Chapter 33 – Zane
thirty-three
Zane
“What time do you go for a nap?” Victoria asks me as she takes a sip of her coffee. The two of us are sitting outside of my bedroom on the balcony. She’s wearing my big white terry cloth robe with nothing under it. Her legs are draped on mine as I sit in a pair of black boxers.
“What time do I nap?” I ask her, confused about the question. “I don’t know what you mean by that.” I smile. “Is that like a young person thing again?”
She smiles and it just takes my breath away that this woman is mine, all mine. “It’s game day.” I nod my head as I take a sip of my own coffee. My hand rubs up and down her bare leg, pushing her legs off me. “Don’t you nap before the game?”
I chuckle. “If I was on the ice I would, but I’m not, so I don’t nap. But I have to do pregame stuff.”
“Ohh.” She puts her elbow on the back of the outdoor couch and rests her forehead on her hand. “Pregame stuff, is that old guy code?” She makes fun of my joke, and I roll my eyes.
“Smart-ass.” I lean over and kiss her lips. “You’re lucky it’s daylight outside and there are people on the beach, or I’d shove my cock in your mouth for that.”
“Oh no,” she deadpans, “I’m devastated. I literally had your cock in my mouth less than an hour ago.”
It’s my turn to smirk and then grin. “That was a good wake-up.” I wink at her. “Feel free to wake me up like that whenever you want.”
She returns my smirk, which makes me turn to the side, put my coffee cup down, and then grip her and bring her over to me.
She yelps, holding her cup high so it doesn’t spill as she straddles me.
The front of her robe opens and shows me the side of her nipple.
“Hmm,” I hum, pushing the robe to the side.
“You know, I could take my cock out and you could ride me, and no one would know.”
“Everyone would know.” She leans over to place her cup right next to mine and then places her hands on my chest. “I can’t keep quiet when you fuck me.”
“That should be like a challenge.” I lean forward and kiss the middle of her chest, right over her beating heart.
“So how do you pregame?” she asks me, and I put my hands on her hips.
“I go over the plays from the last game,” I explain to her, “make notes about where we can tighten up. Then I watch the other team’s last game to see if there is something they do that we can use to our advantage.”
“That sounds like a lot more work than napping,” she jokes, and I wrap my arms around her and pull her to me. She lays her head on my shoulder, and I watch the water in total contentment, just holding her close to me.
After we head inside, I spend the afternoon in my office and she leaves me to it. I can hear her around my house when she sticks her head in. “I think I’m going to head out and go home.”
I lean back in my chair. “Why?”
“You’re working.” She points to me, and I see she’s changed from wearing the robe to her black yoga pants. “And I have to get a change of clothes for tonight.”
“How are you getting to the game?” I ask her, as she walks into my office and leans at the side of my desk.
“Ariella said she’s going to come and pick me up,” she tells me.
“Okay, good, and pack a bag.”
“So needy.” She pushes off from the desk and comes over to hold my cheek in her palm. “Okay, I’ll see you later.” She kisses my lips. “I won’t tell you have a great game since you aren’t actually on the ice”—she smiles—“but help them have a great game.”
I chuckle at her and get up, following her out of my office. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to walk you out,” I tell her as she stops in the kitchen, grabbing her purse and keys, and then walking to the door. I hug her one last time, giving her a kiss before she gets in her car.
I hold up my hand as she drives out of the driveway and walk back inside, heading back to my office. I pick up my phone and call her. “Literally just left.”
“Come back,” I plead softly, “I miss you.” The sound of her bursting out laughing rips right through me. “I’m needy.”
“You’ll survive. I have faith in you. You’re a brave boy. A big brave boy.”
“Yeah, I am.” I smirk.
“I didn’t mean like that,” she groans. “Go do coach things.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
“You betcha, I’ll be there,” she assures me.
“I love you, Victoria,” I say the words softly and with all the meaning I can behind them.
“I love you too, Zane,” she replies, just as soft. “Now get back to it and stop enticing me with the sweet talk to turn around.”
“Okay, baby, see you later.” She hangs up the phone and I spend the next two hours making notes and going over a couple of things when my phone rings.
I look down, seeing it’s Ken calling me. “If this is you calling to fire me before a game—” I chuckle at the joke while at the same time holding my breath.
“I wouldn’t do it on a game day,” he assures me, his voice tight, “but I do have news for you.”
“This sounds like it’s fun news.” I lean back in my chair.
“Well, the fab five,” he refers to the five guys, “went above my head and straight to Brad with their demands to have you fired.” His voice, if you can even imagine, gets even tighter.
“Which, I’m going to go on the record to say, it fucking pissed me the fuck off.
” I don’t say anything when he trails off.
“It’s one thing to come to me with your demands, but then to think you are going to strong-arm me into doing something, well now you’ve done pissed off the wrong person. ”
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” I start, “but as of the last game, I’ve started cutting the bench.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You don’t think I see the time sheet? I know how much less each are playing. It’s not enough to get them talking, but I know it’s enough for them to notice.”
“I don’t trust them to not go on the ice and fuck up the game for everyone,” I admit to him.
