11. Chapter 10 #2
Corbin jolts like I've fired a gun. "Yes! Sir! Great! I just… I don't really drink during the season. Hydration and recovery. You know."
"Cole," Beck calls, hopping down from the chair, "it's one beer. Live a little."
"My mom says—"
He doesn't get to finish what his mom says.
Because Brooke Kessler bumps his hip with her own, her blonde ponytail swinging. We all watch as she throws her arm around his shoulders like they've been friends for years.
"You played well tonight, Rookie."
Corbin Cole stops functioning.
I'm not exaggerating. The kid's eyes go wide, his throat bobs, and I genuinely think he might pass out. The lights are on, but no one's home.
"I — thank — you — yes," he manages, in roughly that order. "You watched? The game? You saw it?"
"I sell the merch, sweetie. Of course I watched." She pats his cheek and disappears back into the crowd, ponytail swinging as she slides into the booth alongside some of the other girls.
She smiles at me, and winks back at Corbin who's still standing there like someone super-glued his sneakers to the floor.
The funny part? Brooke and I dated for four months.
It's ancient history and absolutely a dead candle. It was never going anywhere, but we both knew that.
But the rookie doesn't know that.
So every time she touches him, his eyes find mine like he's waiting for me to drag him outside by his collar and ruin him.
I don't care, kid. I don't fucking care.
I guess that's what makes watching him sweat infinitely better.
"Quick! Cole's gonna pass out—" Beck yells, holding his stomach from the barrel of laughter. "Brooke, you can't just do that to him, he's a child—"
"I'm twenty!" Corbin yelps.
"You're so screwed, kid," Beck cackles, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. "You bought how many keychains this week?"
"That's — I needed those keychains—"
"For what? You don't have keys! You live in a dorm!"
"It's a collection!"
"It's a crush," Mason corrects, and now he's even doubled over with laughter.
I'm laughing before I realize it, and I have to look away and drag a hand over my mouth.
Because this is the exact thing I didn't see coming.
Coach is right.
I came to Beachside to disappear. To play hockey and drive home with my brothers and not think about anything that mattered.
I never once went out after a game. Never celebrated.
Partly because it's hard to celebrate when you've spent an entire season sucking, and partly because…
well. You don't go raising a glass to good times when you grew up watching a man toast his own family with one hand, and lie to all of us with the other.
My father loved a celebration.
He was great at them. Right up until I watched him betray each and every one of us from the head of the dinner table, pretending to give a shit about our lives.
I learned early that the warmest rooms hide the coldest things. And I stopped trusting any of it.
But this room?
Tonight, this room is loud and stupid and good.
And I'm sitting in the middle of it, smiling because nobody had to lie to make it happen.
I take another sip, chuckling to myself, and look out toward the open garage doors and the dark stretch of beach beyond.
And that's when I finally see her.
Josie's standing just out past the garage doors, away from all of the noise.
The light from the bar barely reaches her, but I can see she's still wearing the jersey with MORRISON across her back. And fuck me, if that isn't the hottest thing I've seen tonight.
The jersey hangs loose, but I know exactly what's underneath. Every curve I've touched, every inch I've tasted. The dim light traces the shape of her ass as she shifts, and my whole fucking body tightens.
She's standing at the edge where the boardwalk gives way to the beach, staring out at the black water like it holds all the answers for how the hell she pulled off a night like tonight.
But the thing that makes my stomach clench and my brain refocus is…
She's alone.
Everyone in this place is here because of her. The crowd. The noise. The tab Mack's getting rich off. The win that, let's be honest, probably doesn't happen if there's nobody in those seats to play for.
She ignited this town like no one else has. She started all of this.
And now she's standing at the edge of it like she's not allowed inside.
I snag two cold beers off the bar, ignore Beck shouting something about where I think I'm going, and walk out onto the sand.
The sand's cool through my shoes. The bar noise dulls behind me, swallowed by the steady rush of the ocean. She doesn't hear me coming until I'm right beside her.
"Hey."
She startles, then relaxes when she sees it's me. "Hey."
