Page 50 of Shootout
“I’ll get on that.” I wasn’t certain I would, but I’d ask Jessie. Bolstering our fake relationship might require our attendance, while our absence could raise suspicions.
Besides, I enjoyed the thought of dressing up and showing her off.
Now what did that mean?
ChapterEighteen
WANTING MORE
~~Banks~~
We arrived back in Seattle in the early-morning hours, triumphant from being undefeated. The team was flying high, but despite our success, I was discontented with my game. I felt off-kilter, out of sync with Cave and Axel. I battled to adjust to this team’s style of play. I wasn’t capitalizing on my linemates’ strengths. I wasn’t trusting them. As a result, I either held on to the puck too long or passed when I had a clear shooting lane.
After the first game on the road trip, Rush muttered something to me in Russian. Yuri’s eyes widened in shock, and he refused to translate. Other than a disgusted glare, Cave had turned his back on me. If I’d expected my reception to be any better when Axel was moved up to my line, I’d have been disappointed. Axel and Cave stuck together. Considering how they cut me out of plays, it was surprising the team was doing as well as it was, but the other lines had stepped up to cover for my line’s dysfunction.
I didn’t loiter after the plane landed but grabbed my bag and drove home, leaving the rookies to find another ride rather than waiting for them to decide if they were going home or going out.
The hostility on the team toward me might be lukewarm, but it was still chilly, and I wanted to get away from the guys for a while.
As soon as I walked in the door, I went straight to bed. The only person I wanted to talk to was Jessie, and she’d be asleep. I fell into a deep, dreamless slumber and didn’t awaken until midafternoon.
That evening, I slipped into the rink to watch Jessie and Jonas’s kids play a team from a neighboring area. League play had started a week or so ago, and the Sockeyes had put together an elite coed team with Jonas as head coach and Jessie assisting. I wasn’t sure what the director was thinking by putting that coaching combination together; he was either clueless or testing Jessie.
I pulled a ball cap down low over my face and slid onto the bleachers behind the bench. I wasn’t in the mood to be seen by fans. I preferred to watch the action on the ice without interruption.
Jessie didn’t notice me, and I wanted it that way. My presence might make her nervous, or it might not. The team was in the third period and losing three to zero. Jonas stood behind the bench and shouted orders like a drill sergeant. Jessie was stoic and said very little. The tension between them was palpable, and the kids picked up on it. The parents around me were muttering. I couldn’t hear the words, but their tone was enough to know they weren’t happy.
The visiting team had a penalty, and Jessie turned to Jonas. “Let’s put Marnie on penalty kill. She’s great on the forecheck. Her ability to read the puck is exceptional, and she’s been working really hard.”
Jonas sneered and said something only she could hear. Jessie stiffened and stared straight ahead. I noted the penalty kill and first and second lines were all guys, yet the girls on the team had some mad skills, and I didn’t understand Jonas’s reasoning.
His stubbornness cost them another goal. By the set of Jessie’s jaw, I knew she was livid but struggled not to show her anger.
The game ended, and with heads down, the kids filed out of the rink. Boris waited for the coaches and blocked their exit. “Why wasn’t Marnie on the kill?” he roared.
Jonas stepped back, clearly intimidated by Marnie’s dad. “I wanted her on the kill, but Jessie insisted we go with the group that was out there.”
Jessie gaped at Jonas as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. I knew things hadn’t gone down that way. Jonas was a prick and favored the boys. That much was obvious. How Boris missed that, I didn’t know. Perhaps he figured he could control Jonas better than Jessie.
I slipped unseen off the bleachers and down the hallway. Jessie wouldn’t appreciate my getting involved in a public manner. I could’ve stepped up and confronted Jonas with the truth, but I already knew that wouldn’t end well for me or Jessie. Regardless, I fully intended to be a sounding board if she chose to confide in me, despite still being hurt by her words when I last saw her.
Once the team disappeared into the locker room, I waited outside the door. She wasn’t going to sneak by me, as she had several times lately. I texted Wild to let him know I’d give her a ride home. The condo was within walking distance, but it was dark, and, after all, I was an overprotective fake boyfriend.
As the kids began to file out, several of them recognized me and before I knew it, I was surrounded by teenagers vying for my autograph. I signed everything I could, keeping one eye on that door for fear she’d sneak past. She tried, but I extracted myself from the kids and fell into step beside her.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, hurrying her pace as if she could shake me.
“I watched your game. Well, the third period anyway.”
“You watched it?”
“Yeah. There were good parts.”
“I keep telling myself that.”
“How about dinner? My treat.”
Indecisiveness clouded her eyes for a moment before she responded. “I’m starving.” She smiled up at me, and my heart bumped in my chest, a warning I should’ve heeded, but I excused my reaction to her as needing sex, nothing more. As if I hadn’t been pining for her on that entire road trip, and not just her body, buther.