“You have my support,” he assures me. “Now you’d have it a lot more if you can win the next couple of games.”
“I’ll try. Thank you, by the way.”
“Yeah, now it’s not even about you,” he growls. “Now it’s about me, and him thinking I can’t do my job,” he snaps and then hangs up the phone.
When I walk into my office two hours later, I toss my keys on the desk as I make my way into the coaches’ room. I walk over to the whiteboard, making the change to the lines. Cam arrives as soon as I’m done.
“We changing the lines again?” he asks me, putting his hands on his hips. “How do you expect us to win games when you keep changing the lines?”
“I’m assuming that everyone on the ice knows how to play the game, so what does it matter who they play with?”
“Then why don’t you separate Kirby and Jaxon?”
“Because Jaxon is the top defenseman in the league, and Kirby is the second, so that means they play the first line.” I look over at him, seeing him with his jaw tight. “That’s what I thought,” I say and he doesn’t say anything back to me.
We start the game with the lines I wrote down, Vancouver scoring first. “Still two and a half more periods to go,” I say, walking down the bench.
“You got this.” The guys nod their heads.
“But you’d have more chances if you shoot the fucking puck,” I remind them.
“If you have the shot, I want you guys to take it.”
The second period has the puck coming into our zone. Taking the shot, our goalie goes to cover it up, losing it right before but then their forward blocks him from moving in his crease, letting the puck go into the back of the net. I get on the bench as soon as they say the puck is in the net.
“Goalie interference!” I shout to the referee. He nods at me as he tells the crowd I’m challenging the goal. I look down at the iPad Eric is holding, showing me the play over and over.
“His knee is out of the crease,” Cam says. “You’ll fuck us for this and then we’ll have to put someone in the box.” He shakes his head and walks to the end of the bench.
The referee comes to the middle of the ice. “After the coaches’ challenge, it was determined that there was goaltender interference, therefore there’s no goal on the play.”
The crowd goes crazy as I call the next line, without Owen, and instead putting Aaron with Knox. Owen looks back at me and I can tell he’s pissed.
I ignore him as I watch the game, seeing them in our zone again.
There is a shot on our goalie and it’s blocked, with Aaron taking the rebound and then moving the puck up the ice.
He skates down the center ice and then passes it to Knox as soon as he skates over the blue line.
Knox has two men on him, and he looks like he’s going to pass it back to Aaron but instead goes around the two men and then winds up his shot, with no one in front of him.
The puck slides in between the pads, the horn starts and then the crowd flies to their feet.
“I guess switching up the lines helps.” I lean to Cam, who just nods at me, but it’s not a friendly look either. Four minutes later, Kirby takes the puck down the ice and finds Aaron all by himself on the side, and it hits the back of the net.
We win the game, and the locker room is buzzing with two wins in a row. I look over at Jaxon after the game, and he walks over to me. “You giving me a lift to the bar?”
“I don’t know, am I?” I ask him, and it’s not unusual that I do this, but now I’m dating his sister.
“Yeah.” He turns and forty-five minutes later, we’re walking to my SUV.
“Should I come for like backup?” Knox asks, looking to Kirby, who is looking around and avoiding looking our way.
“We’ll be fine,” Jaxon assures him and gets into the car.
“If you guys aren’t at the bar in twenty, I’m going to be pissed,” Knox warns. “We don’t have the kids tonight, and the last thing I want is to drag out the night fixing other people’s shit.”
“It’ll be fine,” I state, getting in and turning my key into the ignition. “Are we good?”
“I promised Ariella I would be on my best behavior,” Jaxon says, “and I don’t break my promises to my girl.” I nod, waiting for a but and then he starts it. “You better be fucking sure of this.”
“Only thing I’m actually sure of,” I admit, pulling out of the parking garage, “is how I feel about Victoria.” He nods. “She’s one of a kind.” I grin, thinking of her smile. “There is no one else on this earth I would protect more than her. Not even myself.”
We pull into the parking lot of the bar and I get out, followed by Jaxon. Kirby and Knox park next to me. “Good, no blood was shed,” Knox reports, making us all laugh. “I’m literally going in there, getting Kylie, and taking her home where I’m going to do lots of—”
“If you finish that sentence,” Kirby warns, “I’m going to throat punch you and you won’t be able to do anything.”
I pull open the door and step in, seeing most of the players are here. Aaron is at the bar leaned in, talking to Eric. I do a sweep of the room and see my girl standing to the side talking to the others. She must sense I’m here because her eyes fly up and meet mine.
She gives me a smile and then holds up her hand, not coming to me. My eyes are trained on hers as I zigzag through people, giving a couple of them chin lifts. “Hey, Coach,” Aaron calls from the bar, “come over here.”
“In a second,” I reply, not stopping in my tracks as I make it to her.
“Hey, baby,” I greet her and then it’s as if everything in the bar goes silent.
Or maybe the only thing I can hear is the beating of my heart.
My arm wraps around her waist and I pull her to me.
“You look beautiful,” I say before my lips softly touch hers.