Gavin

8

" F uck, Wylder. Take it easy on me, I'm old."

"You're ancient, but we both know you can take it," Cillian says, shoving me once more before skating away.

Tomorrow night is the home opening game of my last season, making today, officially, my final offseason practice. Technically, skate is over, but some of us stayed on the ice for a friendly scrimmage. Coach watches with an eagle eye from the other side of the boards, ensuring we don't get too carried away. The last thing we need is an injury before the season even starts.

This isn't how we usually blow off steam or jitters or excess energy, but our goalie, Blom, wanted more time on the ice today. Instead of handing him over to the trainers and coaches, we took it upon ourselves.

Things feel different this year, like we've found a new sense of solidarity in ourselves. Last season ended with some drama around our rookie's sexuality. The team rallied around him and we're better for it. We're a cohesive unit now, an actual team rather than a bunch of bucket heads who just happen to wear the same logo.

I steal the puck from Lehtinen and quickly glide down the ice, taking a shot on Blom. He blocks it and laughs like the maniac he is as I skate around the net. Goalies are weird as fuck, ours is no exception. But we all love the guy and he'd be the first to jump in and defend any of us. If all that padding didn't get in the way, anyhow.

We get another ten minutes before Coach Cole calls it, telling us all to get the fuck off the ice and enjoy our last night. But not too much.

Every player has different rituals and superstitions. Some won't have sex the day of a game, while others will. Some won't have it the day before, either. I played with one guy who wouldn't eat meat from season start to end. My quirks have never centered on sex or food. Though I do tap my stick twice on the ice every time I go into warmups. It's dumb, but I've done it since peewee hockey, so I'm not going to stop now.

I do like having someone in the stands on opening night. Whether it be a home or an away game, it connects me, knowing there is someone there for me . Tori will be here tomorrow, just as she was last season. But I wish another dark-haired woman would be sitting with her.

I fucked that up last night. Odette's cell phone had been sitting on the coffee table while we ate. While she didn't notice the text that came through, I saw it when the preview flashed on her screen. That stuffy dude from her party said he was excited to see her Friday night.

Should I have paid that much attention to it? Nah. But it was right fucking there. And because of that, I snarked at her, and she went even further into offensive mode.

Odette fucks with my head, but no more than I fuck with it myself. After her party, I got the idea that the universe was giving me a second chance. I'd planned on last night to be light and casual, then I was going to ask her to come to my game on Friday.

Instead, I acted like a twat and upset her. She wouldn't even exchange phone numbers with me. She's so stubborn, and fuck if that doesn't turn me upside down.

Last weekend, she was elegant and classy, taking care of her guests with a charming smile. Last night, she was more the Odette I remember, a little reserved, as if she couldn't read the situation. I made her nervous and she lost the shell she wears for everyone else.

That means something. I know it does, she can't deny it.

But I'm an idiot with no experience on how to charm any woman, let alone one like Odette Quinn. We aren't shithead teenagers anymore.

"What's up with you, Vaughn?" Fane asks.

"What do you mean?" I almost call him rookie, but he isn't that. This is Zander's second season and he more than proved himself worthy of the team last year. Kid has more guts than most and enough talent to back it up.

"You've looked like you need to take a shit all practice. You're very scowly."

"Scowly isn't a word," I say, laughing.

"Words weren't words until someone invented them," he says with a shrug. "I'm inventing this one, just for your face. What gives? Tori okay?"

"She's great." I sigh as I sit, unlacing my skates. "It's me, I'm the problem."

Blom starts singing from a few lockers over. Wylder throws a towel at him, trying to get him to shut up.

"What do you mean?" Zan takes the bench next to me, starting to strip out of his own gear.

"I don't know how to date," I finally admit to an uproar of laughter. "Fuck off, the lot of you. Especially you, Cillian, your history with women is downright abysmal."

