Chapter 9
NINE
NICK
Evie’s room was smaller than mine, by a lot.
When the pull-out sofa was open, the frame nearly hit the edge of her double bed.
The bathroom didn’t have a tub, just a tiny shower.
Living with a roommate was tough, but living with one that made my cock as hard as a rock was going to make for a very uncomfortable night’s sleep.
I’d never lived with a woman before, and as I cleared away a spot on the side of the pedestal sink for my shaving kit, I realized just how intimate this living arrangement was going to be.
I admired Evie for helping out her grandmother, but for both of our sakes, I needed to find a place to stay—and fast.
A shrill ring cut the awkward silence between us.
Evie picked up the phone. I splashed some water on my face while I tried to pretend I couldn’t hear her side of the conversation.
“No, I won’t be using it. I’ll check with Nick though,” she said to the person on the other end of the line. “Nick?” she shouted.
I cracked open the door. Her hand was covering the ivory mouthpiece. “Are you going to use the hot tub tonight?”
My dick pulsed at the thought of sitting in the swirling water with Evie. “Nope.” I said it a little quicker and louder than necessary. Adjusting my semi, I grabbed my shaving kit and a change of clothes and tossed it into a backpack.
She returned her attention to the call. “Neither of us is going to use it. Eddie can close it up for the evening.” She paused. “Sweet dreams to you, too, GJ,” she whispered.
I think that she was embarrassed, but I thought it was sweet. No one had ever wished me sweet dreams.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I’m going to go to the rink to work on a few things for the game. I’ve heard that the Windswan team is the best in the league. I want to make sure that I’m on top of my game. I’ll be back around nine.”
That seemed like a good Goldilocks time to come back. Not too early, not too late—just right.
Evie smiled and also seemed a little bit relieved. “Okay, roomie. See you at nine.” She gave me a light right hook to the bicep. I wasn’t imagining the awkwardness, she felt it too.
At the rink, the fresh sheet of ice shone in the fluorescent lights.
I’d called Mack to come and practice shots with me, and by the time my blades hit the ice, he had already skated three lazy laps.
I skated a lap in my goalie kit, then tried not to think about Evie as I did some light stretches.
A groin pull could be a career-ending injury, and ever since TikTok became a thing, videos of goalies stretching had been making the rounds on social media.
It had never fazed me before. I’d been doing the same warm-up since I was a teenager, but as I dropped to my knees and rested the knuckles of my gloves on the ice, I could almost hear the striptease music playing in the background.
Worse, I couldn’t stop thinking about Evie, and suddenly with her face in my mind, the stretches seemed sexual.
I cleared my throat and skated to the net, banging my stick on either post—also part of my pregame warm-up, and hoped that the pressure against my jockstrap would cease—and soon.
Mack and I banged pucks for an hour and a half. I could’ve kept going, but Mack was fading. In the last half hour, I stopped every single one of his slap shots—easily. If he was one of the best players in the league, I could probably go three for three in shutouts.
“Man, you are good.” Mack leaned his elbow on the crossbar. “What the hell are you doing here?”
After squirting water through the cage of my helmet, I pulled it off and emptied the bottle on my head. “Coach Coalman was one of my coaches back East. I found myself without a team and he found himself needing a goalie.”
That was kind of the truth. I’d been suspended from the Laketown Otters for the rest of the season for mouthing off to one of the refs—but no one out here needed to know that.
The two leagues were on opposite sides of the country, and unless one of the Laketown Otters had a ski villa in Chance Rapids, no one in town would know my back story. Except Coalman.
The part that I didn’t tell Mack was that along with a significant chunk of money, Coach had promised me that he would talk to his scout connections for me. I didn’t care as much about the payoff money—a few words whispered into the right scout’s ear could change my career.
“You could play in the NHL.” The door to the player’s box squeaked as he opened it.
That’s the plan, I thought to myself.
“I had a few scouts interested when I was in the NPHL. I’ve heard that they come and visit this league too.”
“They do.” He grinned. “There are rumors that there is going to be one at game three.”
“The outdoor game?”
“I know.” Mack nodded grimly. “It’s not really an accurate representation of our skills, but that game is so huge I think that they want to see how we do under the pressure.”
We trundled through the hallway to the dressing room. “How huge?”
“Oh man.” Mack flung the door open and stepped aside for me to enter first. He was the captain of the team and always entered and exited the dressing room last. Every team had their last man, and Mack was it here.
“What’s the population of Chance Rapids and Windswan together? Thirty thousand? Double that.”
“Where do they put everyone?” Coalman had told me that the game was a big deal, but I hadn’t realized that I’d be losing the Classic in front of that many people—including Evie and GJ.
I shook the two of them from my head. I couldn’t let myself get attached.
I had a job to do—lose the Christmas Classic and then leave town.
A career in the NHL was worth more than the hit my ego was going to take letting in the game-losing goal.
Coalman had assured me that the scout wouldn’t care if the team lost. He said that my skill would shine through anyway.
I hoped that he was right—this was my shot at getting my life back on track.
So what if it broke the heart of every kid in town.
Teams lose all the time. I was going to walk away with ten thousand bucks in my pocket and my name on a scout’s list. I couldn’t let the pretty girl with the quirky fashion sense derail me now.
By the time I got out of the shower, Mack was gone.
I took my time drying off and getting dressed.
It was eight thirty and I didn’t want to get back to the inn too early.
I took a minute to admire the room. For a small-town rink, the dressing room at the Chance Rapids Memorial Centre was pretty damn nice.
Each player had their own cubby and the equipment manager kept the sticks in mint condition.
