“Sorry?”
“Inside this building, you can only call us the Bruisers.” O’Doul winked. “See? I can say it easily now. Took me a year to break the habit. I mean—Kattenberger is a bit of a whack job on this particular point. It’s like a Voldemort thing. The Team That Shall Not Be Named. But since the boss man paid his left nut for the franchise and changed the name, he can do it his way. If you want to avoid his wrath, you never say that old name.”
“Um, thanks?”
The captain had an evil grin. “I know it’s weird. I still have all the old pennants in a box somewhere. If Kattenberger knew, he’d probably send one of his ninja minions to my apartment to have ’em incinerated. Where else you play hockey?”
“Drafted by Detroit. Sent down to Muskegon’s AHL team for two seasons. Harkness College before that.”
O’Doul’s expression chilled. “Aw, an Ivy League boy. That’s cute.”
Somebody has a chip on his shoulder. Looking for a change of topic, Leo nodded at O’Doul’s purple rep stripes. “Did the owner choose the new color, too?”
O’Doul tugged on his tie. “You betcha. Him and a bunch of million dollar marketing gurus. We call it indigo, ’cause that sounds better than purple.”
Leo laughed. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Stick with me, kid. Might want to grab yourself a bottle of water. If you’re the new guy, they might make you say a few words at the press conference. Publicist will let you know. Though maybe they won’t get around to it, because the whole coach thing is a pretty big story.”
Ugh. “No kidding.”
“The last guy got fired—what—a year and a half ago, now? Kattenberger had to do it. The guy was a good coach, but you don’t trash-talk the new owner like that. Then an interim coach got cancer. So now it’s on to Worthington. He’s another Long Island guy. Could be worse, right?”
No, actually. It could not be worse, even if the coach was his dead aunt Maria Theresa. “Where did you say that water was?”
He pointed to the corner. “Espresso machine is over there, too, if that’s your thing.”
“Thanks.” Leo made his way over to the corner, stopping every few feet as the guys reached out to shake his hand.
“Thanks,” he said a half dozen times. “Great to be here.” But he probably wasn’t all that convincing. Wait until they watched a snarling Coach Karl ship his ass back to Michigan. That would be a fun moment. They’d all be wondering what the hell he did to piss off Coach.
Leo would be wondering, too.
Once upon a time, he and Coach Worthington were tight. Karl had been a college coach then, but he’d done some development work with Leo’s high school team. The man had taught him a lot, and had always had time for Leo.
At the same time, Leo was dating his daughter, Georgia. There are some dads who hate their little girl’s boyfriend on principle. But Coach Karl hadn’t seemed like that sort of dad. And anyway, Leo had treated Georgia like a queen until the day she’d broken his heart. When Leo looked back on high school, loving Georgia was actually the one thing in his life he knew he’d done right. Maybe he wasn’t as good a big brother to his siblings as he should have been. And maybe he was a pain in the ass to his teachers. But Leo had been really good to Georgia Worthington, from the moment he asked her to the homecoming dance their sophomore year until the day of high school graduation, when she cut him loose.
It wasn’t quite as simple as puppy love running its course, though. A few months before graduation, something terrible had happened to Georgia, and Leo wasn’t around to stop it. The last part of their senior year, they’d both suffered. And sometime during those dark days, Coach Worthington stopped approving of Leo. At the time, Leo had been too worried about Georgia to wonder much about her father’s change of heart. His disapproval meant nothing to Leo—there’d been only Georgia and her pain. He’d stuck by her side, loyal to the very end.
Goddamn it, he was good to her. Then she’d pushed him away.
And now Leo was standing in front of a glass refrigerator full to the top with water and Gatorade, his fists clenched, upset all over again by the anguish he’d tried to put aside for the last six years.
“Just open ’er up and take one,” a voice said beside him. “Anytime you need.”
“Thanks,” he said gruffly. He realized he’d been staring at the row of bottles as if they’d provide the secrets of the universe. He yanked open the door and snagged a bottle of water.
“I’m Silas Kelly,” the guy beside him said, thrusting out a meaty hand. “Backup goalie.”
Leo shook. “Good to meet you. How long you been a Bruiser?” God, that sounded ridiculous.
Silas grinned. “This is my rookie year. Spent some time in Ontario on an ECHL team. Got traded in September.”
“Cool.”
“I’ve played four games. Hoping the new coach is a fan so I can get off the bench a little more often.”
The backup goalie job wasn’t an easy one. “I hear you,” Leo said. “Gotta say, if Coach Karl likes you, that’ll make one of us.”
He laughed, and it was big and loud. “Really? You two have history?”
“We have a little.” Even if I’m not quite sure what it is.
“How’d you get called up, then?”
Leo shook his head. “No clue.”
The door to the room banged open. “Gentlemen,” said a female voice.
