Chapter 7
Ingrid
That ringing in my ears isn’t from a night on stage being surrounded by thousands of fans. It’s because Wittmore wins and Twyler hasn’t stopped screaming since the final buzzer.
Her energy is infectious and I’m carried along with it and the rest of the crowd as we pour out of the arena, black and gold flooding the streets of Chicago. I’ve never been on this side of the pandemonium. It’s light. Wild. Freeing.
“Is this what it’s like after leaving one of my shows?” I ask Madison.
She gives me a look. “Times ten. Plus, glitter, fairy wings, and waaaay more girls.”
That tracks.
When I’d suggested we use the next break in the schedule to come to Chicago to see the playoffs with our new friends from the bar, Madison thought I was joking.
Who decides to do something like that spur of the moment?
Not Ingrid Flockton, at least not normally.
I like a schedule. I like routine and predictability.
Mostly because nothing in my life is ever routine or predictable–but none of that is my doing. That’s the life of a pop star.
But ever since I slipped out of that hotel room in Wittmore, I’ve been craving it more: spontaneity of my own making. It’s a rush.
Madison took care of the logistics: getting the girls to the airport and flying them in to meet us in Chicago. I’d been excited to see them: people who have nothing to do with my world, but seemingly have embraced me anyway.
Now, we’re outside the arena, waiting in back where the bus idles and waits for the team.
The air sharp with the sting of winter and adrenaline.
As the players emerge, I’m hit with unexpected nerves.
Not just because they’re all massive, towering over family and friends like giants dressed in crisp button-downs and neatly pressed suits. No, my nerves are strictly personal.
What the hell am I doing here?
“How?” Reese demands the second he spots them. Before anyone can answer, his mouth is already dropping to kiss Twyler like he’s been starving for it.
Axel doesn’t bother with questions. Adorned in piercings and with tatt covered hands, he sweeps Nadia up, spinning her off her feet while she shrieks and laughs, legs wrapping around his waist.
Reid? He’s impossible to miss in a moss green suit and vintage boots.
On anyone else it would look ridiculous, but he owns it, the same way he takes one step toward Shelby and goes in for a kiss so deep they might never come back up.
It’s consuming. Public. Unapologetic. The kind of passion you can’t mistake for anything else.
The kind that doesn’t care who’s watching.
Everyone in the radius knows exactly what these men are saying without words.
With their hands gripping their women’s hips, their mouths branding them, their last names stitched across the backs of jerseys.
Possession, pure and simple, and it goes both ways.
It’s foreign to me. I’m used to the opposite: ducking out separate doors, slipping into different cars, lowering my head so the cameras don’t catch me–catch us.
What I’ve known never looked like this. It looked like hiding. Drifting.
Jefferson hangs back from the chaos, giving each girl a hug, laughing at something Twyler whispers as she tugs at his shoulder like she’s inspecting damage.
He’s casual. Cool. A contrast to all that heat happening just feet away, although the slate gray of his suit, the same color as his eyes, the way it hangs on his broad shoulders…
I’m feeling my own kind of warmth.
“What are you doing here?” Reese finally asks, his voice breaking through, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Not that I mind, but you weren’t going to come until the finals.”
“We made some new friends,” Shelby says, tipping her chin toward me, mischief curling her lips as she gestures like she’s dropping a bomb. “One who happens to have a private jet and access to box seats.”
And just like that, all of them are looking between me and Madison. Recognition flares immediately. Of course it does. My poster has been taped to their bedroom walls, my voice the vehicle for their emotions, and well, for one of them, the soundtrack for losing his virginity.
I still can’t figure out what song it is and it’s pissing me off.
Axel is the first one to speak, blurting out, “Holy shit, you’re Ingrid Flockton.”
“Shhh,” Nadia hushes him. “Inside voice, babe.”
He shrugs, but his expression is friendly. Twyler introduces me to Reese and Reid offers a wide eyed wave. The fourth in their crew, I catch watching out of the corner of his eye. Jefferson plays it so smooth, approaching me last. “Hi. Big fan.”
“Same,” I answer, schooling my expression. “Of all of you. That was an incredible win.”
