Chapter 20
Jasmine
The Toronto arena is louder than MSG. I didn't think that was possible but the Wailers fans are a different breed — passionate, loud, and packed into every seat.
The building is a wall of blue and white, with towering banners hanging from the rafters, honoring players whose jerseys have been retired. The ice gleams under the lights, and the cold rolls off it in waves that reach us even in the lower bowl.
Harper, Avery, Natalie, and I are in seats Wilder arranged through the Renegades' visiting team allotment. We're surrounded by Wailers fans in blue jerseys who eye our Renegades gear with open disdain.
A man two rows behind us asks Harper if she got lost. She turns around, smiles, and says, “We'll see who's lost after the third period.”
The teams take the ice for warm-ups. The Wailers come out first to a deafening ovation.
Then the Renegades emerge from the visitors' tunnel, and the boos rain down.
Liam raises his stick to the crowd and grins.
Jake waves like he's arriving at a parade.
Cole skates past without acknowledging any of it.
Logan is the last one out. He skates to the far end and starts his warm-up routine.
“There's your man,” Avery says, nudging my arm.
“I see him.”
“He looks good in the away jersey.”
“He looks good in everything,” I say.
“And nothing, I imagine,” Avery says.
We all laugh.
Natalie leans across. “How are you handling it? Being here for his game in another city?”
“I'm nervous. More nervous than when I watch at MSG.”
“It's different on the road,” Harper says. “At home, you feel like the building is on your side. Here you're in enemy territory. Every hit on your guy feels harder because twenty thousand people are cheering for it.”
The puck drops, and the nervousness turns into adrenaline. The Wailers come out fast, pressing hard in the Renegades' zone for the first two minutes. Logan is on the ice for the opening shift, matched up against Toronto's top line.
Their left winger is quick and cuts inside on the first zone entry. Logan reads it, steps up, and angles him to the boards. Clean, physical, decisive. The crowd boos.
“That's my man,” I say under my breath. Avery hears me and squeezes my arm.
The first period is tight. Both teams are careful, trading chances without converting. Cole draws a penalty late in the period and the Renegades power play goes to work.
Liam sets up at the top of the circle and one-times a pass from Jake. The puck beats the Toronto goalie glove side. 1-0 Renegades. Our section of four erupts while twenty thousand Wailers fans groan.
Between periods, Harper goes for drinks and comes back with four beers and a bag of popcorn. “The bartender looked at my Renegades scarf and gave me less popcorn,” she says.
Second period, the Wailers push back hard. They tie it up on a power play goal that deflects off Blake's stick. The arena explodes. Logan is on the ice for the goal, and his shoulders tighten as he skates back to the bench. I recognize the posture. He's blaming himself for the screen.
Three minutes later, Logan makes up for it. He jumps into the rush, takes a pass from Cole at the blue line, and fires a wrist shot through traffic. The puck hits the back of the net before the goalie moves. 2-1 Renegades.
Logan pumps his fist once and skates back to the bench. Liam jumps off the bench and grabs his helmet with both hands.
I'm on my feet screaming. So are all the girls. The Wailers fans around us are glaring. I don't care.
Third period is a battle. Toronto throws everything at the Renegades. Shots from every angle. Bodies crashing into the boards. Logan is on the ice for most of it, killing penalties, blocking shots, grinding through every shift.
He takes a cross-check to the back behind the play that makes me flinch. The ref doesn't call it. Logan doesn't react and just keeps playing.
Jake scores an empty-netter with a minute left to seal it. 3-1 Renegades. The buzzer sounds, and the boys pile together at center ice. The Toronto crowd files out in silence. Our little section of four is on its feet, cheering and hugging each other.
“Road win,” Harper says. “Those are the sweetest.”
After the game, we take a cab to a bar in the King West neighborhood that Cole recommended. It's an upscale spot with dark leather booths and a long bar lit from underneath in blue.
The music is low enough to talk over, and the crowd is well-dressed and buzzing with Friday night energy.
We get a booth near the back and order a round of cocktails. The plan is to wait for the guys to shower and change and meet us here. Natalie orders a plate of fries for the table.
“How long until they get here?” I ask.
“Thirty minutes,” Harper says. “Cole says they're finishing with media.”
We eat fries, drink cocktails, and recap the game. Natalie breaks down Logan's goal in technical detail, which impresses me.
“How do you know so much about hockey?” I ask her.
“I'm a physical therapist for a hockey team. I've watched more game film than most of the coaches.”
“She's also secretly competitive,” Avery says. “She keeps a spreadsheet of Ethan's stats.”
“It's for his recovery tracking,” Natalie says.
“It has color-coded columns, Nat.”
“Organized data leads to better outcomes.”
The guys arrive forty-five minutes later. They come through the door in a wave of expensive cologne and good moods. Cole leads, finding Harper immediately and sliding into the booth beside her.