There was a massage room and a dedicated fitness room just for the team.
None of these guys were getting paid to play here, yet they all seemed so pumped to be on the team.
I didn’t get it.
The minute hand clicked over on my watch and I sighed.
All Evie and I had to do was get through tonight.
Tomorrow I would find a place to live for the rest of my time in town.
It would mean that I’d have to lie to someone about how long I’d be here, but that seemed easier than living in a four hundred square foot space with a woman I didn’t know but somehow felt like I did.
That was the difference with Evie. How did it feel like I’d known her for a lifetime when it had only been a few days? Was this what it felt like to meet the right person? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out.
I pulled on my puffy coat and hiking boots and prepared myself for the long night ahead. But when I stepped out of the dressing room I wasn’t met with an empty hallway. Strong hands gripped my arms on either side. “You’re coming with us, Tinsey.” Mack laughed.
“Let go of me.” I tried to shake him and Chaser off me.
“No way, dude. This is a team tradition. You’re a Bobcat now,” Mack said.
It would have been easy to get out of it, but dollar signs and contracts floated through my mind. I had a role to play, and if that meant pretending to bond with my “new” team, then I was about to win an Oscar.
“Fine.” I shrugged off their vice-like grips. “But only one drink.”
I definitely couldn’t roll into Room 222 tipsy.
The guys looked at each other and smiled. “Sure. One drink.” Chaser winked.
It was an easy walk to the main street of town. The colorful strands of lights that criss-crossed over top of the street hung heavily with snow, and “Winter Wonderland” played through the outdoor speakers.
The Last Chance Tavern looked like it had been a Chance Rapids staple for the last hundred years.
A heavy wooden door led to a dark room that smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke.
Even though smoking indoors had been banned for decades, the ceiling looked to be permanently stained with nicotine.
A bar ran along one wall, pool tables sat in the middle, and on the far side stood a small stage and parquet dance floor.
“Fancy,” I grumbled.
Chaser laughed. “It’ll grow on you, and the beer is a lot cheaper than the fancy brewpub.”
Nickelback blared from the jukebox, and as we stepped into the main room, it seemed as though every eye in the place—and there were a lot of them—turned to look at us.
The crowd was a mixed bag. There were old-timers wearing grease-stained shirts hunched at the far end of the bar, young people wearing varying shades of plaid shirts hung near the pool tables, and the dance floor was filled with women, almost all of whom seemed to be able to shake their asses while holding glasses of beer or wine.
Most of those women paused their twerking, or at least slowed it down, to eye fuck us as we walked to the bar.
“Welcome to Chance Rapids,” Chaser whispered in my ear.
It looked like the kind of place where someone could get laid, score coke, and get punched in the face all within five minutes. “How long until the bar brawl breaks out?” The three of us joined the rest of the team that were sitting at a long table in the back.
Mack looked at his watch. “We’ve got a few hours before that happens.”
I wasn’t sure whether or not he was kidding.
“This is your seat.” Chaser pointed to the chair at the head of the table.
Number Nine was crudely carved into the stained hardwood—the Bobcat logo was painted in the center.
“You guys have your own table at the bar?” I sat in front of my number and ran my fingertips over the slightly sticky surface.
“It’s the VIP table.” Mack slung his arm over my shoulder and his draft beer sloshed out the top of his cup.
A guy named Chuckles poured me a mug of beer and held his up in the air. “To our new goalie.”
The rest of the team raised their mugs. “May shots be deflected and his brain not too demented.”
I laughed with the rest of the team. The weirdo goalie stereotype didn’t bother me.
You had to be a little messed up in the head to step in front of a piece of frozen rubber coming at you at seventy miles an hour.
I laughed and tapped everyone’s glasses with mine and then sipped the slightly flat domestic beer.
“And to winning the Christmas Classic.” A woman in a leopard print top rested her hand on Chuckles’s shoulder.
“To winning the Christmas Classic.” Chuckles held up his glass.
This time I didn’t feel right clinking their glasses, but I did anyway. The leopard print woman seemed to have claimed Chuck, but she kept looking at me. When our eyes met, she shot me an exaggerated wink, her whole face, including bright pink lips, participating in the gesture.
“Watch out for Stacy.” Mack leaned in. “She used to be a bunny.”
“Used to be?” I raised my brows. The way that the woman with big hair and a small shirt was clinging to the players told me otherwise.
Mack grinned. “Oh, in Chance Rapids the bunnies become something better.” He held up his glass and Stacy raised hers.
“What’s that?” I sipped the beer. The Last Chance Tavern was seedy and smelled like regret—but it also felt familiar. This place was the same as every main street dive bar, with the exception of the private player’s table.
“Bunnies grow into cougars.” He made a meowing sound.
If I were a few years younger, this all would’ve made me very excited.
My teammates were idols in this town, and could likely, and probably had, any woman they wanted in their beds.
When you’re a young guy, stuff like that is exciting, but for me, it had worn off years ago.
Where was the fun in getting what you wanted without having to try?
A pretty blond at the jukebox looked over her shoulder a third time and gave me that look.
It would’ve been easy, especially with my place at the king’s table, but there was only one sandy blond in Chance Rapids that I wanted, and she was three streets away, tucked into floral sheets next to a pull-out sofa with my name on it.
I yawned. After a day of skiing, playing maid, and battling multiple hard-ons, I was spent. I chugged my beer and wiped my mouth with my sleeve, then tried to figure out whether it was closer to walk back to the arena, or head south toward the inn.
Then the sandy-haired girl that I wanted walked through the front door.