Chapter 25

Jack pulledup to Monahan"s house fifteen minutes late. He had no excuse. It was Sunday, and he had nothing to do all morning, but it"d taken him an hour to drag himself out of bed and into the shower.

The past three days had been a whirlwind. After his goal and assist on Thursday night against the Sharks, the press "opportunities" were relentless. It had only been doable to meet Lisa"s expectations in that regard because of the team at Big Rick. After the game, they'd insisted Jack take his remaining PTO as part of his two weeks notice. He"d gotten a little choked up when Ben"s text came through.

This is bigger than Big Rick.

Remember I didn"t chap your ass about your lost receipts for that Vancouver trip when you"re a regular on the roster

He was done. Paid for the time off. And jobless after the playoffs if he didn"t get an addendum to his contract. Adrenaline poured into his veins every time he remembered that fact.

Since Delia was slammed finishing her recording with that TikToker so she could come to Edmonton, Jack had leaned in to everything Blizzard. He"d done the media appearances, eaten at the rink and hit the gym with the team. He was finally starting to feel like he belonged, and it couldn"t have come at a better time.

Still, he couldn't stop thinking about her. About her voice before the game. About the way she'd run down the stairs and kissed him. Ever since that night in her bedroom, the energy between them had shifted. He knew they had a contract, but it didn't seem relevant in the least. He wanted to see her. Based on the fact that she'd accepted his non-contractually obligated invitation to Edmonton, he thought maybe she felt the same.

Jack stepped out onto the sidewalk. The sun peeked over the Rockies, painting the sky in shades of pink and orange behind the brick facade of Monahan"s house. He couldn"t help but compare his own guest bedroom situation as he walked up the wide concrete steps.

His heart beat with anticipation. Not for the movie night, but for Monday night. After the game. When Delia would be waiting for him, and?—

"Hey," a voice called out behind him. Jack turned to see Liam loping up the walkway. He was a mess. His shirt askew, boxers hanging out of the top of his jeans, his hair wild beneath a beat up Maple Leafs cap and the same dark circles under his eyes.

The coaches were pushing Liam hard, trying to "draw out his potential," but so far his performance was on a decline. Monahan reamed him out between second and third, and he hadn"t gotten a single shift the rest of the night.

Nobody talked about it. Mostly because Liam had changed and pitter-pattered before Jack had even dried off from his shower.

"Hey." Jack grabbed his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. "Didn"t think I"d see you here."

Liam stepped back and looked at his feet. "Yeah."

"Wait, did they tell you it was porn?"

Liam chuckled, but the joke tasted bitter on Jack's tongue, considering. Just that morning he"d found and reported ten more clips of Delia that had popped up overnight. I can't make sex tape jokes anymore. Jack almost grinned. He turned toward the door, then thought twice.

He turned back to find Liam was staring at his hands, tapping his foot on the concrete. "Are we going to talk about it?" Jack asked.

Liam's right hand shook as he slid it into his pocket. "Talk about what?"

"You know what."

Liam's eyes flashed. "I don't have anything to?—"

"Don't give me that, MacDonald. I'd love to tell you this is the last time I'm going to ask you what the hell you"re taking before and after games, but that's not the truth. You're shitting all over this opportunity, and I doubt it's on purpose. I'm trying to help you."

Liam clenched his jaw. He seemed like he was about to boil over. Then his face twisted as he drew a sharp breath.

Jack took a step closer. "Pills?" Liam nodded. "Fent?"

"No. I get the real stuff. I was too scared to fail testing."

Jack exhaled. If he was getting it from a pharmacy, he was definitely stealing from someone. Probably someone close to him. He wished he'd paid more attention to Liam's situation. "Well at least you"re not a dummy." Jack ran a hand through his hair. "Have you told the coaches?"

Liam swore under his breath. "No, and if you?—"

"I"m not going to nark, but the NHL has resources."

Liam shook his head. "I don"t want them to know. It"ll brand me."

Jack didn"t argue with him. Not because he thought it was true, but because he didn't think he could convince him it wasn't. "I"ve got a friend you can reach out to. He"s in recovery. Good guy, plays Elite League."

Liam nodded, blinking like he had a piece of dust in his eye.

"If you"re ready, he"ll help you get healthy."

Liam looked up with red-rimmed eyes. His throat worked, but he didn't say anything. They stood there on the step, the Sunday afternoon sunshine warming their faces. Jack thought about Kreviasuk getting in Liam's face. Coach Novak pointedly leaving his name out of the praise he'd given after the game. Monahan laying into him. His lack of shifts.

His stomach twisted. Liam using prescription meds was shooting himself in the foot, but nobody latched themselves to a sinking ship when they thought they could swim. "I'm going to talk to the coaches."

