Two. Nick
Two
Nick
Nicholas King knew his strengths. As a right winger for the San Jose Guardians, he was great up against the boards and even better at outmaneuvering the defensemen. In this moment, the “boards” were tightly packed rows of chairs and the “defensemen” were the three women who kept hitting on him. He was almost positive they had a bet going to see which one could get his number first. The answer was none of them. He didn’t pick up random women. No judgment to people who lived that life, like a hell of a lot of his teammates, but it wasn’t for him. Plus, he was still mildly irritated about the gorgeous, dark-haired woman with the wide, innocent, deep-brown eyes who’d tried to break into his room. Sort of. Guess he’d been wrong there, but still.
Yeah, he was perfectly happy to watch his buddy get married, put in an appearance at the reception, and end the night with a cold beer and sports highlights on the hotel TV.
“Excuse me,” he whispered to a couple already seated, awaiting the event.
His friend Wes Jansen was getting married to a woman he’d fallen head over heels in love with; something he said he’d never do. Nick had met Hailey Sharp-soon-to-be-Jansen a couple of times over the last couple of years. It had sucked to lose in the conference finals, but it freed up his schedule, meaning he’d had no excuse not to attend his old friend’s big day.
Nick scooted past the couple and took a seat. There were a few more empty seats and then two other couples at the end of this aisle. He took his seat and scanned the room. The atrium was off the back of the hotel, which was part of the Ocean Point Beach Club, and looked out onto sprawling green lawns, the ocean beyond them. The high ceilings with stunning arches and lots of windows letting in the natural light was a perfect place for Hailey and Wes to commit themselves to each other. Nick couldn’t imagine doing that with anyone, but he was happy, truly happy, for his friend.
Music played softly as the linen-covered seats filled with well-dressed attendees. The aisle between the chairs was lined with sleek vases of vibrantly colored flowers. The front of the room had a wrought iron arch woven with that white, gauzy stuff his sister liked. Twinkle lights flashed softly through the fabric. Pulling his phone from his suit jacket pocket, he snapped a picture for his sister, Ellie. She had all sorts of Pinterest boards on design and decor. She and her husband were buying a large farmhouse with a fully operating tree farm just outside of Seattle. Everyone was moving forward.
And Nick was doing what he’d always done: living his life around hockey. Exactly as he’d always dreamed.
“Excuse me, sorry. Oops. Sorry about that,” a voice he recognized said just before giving a musical laugh.
His gaze snapped up, and yup, sure enough, the woman who’d tried to get in his room was slinking past the couples at the other end of the aisle and closing in on an empty chair close to Nick. The wide smile on her gorgeously full lips flattened when she saw him.
Shit. The good news? She wasn’t a random stalker trying to get into his room. The bad? She was hot as hell, made his skin tingle in unfamiliar ways, and might have been telling the truth.
She left one chair between them, staring straight ahead, but he could smell the scent of her floral perfume, and it was like his body went on alert just from her nearness. What the fuck was that about?
Nick did his best to take in the surroundings. He’d met Wes at a charity event in New York several years back. He and his brothers were good guys. Nick didn’t socialize all that much, preferring to keep to himself, spend what little time he had off with his sister and nephew. Usually Ellie’s husband was there too, but Nick could ignore him and make the most of visiting with the two people he considered his whole world outside of hockey.
“Dear, do you mind scooting down?”
Turning his head, he watched an older couple shuffling into the aisle, the man talking to the woman Nick didn’t want to sit closer to. He caught her strained smile and her not-so-subtle glare in his direction as she got up, one hand on the skirt of that body-hugging, electric-blue dress, as she settled into the seat next to him.
The sexy split in her dress made it so her bare thigh pressed up against his dress pants. It was like he could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric. Which was impossible. She snapped her knees together like she felt it too.
Her fingers clutched the little purse, her knuckles going white.
He should say sorry. If she was a guest, she was friends with Wes or Hailey or both. Which meant he’d overreacted.
