care what I eat tonight.
I laugh a little when I look in the mirror, amused by the boredom dulling my eyes.
Or it’s what I tell myself I see. Once upon a time, I also used to sit comfortably on my oversized sectional in my oversized great room in my oversized house and order dinner to be delivered, but maybe more changes are coming.
Harper isn’t home, and I don’t feel like being alone.
Whether it’s all that smart to drag my ass to an out-of-the-way dive bar just for human contact—and the greasy, heavy, spicy, savory meal I can get there—I tug a baseball cap over my messy hair and shrug.
There’s nobody to stop me from doing this, either.
On my way out the door, I grab my wallet and keys, my phone already in my hand.
When I lock up behind me, I ask myself for the first time whether I should consider moving away from a place I might not belong anymore.
The imagined voices of at least a few people suggest I’m being dramatic, but sometimes it feels like I’m living a dream I woke up from a while ago.
It could be the hunger talking tonight. Another hour or several might convince me to stay.
The ocean air I can breathe from where I stand could make me selfish enough to cling to the high life either way.
Okay, yeah, I’m fucking dramatic. As soon as I’m inside my black luxury SUV—part of the same expired dream—I make sure the music is blasting. It'll keep me from feeling anything but the bass replacing my heartbeat.
There isn’t much traffic at this time on a Friday night—mostly an absurd number of red lights familiar to me since before I owned a car—but I still park in the first available spot I find when I’m anywhere close to my destination.
I'm too impatient to drive in circles looking for something better.
It means I'm about four blocks away, but the injury that cost me my career has left me able to do almost anything but chase another Cup, and I reach the bar without trouble.
Slipping inside, I dodge a pack of college kids who could afford to drink elsewhere, and two old bikers who can’t be bothered to try.
There are a bunch of tired women pressed to tired men, and some asshole is already whining about the baseball game on tv, or the music overhead, or the food he’s still waiting on, or the beer he’s just finished.
None of it’s a shock to me. I only raise a surprised eyebrow when I see one stool available at the furthest side of the bar.
Kai couldn’t have known I would stop by, but I consider the seat in front of him a gift, and I slide onto it with a smile.
He fires one back. “Been a while, hotshot. Where’ve you been?”
It's predictable when he doesn’t stick around long enough to hear my answer.
His question was made rhetorical by circumstance, the demand on him too high to allow us an actual conversation.
He’s been running this place since his dad dropped dead of a heart attack eight years ago.
The fact that we became best friends when we were six means I’m both a top priority and the easiest person in the building for him to ignore.
I think I’d love to tell him I took a long vacation with Harper.
Or that I spent some time on a former teammate’s boat.
Maybe something about binge-watching shows that have been off the air for a decade.
I don't think I'd mention how many hours I spent in the pool, clinging to the aquatic therapy that hadn't frustrated me when everything else in my life did.
As it is, Kai is busy with the bikers. Someone else nudges my shoulder too gently for a place like this.
“Sorry, I—there’s nowhere to sit, but can I—I’m just trying to order something to go.”
This guy hasn’t been here before. No repeat customer would think it’s a good place to attempt a to-go order on the weekend. Before I can respond to something he hasn’t finished asking, Kai returns with a bottle of Fat Tire for me and an exhausted grin for the man crowded against my side.
“The food’s worth it, but the kitchen is slammed, so you’ve gotta be willing to wait,” Kai says. “What’re you drinking?”
A flustered glance at the taps only takes a second or two. “The Sam Adams seasonal would be great, thanks.”
Kai pours a pint and is just classy enough to throw a coaster down before he leaves it on the bar. Then he nods at me. “The usual?”
“Yep.”
“And you?”
“A dozen wings. Mango chipotle. And onion rings and mozz sticks, please,” the guy answers. “Take as long as you need—I’m not in a hurry.”
It’s cute that he thinks it would matter if he were, but Kai is long gone, and I’m not interested in being a dick about it.
I take a slow pull from my bottle and turn my head.
As much as I’d rather not be recognized tonight, I take a chance and finally get a good look at the man wedged between my stool and another.
He’s angled himself toward me instead of the woman on his other side, a random choice he’d made when he’d pushed himself close to the bar.
It's a choice made more comfortable after Kai addressed us as an inadvertent pair.
Taking our orders back-to-back had meant nothing to Kai, and I can’t thank him for it, but I’ll be grateful for a while.
He’s tall, this stranger. Strong in a way I know from years of being checked into the boards by men built just like him.
Maybe softer in the middle if he’s not particularly athletic, but underestimating him seems foolish from where I sit.
He’s close to my age—a couple of years older if I had to guess—and he's pulled his dark hair into a small ponytail. When his eyes meet mine, I clock shades of kindness and wisdom that suggest he’s nicer and smarter than I’ve ever been.
I look away before he does, so he’s probably braver, too.
If I’m being honest, he’s attractive enough to make me want to buy him this beer and a thousand more.
If I allow myself to lie, wanting more time with him makes no sense, my past littered with reasons to walk away without buying him a goddamn thing.
“What’s your usual?”
I blink up at him again, surprised he’s after small talk. Silently drinking next to me would’ve worked out fine. “The Santa Fe burger—green chiles, pepper jack, guacamole. Fries on the side.”
“There’s a lot happening there,” the guy muses. “I’ve had similar sandwiches, but I’m not sure I would’ve been creative enough to put all that on a burger.”
“Is this where I point out that you weren’t adventurous enough to look past the appetizer section?”
“Okay, that's fair, but mango chipotle is a little different, right?”
“It’s one of my other favorites,” I admit, tapping my bottle against the bar when I decide to keep talking. “What made you hit up a dive bar tonight?”
“Am I that out of place here?”
I scan the crowd and shrug. “Only in a good way. You look like you’ve got your shit together more than the rest of us.”
“Are you calling me boring again?” he asks, his head tilted with the seriousness of someone who’s offended. I’d reexamine my tone if his smile weren’t busy giving him away.
“I thought I was paying you a compliment.”
He blushes at that, or at least ducks his head as if he’s trying to hide something like it.
His skin is darker than mine, and combined with the shitty lighting in the bar, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to catch the pink in his cheeks.
Honestly, the stubble covering his jaw distracts me from looking much beyond it anyway.
After another second, I force myself to meet his eyes again and realize my mistake as soon as I get there.
The brown is unbelievably deeper now. It's threatening to drown me if I forget to come up for air.
There are secrets there. I guess that’s true of everyone, but there’s a split second when I wonder how easily I’d give up all of mine for the chance to hear one of his.
“I appreciate it then,” he says, quieter now. I think I’d move closer if we weren’t already touching in a few different places. The buzz of the bar is loudly alive all around us. “I wasn't expecting compliments tonight. At least not from—”
“From?”
He studies me briefly and takes a sip. “From someone who doesn’t know me.”
“Well, sure. If you usually grab takeout without sitting down for a beer, you don’t give most strangers a chance to say anything at all.”
“I’m not even sitting now, and yet—”
I laugh, my head tipping backward until my entire face must be on display, my hat unable to grant me privacy when I don't look down. If this guy figures out who I am, he doesn’t say.
I’m grateful because I’m usually recognized most at the times I want it the least. Plenty of hockey players—or former hockey players in my case—can go to a bar with little trouble, and in Southern California there are enough celebrity sightings to keep gawkers busy.
But the winning combination of my mouth, my looks, and my talent meant I was splashed all over the place for a while.
Attention was heaped on me when I didn’t know how to beg for anything else.