"Shit, Jack?—"

"Not about the pills. About their coaching strategy. The way they're handling this isn't helping. You need more opportunities, not less. I'm telling you now so you can get your head out of your rear and take this seriously."

Liam sucked in a breath. "You'll send me your friend's number."

"Right. You better be in contact with him in an hour or less."

He nodded. "I will."

Jack pulled out his phone and searched up Brett's number. "Nobody can make this happen for you, but you better believe I'll be crawling up your ass if Brett tells me you're ghosting him."

Liam breathed a laugh. "Got it."

Jack sent the text with Brett's number, but before he could say anything else, the front door flew open behind him. "Hey! Look who the cat dragged in!" Monahan greeted Jack and Liam, then ushered them into an airy foyer with gleaming wood floors and walls the colour of Caribbean sand.

They walked through a spacious living area to a kitchen three times the size of Clara"s with an island filled with platters of gourmet sandwiches and charcuterie. And a sushi station. Jack was suddenly twelve years old tagging along with his parents to a cocktail party.

Nils pushed his blond hair out of his eyes as he reached for a cornichon. "Mr. Popular has arrived. Now the party starts, eh?"

Jack shrugged. "I can"t help it if everyone wants a piece of me." Two weeks ago that comment would"ve cut, but he"d been on the scoresheet Thursday and spent the last two days with these guys. They"d already gotten the digs about him and Delia out of their system. Nobody had heard anything about Beefus. The rumours about free agents had gone underground. Jack didn't know if that was because the team valued him or if the other shoe was about to drop.

They knew he was a publicity hire. Had his goal not gone viral, he wouldn't have even been on Alex's radar. Jack never pretended to be anything he wasn"t, and that was enough for the boys to let him in. Nathan never pretended his knees didn"t hurt. Gaudreau didn"t pretend he wasn"t an asshole. Nils never pretended to enjoy brie more than larb.

Jack glanced at Liam grabbing a beer from the fridge. Now they had one more player that was willing to show his face. He hoped to hell he hadn"t taken anything that morning, but knew the odds weren"t in his favour. He needed to text Brett ASAP.

"I saw a stat this morning I thought you might like." Tkachuk put two pieces of sushi in his mouth and chewed.

Jack reached for a plate. "If this goes back to you being pissed Iginla didn"t make the top one hundred?—"

"No. Better." He swallowed, the lump visible as it travelled down his throat. "Thursday you took seven more shots, made an assist, and spent five more minutes of penalty time than usual."

"And?" Jack selected a roast beef sandwich and a handful of All Dressed chips.

"Better stats than your other appearances. More hotheaded. Some people say it"s because Delia was in the stands."

"Well, no shit." Jack grinned, and Tkachuk laughed, showing off his missing incisor. He added more food to his plate. Had her appearance at the game really impacted his play that much? A little disconcerting. His pulse sped as he took a bite of a sandwich.

Tomorrow.The word slammed on repeat in his head. He would see Delia after the game, and then . . . what? He reminded himself of all the clues that led to him believing she was on the same page as him. She reached out when she didn"t have to. She kissed him when no cameras were looking. She"d said yes to Edmonton. This had to be more than the contract for her now, too.

Shame and confusion washed over him as he made his way down the buffet line. What would Angie think of this? Him standing with his teammates parsing out signals from a girl he"d agreed to have a fake relationship with. He"d signed a contract. Touched her, kissed her in public to advance his career. To solidify a spot on an NHL team that may not even be interested in him come June. And now he'd gone and wanted more.

"Grab a second plate if you need to! Show starts in five," Monahan called out from the stairs.

Jack reached for a beer sitting in a tub of ice at the end of the counter. "Is anyone going to fess up and name the movie we"re watching?" he asked Nathan and Chris Lindholm, who were both leaning against the double fridge.

Chris grinned. "They didn"t fill you in?" Jack shook his head. "We"re making our way through the best worst movies of all time."

Jack shook his head. "Of course you are. If this is Return to Blue Lagoon, I'm out."

"Tonight"s Wagon"s East." Nathan pushed off the fridge and reached for another plate. The crowd in the kitchen started to thin as the guys followed Monahan down the stairs at the other end of the room.

"I haven"t seen it." Jack knew what it was. A western that was undeniably terrible, but Canadians were forced to love it because it was John Candy"s last appearance on film.

"Don"t expect a quiet viewing experience." Chris laughed.

Jack took his food and drink and followed the others down to the basement. There was a pool table, air hockey, foosball, and an indoor lap pool behind a wall of glass windows. At the end of the massive room, they walked through a doorway into a home theater with tiered seating.

Not bad. He couldn't help himself imagining a world where he had a house like that, and the thought made his stomach churn. He was starting to want too much. To hope for too much.

Jack chose a leather recliner next to Nils. He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick email with a meeting request to Coach Novak and Kreviasuk. Keep your skates laced and your mouth zipped. That had been his strategy. It turned out, he was only good at one of those things.