The circle of them tightens, warmth and noise pressing in as introductions fly–names I already know, but I let them say them anyway. Their energy is contagious, so bright and buoyant after the win, that for a moment, it almost feels like I belong in it. Almost.
Before the reunion can spin too far, a shout cuts through the night. One of the staff, waving toward the bus.
“Coach’s rule. We have to ride back together,” Reese announces, not even pretending to not be disappointed, Twyler still glued to his side like he’d never let her go again. “Where are you staying?”
The girls glance at me, hesitating, like they need permission. It’s sweet–protective. But I cut in before the pause grows heavy.
“I have an apartment here,” I explain, sliding my hands into my coat pockets. “I invited them to stay with me.”
“Sweet,” Axel’s grin turns wolfish. “Slumber party.”
Nadia rolls her eyes at him. “Ignore him.”
“If you want…” The words stumble out before I can edit them, softer than I intend. My eyes betray me, darting everywhere but where I really want to look. Anywhere but Jefferson. “You guys are welcome to come over and hang out for a while.”
“Really?” Reid asks, his grin easy and wide. “That would be awesome.”
Even Reese seems into the idea, and from what I’ve heard he’s all business all the time.
My kind of guy, except maybe he’s not. Because Jefferson, well, he doesn’t answer right away.
Just stands there, a half-step back, studying me through the shadows of the arena lights, unreadable.
It’s obvious he hasn’t said a word to his friends about our night together, and I can’t decide how that makes me feel.
After the hotel pickup, they pile into my SUV, Marv steady at the wheel.
The boys have shed their suits and ties upstairs for more causal clothes.
The laughter rolls easy as they stretch out like they own the space.
Reese drapes an arm around Twyler, Reid sprawls across half the bench, Axel props his long legs on the console.
Jefferson claims the window seat, quiet, the blond of his hair haloed by the passing lights.
By the time we reach my building, Madison’s already arranged delivery from one of the best deep-dish spots in Chicago. No champagne. No beer. Just pizza stacked high, sodas clinking in glass bottles, and water–because they’re disciplined. The next round of the Frozen Four is only days away.
“Is this Sarah Homes?” Reid asks, studying a large painting of bright flowers just inside the living room.
“You know her?” I ask, impressed.
“Yeah, I like her use of contrasting colors.”
“Me too. It brings out a bold quality on fragile subjects.”
He moves to the next painting and then to a grouping of photographs by an up-and-coming photographer that worked on my last album. Turns out Reid is a few weeks away from earning an art degree and has collaborations with the Wittmore Athletic department with some of their merch designs.
“I make most of my tour income on merch sales,” I tell him. “That’s a big deal for the university to use your work.”
“I’m good at hockey,” he says modestly, “but I love art and design.”
“Send me your portfolio. I’d love to see it.”
“Really?” He looks flabbergasted. “That would be incredible.”
I’m learning these men have a little more depth to them than muscles and brawn. I lead us into the den where the guys are inhaling their dinner.
“Tell me about tonight,” I say instead, dropping to the corner of the couch with my drink. “I don’t know hockey the way you do. Walk me through it.”
Their faces light up.
Reese leans forward, one hand on Twyler’s knee, the other animated as he breaks down plays from the first period. “We owned the ice from the first drop. Their defense couldn’t keep up,” he says, eyes sparking. “We were living in their zone.”
“Until you bricked that open-net shot,” Reid mutters, smirking.
Reese shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. We still scored first, didn’t we?”
Axel cuts in before they can keep going, puffing his chest like a showman. “Scored first because I robbed Lennox in the second. Guy thought he had me glove-side, but nope.” He snaps his hand in the air like he’s catching the puck all over again. “Stone cold.”
“Robbed?” Reid snorts. “You coughed up a rebound right into their stick. I had to save your ass.”
Axel waves him off with a grin. “Details.”
Reese laughs. “You two sound like an old married couple.”
“Better married to me than letting Lennox light you up,” Reid fires back, and Axel just smirks wider.
The conversation shifts toward the final tomorrow night. Their voices overlap, bold and certain, like they can already see it.