When he leaned closer, he heard her sharp inhale of breath, saw the way her full, soft pink lips parted.
“You friends with Hailey or Wes?”
Her lips pursed. Nick curled his hands into fists on his thighs. He dated infrequently, usually through friends of friends. There wasn’t a lot of time for relationships and he’d never really been a hook-up guy. He didn’t buy the whole no-strings thing. Generally, they were just hard to see through the fog of lust. But this woman intrigued him. From the second he’d opened his door after hearing the doorknob moving, his brain blanked upon seeing her, a heavy, repetitive thud starting deep in his chest. It’d sounded like “wow” being repeated in time with is pulse.
“Hailey,” she said softly.
“I might have been wrong in my initial assumptions,” he muttered.
She turned her head, met his gaze with fire in her own. “You think?”
He didn’t mean to grin. It just happened. “My bad.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to staring straight ahead. Music played, people settled, and a man in a well-tailored suit took his place up at the front of the aisle on a small, raised landing.
Wes filed in from the side of the room with his brothers and a guy Nick didn’t recognize behind him. All of them wore tuxedos, looking sharp as hell. But it was Wes who stood out because the type of smile he had on his face. Absolute contentment. A shining kind of happiness that all the darkness in the world couldn’t dim.
The music shifted tempo as a red-headed woman carrying an adorable baby girl on her hip began walking down the aisle. The little girl, he knew, was Wes and Hailey’s. Just over a year old now, Kinsley Jansen was just about the most adorable reason for postponing a wedding that Nick had ever seen. The original date was last June, when his team actually had made it through the finals, just not all the way to the end.
Wes wasn’t the first of his friends who’d had kids, but it was the first time Nick felt a strange tug in his chest as he wondered if he’d ever have that.
Kinsley bounced in the woman’s arms and the woman beside him clasped her hands and made her own charmingly sweet sound.
“Look how big she is!” She turned to him, her smile like a fist to the chest, stealing his breath.
“She’s gorgeous,” he said, his voice strangely husky.
A petite woman with brown hair and quiet eyes, a small smile on her lips, came next, followed by a dark-haired woman with wide, happy eyes and a bounce in her step.
They found their places on the other side of the room, across from Wes and his guys.
“Please stand for the bride,” the man in the suit said.
As they stood, the gorgeous woman beside him, whose name he really wanted to know, turned, her body brushing against his as they looked to the entrance of the room. Bridal music played and then Hailey filled the doorway with a man Nick assumed was her dad at her side.
The woman next to him put a hand over her mouth like she was trying to contain her gasp Hailey looked incredible in a gorgeous white sleeveless gown that hugged her upper body and flared out at the waist. It reminded him a bit of Ellie’s dress and walking her down the aisle. Nick’s throat felt thick, emotion clogging his chest. Hailey gave little waves as she passed people she knew and her excitement was a living, breathing thing.
As they sat down, Nick’s thoughts felt like he’d scrambled them in a blender. When the dark-haired beauty beside him sighed deeply, he leaned in.
“What’s your name?”
She turned and met his gaze again, and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears. Something twisted in his chest, like it was too much for him to witness someone so beautiful in such a vulnerable moment. Too much to handle while continuing to breathe properly. Other than his nephew being born, he’d never felt this kind of raw, unbound emotion.
“Maisie,” she whispered. Everything in her had softened and it was almost as beautiful as when she’d been full of fire aimed at him. “Yours?”
“Nick,” he said.
She nodded, a dreamy look on her face as she turned back to watch their friends get married.
As he listened to Wes and Hailey promise each other forever, strange thoughts tangled in Nick’s head. What would it be like to be the reason for the look on Maisie’s face? Would he ever watch a woman he loved walk down an aisle to stand at his side and take vows?
He shook his head. This wedding, this woman, and the end of an intense season were messing with him. He needed some sleep, maybe a vacation, and some family time. What he didn’t need was thoughts of forever when he was already committed to the love of his life: hockey.