Chapter 10 – Jaxon
TEN
JAXON
I drum my fingers along my thigh, my exposed sun-kissed skin warm from the sun, in tune with the music pouring through the headphones practically glued to my ears.
My walking playlist, perfectly timed down to the second from our hockey house doorstep to scanning my ID at the arena, hits the final song.
Digging into the pocket of my shorts, my pointer finger slipping into a hole in the mesh, I fish around for my ID. I tap it against the scanner, waiting for the green light to enter.
Bobbing along to Celine Dion’s “A New Day Has Come”, I keep to myself, occasionally waving at a passing student, but not fully paying attention as I mindlessly make my way to the weight room.
I almost collide with someone when I round the corner, dirty sneakers skidding to a halt. I catch a pair of pointed heels before sliding my gaze upwards—loose track pants with stripes down the sides, a fitted T-shirt, and an oversized denim jacket with a Bear’s hockey patch.
“Greene.” Coach Lang crosses her arms, taking a step backward. Her heels click on the tile floor.
“Hey, Coach.” I pop my earbuds out. “Sorry about that. How was your summer? Are you—”
She gives me a loose, close-mouthed smile as if to say nice catch. “Summer was good. Went by too fast, but not fast enough. I love my girls, but boy am I ready for them to be back at school.”
“My dad used to say the same thing.”
“And your summer? Delaney mentioned you were one of her camp counselors.”
Delaney…Delaney…Light hair and curls. I run through names and faces in my head.
“Dorothy!” I say a little too loudly when it clicks, an image of her as Dorothy from theater week, snapping my fingers. “She’s a little star. Great at gymnastics too.”
“Gymnastics is out. We’ve moved on to snowboarding.
” She sighs. “At least a little bit closer to hockey.” Delaney is a couple of years younger than Madeline, but she reminds me of her.
Always keeping Beckett on his toes with her interests, like a pinball bouncing from one thing to the next.
“Anyways…she’s in the weight room, if that’s where you’re heading. ”
I shift the bag hanging off one shoulder. Run a hand through my hair before glancing over my shoulder like I’m a kid getting caught stealing a cinnamon roll fresh from the oven, still cooling on the counter after Gran told me not yet.
“There are eyes around here, Greene.” She takes a step, patting my shoulder.
“She’s quick, great with starting and stopping—a fantastic skater…
but she’s going to need to be better behind the net and have a quicker release on her shots.
Her height isn’t changing, and unless she can put on one hundred pounds of muscle in a month, her size isn’t changing either. She’ll need more finesse against men.”
With that, she leaves me.
Jordan’s refilling her water bottle when I find myself standing in front of the weight room on the second floor of the arena.
Like half of this place, it was closed half the summer for updates—updates which again are unnecessary and money that could have been reallocated into the women’s program.
I clench my jaw, taking in the fresh gray paint, a muted version of the silver in our jerseys, and a mural of Lakeland’s bear logo in the center of the back wall.
Dry-erase boards line one of the side walls where a trio of my teammates hang around them, writing out their exercises and sets.
There’s new equipment, leg presses and sleds are two of the first things I spot.
If this is what we got, I can’t imagine what the football and baseball additions were.
I have to mentally tell myself to pick up each foot to walk into the weight room instead of marching out of the building and across campus to the Athletic Director’s office—hell, even up to Coach’s office—to bitch and demand that someone make sense of budgets and what happened this summer.
Moving closer to the propped-open door, I get caught in the frame.
Leaning on one of the metal sides as a necessity, my shoulder digs into the hard surface.
I feel like a creep, but I can’t help it.
Becoming enthralled by her, my eyes a magnet.
It’s unfortunately been this way for years, and I’ve tried…
I’ve fucking tried to help myself, but I can’t get enough.
Jordan moves around the space with confidence, rolling out her neck before setting up a squat rack.
She adjusts the weights, adding a plate to each side and securing the latches.
She checks her phone before taking her position against the bar, lifting it off the rack and working through a set of eight—that’s how many she does before adjusting the weight again, adding another plate to each side.
“Stop fucking watching her,” I bark at my teammates, all younger guys on the team, stepping over the threshold. Their attention snaps to me, confused. If I were them, I’d be confused too. I can’t remember the last time I’ve ever sounded so serious, so stern. So jealous.
Jordan huffs, mumbling something I can’t make out under her breath.
I take the rack next to her, adjusting the bar for chest press.
I hate to admit it, but the new benches are far more comfortable than the old ones, torn from decades of use and in need of WD-40 whenever you want to change the incline.
I do a quick arm-over-arm stretch before leaning back.
Shoulder blades settle into the material, and I do a wiggle, puff out my chest, inching down the bench.
She lets out another huff, but I’m minding my business, so I start my set. Pretend that I don’t sense her eyes boring into me.
“You didn’t need to do that.” I re-rack the bar and look up to find Jordan leaning over me.
“They didn’t need to be gawking at you,” I say casually, scooting into a seated position. Our noses brush, and to my surprise, Jordan doesn’t pull away.
“But you can?”
“Yes.” A lazy, cocksure smirk pulls at the corners of my mouth. “Golden rule, Little Carmichael.”
