Chapter 3
JORDAN
“Alright, everyone.” Rory Miller raises his glass and the Filthy Flamingo quiets down. “As of tonight, the Vancouver Storm is in first place in the NHL’s Pacific Division.”
A round of cheers rises up around the bar, and even I smile from behind the counter. Rory puts his arm around his new wife, Hazel, Storm physio and body-inclusive fitness studio owner.
“I’m proud to be your captain. This season, the Stanley Cup is ours,” he says with his drink in the air, and everyone cheers.
Everyone returns to their conversations and I go back to making drinks, half-listening to the chatter.
Georgia takes a seat at the bar and gives me a broad smile, her wild auburn hair glinting in the dim lighting. “How’s your night?”
“Great. Yours?”
“Fantastic.” Her eyes flit to her husband, talking with the guys, and I know she’s feeling grateful Alexei doesn’t play anymore.
He used to get hurt. A lot. It stressed her out.
He’s talking with team analyst Darcy Andersen and her fiancé, Hayden Owens. Alexei’s eyes are on his wife, though.
One second, she mouths to him, and his chin dips in a nod, his expression serious but affectionate.
“How’s the apartment?” she asks me. “I miss that place.”
I give her a flat look. “No, you don’t.”
The apartment we used to share is old and gross. Practically falling apart. The only reason I’m still there is because it’s incredibly cheap and a few blocks from the bar.
Her nose wrinkles. “No, I don’t, but I miss living with you.”
Before she married her most hated enemy for his citizenship and her inheritance—we don’t talk about that, they’re in love now and that’s what matters—Georgia and I were roommates.
Since university, actually. Since my mom passed suddenly, my father abandoned me when I needed him most, and Georgia took one look at my utterly alone twenty-year-old ass and basically adopted me.
“You should probably make an appearance soon, though,” I tell her. “Garth is renovicting people left and right, and you’re still on the lease.”
As rent prices skyrocket in Vancouver, scummy landlords find a way to get rid of tenants, renovate, and then triple the rent. We signed the original lease a decade ago, so Garth is very eager to jack the rent.
She makes an ugh noise. “Garth is the worst.”
“The worst.” I return to mixing drinks and she leans her chin on her palm, her eyes moving over the group of happy people in the bar. “It’s nice having everyone here, isn’t it?”
My heart gives a sharp tug and I make an acknowledging sound.
Moments like this, with everyone enjoying themselves, talking and laughing. Hayden and Luca horsing around while Alexei tells them to knock it off.
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Pippa Hartley sits in a booth, practically encased by her goalie husband, Jamie, the subject of many of her sappy love songs. A guy who only smiles for her and their dog, Daisy.
Across from them, Pippa’s sister, Hazel—sharp, funny, fiercely loyal and inclusive, begrudgingly head-over-heels for Rory, who can usually be found whispering in her ear like he is right now. Or getting drunken tattoos for her.
Hayden breaks off from tussling with Luca and drops into his fiancée’s lap.
After a breakup a few seasons ago, the now-lavender-haired Darcy Andersen actually thought her best friend Hayden would be fine with wing-manning her—as if he didn’t have a thing for her since the day they met in university, years prior.
In three short years, my bar has become the third place.
They have home, they have work, and they have the Filthy Flamingo.
People celebrate birthdays here. Hayden and Darcy had their engagement party here.
Pippa played on the little stage here, before she was famous, before she even knew what she was capable of.
Here, people fall in love. Partner up and pair off, staring into their other half’s eyes while they dream up their whole futures together.
Georgia sighs with the wistful, happy expression of someone madly in love. Someone who belongs. “We’ve found ourselves an incredible family, haven’t we?”
My heart gives a sharp pang. I love these people, but I’m not one of them. I’m not meant to be, which is fine—I don’t need anyone or anything. I’m not like my mom was, radiant and outgoing.
Like so many times since I opened this place four years ago, my fingers find the sticker beneath the bar, something I slapped up the day I opened. A cartoon fox. The edges peeled up long ago so I have a layer of clear tape over it, and the smooth ridges of it under my fingers calm me.
My mother loved foxes because she said they represent transformation. Ten years later, I have so little left of her except her old record player, her records, and my memories of her.
Clever, adaptable, and resilient, she always said about foxes. Curious and observant. Very shy, she said, but that’s okay. Being solitary is how they protect themselves.
Like me. I’m the quiet one. The one in the background, on the outside, looking in. I’m meant to be alone.
That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy moments like these, though. Surrounded by warmth and happiness.
Sometimes you don’t know you’re in the good old days until they’re already gone. Another thing Natalie Hathaway said all the time. I grab the instant camera from beneath the bar and snap a photo of Georgia. The flash goes off, and she gives me a surprised look as the photo spits out of the camera.
Eventually, these people will outgrow their bar years. They’ll have kids or get tired of the late nights, and the celebrations at the Filthy Flamingo will end. A new group will arrive with their big laughs and smiles and inside jokes.
And I will still be here.