"That's the fucking truth," Coach says as he walks through. Cillian is married to our coach's oldest daughter, but it was a rough history. Weirdly enough, Zander is in a relationship with his other daughter. I play with some brave-ass motherfuckers. Never in my life would I have dreamed of dating a coach's kid. But Cole is one-of-a-kind, for sure.

"Yeah, yeah," Cillian says. "I fixed it, though. Figured my shit out."

"How did you manage that, anyway? She didn't talk to you for, what? Five years?" I ask. Isla, his wife, broke up with him when she found out he was getting "friendly" with a psycho who used to work for the team that drafted him into the NHL. Still, she eventually forgave him. But they had years together before he fucked up, while I only had weeks with Odette. "Mine hasn't spoken to me in twenty."

"What the fuck, man?" Blom asks. "You been hung up on some bird since childhood?"

"Something like that." I nod. "She and I were together for a little while after Caroline and I broke up. Then my ex-wife found out she was pregnant."

"Dude," Zander says.

"Oh, shit," Cillian chimes in. "You broke it off with her and married Caroline?"

"Yeah," I confirm. "Caroline was giving up an education to keep the baby. I thought it was the right decision. I don't regret that."

"But you've been missing this other woman for all these years?" Zander asks.

"Fuck, I love a good love story where one is pining away for the other. You're like Jane Eyre or some shit," Lehtinen says.

"How the hell does a neanderthal like you know anything about Jane Eyre?" Blom asks him.

"I watch movies like the rest of you! I just don't stick to action and sci-fi. I like drama, too. I'm a sophisticated man." The whole locker room laughs at that.

"Pining might not be the right word. But I've thought about her a lot. She just moved to Seattle."

"She single?" Blom asks.

"Yeah, that's not really the problem. I mean, I think she might be dating some guy, but she just got here, so it's too new for that to be a concern."

"What's the issue then?" Zan asks. "She hate you?"

"Maybe not hate but strong dislike. Or distrust." Both, most likely. And I deserve that, but we're different people now, in different circumstances. I'm not the one who needs convincing of that, though, she is.

"You need to grovel," Lehtinen says.

"He shouldn't have to grovel for choosing his child," Cillian says, the dad in him taking over. "But you're definitely going to have to pull something swoony out of your ass."

"You're an NHL player, it shouldn't be that hard," Blom adds.

"You'd think that, but not with this woman. She's way more famous than me, man."

"Who is she?" Zander looks at me with renewed interest. All the guys do, but he's the one who asks the question.

"Odette Quinn. She's a big name in the fashion industry."

"Fuck off," Lehtinen says. "You know Odette Quinn?"

"How do you know her?" I ask, surprised. As well-known as she is, I didn't expect any of these guys to recognize her name.

"She's often a guest judge on that modeling show."

"Who are you?" Blom asks him, just as surprised as the rest of us that he watches model reality television.

"Hey, I'm the smart one in the room," he argues. "You all spend time watching men get sweaty and bloody, while I watch beautiful women. Dumb motherfuckers." Nobody has an argument for that. Letty is our class clown, our goon. He doesn't let you see much past that, but maybe the guy isn't quite what we all think.

"If you haven't talked to her in twenty years, how do you know you want a second chance?" Leave it to the youngest in the room, Zander, to be the wisest of us all.

"Saw her last weekend," I tell him. "Everything about her has changed but she still felt so familiar. Like, I remembered how she smelled, and it felt like coming home. Brought dinner to her house last night and the chemistry is still there, even though she fights it."

"If she is already letting you bring dinner over, then what are you worried about?" Cillian asks.

"She didn't let me, per se."

"Dude's taking the heavy-handed approach," Blom says, laughing.

"Sometimes that's all you can do," Cillian says. He'd probably know. From what I know of his situation with Isla, she, too, was reluctant to give him the time of day. But he shared more than a sordid past with her—they also shared a child.

