Chapter 2
TWO
JJ
Theo: How’d the move go? Hopie all settled?
I shake my head as I sink into Adeline’s Bolts blue Porsche. I’m pretty sure Beckett had it custom made for her. She’s been obsessed with cars since she was sixteen. Probably because she’s spent all her life hanging out with guys who are obsessed with three things: hockey, cars, and women.
Adeline doesn’t give anyone even a second of her attention—male or female—but she could talk cars and hockey all day.
And sports cars have always been her favorite.
“What are you shaking your head at?” She grumbles as she revs the engine.
There’s no stopping my smirk. “You showing off for me?”
She scoffs, keeping her focus fixed out the windshield. “Please, I don’t do anything for you. Or anyone for that matter. I do what makes me happy, and what makes me happy is the sound of my pretty baby starting up.”
Theo: We’re playing in Boston in October. You guys around?
I groan at my cousin’s text messages. Dammit, he’s waking the chat. In minutes, I’ll have a dozen unread messages. He and Finn could go back and forth for hours. How is a mystery. Both are professional athletes like me with ridiculously busy schedules.
Finn is the Boston Revs’ catcher, and Theo is the quarterback for Tennessee’s NFL team. He’s also Hope’s overbearing younger brother who doesn’t know what to do with himself now that she’s moved back to Boston and he’s the only one left in Nashville. I swear the kid is dying to move home.
Though I can’t imagine he’d want to move into the brownstone with the rest of us. I still don’t know how I got myself into this situation.
Finn: Already in the calendar.
Finn: and Hopie’s good. Gracie and I are going shopping this afternoon. She wants to pick out decorations for Hope’s room and surprise her. Says Mommy doesn’t smile enough.
Theo: I’m going to fucking murder her husband.
I’d like to get in on that, actually. What kind of spineless dick leaves his wife and three kids? Especially when his youngest isn’t even a year old. Fucking kills me.
Me: Let me know when and where.
Bray: No one is murdering anyone. Also, where the fuck are you? The rest of the team is already here.
Brayden Hawke, my team captain, rarely participates in the chat.
He’s tried removing himself at least ten times, but Finn always adds him back.
He’s a more recent addition to our crew.
The guys got him to come out with us one night, and Finn adopted him, probably against his will.
He’s a few years older than the rest of us, and for as long as I’ve been with the Bolts, he’s worked hard to maintain a professional relationship with his teammates.
It’s like he’s scared to be friends with the guys he plays with.
Though the last few years since he became captain he’s loosened up a bit and now I’d consider him my best friend on the team.
I respond to Bray, then I sneak a few glances at my newest coach.
Adeline Langfield grew up fucking gorgeous. She’s a knockout. I swear if she didn’t play hockey, she’d be on a runway. Or maybe not, because I can’t imagine her ever being interested in fashion. But she has the face and stature of a model.
Her long chestnut waves always smell like coconut, and she typically wears her hair pulled back from her pretty face.
Her high cheekbones are brushed with the lightest of pink and her lush lips are always covered in a red gloss.
She’s never steered away from her femininity despite the shit she’s gotten for it in this industry.
Then there are the dimples so deep she can’t hide them even when she’s not smiling.
I know because she rarely smiles at me. Not anymore.
And then there are the prettiest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.
She rarely looks my way, so I haven’t had the opportunity to really study them in a long-ass time, but I remember many a night when those very eyes were the last thing I saw before I fell asleep.
She was my secret keeper and the only good thing in my life the year I lived with the Langfields. I wish I could work out why she hates me so much now.
And I wish it didn’t bother me so much that she does.
“Stop staring at me,” she grouses.
I smirk. I may hate that we aren’t friends, but I do love engaging with her. Even if the only way I get to do it is by pissing her off.
“Now why would I do that?” I say with a forced smirk.
Finally, she looks at me, her expression making it clear that she thinks I’m the biggest idiot she’s ever met. “You realize that I could make your season a living hell, right?”
