Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4) (13 page)

“But it feels fine,” I argue to the trainers and the team doctor. The doctor gives me a skeptical look. I shrug. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt any more than it usually does. I’ve played with worse pain.”

“The point is, it doesn’t hurt less,” the doctor points out. “We’ve been taping it and icing it and you’ve been doing therapy treatments and it’s not getting better. So this is plan B.”

“Benching me in the last regular season game of the year? With a tribute to the team’s most iconic player?” I snarl like a petulant child. “That’s plan B?”

“Yep. And a brace.” I cringe. “I’m sorry, Sebastian.”

I look past the trainers to Coach. He gives me a smile that I’m sure he thinks is encouraging, but it comes off as more of a grimace. “We warned you that you were a game-time decision.”

“
Je sais
,” I mutter in French. “I know.”

“But take the skate. Be out there for the tribute since you’re the reason he’s losing his scoring record,” Coach relents. “Then get your ass up to the box, okay?”

I nod sharply because I don’t have any fucking choice. And really, he’s letting me be out there for a big team moment so at least that’s something. But fuck, I want to play. We’re playing the Barons, and I love getting under Devin Garrison’s skin out there on the ice. Jordan’s brother has an unspoken grudge against me, which is stupid because he got the girl. But Devin can’t forget that Callie once flirted with the idea of being with me. Well, I honestly don’t think she ever seriously entertained the thought. By the end of the night I knew it and she knew it. But at the time he wasn’t clued in to the fact that she was already his, so he hates me. I enjoy that extra rush I get by having to try harder because one of the best players in the league is out there to show me up. And now I’m not even playing.

I leave the training room and return to the locker room to grab my stick and put on my skates. I drop down between Westwood and Garrison and shove a foot into a skate. Jordan runs a hand through his hair and gives me a tentative smile. “In or out?”

“Out. But I’m lacing up anyway,” I mutter.

“Great. Now I’m going to be Devin’s only target out there.” Jordan groans. “So are they doing surgery? How long are you out for?”

“They haven’t used the S word yet,” I reply and stand. “Just giving it some real time off first to see if it gets stronger.”

Jordan gives me a real, sympathetic smile as he stands. “I’m sorry, Seb. I went through this bullshit too. I know how hard it is not to play.”

Avery stands and starts for the door. We follow, grabbing our sticks from the equipment manager as we exit. As we wait in the tunnel, I see a group of people in street clothes at the end, near the door we use to hit the ice. Five people, two males in suits facing me and three females with their backs to me. They’re all in shadows, but I still recognize Trey, and the man standing beside him is Glenn Beckford, the legend himself. Standing side by side I realize they look incredibly similar. And the pieces fall in place like cinder blocks crashing heavily, one by one, in my brain. Trey is Glenn Beckford’s son, which obviously means…

I have that weird feeling, like the ground just shifted or I just lost a skate edge on the ice. My insides somersault. I push past Jordy and grab Avery by the shoulder just as the lights dim and one of the staff starts opening the panel that leads to the ice and do what she told me to do the other night in my car. “Is Trey’s last name Beckford?”

Avery blinks at me, confused. “Yeah. I didn’t mention that?”

I should have asked Avery sooner, but I was trying to push her from my mind and I was distracted by this damn wrist injury. I’m totally embarrassed and slightly horrified by the fact that I could tell you Shay has a beauty mark on the inside of her left thigh, but up until two seconds ago I hadn’t even thought to ask her what her last name was. The revelation that Shayne and I are doing this whole relationship as screwed-up and backward as humanly possible feels like a slap to the face.

The announcer’s voice booms over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen…” Avery moves to the front, just behind Chooch, who always leads us onto the ice, and we all march along behind him. “Your Seattle Winterhawks!”

I’m in front of Garrison now, behind Dixon, as we file past Glenn Beckford, who is beaming at us. My teammates all reach out and tap their gloved hands on his shoulder or against his outreached hand as they pass. A spotlight from above comes down and aims it on Glenn to show the fans the moment. I know it must be on the Jumbotron because the roar is deafening. My eyes are on the back of the long-haired brunette who, as soon as the spotlight hits them, takes a step back and turns away from her father and comes face-to-face with me. Our eyes lock.

“Hello, Miss
Beckford
,” I whisper as I pass. She just stands there and stares at me, looking almost sad.

I pass her and smile at Trey as I gently tap my glove on Mr. Beckford’s shoulder. He smiles at me. My skates hit the ice and I glide across it to the other end. I find a loose puck, skate over to Chooch in the net, and release a light slapper. A sharp, quick bolt of pain sizzles up my wrist. Fuck.

