Chapter 7
seven
LOGAN
No. Fucking. Way.
I can feel the guys watching me as I stare, wide-eyed and heart racing, at the beautiful apparition in front of me.
She’s just as stunning as I remember, even in professional clothes.
A charcoal-gray skirt hugs every inch of her ass and thighs, ending just above her knees.
A billowy white blouse makes her light-brown skin almost glow, and her calves flex because of the stilettos she wears.
Blair. The woman who ran out on me in LA is here, in Minneapolis. In our weight room. And apparently, she now works for the Rogues.
“Shit,” I whisper under my breath. Not quietly enough, though. Griffin, Ryder, and Sebastian’s heads all swing my way. I’m not sure if they heard me or if it’s because of the way Blair and I are staring at each other like we’ve both seen a ghost.
“Wait. Blair?” Ryder looks at the tall, stunning goddess who shifts on her feet, her eyes going to the guy beside her. Except they don’t stay on him. They keep flicking my way as the color in her cheeks warms. “No way. Is that the woman from the club in LA?”
“Yeah,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
I’m paralyzed with indecision. I want to walk up to her and demand to know why she left in the middle of the night.
I want to throw her down on the nearest weight bench and bury my face between her thighs.
I want to find out if she lied about not knowing who I was.
But I also want to walk out of this room and pretend I never saw her, because this is a complication I don’t need.
The guys are going to give me endless shit.
Every time I try to meet Blair’s eye, she looks away. The guy from social impact keeps chatting with her and Maddox. The way he smiles at Blair makes something foreign claw at my chest. Annoyance? Anger? Jealousy? What the fuck?
I hate when he says something that makes her giggle. And when he rests his hands on her shoulder to usher her out of the weight room, I see red. It’s got to be because she ran out on me, that’s all. I don’t do jealousy when it comes to women.
“Are you going to talk to her?” our goalie, Sebastian Navarro, asks with a raised eyebrow.
I watch Blair walk out of the room with nothing more than a quick glance over her shoulder in my direction. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Oh, this is so good,” Griffin Wright says, clapping his hands.
We’re on the same line. He plays left wing and I play right.
He’s also one of my best friends, which is the only reason I don’t punch him in the dick for enjoying this as much as he is.
He turns to our rookie defenseman, Ryder Hanson, with a huge, goofy smile and says, “Do you think this is it? Is Logie going to be one of us soon?”
One of us. The idiot means happily coupled. He, Ryder, and Maddox are all blissfully paired up with wives and girlfriends. He knows how I feel about relationships. I don’t do them, and I never will.
Ryder watches me shift on my feet, ready to bolt. He can’t completely hide the grin that tugs at the corner of his lips. “Could be. I’ve never seen him like this over a woman, but you know him better than I do.”
“One of us, one of us, one of us,” Griffin chants like an idiot.
“Fuck off. I just want to know what the hell she’s doing here, that’s all.” I roll my eyes and storm away from them, a strange cocktail of anticipation and dread swirling uncomfortably in my stomach. As I push through the weight room door, I hear Maddox chuckle.
“This is how it starts,” he says as I pass.
Morons. All of them. I’m not starting anything.
I’m demanding answers. Did she know who I was when she slept with me?
The fact that she’s here in Minneapolis, starting work for the Rogues, seems awfully convenient.
Too convenient to be a coincidence. She wouldn’t be the first woman to use her position at this company to get to me.
Hell, I got the woman who did Blair’s job before her fired because she wouldn’t leave me alone.
I’m not going through that again. I don’t like being used, and I intend to tell her exactly how I feel about lying, manipulative people.
“Hey,” I call to her back as she and the guy whose name I can’t seem to remember head down the hall toward the ice. “Blair, wait.”
The guy turns around first, his eyebrows pinched as he sees me coming. He looks between Blair and me as she comes to a halt but refuses to turn around. “Uh, hey, Byrne. Can we help you with something?”
I wave him off, my attention solely on the gorgeous woman in front of me.
The one who won’t look at me. “Did you know who I was when we met?” My words are harsher than I intend them to be when they fly from my mouth, but I’m out of sorts, and the anger simmering in my veins is running this show.
She flinches, turning slowly to face me, but doesn’t respond.
Just looks at the guy next to her for help.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’d be working for the Rogues. ”
The social impact guy—Brian? Brad?—narrows his eyes at my tone. “There a problem here, Byrne?”
“It’s okay, Bryson,” Blair says quietly. She shifts her attention to me. “I’m not sure what you mean. I think you must have me confused with someone else.”
Oh, hell no. Is she for real right now? She’s actually going to pretend that she doesn’t know who I am? That I wasn’t buried balls deep inside her less than a week ago? “You think so, huh?”