That's something I need to be careful of, too. I don't want to complicate anything for Tori and her mentor.

"You want my help, buddy? I'd be more than happy to go to her house and put in a good word for you."

"You can stay the fuck away from her, Letty."

"Hey, man, just offering help," he says, holding his hands out in innocence. All while wearing the biggest shit-eating grin I've ever seen.

"No, man. I'll go. All the ladies love goalies," Blom chimes in.

"Lies," several of the guys say in unison.

"She didn't kick you out when you showed up with food?" Zander asks, bringing us back to the topic at hand. I should have known better than to bring this up with all the chuckleheads, but honestly, I don't really have anyone else to go to. I could call Caroline, but I've purposely been trying to keep boundaries there.

I still think of her as my best friend, but if we're going to move on, we can't be the first person either of us run to. That won't work for future relationships.

"No, but I think I just caught her when she was hungry."

"Doesn't matter, she let you stay," Cillian says. "That's something. If she hated you, she'd have at least made you leave."

"Or called the cops on you. That's what I'd have done if it was me," Blom adds with a wink.

"Ah, thanks, buddy. Love you, too."

"I could give you the same advice these meatheads gave me when Isla was consuming me. Grand fucking gestures."

"Is that what worked with Isla?"

"Nah, that's not really her thing. I chipped away at her by constantly putting myself in her way and making sure she could see I wasn't the same dumbfuck she'd dumped all those years before," Cillian says. "If you broke her heart, she's scared you'll do it again."

We played a great game. The fans will be more excited for the rest of the season because of it. It felt great to be back on the ice in competition.

So why am I at home alone, acting like a sad sack of shit?

Because I sent two tickets for the game to Odette's house, only for her to give them to her friends, Vanessa and George. They told Tori that Odette was on a date and didn't want the tickets to go to waste.

A date.

A motherfucking date.

With another guy.

I showered at the arena, but I strip down again anyway, stepping into the steam and letting the hot water work at the internal tension. She's fucking with me. Not intentionally, but she is all the same.

It's not different than when we were young, and I'd steal looks at her every chance I got. There were so many days when I thought I should be with her instead of Caroline. High school pressure and expectations from our families got in the way. Everyone saw us as the "it couple" and we went with it. But it was Odette I fantasized about.

My mind plays back that night at her house, her standing at her sink in that flowy short dress. I tried not to be obvious in my ogling then, but now, I can appreciate her long legs. Toned with just a hint of sun-kissed glow. She was barefoot, toes painted a shade that matched her dress. Her hair pulled up in some intricate knot.

If things had been different, I'd have tangled my fingers in it and pulled it loose to flow down her back. Then I'd have slowly pulled her dress up and panties down with a soft touch that would drive her crazy, to keep her on the edge between titillating and tickling.

She'd have leaned in with her ass, bowing her back as she gripped the sink and widened her legs to give me the access I'd need to bury my face in her cunt and lay out every apology there.

I'd have made her come the first time like that. The same way I made her come for the first time when we were younger.

Fuck, I remember everything about her then. I remember more about her than I do most parts of my own life. How she tasted, how she sighed in pleasure, and groaned in release. How I always left her trembling and out of breath. So bold and unashamed with sex, even then.

I would have turned her around then, lifted her onto the counter to fuck her face-to-face. Eye to eye, equals in our need for each other. I'd have ripped that flowery dress right off her, had her bare before me when I thrust in the first time. She'd have pulled at my hair to keep my face close, her heels digging in to my ass as she wrapped them tightly around me.

My hand tries to imitate the pressure of her pussy, but it can't, so I dive deeper into my made-up vision. Odette's head thrown back, her neck there for me to nibble and suck. Fuck, I'd sink my teeth in as deep as my cock, pinning her to me.

We'd have come together, her name on my lips and only mine on hers.

I come in my hand at the thought of her stuffy, professor boyfriend watching as I make her come harder than he ever fucking could.