Still I skate around, passing the puck to my teammates, gliding by the centerline and making eye contact with Devin Garrison, who levels me with a venomous scowl. My eyes keep drifting back to the corner glass, by the door we enter from, where the Beckford family is still standing, watching warmups. Glenn is talking animatedly. Trey is smiling almost forlornly. A pretty pregnant woman who must be his wife is holding his hand. The woman I can only assume is their mom, because she’s got Shay’s nose and wide mouth, is beaming as our PR manager talks to her. Shay is kind of off by herself, a few feet from her family. Her lips are a glossy peachy-pink and her eyelids shimmer. She looks fucking edible even with the unhappy look on her face.

I’m so confused. Why wouldn’t she tell me she was the daughter of a hockey legend? And why would the daughter of a hockey great hate the sport that made her father an icon?

I can’t help myself, and I skate along the boards behind Chooch’s goal and glide right by the glass where she’s standing. I’m flush with it and when our eyes connect, I wink. I look back over my shoulder after I’ve passed. She’s staring after me; her cheeks are pink and she’s got a faint smile playing on her lips.

Yeah…this isn’t as over as I thought it was. Not yet.

The ceremony is shorter than I thought it would be, which is a blessing. But they show a video—a montage of the great Glenn Beckford on and off the ice. It’s filled with a lot of fights and goals and the locker room after they won the Cup for the first time thanks to my dad’s goal in overtime of game seven. All of that is painless to watch. But it’s interspersed with images of our family, which my mom must have supplied. My dad trying to teach me to skate when I was four, my dad on the ice with Trey when he was seven. All of us gathered around the Stanley Cup at a party in our backyard. My dad’s not looking at the camera. His arms are around me and my mom, but his eyes were looking left, at the wife of a teammate he was screwing. I know because later that night, I walked in on them half naked in the upstairs master bathroom.

When the picture flashes up on the screen, my mother reaches over and takes my dad’s hand, and I want to burst out laughing. I told her, in tears, what I’d discovered and she told me, with no emotion at all except annoyance, to calm down and pull myself together. Now was not the time or the place. I heard them screaming at each other later that night and fully expected my mom to tell Trey and me we were leaving him, but she never did. My father, for his part, apologized for what I saw and promised he would never do it again. He meant the fucking in our bathroom part, not the fucking other women who were not my mom part. My family is a joke. My dad is a joke, and this whole ceremony is a joke.

My expression must reflect my feelings because Trey takes a small step closer and leans into me. “Shaynie, rein it in. You look homicidal.”

I blink and force my face to relax and look indifferent. It’s all I can do. Happy or even serene are unreachable emotions right now. I really don’t want to watch the rest of this, so I decide to look for something else to focus on. And that’s when I find him—Frenchie—staring at me from his position lined up with his teammates in front of the team’s bench. Those insanely blue eyes are focused on me, and when I meet them with my own he smirks his sexy smirk, and a wave of heat rolls through me and settles between my legs. But more than just sexual attraction, I feel calmer when I look at him.

Finally the video stops and they darken the lights and I can’t see Sebastian anymore. Then a spotlight focuses on the jersey, the one with my dad’s name and his old number, that they have strung up at the end of the ice, and they start to raise it with some ridiculously dramatic music. Trey is standing stoically beside me, his face passive. My dad has got his chest puffed out proudly and he’s smiling. My mom is fucking beaming and wiping at her watery eyes. Of course she is. Riding the coattails, or skate blades, of her husband’s success is all she’s ever had. It’s all she gets out of this marriage, and once again I feel a surge of willpower. I will not end up like her.

Now the speech part. My dad gets up there, and I focus back on Sebastian because the lights are on again. He’s still staring back at me, same smirk, same intensity in his eyes. And the same two feelings wash over me. Lust and peace. Or maybe it’s euphoria—some weird post-orgasmic flashback or something. Whatever it is, I’m just grateful it dissipates the anger and frustration that are clawing my insides and making me want to run from the arena screaming.

I change into the light gray suit and purple tie I came to the arena in and make my way up in the elevator to the team-owned boxes. There are two, one for management and one for VIPs. Usually the players sit with the management and watch the game from their box, but there’s no rule that we can’t mingle with the VIPs, and so I pass the management box and head to the one next door. I would definitely prefer mingling with a certain VIP tonight.

The box is filled with people. Shay is in the corner leaning against the wall looking at her watch, not the game, with a white wine in her hand. Her father is at the buffet table set up near the back, and his face lights up when he sees me enter.

