Chapter 7

Sorry about the totally unreasonable lengthy delay in this but I think I've been having emotional issues over all of my guys being tossed in the first round. It was pretty tough to swallow but I've put my big girl panties on now so here goes...


I leaned against the cool tile on the wall of my shower watching the evidence of my spent desire slowly being washed down the drain. I’d tried, unsuccessfully, most of the night to dismiss any and all thoughts of Kaner’s new girlfriend from my mind and all that had resulted in was a long and vigorous wanking session when I got up.

 I’d gone too long without, that was the problem. I’d been depriving myself ever since the results of my experimentation with going public with a girlfriend had confirmed all of my worst fears. It hadn’t really been fair to Gabrielle, to use her like that. She’d actually been kind of fun in a Girls Gone Wild kind of way, which, looking back on it, should have tipped me off that my internet stalkers would find no end to the revealing and risqué pictures of her.

It had just been an experiment though. I’d guessed what it would be like, based on what some of the other guys in the league, like Scottie Upshall, Phaneuf and even Kaner had been through and I really didn’t want to put someone I actually cared about through that. Not that I planned on getting involved with anyone. That was a recipe for disaster as far as I was concerned. Chicks are a distraction. For me I found it was better to just have sex and not have to deal with the upkeep. All that romantic shit is for the birds. I’ve seen what it does to guys, especially when they’re on the road and their girl back home is checking up on them, asking them what they’re doing and with whom. I don’t need the headache, no matter how hot she might be. I have a team to lead.

Pat doesn’t need the distraction either, I think to myself as I turn off the water and reach out to grab a towel. There’s part of me that thinks it’s good if he’s trying to settle down, that it’s better he do that then go out to the bar every night but on the other hand, there’s part of me that believes that there’s some other reason he’s doing this; like trying to convince Coach Q that he’s reformed. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.

Gabrielle was pretty but in the sort of obvious way that doesn’t really appeal to me. In the whole Ginger or Mary Ann debate I fall firmly on the side of pig tails and cut offs. I can’t deal with high maintenance. I don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with someone else’s wants and needs. What I want is no complications. I want someone I can hang out with and have sex with but who doesn’t need to know where I am or what I’m doing all the time and who doesn’t expect a fucking present every time I walk through the door. I used to think it wasn’t a lot to ask. Now I know better.

As I wrap a towel around my waist I see there’s a text on my phone. It’s from Gabrielle.

Saw ur back in town. Get 2gether?

It would be easy to do and as my fingers hover over the virtual keyboard I almost reply in the affirmative before I think it through and then I decide against it and dismiss the message. I really don’t have time for this shit.
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 “Nice party. Didn’t think you had it in you to put together anything without strippers and shooters,” Sharpie smacked me on the back. I grin, glad for the props, especially from him. Usually he’s the first guy to shake his head at me, be disappointed in me.

“Your chick’s pretty hot too,” Bolland smirked as he sat beside me on the bench. ‘My chick’, it still made me pause.

 “And not a bad cook as it turns out,” I add. I watch the guys getting out of their street clothes and into their pads and I realize I’m actually jealous. They haven’t cleared me to play so I’ll be spending practice on a stationary bike instead.

 “So did you really find her in a bar? Abby said something about her being a waitress,” Patrick prompted. I shrugged. I didn’t have a reason not to agree.

 “You have no idea what a fight she put up. She was not impressed with me at all,” I admitted. The look on Sharpie’s face was pretty fucking priceless. Those big blue eyes that got him on the list of the supposedly hottest guys in the city got big and he looked surprised and impressed all at the same time.

 “You mean you actually met a chick that didn’t fall for your shit? I wish you’d told me that last night, I would have given her a high five,” he chuckled. I rolled my eyes at him. I’d already heard enough of that from my sisters.

“Then what’s she doing with you?” I looked up to find our Captain of all things boring standing across the room, hanging his jacket on a hook, and even though he had his back to me I could hear the sneer in his voice.

“Because I’m hung like a horse,” I replied and then immediately wished I hadn’t. All of these guys had seen me in the shower a thousand times. Bolland snorted and Sharpie shook his head but Tazer didn’t react at all. Of course once you’d seen his oversized trouser python you didn’t stare at it too long. It was intimidating as shit and he knew it.

 “No really,” he repeated calmly, turning to sit on the bench and leaning over to untie his shoes. “How’d you talk a perfectly nice girl like that into coming to Chicago with you?” He didn’t say it out loud but anyone could hear the accusation in his voice, like maybe I’d actually drugged her, tied her up and kidnapped her.

“Who says she’s nice?” I countered and then got to my feet to leave the room. Sometimes I had to fight the urge to punch Jon right in the face. This was one of those times.

