Chapter 1 #2
And I can never tell if he still hates my guts or if he’s forgotten me entirely. He doesn’t talk or smile, not even with his teammates. He’s a mystery, and not one that I should find intriguing.
I shake off the feeling and focus on my tasks. When my shift finally ends, I check my phone and find a text from Jessa.
Jessa
Coven meeting at The Secret History tonight. You're coming. No excuses.
The Coven is Jessa's nickname for the girls that work for the Seattle Havoc team.
I stare at the message, already thinking of reasons to say no.
Truthfully, I hate bars. The noise and the crowds put me off.
And the way laughter bounces off walls while I sit in the corner feeling invisible is almost shameful. But… Jessa asked.
I've learned that saying no to people who care about you is harder than just showing up.
Me
Thanks for the invite! I'll be there.
The Secret History sits on the ground floor of the Sinclair, the luxury condo building where most of the Havoc players live. The team owns the building and subsidizes rent, which explains why a bunch of twenty-somethings who get paid to hit people with sticks can afford waterfront real estate.
The bar is all dark wood and mood lighting, the kind of place that smells like expensive whiskey and poor decisions. Music plays low. Conversations hum. I slip inside and head straight for the back room reserved for team personnel.
Juliet handles player relations, which means she puts out fires before the whole organization burns down.
PR crises, player meltdowns, media scandals.
When a Havoc player screws up, Juliet makes sure it doesn't end up on ESPN.
She's part of the Coven, Jessa's nickname for our little group of women who actually keep this team functional.
The women have claimed a corner booth. Juliet sits on one side looking like she's about to negotiate a hostile takeover in her navy bodycon dress. Jessa wiggles in her seat wearing a cardigan with tiny embroidered cherries and grinning. Ivy Prescott, the teams’s crisis communications director, nurses a martini with the expression of someone who deals with hockey player drama for a living.
Mollie Tate gestures wildly while explaining something, probably another viral TikTok idea.
She’s the Havoc’s newest hire and her bouncy Gen Z energy is nearly irresistible.
I slide into the booth next to Jessa, and she immediately wraps an arm around my shoulders.
"You came!" she says, beaming.
"You guilt tripped me," I reply, but I'm smiling.
“Someone had to. Tell me you weren’t going to spend another night mooning around, sighing and petting your houseplants.”
“They get lonely!” I protest, giggling.
The Havoc players are scattered throughout the room like very large, very expensive lawn ornaments.
Hunter Huxley leans against the bar with a scowl that could curdle milk.
His brother Jett argues with the bar owner Olivier about the playlist. Together with Silas, they make up what the press calls the Brothers Grimm.
Big, muscly hockey players with bad attitudes and even worse tempers.
Currently the Brothers Grimm are down one grim brother, but Hunter and Jett are doing their best to radiate don't talk to us energy.
Grayson Reed sits alone in a booth looking like he's hoping to become invisible through sheer force of will. I relate. Beck Tate, the team captain, talks quietly with a rookie near the pool table.
No sign of Silas. Shocking. He treats team gatherings the way vampires treat sunlight. And yes, I'm embarrassed that I noticed his absence. He's just... intriguing. He’s like a really grumpy puzzle I want to solve.
Ivy Prescott runs crisis communications.
She's seen every stupid thing a hockey player can do and has a PR strategy for all of it.
Right now she's drinking a martini like water and looking exactly like someone who spent the day convincing a twenty-three-year-old not to post shirtless gym selfies with questionable captions.
The women talk and laugh. Jessa slides me a glass and the pitcher of something that looks like lemonade.
Margaritas, my nose informs me. Juliet shares a story about a disastrous press conference.
Mollie shows us a TikTok of the players attempting a dance challenge with all the grace of newborn giraffes. Ivy rolls her eyes but she's smiling.
“You’re mopey.” Jessa nudges me. “Are you okay? You’re usually sunny all the time.”
I paste on a smile, not telling her that most of my sunniness is fake. Fake it ‘til you make it.
“It’s been a really long day. Tomorrow will be better.”
“Hm. You know what? We need to make a list. A sexy list.”
“Of what? Like… positions I’ve done it in?” I cringe. I’ve only ever been with one guy, my ex. And he mostly liked sex to be vanilla, missionary, and less than five minutes.
"A list of everything you're going to do this year. I don’t mean goals, I mean all the naughty, selfish things you want to do for yourself.
" She pulls a pen from her hair like it's been waiting there for exactly this moment.
She drags a napkin across the table. "This is the post-Enzo Scout list. The… umm… the Naughty Girl Scout List."
"Jessa," I protest. “What do I need a list for?”
But she's already writing.
"Kiss a stranger," she says, scribbling it down. "Wear red lipstick every day for a week. Dance on a table. Have morning sex before coffee."
"You're ridiculous," I say. But her words bring a smile to my lips.
"Ridiculousness can save your life," Juliet replies, leaning in. "Come on. What do you want to do? Seriously, let's drink more margaritas and come up with a really dirty list."