“I told you to stop calling me that,” she responds with a noncommittal bite. I’d listen and stop if I didn’t think a small part of her enjoyed it. There’s a faint tint to her cheeks, easily missed but there, whenever I use the nickname. “If the golden rule applies, then I get to look at them.”
I hate the golden rule.
So would Cooper.
“Do you want your brother to get arrested for murdering his teammates? Not very captain or good boy of him.”
Jordan lets out a singular laugh and…and snorts. Slaps a hand over her face and turns her face away. She regains control of herself quickly, almost too quickly, which has me questioning if she ever allows herself to let go. “What are you now? His underboss.”
“Could be.” I shrug as she stands up, leaning on the rack. “Or maybe I don’t like their eyes on you.”
“Oh, poor Greene, doesn’t like sharing.”
“You’re right. I don’t. I don’t like sharing.” My tone catches her off guard. I’ll share my food, most of the time, except for cereal. Borrow my clothes or use the last bit of my shampoo, I don’t care. Cheat off my test for all I care.
But sharing Jordan? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
I’m already waging a war for her attention, one where I should wave the white flag and surrender, but I’ve never been a quitter, and it finally feels as if I’m making progress.
Getting even a piece of her is enough for me to survive on and find the will to power through.
I don’t want to share it with anyone else. Not now, not then, not ever.
Jordan levels me with a look, chin tipped down to look at me. It’s rare that she ever holds the upper hand seeing as I’m almost a foot taller than her. She moves on, backing away to start another set.
“You should superset with Romanian deadlifts,” I blurt out.
“Single leg, both, or wide stance.” Her ears perk up, cheek pulls between teeth, so I keep going.
“Men are more glute and hamstring dominant; it’s what they rely on for power.
You are more quad-dominant”—both of our gazes drop to her thighs—“which would be okay if all you wanted to do was figure skate.”
She doesn’t say anything, but her shoulder blades tighten.
“Your skating is fluid, and you have a sharpness to your agility that gives you an edge against defenders, but—”
“But what?” I can’t tell if she can’t accept my compliment or if she doesn’t want to be corrected. Maybe something else.
“Strengthening your quads and glutes will give you a more efficient and powerful skating posture.” I hate bringing up this next part, but it’s a reality we’ve all had to face after Sutton quit playing because of an injury.
“And help with injury prevention. Stabilize your muscles and ligaments. Men are naturally bigger.” Jordan rolls her eyes.
“We are.” I stand up, making a display of my sheer size compared to her—God, she’s my Goldilocks, I already know—while walking to add a plate to the bar.
She rolls her eyes at me again. “You’ll need that stability when you go up against them, and not to mention you’ll need to train—”
A hand curls around the plate I’m pulling off its designated spot. Pretty, colorful nails next to mine. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
We’re caught in a face off, but I have zero intention to back down. Slipping my hand out from hers, I waltz over to the cubby I stuffed my bag in. Drop it onto the counter, unzipping and riffling through it for the stapled packet I’ve been carrying around.
An uneasy and instantaneous pain prickles across my skin, shooting from my shoulder up to my ear.
Motherfucker. Without looking, I know it’s a papercut.
I rip the hand from my bag, convinced that shaking my hand will shake away the irritating pain.
I used my unharmed hand to carefully pull the workout plan from the pocket in the back.
“Here.” I extend my arm, offering her the workout plan I had Elliot help me customize.
I’ve read over it enough to have it memorized. Made notes in the margins, added a few of my favorite affirmations. You know the typical: you are strong, you can do this…and maybe a few others that may or may not be regarding the ways I see her.
Jordan hesitates but takes the packet from me. Our fingertips brush and she quickly recoils. As she flips through the packet, I swallow my words…
For a second.
“I don’t need this.” She hands it back to me, paper crinkling as she practically shoves it into my chest. “I don’t need your help.” Jordan chews on her cheek, pulling her braids over her shoulders. “Again, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I take the papers, letting them hang in one hand at my side.
Disappointment, the kind that’s like an old friend, presses its claws into me, breaking the skin, and if I don’t do something soon, it’ll leave me bleeding out on the weight room floor.
Exposing every way I’ve never been enough, seen as a nuisance, and cast aside.
“Can you kiss my boo boo?” I push out my bottom lip, showing her the pad of my pointer finger. A red line running horizontally and a tiny drop of blood starting to form.
“No,” Jordan tells me with a disgust more aligned with the attitude that’s typical for her. The teasing and annoyed tone loosens the grasp her claws have on me.
One of my teammates, claiming a bottle of disinfectant and a hand towel from the cubby behind us, spins, head popping over my shoulder, lips puckered. “Bring it here, Greene.”
I shove him off before returning the plan to the cubbies. It’s not hard to spot her bag, eleven stitched into canvas and the corner of a crossword book sticking out.
Jordan and I continue working out near each other.
She doesn’t talk to me, but we fall back into our routine—she pointedly ignoring my antics and I do whatever I can to bank seconds of her attention.
Jordan pretends to not be amused, eventually moving to the free weights where I catch her working Romanian deadlifts into her workout.