“Just wanted to capture the moment,” I tell Georgia with a shrug, tacking the photo up on the back wall behind the liquor bottles, with the others.
She gives me an understanding smile. “I’ll let you do your thing.”
She heads back to the group, where Alexei slips his arm around her waist and pulls her against him, and the group is complete once again. Everyone is exactly where they’re meant to be. Them there, and me back here.
Later, I open the back door to take the garbage out and something skitters past my feet.
“Jesus Christ!”
A low, garbled gremlin noise rumbles and I whip around.
It sits on the pavement, staring up at me, tail flicking in the dim alley.
Its eyes are way too big and way too close together.
It doesn’t have a nose. No, wait, it does, it’s just really tiny.
That’s why its breathing sounds like snoring.
It has an unfortunate underbite, tongue hanging out between its bottom teeth.
Even its black fur is. . . clumpy? Greasy, like it got into something in the garbage.
If that’s a cat, it’s the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen. It looks like a three-year-old’s badly glued-together daycare project.
It makes a noise that sounds like a distorted version of meow.
It’s skinny, too. Too skinny. Does it have a collar? I lean over to look and it hisses at me, wonky eyes mean and defensive. My hands go up in surrender.
“I’m trying to help you, no need to be a bitch.”
Like it’s offended, it dashes off.
“I don’t even like cats, anyway,” I call after it.
Back in the bar, I’m clearing empties, making drinks, keeping the bar tidy, but that ugly little cat keeps popping into my head. I’m sure she’s fine on her own. She? Yes, she. It has to be a she, with that attitude.
I glance toward the hallway that leads to the back door.
What if she isn’t fine? She looked small. Maybe she’s really young. A twist of worry spins in my chest. It’s January in Vancouver, cold and damp.
And she’s eating garbage. That’s not okay. She could get sick.
Minutes later, I set a plate of microwaved eggs on the ground. The cat is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’ll come back. Maybe she’s watching right now.
“Hi,” a low, male, and amused voice says, and I jolt.
Tate leans on the doorframe with a curious look. My hand goes to my racing heart.
His eyebrows rise. “Still tense, I see.”
The back of my neck prickles. “You were lurking.”
“I was waiting.” He glances at the plate of eggs. “Who’s that for?”
I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want him to know anything about me.
“A raccoon?” he prompts.
I make a face. “Everyone knows not to feed the trash pandas. It was a cat.” I’m grateful it’s dark out, so he can’t see my face going red.
“Twice in one day?” I ask. Let’s get the attention off me. “What’s the matter, couldn’t get enough of me?”
His eyes dip to my mouth and my stomach does a slow roll forward. That sounded more suggestive than I meant. I’m toeing the line of flirting, if I were the type of person to flirt.
He pulls his gaze up to my eyes. “Something about your sparkling personality, I suppose.” A pause. “I’d like to talk.”
“I’m busy.” I start to move past him but he steps into my path.
“Well, I came all the way here to talk to you, Jordan, so maybe you can spare thirty seconds.”
Oh. There we go. Another slip in his controlled exterior. Point Jordan. Satisfaction spreads through me.
He runs a hand through his thick hair. “Ross is going to sell the team.”
The air—it’s gone from my lungs, sucked out of me. I stare at him in disbelief, the sounds of the city, car horns and sirens and music from other bars and restaurants in the neighborhood, fading away.
“How do you—no.” He’s wrong. “He’s not selling. He loves that team.”
The Vancouver Storm has always been my father’s whole life. When he was a player, when he was a coach, and now as the owner. Nothing, not me or my mom, has ever mattered as much as his team.
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper as my mind reels.
I do, though. Tate Ward doesn’t lie. I don’t think he has the ability.
He exhales, watching me. “You know what a new owner means, right?”
“Change.”
They bring their own philosophies, their own management style, their own people. They make big changes to show their value, or even just to be talked about in the media.
I glance past Tate, inside the bar, where they’re all celebrating. They all have jobs and family here. Vancouver is their home.
A new owner means trades. Jamie, Rory, Hayden are all in their prime. They’re high-value stars. They’re at the top of the league.
A cold, hard stone forms in the pit of my stomach.
“A new owner could ruin everything,” I say quietly.
I can’t lose these people, and I can’t let their lives be torn apart. I can’t let them lose each other. This is why I wasn’t supposed to get attached, because now I care.
Now I have to watch them leave. I knew it would happen one day, and yet I’m not ready. It’s too soon.
I’m not ready for the good old days to be over yet.
“You know what you have to do, right?” Tate dips his head to catch my eyes, and I’m struck by the intensity in his gaze.
I rear back. “What am I going to do about this? You’re besties with Ross.”
“He’s not interested in what I have to say. He might actually listen to you.” He moves past me and starts walking down the alley.
“What am I supposed to say?” I call after him.
“You’ll think of something,” he says without looking back. “I believe in you.”
I stare after him, mind spinning and scrambling, holding the fate of the Vancouver Storm in my hands.
Before I head back to the bar, I glance down at the plate.
It’s empty.