Her face flames scarlet. She won’t fucking look at me, and I see red.
“Yeah. It happens sometimes.” The pretty little liar turns to Bryson and rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Do you think we could finish that tour now?”
Bryson eyes me like I’m an asshole and nods. “Sure. Come on, there’s not much left to see. Then we need to get back up there so Tess can go through your training schedule for the week.”
“Um, bye. Nice to meet you,” she says to me before scurrying away, only looking back once. I watch them go with rising anger, balling my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
What the hell is she playing at? I know she recognized me.
There is no way in hell that woman doesn’t remember exactly who I am and what we did together.
Multiple times. And if the subtle dilation of her pupils and the shallowness of her breaths are any indication, she not only remembers but is still affected by it.
She’s lying. I don’t know why, but she’s lying through her perfectly straight teeth.
That’s fine. She can play her little games for now. I’ll just have to run into her again. Maybe if we’re alone, she’ll stop pretending and tell me what I want to know.
Growling like a feral animal, I storm back into the weight room and add some extra weight to the leg press. The guys watch me as I get back to work, varying expressions of amusement and curiosity on their faces. “What?”
“Well, what did she say?” Griffin asks.
“She pretended like she didn’t know me,” I bite out. “Told me I must have mistaken her for someone else.”
“Oh, shit.” Bash grimaces. “Really?”
I grunt as I extend my legs. “Do you think I’d lie about something like that?”
“Dude. You must really have lost your touch in bed if women are pretending they don’t know you after you screw them.” Griffin throws his blond head back and laughs.
I finish my set on the leg press and stand, getting right in his face. “Keep it up, Wright. See what happens.”
Griffin laughs. “Probably not much, if Blair is anything to go by.”
My ears ring, and I surge toward my friend, ready to shove him back, when Maddox’s arms wrap around me and haul me back.
“Knock it off. Both of you. We’re not going to start fights in the damned weight room.” He lets go of me with one arm so he can point at Wright. “Stop being an asshole. You may be married to my sister, but that doesn’t mean you get special treatment when you’re being a dick.”
Our coach, Mike Fry, shouts at us from across the room.
“There a problem over there, men?” He’s young for a coach, in his early forties, and he took over after our previous head coach was fired for making some disgusting—and public—statements about his own daughter, who was secretly dating Ryder.
Coach Fry is a good guy. He’s fair, doesn’t scream at us or call us names to get us to do our jobs.
But he’ll still make us skate suicides if he catches us starting shit.
“We’re all good, Coach.” Maddox lets me go, patting me on the shoulder and giving it a hard squeeze. “Right, guys?”
Our chorus of agreements must be enough for Coach, because he rolls his eyes and returns his attention to one of the assistant coaches as they strategize for the first games of the season.
“What are you going to do?” Ryder asks when there are no more eyes on us.
“I’m going to get her alone and demand an explanation. I want to know if she knew who I was. Because she claimed she didn’t. But it’s pretty damn wild that she showed up here today, don’t you think? What are the odds of that not being intentional?”
Sebastian hums, considering. “It is pretty crazy that you met in LA and now she’s here. I mean, I guess it’s possible that it’s all some big coincidence, but you’re right. It does seem unlikely.”
“But why pretend she doesn’t know you?” Maddox asks. It’s the million-dollar question. Why indeed?
“No idea. But I’m going to find out. I’ll find out where she lives and show up at her house, if I have to. She can’t avoid me forever.”
Bash shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s called stalking. Don’t do that. Scaring her won’t accomplish anything.”
“I’m not trying to stalk her,” I say, fisting my hair.
My skin feels tight and my stomach is sour.
“I just want to know what her endgame is.” I cross my arms over my chest. “This is why I’m so careful to make sure the women I sleep with know the deal.
Otherwise, they get weird and try to insinuate themselves into your life. ”
“Hate to break it to you, bro, but it sure seems like she’s trying to outsinuate herself.” Wright’s lips twitch.
“That’s not a word, jackass.” I swear to god…
“Yeah, I know. But I’m just saying that I don’t think Blair is trying to wiggle her way into your life. Not if she pretended not to recognize you.” Griffin’s chest shakes with silent laughter, and it pisses me off.
“Maybe that’s just to throw me off.” It’s a strange tactic, but it wouldn’t be the first time an obsessed woman has tried to find an in with me. Like that blonde woman who used to do Blair’s job.
“Or maybe she was just as surprised to see you as you were to see her and she freaked out?” Sebastian. Always the voice of reason. But this time, he’s wrong.
“Doubt it. But we’ll see.” Because I am going to find out why Blair is here. Then I will make sure she knows that there’s not a chance in hell we’ll ever have a repeat of that night in LA. No matter how much my semi-hard dick may protest.