He turned toward the doorway, his fingers freezing midtwist on the cap of the water bottle as he stared at the girl in the doorway. No—scratch that. At the woman in the doorway. His chest seized, because Jesus Christ. Georgia was even more beautiful than she had been six years ago.
She addressed the team. He thought so, anyway. But he didn’t hear a word she said, because he was too busy cataloging everything that was familiar about her. Adulthood had thinned her face a little, revealing cheekbones so shapely that they might have starred on the cover of a magazine. His ex had always been a pretty girl, but now she was stunning. Her blond hair had darkened somewhat, but it was still shot through with golden streaks. He knew exactly how silky it would feel under his hand if he brushed it away from her face.
There were unfamiliar parts to this picture, too—her stern expression, for one. He’d always hoped that Georgia had gone on to find her smile again, even if he wasn’t the lucky recipient. But he didn’t see any evidence of smiling now. And she was all dressed up in a suit and filmy blouse. And heels. His Georgia never wore stilts like that. They made her legs look a mile long. They were killer. But they weren’t her.
“. . . We’ll begin in fifteen minutes. Coach Worthington will thank Mr. Kattenberger for the opportunity to lead the team, and he’ll say a few words about how excited he is to work with all of you. All most of you have to do is sit up straight and clap. Any questions?”
His brain was still playing catch-up. If Georgia was talking about the press conference, she must work for the team. An assistant? A publicist?
O’Doul raised his hand, a goofy smile on his face.
“What is it, captain?” Georgia asked with an edge of impatience in her voice.
“Is it a coincidence that our new coach has the same last name as you?”
“Yes and no,” she said, eyes on her clipboard. “It is a coincidence that we both work for the same team. But we have the same name because Coach Worthington is my father.”
O’Doul grinned. “Thanks for clearing that up, babe. Is he pretty, too?”
Her expression darkened. “You can decide for yourself, Mr. O’Doul,” she said coolly. “And you’ll have a good view, because I need you sitting on the dais up front. After Coach Worthington gives his remarks, you’ll say a few words of welcome. I’ve drafted something for you here.” She flipped to another page on her clipboard and extracted a sheet of paper, handing it to him. She actually had to lean down a
bit, because her shoes made her so much taller than usual.
Leo was openly staring now, but he couldn’t help it. She looked both the same and different. Her legs, always shapely from playing tennis all her life, looked ten miles long in those heels. But there was something about her that was . . . harder. She seemed more brittle than he remembered.
She hadn’t looked at him yet, either. Did she even know he was here?
“Do I have to say this exactly as it’s written?” O’Doul asked, skimming the page.
“No, as long as you sound warm and articulate.”
“Just like I am every day.” He chuckled. “Fine. What else?”
“One more thing.” She cleared her throat and shifted her weight. “I need you to welcome a new player after you welcome your coach.” Georgia dropped her eyes to the page in front of her again. As if she needed notes to get Leo’s name right. “Mr. Leonardo Trevi, rookie forward, formerly of the Muskegon Muskrats. Traded from Detroit to Brooklyn for a second round draft pick this spring.”
“Got it,” O’Doul said.
Leo saw Georgia gather herself together. She took a deep breath and looked straight at him, as if she’d known exactly where he was the whole time. They locked eyes for a nanosecond before she blinked and broke off their staring contest. “Why aren’t you wearing a purple tie?” she demanded.
After six years, that’s what she wanted to say first? Her terseness took Leo by surprise, delaying his answer by a beat. “Sorry. Didn’t own one. Muskrats don’t wear purple ties.” He smiled at her, hoping to put her at ease. I know this is weird, Gigi. But we can survive it.
But, damn it, her face shut down even more. “Someone trade with him,” she snapped, looking down at the watch on her smooth wrist. And, hell, he knew that watch. He’d bought it for her with nearly all his savings. It had been a graduation present. He’d stood in Saks Fifth Avenue for a long time trying to figure out which was the most beautiful. He’d been so desperate to make her smile that spring. He would have done anything. Given her anything.
It hadn’t worked.
“Two minutes,” Georgia said, her voice gruff. “I want you to file into the press conference in exactly two minutes. Your seats are reserved in the two front rows. Do not take any questions on your way in. We’ll start the conference the moment you’re seated.” Then she turned around and strode out of the room in those unlikely shoes.
“Dibs on giving the rookie my purple tie!” Silas yelled. “I called it.”
Leo watched Georgia disappear. And then he took off his perfectly good green silk tie and took Silas’s ugly one.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to everyone on the Penguin team! I’m so lucky to have met you all. Patricia Nelson at Marsal Lyon, you’re the best. And thank you to Bella Love for your assistance with the medical aspects of this story.
Sarina Bowen is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance, including the Brooklyn Bruisers series, the Ivy Years series, and the Gravity series. She lives in Vermont’s Green Mountains with her family, six chickens, and too much ski gear and hockey equipment. Visit her online at sarinabowen.com, facebook.com/authorsarinabowen, and twitter.com/SarinaBowen.
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