Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Lauren
Whack!
The puck found the net, which was easy enough to achieve when you were the only one on the ice. Six in the morning was my favorite time. Fresh ice, an eerie quiet, and no one else to disturb you. Or so I thought.
I was cheering for myself after another stellar plug into the basket when I heard a soft clap.
Alexei Nazarov stood off to the side in warm-up gear.
I hadn’t seen much of him in the last month, just in passing at Brewski’s, UM’s local watering hole, where he was inevitably surrounded by girls who knew little about hockey and everything about attracting a boy like Nazarov.
“Thought I was alone.”
“Evidently.” He skated over with that super-smooth glide that was his trademark. I’d attended a few games—in solidarity with Jason, of course—since Nazarov came on board and had to practically sit on my hands so no one would get the wrong idea. I was turning into a superfan, and that would not do.
“You come out here regularly?” he asked as he closed the gap.
“I like the quiet.”
“And I am disturbing you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t own the rink.”
“I think you might. You played well the other night. Better than well.” He skated around me, a full circle that might have made any other girl dizzy. I wanted to think I wasn’t like those girls, who slobbered at the feet of a Russian hockey god. But I was no different.
I suspected I was faster than him, though.
“Let’s see what you’ve got.” I pushed the puck toward him.
He pushed it back. “I will be careful not to check you.”
“Oh, don’t go easy on me, Ass-arov.”
And he didn’t. He wasn’t overly physical, but there was no pulling his pucks either. I was right in thinking I was faster, but he was stronger. Years of evolution, and all that. He didn’t let me score, and I didn’t let him get away with a thing. We both came out satisfied.
Sort of.
I grabbed my water from the bench. I usually closed my eyes while I drank, and when I opened them, I found him watching me. He didn’t bother dropping eye contact, either.
Embarrassed, I pushed the bottle toward him. “Thirsty?”
“You would not believe.” He took the bottle and downed a couple of gulps. Like the last time in my kitchen, I turned away. I had a weakness for a man’s throat, the perfect place to inflict pleasure or pain.
He passed the bottle back to me. “Where will you play next year?”
“The draft isn’t until June.”
“But you have a wish, yes?”
“Isobel Chase has expressed interest.”
“The Chicago Athenas? They are good—”
“For a girls’ team?”
His lips quirked. “I think they are good without …” He seemed to be thinking of the right word. “Qualification. But then, no doubt, you are used to men trying to limit you.”
“I am.” But I probably shouldn’t have jumped all over him when I thought he was gearing up to throw shade.
“You are related to Gunnar Bond?”
“My brother-in-law. You a fan?” Most people were.
“He is a legend.”
Though he was my brother-in-law, I considered Gunnar to be more of a father figure.
He and my sister Sadie had been there for me through the toughest times.
When I was twelve, and my father was convicted of financial crimes, Sadie had taken over as my guardian and Gunnar had restored my faith in families.
Which reminded me that Sadie had checked in last night and I let her call go to voice mail. Jonah Yates had been a naughty boy again.
I didn’t want to talk with her about my father and his latest fall from grace.
But Sadie was big on communication. Too many years in LA where she absorbed all sorts of touchy-feely techniques for drawing a person out.
She wanted us to discuss our feelings while I preferred Gunnar’s approach. Bash a puck and bury it deep.
“Maybe I’ll introduce you one day, though you’ll probably meet him through Isner.” Jason’s brother, Theo Kershaw, still played for the Chicago Rebels, and Gunnar and Theo were close.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is not important. These legends are the past.”
“Future forward, are you?”
His brow crinkled. Perhaps he didn’t understand that phrase.
“I mean, you would prefer to focus on what’s coming?”
“I prefer to focus on the now. And who is coming.”
I wondered if his proficiency with the English language had forced that change: what’s coming to who. Was it sexual innuendo? Or was I reading too much into it? The likelihood of Alexei Nazarov flirting with me was next to impossible.
“What time is your practice?” he asked.
“Eight a.m. We go first so the boys can get their beauty sleep.”
“Then we have time for breakfast. Are you hungry, Silver Eyes?”
The voracious butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t mind a pancake stack. I doubted it would satisfy them, but it was worth a try.
“Always.”
“Knock. It. Back! Knock. It. Back!”
“Okay, okay.” I raised the glass of schnapps to my lips—mint, ugh!—and downed it in one go to the raucous cheers of my teammates. “Happy?”
As the captain, I was supposed to set an example, but with these girls that example was apparently how to get smashed while celebrating our recent win against ye olde enemy, the University of Chicago.
“We won, Yatesy! The least you could do is be happy about it!” Bones, our tender, threw her arm around me and kissed my temple—sloppily. “Let’s get another round in and see if that’ll cheer you up.”
I didn’t think my mood was so obvious, but these girls knew me better than anyone.
“I’ll get the drinks in.” The team cheered. “Sauvignon Blanc all around?”
“Fuck, no! Shots!” Mel, my bestie and one of our best D-gals, pointed at me. “Shots, LoYo, or get outta here!”
“Shots, shots, shots …” The rest of them drummed the table, mostly out of sync, which proved my point that shots were the last thing they needed. Still, I had an example to set.