“We can’t give St. Alden an inch,” Reese says about the opposing team.
“They’ll come in swinging,” Jefferson comments. “They play dirtier than Central did tonight.”
“Dude, I’ve been waiting to bring that up!” Twyler shouts. “You could’ve cost us the game.”
His head jerks up, those gray, blue eyes narrowing. “He hit first!”
“Not enough to get tossed,” she fires back, smug as hell.
“Lennox is dirty,” Axel throws in, defending him instantly. “I saw it. It was a nasty hit.”
“Still,” Twyler presses, competitive to the bone. “You let your temper get to you and that’s the kind of mistake they’re looking for.”
The back-and-forth spirals, playful but relentless. Finally, Jefferson growls in frustration and stands, hooking a thumb under his shirt, yanking the fabric up.
“You need proof?” he challenges. “Take a look at this.”
The room stills and Twyler takes in the bruise blooming dark and ugly across his ribs, but that’s not what steals the air from my lungs.
It’s the rest of him–every ridged plane of his torso, solid and carved like someone chiseled him out of marble.
Not lean, dancer-thin muscle like I’m used to.
Not the clean lines of my trainer, or the skinny-fit frame of Jake. Jefferson has mass. Power. Strength.
He’s thick.
A man.
Lord.
Around me, the girls react to the bruise–grimaces, sympathetic noises, then back to their conversations, unfazed, because this is normal to them. They’re used to bodies like this, to Greek-god physiques being revealed like no big deal.
But me? I can’t stop staring. My throat goes dry.
“Ingrid.”
I blink, snapped out of my trance. And of course the first thing I do is look straight at Jefferson’s face and down to his small grin, the all-knowing, cocky little curve of his mouth, that says he caught every second of me looking. Heat licks up the back of my neck before I tear my gaze away.
Madison stands in the doorway, one brow arched. “Can you help me with something? In the other room?”
Grateful for the escape, I follow her down the hall to my office.
The space is calmer, softer, with a full wall of windows revealing the city’s glitter into the night, a plush chair by the shelves where I sometimes settle in to write lyrics.
My first guitar, the one I got when I was eight, sits on a stand next to the chair.
“What’s going on?” I ask, though I already know. She’s been trying to get me alone since the plane landed.
She doesn’t waste time. “These people are nice, Ing, but what are we doing? Who are they? Why did you essentially invite a group of strangers not only to a hockey game, but to your house?”
I exhale, running a hand down my arm. I get it. This isn’t me. I keep my circle tight. Family, management, fellow performers. Not strangers from a college town. Not girls I barely met. Not hockey players that slide into my DMs.
But it doesn’t feel wrong.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my eyes skating over the wall behind her. Gold records. Awards. Framed magazine covers. All the markers of success that used to feel like proof of worth. Now they just feel… hollow. Empty. “They’re different. Fun and I could use a little of that right now.”
“Ohhhhhh.” Her eyes widen. “I know what this is about.”
My pulse spikes. She knows. She knows about Jefferson. About me sneaking out. Shit. Marv will kill me. “It’s not what it—”
“This is about Jake,” she interrupts.
Jake.
The name slams into me like a brick.
“No.” I straighten, collecting myself, sharpening my voice. “This has nothing to do with Jake.”
“You’re rebounding,” she insists.
“With three girls from a college town back East?” I snort, trying to laugh it off.
“It’s an escape,” she says simply. “No cameras. No questions about what happened between you two. And zero chance of running into him like you would with your other friends.”
She’s not wrong. But she’s not right, either.
Because yes, I’m running. Yes, I’m hiding. But it’s not from Jake.
It’s toward something. Maybe.
“For once in my life I want to just do something spontaneous that isn’t about anyone else but me.” I look at my friend. “Is that so bad?”
“No, babe.” She reaches for me and pulls me into a hug. “It’s totally normal to want that. I get it. But you don’t know these people. I just want you to be careful.”
What she doesn’t say lingers between us, a heavy weight I’ve been carrying for a long time. People like me don’t get to be normal. No matter how much we want it.