Chapter 4
“How’s the knee today?” Jules asked as she firmly pushed on the ligaments surrounding the kneecap.
Cam grimaced and tried to pull away. “Well it definitely doesn’t feel good when you’re doing that. Jesus, Jules. Your fingers are so…pointy.”
From her seat on a rolling stool next to a physio bench, Jules huffed. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
Shortly after they’d arrived in Halifax, Cam had found a sports medicine co-working space in a warehouse district in Halifax and didn’t hesitate before signing his name on the dotted line so he and Jules, and whichever of his teammates tagged along at the time, could do their rehab work.
“It’s fine, no pain when I stride, which is a nice change for once. I finally feel like I’m totally healthy and fit, which is all I wanted after the shitshow that was last season."
Jules frowned as she recalled the three month period where her brother was sidelined with a lower body injury. He was miserable and being around him made her miserable. The day he was finally able to skate again with a full contact jersey on during practice was a victory for them both.
Being her brother’s private athletic trainer wasn’t exactly what Jules had envisioned for herself when she was little but it’s where she’d found herself after Cam had aged out of junior hockey and secured his first NHL contract.
She’d followed him to the first city he played in professionally and applied for school the same year, graduating two years later with her certifications. Her entire life had always revolved around hockey so it only made sense to find a way to stay close to the sport and her brother in adulthood.
Her own dreams of playing hockey professionally never had the chance to materialize and if she were honest, her life hadn’t really been her own since she was thirteen. It had been Cameron’s and she had just gone along with it all because it was the easy and comfortable thing to do.
They didn’t talk about it much, but losing their parents in a car accident when they were teenagers was something that bonded them together even more than being twins did.
Their parents, Nathan and Jackie, were both only children which meant that when they died, Jules and Cam had to rely on each other more than any sibling ever should.
“What’s new with you though?” Cam asked as Jules squeezed out some muscle relaxing cream onto her gloved hands and gently rubbed it into the tissue surrounding her brother’s knee cap. “Find any cool coffee shop to read your little romance novels in? Any gay bars you want to check out?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Not really. I haven’t exactly felt motivated to go out and meet anyone.”
“Jules,” Cam said, giving her shoulder a playful shove. “Come on. I’m sure there’s a woman in this city who doesn’t know it yet but has been dying to meet you.”
“Riiiiiight, okay, sure. I think you mean there’s a woman in this city who has been dying to meet me so she can meet you. You’re Cameron Clarke, hockey superstar. I’m just Juliette.”
“Oh, come on, that happened ONE time. It’s not my fault if a woman finds me attractive and wants my attention…”
The attention her brother spoke of came from Sam, the pretty blonde Jules had met at a bookstore one day. Sam, who had asked Jules out on a date and even slept with. One day over coffee, Sam had asked, “is your brother Cameron Clarke? Like the Cameron Clarke?”
A few days later, Jules and Sam had gone on a double date with Cameron and his flavour of the month but the entire time, Sam barely glanced at Jules. No, she was far too enamoured by her brother. It basically cemented the rule that Jules wouldn’t date anyone who had an interest in hockey.
“Yeah, and it felt awful. Did you need to ask her out on a date two weeks later? No, you didn’t.”
Cam thought about it for a second and then he sheepishly shrugged. “Sorry…but she was hot and good in bed.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” Jules said then pushed her fingers into the back of Cam’s knee with more pressure than necessary.
Being just Juliette, the sister of a professional hockey player and someone people always wanted to get close to due to his stature and his looks, meant she lived a quiet and lonely life.
And every season it got harder and harder to be happy like that.
But of course, Cam wasn’t aware of any of it.
There was a lot about how she felt that Jules didn’t share with her brother, because their lives were hard enough as it is.
At the end of the day, she had a brother who supported her, a place to call her own, and got to be around a sport that she loved.
That could be enough for her.
“Have you at least gone out to explore any of the city yet?” Cam asked as he hopped off the bench once Juliette finished her work on his knee. She pulled off her rubber gloves and tossed them in a trash can then nodded. It was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her stool over to a storage rack and putting the muscle cream back into its rightful place. “I don’t just sit in my living room all day while you’re at the rink, you know.”
Her brother narrowed his eyes then smiled, accepting her words as truth. He towered over her as he stood beside her stool and ruffled her hair.
“Good, because I want you to be happy, Jules. You’ve done so much for me, you do so much, and you deserve to live a little. Go out tonight, go grab a drink, go buy a new book. Have some fun.”
She was happy, mostly. Happy enough at least. But Jules thought about it and decided it wouldn’t kill her to put on something that wasn’t athleisure and go wander around the Halifax downtown area.
It was still summer after all and the harsh Atlantic winter was right around the corner, she should really soak up as much sun and warmth as she could.
“Maybe I will,” she said, the idea of sitting by the shoreline with her current read a very enticing one but she shifted the topic of conversation back to her brother. “How was the team meeting by the way? You never told me how that first introduction went before you got on the ice.”
Cam looked at his reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall and flexed.
“It was good. We got a preview of the jerseys and you're going to love them.
Remember the rumours everyone posted about online and all those colour scheme mockups with the white and the different shades of blue?
Turns out there was a spy on the side because the rumours are true and they're amazing. "
"Well, we do know blue suits us," Jules said matter of factly, referring to the colour of their eyes. "I can't wait to see the home jersey on the ice. How's the team itself, does everyone seem like they're going to gel?"
"The guys are great," Cam said, pulling the sleeve of his tight t-shirt up to study the definition of his tricep. "The coaches are cool. It should be a great season.”
“The coaches are cool?”
Her eyes met his in the mirror and he smiled. “Oh, I get it. You want to know about our girllllll coach, eh?"
So what if she were a little more than curious…was that such a bad thing?
"She's cool, and I mean that. Some of the guys had a few choice things to say about her in the locker room before our first on ice session but for the most part everyone has been respectful and she knows her stuff, I’ll give her that.”
“What’s her name?” Jules asked as she reached for a resistance band and tossed it to him.
He held the band behind his back then stretched it up above his shoulders. “Coach,” he answered, a smartass smirk sliding onto his face.
“Hah, you’re so funny.”
“I know I am. You’re lucky to have such a hilarious brother. Maybe if hockey fails I’ll turn to comedy.”
“Please don’t, I beg of you.”
“For your information,” he said, spinning around so so he was facing her. “Her name is Stevens. Frankie Stevens.”
Frankie…
Surely it was a coincidence that Jules had just met a woman named Frankie in the gym, a woman named Frankie who said she’d been travelling across the country for a new job, a woman who Jules had secretly been hoping to run into again for days now.
Cam pointedly told her when he was drunk that his new coach was attractive and the Frankie that Jules met was definitely attractive.
Jules swallowed and spun around so her brother couldn’t see her face as she asked her next question. Her cheeks flamed and she stared down at the brand new pair of white running shoes on her feet.
“And what does Coach Stevens look like?”
“Redhead, loads of freckles, great body…I assume, though it’s hard to tell from the training gear the coaches wear.”
Yeah.
Their Frankie’s were one and the same.
Because of fucking course they were.
Dating someone with an interest in hockey wasn’t something Jules was interested in anymore but of course the first woman to pique her interest in months was her professional hockey playing brother’s goddamned coach. Nice one, universe. Reaaaaaaaal nice.