 “She’d have to be. She’s probably a fucking saint to put up with you,” he replied without so much as lifting his head. I felt my hands curling into fists at my sides. He was always talking down to me, like I was his younger, badly behaved sibling.

“Yeah well, for your information she can suck a fucking golf ball through a mile of garden hose, so...there,” I snapped and as I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. I knew it didn’t make any sense, or at least it wasn’t a bad thing as far as the guys would be concerned but it was the only thing that came to mind. I could feel Tazer’s smirk like an itch in the middle of my back but I didn’t give in to the urge to turn around and wipe that smug look off his face with my fist. That would have been a ticket to at least a week in the press box and besides, then he’d win and I was finally beginning to feel like I had something that Captain Beige didn’t have.

 I was still going to give that bike hell though.
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I got a wave from...I think it was Abby Sharpe as I stepped out of the taxi outside of the arena. I looked down at my clunky black boots and then at her clearly costly and very feminine heels and reminded myself to throttle Pat when I got my hands on him.

The note he’d left for me directing me to the arena for a casual get together after the Hawks first practice had obviously failed to mention that there was some kind of dress code which obviously didn’t include jeans or a leather jacket. I glanced down again at the frayed denim I was wearing and wondered if there was a judge in this county that would convict me of killing Pat slowly and painfully with a butter knife.

 “I guess I didn’t get all the information,” I apologized to Abby who was holding the door for me. She didn’t look down at my jeans or at faded t-shirt I was wearing. She smiled right into my eyes and shrugged.

“No one will notice,” she promised. Her words tasted like a lie but the conviction in her eyes made it clear that she wouldn’t be saying anything. As I looked into the room at the other women loitering in groups of twos and threes there, I was sure that even if she didn’t that one of these women definitely would. They all looked like mannequins that had just walked out of the display window of the nearest Gucci and Chanel stores. They reeked of money from their Coach totes to their Jimmy Choo and Louboutin heels and their Burberry scarves with their Prada skirts and Helmut Lang skinny jeans. I was outclassed by a few thousand dollars.

“That was a wonderful party you threw,” a slim blonde in a smart white sleeveless dress with a boat neck put her hand on my arm. I recognized her, or at least her pony tail and bright smile and fought to remember her name.

“Thanks...Kelly?” She smiled and offered me a glass of chilled white wine.

“Kelly-Rae and don’t look so nervous, we don’t bite,” she promised. I nodded but was far from believing her. With all of their perfect and clearly chemically enhanced white teeth, most of them looked like dead eyed great whites circling bloody meat in the water. The bloody meat being me.

“I’m not sure what this...uh, meeting is about,” I admitted. Abby rolled her eyes and shook her head and I felt my jaw clench and then she sighed and said:

“Pat...of course he didn’t tell you, but then I’m sure all this is as new to him as it is to you.” I released the breath I was holding and nodded.

 “Clearly,” I agreed. “Well let me explain,” Kelly-Rae said brightly, linking her arm with mine, “we do some charity work and we’re here to put our heads together and decide what we’re going to do this year to raise money.”

“We have a Christmas toy drive, an Easter basket auction...,” a blue eyed blonde that looked like she could easily grace the cover of Victoria Secret added enthusiastically as she held a sign-up sheet out towards them. “We’re having a casino night. I hear you’ve done a little bar tending, maybe we would get you to show a couple of us some tricks like...can you flip the bottles around?”

 “She was a server Julia, not a bartender,” Abby pointed out, shooting an apologetic look my direction.

“Actually, I did work behind the bar occasionally and yeah I can actually spin the bottle behind my back,” I replied, which earned me a big grateful smile from the petite blonde.

“You see,” she exclaimed brightly, “that’s so great. Maybe we can have a Better Halves’ bar where the drinks are like twice as much but you get served by us so it’s totally worth it,” she added with a smile that I was willing to bet made guys walk into telephone poles. She was the kind of girl I’d have sneered at and said really mean things about behind her back but up close she seemed more like a puppy eagerly wagging its tail and begging to be picked up and petted; harmless and kinda cute.

 “I’d uh...I’d be glad to help,” I found myself offering and was immediately bathed in the glow of half a dozen full wattage smiles.

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She looked like the lost lamb cut off from the herd of sheep, trying to look smaller, trying not be noticed as the rest of the WAGs stampeded into the dressing room to claim their men. It irked me that Pat didn’t notice her, didn’t even seem to be looking for her as she hung back near the door.

I had a line from some movie some girl had made me watch running through my head, something about 'not putting Baby in a corner' as I watched her eyes dart anxiously around the room. There was a part of me, the Superman that I hoped that I was out on the ice that wanted to sweep in and save her. The other part, the darker part that I don’t show to anyone, wanted to drag her out of the room, press her against the nearest flat surface and taste her skin. There was something about the little girl lost look on the face of such a tough looking girl that set my insides on a slow simmer.