Liam is behind him, pulling Avery up from her seat to kiss her in front of the entire bar. Jake follows with two rookies I don't recognize. Ethan finds Natalie and sits beside her without saying a word.
Logan comes in with Blake. He's in dark jeans and a black sweater, his hair still damp, the faint bruise on his jaw from the cross-check already darkening. He scans the room and finds me in the booth. Our eyes meet. He gives me the smallest nod.
That's all we can do in public.
He goes to the bar with Blake. I stay in the booth with the girls. This is the agreement. In public, we're friends. The lawyer on the team's sponsorship account and the defenseman who happens to know her from Long Island. Nothing more.
I take a sip of my cocktail and watch him from across the room. He's leaning against the bar with Blake, both of them holding beers, talking to Theo who's joined them. The road win has loosened him. He played well tonight and his body knows it.
The bar fills up. The Friday night Toronto crowd mixes with the Renegades players and the energy is loud and warm. Liam is holding court at a high table, telling a story that has Jake and the rookies in tears.
Cole is in the booth with his arm around Harper, talking quietly into her ear. Ethan and Natalie are in their own world, whispering to each other.
I'm on my second cocktail when she appears.
A woman walks up to Logan at the bar. She's tall with long blonde hair, a tight black dress and heels that put her at his eye level. She says something to him and he turns his head. She smiles. He says something back. She laughs and touches his arm.
Her hand stays on his arm.
I put my glass down. Harper is talking to Cole and doesn't notice. Avery is across the room with Liam. Natalie and Ethan have left the booth to get drinks.
Logan is nodding at whatever she's saying. He hasn't removed her hand. From where I'm sitting, it doesn't look civil. It looks like a man talking to an attractive woman in a bar. It looks like two people who might leave together.
She laughs again. She tilts her head, and her blonde hair falls over one shoulder. She steps closer to him. The space between them shrinks to inches. She pulls out her phone and shows him something on the screen.
He looks at it and says something, and she puts her hand on his forearm again, higher this time, near his bicep.
My throat tightens. I want to walk across this bar and introduce myself. I want to put my hand on his back and look at this woman and let her see, without a word, that the man she's touching belongs to someone.
But I can't. This is what it means to love someone in secret. You sit across a room, watch, and you swallow it.
The woman touches his chest. Her fingers press flat against his sweater, right over his heart, and she says something that makes her smile widen. My stomach is in knots, and my jaw aches from clenching.
“You okay?” Harper is back beside me in the booth.
“Fine.”
“You're gripping that glass like you're trying to shatter it.”
I loosen my fingers. “I'm fine.”
Harper follows my gaze across the room to where Logan is standing with the blonde and then she looks back at me. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I'm tired. I think I'm going to head back to the hotel.”
“Jasmine. What happened?”
“Nothing happened, Harper. I'm just tired. Long day. I'll see you back at the room.”
I grab my coat and my bag from the booth. Natalie returns with drinks and asks where I'm going. I tell her I'm calling it a night. Avery waves from Liam's table, and I wave back and smile, my face feels like a mask.
The bar is crowded, and I weave through bodies. I pass within ten feet of Logan on my way out. He’s too engrossed with the blonde woman to notice me. Pain reverberates through me. This is not what I signed up for.
The air hits my face, and I breathe in deep. My hands are shaking inside my coat pockets.
That woman touched him, and Logan did not take her hand off. I flag a cab on the street and give the driver the hotel name. In the back seat, I lean my head against the window and close my eyes. The city lights stream past in blurs of color.
My phone buzzes.
Logan: Where did you go? I turned around and you were gone.
I stare at the message. My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
Tired. Went back to the hotel. Good game tonight.
His reply comes fast: You okay?
Me: Fine. Just tired. Enjoy the night with the guys.
I put my phone in my pocket and keep my eyes on the city outside the window. The cab pulls up to the Shangri-La. I pay the driver, walk through the lobby, and take the elevator up to the twenty-eighth floor.
The room is empty and dark. I drop my coat on the chair and sit on the edge of the bed in the dark with the CN Tower glowing blue through the window.
I've never been a jealous person. I've never cared enough about a man to feel threatened by another woman. But watching someone touch Logan made me want to set the bar on fire.
This is what it means to love someone this much. It's not just the good parts — the mornings in Maine, the dinners in the West Village, the way he holds me in bed like I'm the only solid thing in his world. It's also this.
The gut-wrenching, teeth-clenching reality that the man I love is a public figure and women will approach him, touch and flirt with him, and I have to sit across the room and take it.
I pull off my shoes and lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
My phone buzzes again.
Logan: Jas. Talk to me. What's wrong?
I pick up the phone and type: Nothing's wrong. I promise. Just need sleep. I'll see you tomorrow.
I put the phone face down on the nightstand and pull the covers over me. I close my eyes and try to sleep and every time I'm close, I see the blonde woman's hand flat against Logan's chest, her fingers pressed over his heart, and my own heart burns.