I hold out the beer. She takes it, fingers brushing mine, and that same jolt I've felt every single time since the conference room runs straight up my arm.
I don't comment on it. I just turn and look out at the water with her, letting the silence stretch between us.
"You know," I say, "I was only thinking earlier about the last time we were both here together…"
"You mean when you picked me up with a Sex on the Beach and completely ruined my entire life plan?"
I huff a laugh. "I prefer to think of it as enhancing your life plan."
"Of course you do." She takes a sip, her eyes drifting back to the water.
I lean my forearms on the railing beside her, the wood worn smooth under my hands. For a second I just let the silence sit, the ocean filling the space between us.
But it doesn't feel right. None of this feels right.
I study her profile in the dim light. The tightness across her lips, the way she's gripping that beer a little too hard.
Then the image of her standing up in those stands, on a goddamn phone call in the middle of a hockey match, enters my mind.
This isn't the same girl I bent over a desk. This isn't the one who giggled us out of that building and laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes.
This isn't even the same person who drilled me into giving the worst fake interview I've ever had in my life.
What's gotten into her???
"You should be in there," I say, tipping my head back toward the bar. "This victory is just as much yours as it is ours. More, honestly. We just skated. You filled the building."
"I know." Another long sip from the bottle. "I, um… I just needed some air."
It's a fine answer.
And maybe if I were talking to any other person, that answer would be enough.
But here's the thing about Josie Whitfield.
From the moment I met her, this has been the woman who moves. She talks with her hands. She laughs at her own jokes. She steals your fries without asking, then acts insulted when you point it out.
She's a force of nature in constant motion.
And right now she's standing dead still.
That's not peace. I know what peace looks like, because I've been doing it my whole damn life.
This is somebody holding very, very still so they don't fall apart.
"So," I say carefully. "You gonna tell me why you look like we lost?"
She turns her head, and for a second her guard's down. Her eyes are glassy, her face straight, and she opens her mouth like maybe she's actually going to tell me.
And God, she's beautiful like this.
Not the polished, on-the-clock beautiful she wears to work. Real beautiful. Like how the lights catch the softer colors in her hair, and how she's done her make up different for the game tonight.
Her cheeks are flushed, and even cracking apart, she's the prettiest thing I've ever seen.
But then, just as the answer sits on the tip of her tongue, the crowd behind us erupts into a frenzy of noise, like Mack just announced free beer for life.
I glance back and see the screens have hit the replay of Finn's goal again. The entire bar's lost its mind all over again, the Bear roar shaking the windows, beer glasses raised, the whole place chanting our names.
When I turn back to Josie, the moment's gone.
"Oh, look at that," she says, nodding at the screen visible through the doors, where I'm grimacing into a corner board. "They're showing your good side. The angry constipated one."
Yep. Whatever she was about to say, she's swallowed it back down, and that maddening, pretty polished mask is sliding perfectly back into place.
"Excuse me? That's my game face."
"That's your I-ate-too-much-Diego's-tacos face."
"Low blow." I take a sip. "Devastating, but low."
I let her have it. Let her hide behind the joke, because I know exactly what she's doing. I wrote the fucking book on deflection.
But I'm not done with her.
Behind us, the crowd's still chanting, still oblivious, the whole bar a swirl of light and noise and celebration that nobody's paying us a lick of attention.
So I lean in, close enough that she can hear me under the roar.
"You want to…" I say, "…get out of here?"
She turns.
And I watch her do the math. The risk of what we're doing, the job, the sneaking around with each other, the secret of what happened that first night.
The whole impossible list of reasons this is a terrible idea.
"We shouldn't," she says.
"We've been saying that." I hold her gaze and don't blink, my heart hammering in my chest. "Hasn't stopped us yet."
Behind us, the crowd roars again. Another replay, another cheer, another wave of celebration crashing through the bar.
But I'm not hearing any of it.
Josie looks back too. At the lights and the noise and everything she helped create, yet she can't seem to make herself walk into.
"Yeah," she says finally. "Let's go."
She sets her beer down on the rail, and I take her hand.