I wasn’t sure what Pat thought he was doing with a girl like that. As I grabbed my tie and started to shove it into my bag I thought about the girls that Pat usually went for, the easy ones, the ones that didn’t require work, or even attention. They were like weeds growing out of a sidewalk, a little rough, not really pretty, but everywhere. This one looked more like a hot house flower, out of her element, far from the field she should have been in.

There was also something else that came to mind as I watched her try and draw an invisible shield around herself. Ever since Pat had been so descriptive about her ability with a hose and a golf ball I’d been unable to shake the image of her on her knees, blindfolded with her hands tied behind her back. Looking up and over at her, I watched her stare down at my tie where it was draped across the palm of my hand. Her eyes a little too wide and her mouth, which looked full and soft and was unmarred by any bright smear of lipstick, something that seemed unnecessary on her, fell open as if she knew what I was thinking. I smiled to myself. I sincerely doubted it.

Women take one look at me and see some kind of Disney prince on a white horse. They see roses and candlelight and big, shiny diamond rings. They don’t see the dark passenger that is coiled inside of me, that looks out of my eyes and whispers twisted things to me that polite young men shouldn’t want to do. Like at this moment what I wanted to do was wrap the copper hair she had pulled back into a simple pony tail around my hand and pull on it just enough to make her gasp.

I forced myself to look away from her. She wasn’t available. She was Pat’s and it was bad enough that I been thinking of her that way; if she even got an inkling of the things I was thinking, that were in my head....

 “They won’t let me even fucking practice.” I glanced down at where Pat had just thrown himself down on the bench like a child about to have a temper tantrum.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked as I very intentionally slowly wrapped my tie around my hand while I glanced down at the arm Pat hand cradled in his hand. One arm was clearly paler than the other and to my eye, more fragile looking.

“I don’t know,” Pat grumbled, shrugging his shoulders. I rolled his eyes and reminded myself to be patient. It was, after all, only the first practice. The time for yelling at him was after Christmas even though it was just like my self-indulgent teammate not to have listened to the advice of the doctor’s or training staff. “Something about getting my strength back,” he added with petulant sniff.

“Jerk off more, that helps me,” Seabs snorted, miming the act with his left hand and massively exaggerating the length of his member. I snorted. Pat flipped him the bird.

“I don’t have to do that anymore, loser,” Pat added, getting to his feet as if he’d only just noticed her standing across the room. I wanted to break Kane’s finger as he crooked it at her. I wanted to applaud her when she didn’t move.

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Sharpie clucked as he lifted his bag and heaved it over his shoulder. “I hear your little lady is less than pleased with you today.” I glanced at the blue eyed winger and then down at my golden haired teammate and did my best not to smirk.

“What’d I do now?” Pat complained loudly.

“Jesus open your eyes kiddo,” Sharpe said quietly, quiet enough that the only the three of us could hear.

“Which one of these things doesn’t belong?” I suggested, knowing that was far too complicated a task for our slightly younger teammate even as I watched Kaner frown and as he struggled to see what we were seeing. “Take her shopping, for fuck’s sake, get her some nice things,” I finally sighed, shaking my head and stuffing my tie deep into my bag. I didn’t wait for any of the other questions that were bound to follow. I took my bag and headed toward the door, to where she was still standing, waiting to be rescued. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but she looked so uncomfortable that I made himself stop “I’m sorry about him,” I said quietly. She glanced anxiously at him and then away.

“For what?” she asked curtly and, I thought, a little defensively.

“He didn’t tell you about today, about what to expect. It was...unfair,” I added, inhaling the scent of the leather of her jacket mixed with the sharp tang of apple from her hair. I wanted to dig my fingers into it and bury my nose in it. I stared straight ahead and tried not to think about what those copper tresses would look like spread out on my pillow.

“It’s fine,” she replied dismissively. It was not fine but I shrugged, deciding that I would let it go if she was going to.

“If you...need...I mean, if you want to know about anything...,” I began again, the words tripping off of my tongue before I’d even realized they were there. I bit the remaining words back before they got me into trouble.

 “I’m fine,” she reiterated, lifting her chin higher. I glanced sideways at her, at her eyes that flashed with anger and the unhappy press of her lips into a thin line. I doubted very much if that was true but I nodded and didn’t argue.

She looked down suddenly and it was only then that I realized that I had laid my free hand on her forearm where it was crossed just under her breast. Slowly she lifted her gaze to meet mine and that look was there again; shock or was it something more like...fear? I knew that I wasn’t supposed to like it but I felt her panic like champagne bubbles on my tongue. Her fear tasted like desire.

 “Anything,” I reiterated quietly but firmly as I looked into her startled gaze and only then did I let go of her arm and walked away with a grin plastered on my face.