Shifting in my seat, I turn her way. It’s only polite to give her my full attention.
So what if that also means I have an excuse to check out what she’s wearing today?
She looks gorgeous in the simple light blue Bolts zip up over what I’m guessing is a sports bra.
I definitely shouldn’t be picturing her in just that, but thanks to Josie’s love for posting photos online, I know exactly what Adeline looks like in far less.
It’s not like I’ve gone looking for the photos. We just move in the same circles. And I’ve seen photos of every woman in that circle in a bikini. And now we’re living together. Sharing a fucking bathroom.
Shit, will she walk around in a tiny towel like she used to? She’d have full conversations like that, completely oblivious to the way my dick would immediately harden.
Probably not.
She’s older. She knows better. Right?
She has to know the effect she’d have on a man were she to walk around like she used to. The effect she’d have on me.
She glares my way again.
Fuck. Of course she doesn’t. The woman barely thinks of me. She’s definitely not paying attention to the way I look at her.
I never should have agreed to move into the brownstone.
The player-coach relationship the two of us have been forced into will be hard enough.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade fighting this impossible crush.
And for the past four years, I’ve put in extra effort.
Even if my marriage has always been a farce, I tried for Avery.
Giving up on Adeline and the future I thought we’d have almost killed me though.
And now I’ll see her almost daily and travel with her weekly.
We’ll have to go over tape and work out together.
There was a time when being on the ice with her felt like foreplay.
Nothing, and I mean not a goddamn thing, has ever gotten me as hard as Adeline running drills with me.
For years, she was my favorite distraction.
Always the best player on the ice. Her tenacity and determination and her goddamn grit made her that way.
She refused to give up. Refused to cut corners.
Ignored the voices—and there were many—telling her that she didn’t belong out there with us guys.
She’s the reason I’m the best goalie in the NHL. The reason I won the Calder Trophy my rookie year and the Vezina the last two years.
If Adeline had signed with an NHL team, I’d bet anything that those awards would have been hers.
She’s better than any of us. I’m lucky that she’s back on the ice with me.
But between that and living with her, every moment of my life is about to be torture. A fucking disaster.
When my phone buzzes, I welcome the distraction, turning toward the window as I unlock it.
Tabitha: I told you I needed time. Tell your attorney to stop harassing me.
I can’t help the scoff that flies from my lips at my future ex-wife’s demands.
Wife. Fuck, I hate that the woman ever held that title.
That she still does. I guarantee the only reason she’s holding on to it is because of the prenup.
The one that states that if we stay married for five years, she walks away with a million dollars—and if we divorce before then, she doesn’t get a dime.
My parents are stupidly rich, so by default, I’m stupidly rich. Not one of us was delusional enough to believe Tabitha actually loved me. She was a puck bunny and she didn’t even try to hide it. But I never would have thought that she wouldn’t love her daughter either.
That’s the part that kills me. Avery deserves the world.
And that’s why I’m putting myself through this torture with Adeline.
It’s why I moved into the brownstone. My little girl deserves a family, and I’ve done a shit job providing that.
So long as I play hockey, my schedule is intense and the planning is out of my hands.
With Tabitha disappearing completely two weeks ago, I’m in a bind. Though it’s loosened a bit since Beckett Langfield swooped in and saved the day. Just like he did all those years ago when he brought me into his home at a time when I needed the support.
“Everything okay?”
I give a jerky nod, my phone squeezed tight in my hand.
“You sure?” Her voice is soft. So familiar and yet so foreign these days.
I refuse to let it comfort me. She’s only being nice to me because of Tabitha. Since Avery was born and Tabitha became a true fixture in my life, Adeline has kept a professional distance from me. I’d do well to remember that and keep a healthy distance from her too.
“I’m fine.”
There was a time that she would immediately know I was lying. When she wouldn’t have allowed it. I have no idea if she believes me now because I no longer know her and she definitely doesn’t know me. We aren’t best friends anymore.
Hell, we aren’t friends at all.
She’s my coach and my roommate and nothing more.