"Just a warning, I"m not Canadian, so my commentary might be brutal." Nils crunched on a handful of chips next to him.

Brutal was just what he was in the mood for.

_____

Jack

Hey. Just checked in

Delia

Is the hotel nice?

It"s a Marriott. I had chocolate strawberries waiting for me on the dresser

Well aren"t you fancy. Did you pour champagne and eat them in the tub?

All alone

I bet Monahan would"ve joined you

No, I have a no sex contract with him, too

Delia stared at the last text message she'd received from Jack the night before, her heart pumping faster than it should at eight o"clock in the morning. He'd sent it after the team's flight up to Edmonton, and she had yet to respond.

Sex. That was the only word in his sentence her brain had cared about for the past ten hours. Sex, sex, sex.

She'd pretended she was asleep so she couldn't respond with something she'd regret. The morning brought back her filter, but hadn't done anything to dull her fixation.

So sorry, I was exhausted last night. Mary and I are almost on our way. Don"t break legs today!

There. Informational. Practical. Not obviously linked to the fact that all night she"d been thinking of sex or no sex with Jack in a soaking tub with champagne and strawberries. She groaned and tossed her phone on the bed, then threw another pair of pants into her suitcase. It would"ve been helpful to know exactly how long they were going to be in Edmonton, but she and Mary hadn"t gotten that far. Did she want to stay for both of the games or just one? Could she afford to stay most of the week?

She"d gotten the rest of her recording done with Ethan, but who knew what would come up during mastering. She wanted this song to release on schedule. With all the press and her streaming numbers shooting through the roof, a new release plus a collab would hopefully cast her net even wider. Especially since Ethan was fishing in a completely different pond.

She needed to start posting more consistently. Posting with Jack had more than doubled her following, but she didn"t want people to watch purely because of her relationship. She wanted them there because they loved her music. But . . . that would require her doing what she"d done in the first place. Share pieces of songs in progress. Her own music. Her own lyrics. All of which, IndieLake wasn"t a fan of.

Becoming "IndieLake Delia" online after she'd built an authentic account was proving difficult. It felt forced to plug the songs from her new album since she hadn"t written any of them. Getting in front of her phone with her guitar had never given her anxiety before she signed, but now, she"d do dishes or scrub toilets to avoid it. It was strange that she didn"t feel the same level of dread for a live show. None of it made sense. How could being in person feel less intimate than posting a stupid video?

"Hey, you ready?" Mary leaned into her room, suitcase handle in hand.

Delia chewed on her lower lip. "Almost. Do you think we"ll do anything fancy? Should I bring a dress?"

"There will be after-parties, right?"

"I know, I"m just not sure about the dress code." Delia stared at the pile of clothes still splayed out on her comforter.

"I don"t think it matters."

Pressure built in Delia"s chest. She knew it didn"t matter. Logically. But her mind couldn"t let go of the idea that she"d end up going out with Jack in a socially unacceptable outfit. Why did it matter so much? There had already been pictures of her sporting no makeup and joggers splashed across every media outlet in the country.

But something had changed since that video was posted. She needed to prove that she was fine. Better than fine. She wanted the whole country to know that she wasn"t mildly obsessed with hunting down every last clip and reporting it. That she was living her normal life with her hot, hockey player boyfriend, and things had never been better.

"I can"t decide, Mare!" Delia stomped into the washroom and brushed her teeth, then dried the bristles on her brush and tossed it and her toothpaste into the top of her toiletry bag. When she stalked back out, her suitcase was closed.

"I finished it for you."

"What did you?—"

"You"ll like it, c"mon." Mary wheeled both their bags out the door. Delia grabbed her coat and purse and ran after her, making sure her friend didn"t have to carry both suitcases down the stairs.

Mary was first out the door, and she nearly tripped over a box that sat smack dab in the middle of the door mat. "What the hell? Did you order something?"

Delia shook her head. She rolled her bag next to the shoe rack and grabbed the box, searching for sender information. Nothing. No address, no stamps. Just her name. For Delia. "It looks like it was just left here."

"Don"t open it." Mary dragged her bag to the car waiting at the curb. It didn"t look like there were cameras that morning, thank the heavens. Mary returned with Alvin a moment later.

He pulled out a box cutter on his key ring. "Step back."

Delia moved back into the house. Alvin waited until Mary was next to her, then took the box down to the sidewalk. He sliced the tape and opened it, then frowned as he reached in and pulled out?—

"Oh my—" Delia ran forward as Alvin held up a gorgeous, oyster coloured snowboarding coat with gun-metal zipper pulls. Before she could put her hands on it, she spotted a piece of folded paper on the cement by Alvin"s feet and picked it up.

Thought you could use a new memory with Big Rick. Hope it"s not too big.

- Jack