I purse my lips then shrug. "Okay. Let's drink a little more first."
Jessa's eyes dance. "That's my girl."
Twenty minutes later, we have a list scrawled on the back of a blank sheet of paper borrowed from Juliet's attaché case.
The Naughty Girl Scout List
· Wear red lipstick every day for a week
· Dance on a table
· Download a dating app and actually swipe
· Have morning sex before coffee
· Try a toy with someone watching
· Fall asleep still sweaty and tangled up with him
· Confess my fantasies to a complete stranger
· Sleep naked and not feel weird about it
· Figure out what my body actually likes in bed
· Send a nude without apologizing for it
· Sext until the phone dies
· Let someone go down on me until I cry
· Give a blowjob and take control until he begs
· Ride someone's face just because I want to
· Have sex against a wall, messy and desperate
· Let someone tie my wrists and take whatever they want
· Watch myself in a mirror while he's inside me
· Let a man talk filthy to me without flinching
· Get fucked on the kitchen counter
· A finger up the butt (on either person)
"This list just gets hornier as it goes on." I frown down at the paper.
"So what?" Jessa giggles. "It's great. A girl should have big plans in life."
"It feels like asking a lot. How am I supposed to find a guy to try all of these things with?"
"No one ever said you had to find one guy to try these out with." She squints, then points to an item. "You should see what's out there. You said you hadn't set up a Twinge account. So maybe start there. That would be a good first item to cross off."
"Yeah." I exhale, feeling pleasantly buzzed. "I could do that."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. It's probably the easiest thing on the list." I wrinkle my nose. "Don't kill me, but I think I need to crash. How are you still upright? You were up before me."
Jessa shrugs. "I only sleep four or five hours a night. Should I grab my coat and walk you home?"
"No, you stay. I'm going to be unconscious the second I hit my bed anyway." Walking the fourteen blocks home will help me sober up. Plus, it's the only hard cardio I get besides running around the arena all day. I'd rather eat cinnamon rolls than spend my life in a gym.
I hug Jessa goodbye and thank the other girls for having my back. Then I head out into the rain, letting the cold wake up my brain.
The walk home is peaceful. Seattle at night is all glowing windows and wet pavement. My boots splash through puddles and I don't even care. I've got a pocket full of filthy goals and just enough tequila in my system to believe I might actually accomplish some of them.
Mmm, a cinnamon roll would be excellent right about now.
In my apartment, I shake the rain off my pink shell jacket and put my boots on the rack by the door.
Then I change into my favorite black yoga pants and an oversized Havoc hoodie.
After pulling on my coziest socks, I smooth the list out on the kitchen counter.
The ink has bled a little, but the words are still clear.
The Naughty Girl Scout List stares up at me, daring me to actually do something about it.
I think about all the years I spent making myself smaller for Enzo.
Playing hostess. Laughing on cue. Pretending his constant absences didn't bother me.
He called my degree a waste. Got me a part-time job where he could keep tabs on me.
He might have loved me, but only the version that stayed quiet and useful.
Screw that.
My phone sits on the counter, the Twinge app I downloaded three weeks ago just sitting there. Unopened. Judging me for being a coward.
Well, not anymore.
I tap it open and spend a few minutes uploading photos and answering inane questions. Then I start swiping.
Faces blur past. Guys holding fish. Guys with dogs.
Guys whose profiles mention craft beer and hiking like it's a personality.
Honestly, I have no idea what my type even is.
I was twenty when I started dating Enzo, completely dazzled by his looks and money and attention.
I just said yes the first time he asked me out and didn't question it for six years.
So now what? I swipe almost indiscriminately. Tall, short, whatever. Photos of abs. Photos of travel. Photos that are definitely someone else's photos.
Then I stop. One profile catches my eye. Grainy photo from the neck down showing a truly impressive number of abs. The next is a blurry shot of a tall guy on a plane, staring out the window. The caption reads, "Seems like I'm always at an airport."
About to swipe left, I catch the profile bio.
Don't like small talk. Just looking until I'm not. Numbers make more sense than people.
Weird. Blunt. This is probably a bot trying to scam me.
I look at the abs photo one more time and think, screw it. My hormones can make this decision.
I swipe right.
The app pings immediately. A new match!
My heart jumps. I tell myself it doesn't matter, but I open the message anyway.
StatMan12
You don't look like you belong here.
I stare at it. Rude. Presumptuous. Somehow, it’s exactly what I needed.
Yoga4Lyfe
And yet you messaged me first.
He's online, because he writes back in under a minute.
StatMan12
Exactly.
Heat skims under my skin. Not fear or obligation. Something wilder.
Another message appears. Then another. The conversation flows easy and sharp. He's not trying to be nice or asking me to take care of him. He's just... talking to me like I'm interesting.
The rain taps against my window. My phone lights the dark kitchen with squares of possibility.
And for the first time in months, I feel awake.