I headed up to the bar and rested my elbows on the sticky wood.
I needed an attitude adjustment, that was for sure.
We were on a six-game streak and were likely headed to the Frozen Four for the third year running.
I should have been overjoyed, but it was hard to think of the good stuff when my mind was filled with all the crap about my dad.
His lawyer had left another message. I hope you respond, Ms. Yates … your father needs you … just a short statement, attesting to his character.
How about: his character sucked? Some guys preferred to take the hard road—though my father would probably say criminality was the easier option.
My sister Sadie had been giving him money since he came out of prison five years ago after serving three and a half years for embezzlement.
Since his release, he’d been living what I thought was an exemplary life.
We had repaired our relationship and partly filled the hole of abandonment left when he chose a life of crime over the care of his twelve-year-old daughter.
But it wasn’t long before he was back to his old tricks. And now I was supposed to tell a judge that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
I shook my head and raised my hand, but my navel-gazing meant I’d missed my shot with the bartender, who was already walking to the other end of the bar.
Someone jostled me, another eager customer.
I turned, my face in a frown, and met the Arctic blue eyes I was starting to read a little too well.
In the four months since I’d first heard him in the room next to mine, we had become friendly.
I wouldn’t dare to characterize it as anything else.
We drilled together a few mornings a week, grabbed breakfast on occasion, and talked about anything and everything.
Surface stuff, to be honest. Sharing about my problems, especially my problems with my father, embarrassed me.
Jason knew a little about what was up, but I was even shields up around him.
I was extra vigilant around Alexei, careful not to give him any encouragement or look like I might be interested in him for anything other than hockey talk and jocular ribbing about his love of the ladies.
He nudged me gently. “That does not look like the face of a winner.”
“And that doesn’t look like the face of one, either.”
He clutched his chest. “Ah, you wound me.”
So they had lost their game last night, and I was in a bad mood.
“Sorry, just not feeling it.” I raised my hand to get the barkeep’s attention. Was ignored again.
“You played well. Like you had something to prove.”
I had missed out on the Patty Kazmaier award last year, and this was my final shot at it. I was determined to be the winner, so I would be set up for the draft. I wanted to get my first pick, the Athenas—or at least, I had. Before my father tainted Chicago for me.
“We all have something to prove, Nazarov.”
“Yes, this is true.” He signaled to the bartender who immediately dropped whatever he was doing and came over at the superstar’s summons. “She was here first.” He gestured to me.
The bartender glanced at me. “What’ll it be?”
“Twelve shots of tequila, lemon, salt, and a beer.”
Cue the look of annoyance. You would swear I was a bad tipper. “I’ll get the server to send it over.”
Fine. I gestured to my fellow barfly. Nazarov ordered two beers, was served immediately, and passed one to me. “So you don’t have to wait.”
“How did you know the beer was for me?”
“You are the captain, the responsible girl on the team. No shots for you.”
That was me, alright. I always did the right thing, anxious to ensure no one would ever associate me with bad stock.
My last boyfriend dumped me after running an internet search and discovering my father’s history—Google searches were supposed to be for girls to find out shit about their dates—so I usually kept that stuff to myself.
Especially now that my father had decided staying out of trouble was too much to handle.
I considered my beer, wishing I had ordered something stronger. When I looked up, Nazarov was staring at me. He moved in a little closer.
“Are you okay, Silver Eyes? You do not seem yourself.”
Silver Eyes. I hadn’t heard him say that since the first morning we skated together, and now the endearment unraveled me. Tears pressed against my throat and a sudden urge to unload all my drama on him almost overwhelmed me. I wanted him to take me somewhere, anywhere, so we could be alone.
“I—”
“Lexy!” A high-pitched voice interrupted whatever I was about to vomit. A pretty little thing peeked from behind Nazarov’s shoulder. “I left my panties at your place and—oh, sorry!” She giggled as if she’d just realized I was there.
“I did not see them,” he said. “But I will be on the lookout for—what color are they?”
As if he needed that distinguishing information. So many dropped panties stuffed down sofa cushions, I supposed.
“Pink, of course.” She rubbed against him. “Or I could come over and we could look for them together?”
“Not tonight, rybka.” He booped her nose. “I will let you know.”
“Okay,” she said breathily before she reluctantly slipped away into the crowd.
The interruption dowsed an ice-cold vat of common sense all over me. A boy like Nazarov was not the guy in whom I should confide my troubles.
I coughed to clear the stupid emotion from my throat. “What does that mean? Some sweet nothing?”
“Yes. Sweet and nothing.”
“Because you don’t remember her name?”
He shrugged. “I cannot remember the name of everyone I meet. But for that one, I used ‘rybka’ which means ‘little fish’. She is always trying to hook me.”
I chuckled, feeling strangely cheered by this.
It was good to see him for what he was: a glittering, sexy playboy, here for the college experience.
Better to view him as some random sex object with two brain cells, one dedicated to hockey, the other to sex.
My harmless crush would inevitably fade, and the sting would be soothed by time.
“What is so funny?” My sadness of before was forgotten—by him, if not by me.
I picked up my beer and gave him a friendly wink. “Never change, Nazarov.” And then I headed back to my people to monitor their alcohol intake and play at adult in the room.