A Shot at Love
Chapter 1
@pucksonnetpodcast: maybe this time around this one will do a decent job?......HAHAHA yeah, we doubt it. Place your bets on how long she’ll last. We give it a month at best before she’s back in the kitchen.
Being a woman who worked in sports was exhausting and Frankie hadn’t even made it to pre-season yet.
She knew she should stay off of social media but it was so hard to keep her mind from wandering to all the things people had been saying since the news broke that she’d been offered the job with the Halifax Harbour and had, of course, accepted it.
As expected though, it was nearly impossible to stop herself from reading the comments and finding positive words was like finding a nugget of gold while panning through silt and sand.
She was one fragile male ego away from making a fake account just to get into fights with the sexist assholes who lived behind their screens but it wouldn’t make a difference, this she knew for certain.
There would always be more comments and they would be crueler, more misogynistic, and definitely grosser than the ones that came before.
Making the rounds with the media was part of her job now and like it or not, her being hired was big news within the hockey world which meant she had no choice but to talk about it.
From the NHL Network to ESPN to Sportsnet and beyond, Frankie felt like she’d spoken to almost all the big players in sports broadcasting over the past week and had been splitting her time between Los Angeles, New York and Toronto.
Thankfully, the media frenzy and all that came with it was finally slowing down which meant she got to take a real breather before actually getting to work, something she was equal parts excited for and so anxious about she could puke.
The line between the two was very thin.
When rumours started to swirl that the league wanted to expand to Atlantic Canada, it seemed more like a pipe dream for east coast hockey fans than something that would ever come to fruition.
Everyone always said there wasn't enough of a demand, there weren't enough fans to fill a major arena, but then a major arena had been built and what had once been nothing but rumours finally became reality.
It didn’t hurt that some of the most iconic male hockey stars of all time had come out of Nova Scotia. Their star power meant there was a fierce hunger for the sport and a hunger for the chance to watch those stars live on home ice.
When the press release dropped with the news of the expansion team, the first in years, the job openings started filling the league job boards, and suddenly Frankie was getting phone calls from contacts in the league, former college teammates and people she didn’t even know.
Everyone told her the same thing: this new team is perfect for you.
Frankie didn’t know about it being perfect but somehow it all fell into place. The next thing she knew, she was leaving her WHL posting in Calgary where she’d been working as an assistant coach for two years and packing up her life to make the cross country move to Halifax.
It was all a surreal whirlwind and she was, in every sense of the word, exhausted by the time she settled into her new environment.
Exhausted and struggling with a serious case of insomnia from jet lag and the weight of so much back and forth travel.
She wasn’t the type to take pills to help her sleep and didn’t have a woman in her life to tire her out in a fun way, so she opted for the next best thing.
She lazily threw her shaggy red hair, desperately in need of a cut, up into a bun and changed out of her pajamas into workout clothes.
She packed her gym bag and headed to the shiny new condo gym, one of the best amenities the building had to offer.
It was a definite perk of moving into a state of the art building, one of many to dot the downtown Halifax skyline.
Next to getting on the ice with a hockey stick in her hands, tossing around heavy weights in the gym had always been Frankie’s favourite way to work the lingering tension from her tired body and the thought of pushing herself until she passed out sounded perfect.
The elevator doors opened right in front of the fitness centre entrance but frosted glass didn’t give much of what was inside away. Frankie had done a tour of the building right after she’d first moved in but hadn't made the time yet to trek down to the fitness centre for a workout.
Three o’clock was the perfect time to do that, right? She tapped her keyfob against a pad beside the door to unlock it. A half second later, it clicked and a small light turned from red to green. She gripped the handle to pull the door open and slipped inside.
Lost inside of her own thoughts, she dropped her bag down on a bench beside the entrance and pulled out a sweat towel and a water bottle.
Her workout playlist was already bumping in her headphones and she was so focused on hyping herself up for a good workout that she didn’t notice anyone else in the gym.
Not until she spun around, coming face to face with a light blonde haired stranger.
A scream escaped Frankie before she could stop it and a hand flew to her chest to cover her heart.
“Oh my God,” she shrieked, working to catch her breath. “You scared the absolute shit out of me. I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.”
A sheen of sweat coated the woman’s skin, rosy from her own workout, and her eyes were so blue they were like glacier water.
She was pretty, gorgeous really, her strong curves on display all thanks to the tank top and workout shorts she wore.
Frankie would’ve enjoyed the view a whole lot more if not for the fact that she was still buzzing from her near heart attack.
The woman, who was standing beside a lifting bench with a kettlebell in one hand, simply raised an eyebrow and smirked “Clearly,” she quipped, her voice light and teasing.
Her smile grew and she glanced around the gym then back at Frankie.
“Which is why I chose to come to the gym half an hour ago. Great minds think alike, or so they say.”
“Right, great minds,” Frankie said, doing her best to return the woman’s smile.
Not wanting to make the situation more awkward than it already was, Frankie closed the distance between them and held out her hand. “Well, since you now know what it sounds like when I scream, I should probably introduce myself. I’m Frankie.”
Frankie watched as the woman set the kettlebell down, the muscles in her shoulder flexing as she did. Her eyes dipped to Frankie's running shoes and them back up again, giving Frankie a once over before wiping her hands on a towel and accepting Frankie’s handshake.
“Not my preferred way to make a woman scream," the woman said. "But it’s nice to meet you either way. I’m Juliette…Jules. You can call me Jules.”