“Sebastian Deveau!” He booms my name, and everyone looks over. He marches right over to me but I keep my eyes glued to Shayne, who is staring right back. “The Winterhawks’ best defenseman since me. Why aren’t you on the ice?”

“Minor wrist injury,” I admit quietly, and he looks at my brace while I shake his hand. “I’m sitting this one out, so I thought I’d come say congratulations.”

“Thanks, kid,” Glenn beams. Shayne rolls her eyes. I try not to smile at that. “Have a seat, stay a while. Let me introduce you to my family.”

I nod and he walks me over to Trey with an arm around my shoulders. I smile at Trey. “We’ve met. I actually go to his fitness center, and Jordan Garrison’s fiancée works there.”

He looks shocked at that. “A hockey player’s wife works? That’s a first.”

He laughs at his own joke, oblivious to the fact that no one else is laughing. Trey smiles at me, almost like an apology. “Hey, Seb. Good seeing you. This is my wife, Sasha.”

The pretty blonde shakes my hand, and I notice her protruding belly. “Congrats.”

“Thanks.” She rubs her belly and Trey smiles.

Glenn grins and points toward his daughter-in-law’s belly. “This sucker is our last hope of continuing my hockey dynasty.”

Hockey dynasty? He won a Cup and had a decent slap shot. I’d hardly call that a dynasty. But I nod and smile and impatiently wait for him to introduce me to Shayne. Glenn turns me around and, his eyes a darker gray than Shayne’s but similar, searches for her. I search too, but she’s not in the corner where she’d been a minute ago. There’s nothing but an abandoned wineglass.

“Where is Shayne?”

“She went out for some air. You know how she is.” Mrs. Beckford steps forward. “I’m Elizabeth Beckford. Glenn’s wife.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say and smile to hide my dismay. Something tells me Shay’s not coming back, and I’m not okay with that. I cuff Glenn on the shoulder. “I should get back to the other box, but again, congratulations. I can only hope they raise my jersey one day too.”

“They just might, kid,” he says and shakes my hand again. “If you can stay healthy. You know I was only injured once in my whole career. You’ve been out a couple times this year, haven’t you? Guess they don’t make ’em like they used to.”

I force a chuckle at that, but it’s not funny. The fact is, he probably had a few concussions in his time, judging by the number of hits to the head he took, but no one knew what to look for back then. I excuse myself again and head out into the circular hallway that loops the arena. Up here in the box section, it’s carpeted black and the walls are a dark green with framed photos of Winterhawks in action every few feet. I glance down the hall in both directions. She’s walking toward one of the staircases. I pause for a moment to admire the wiggle of her perfect butt and then stride after her.

I reach her just as her hand pushes the door to the stairwell open. I press my body into her back, place a hand over hers and follow her through the door, like we’re one person. Once in the empty stairwell, she turns, stepping away from my touch, but I step into her and curl a hand around her hip.

“What are you doing?” She’s so cute when she’s trying to be indignant. It would work better, though, if her eyes didn’t linger on my mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me your father was Glenn Beckford?”

“What difference does it make?”

I think about that a second and shrug before tilting my head and giving her a smirk. “Guess it doesn’t. I’m still attracted to you, no matter who your parents are.”

“Frenchie, I don’t do hockey players,” she says, crossing her arms as if to keep more space between us, which just makes me take another step closer. She steps back, her butt hitting the wall.

“Because of him?” I guess, and when she doesn’t say anything, I continue. “Because he’s a little arrogant and insensitive. An old-school hockey jock with ethics and morals that don’t work nowadays.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“You know what I do know? I know you
did
do a hockey player,” I remind her, leaning my head so close I can smell the shampoo in her glossy hair. The rich vanilla smell reminds me of the last time I was that close to her, when we were naked in the shower at Elevate, and I start to get hard. “And you were good at it.”

My lips skim her jaw, just below her ear, and she whispers, almost pants, “Oh my God.”

And before she can say anything else, I kiss her. The press of my lips on hers is purposeful and determined. I am going to show her what she knows she wants but refuses to give herself. It takes exactly one pass of my tongue against her closed lips for her to give up her silly little fight, and she opens her mouth and kisses me back. The kiss isn’t so focused and calculated now. Now it’s deep, and urgent, and I really want to fuck her right here, right now.

The door clangs loudly as someone pushes it open behind us. I hear a gasp and a giggle. Shayne is about to push me away but I’m already moving. Frozen in shock, with the door slowly closing behind them, are Jessie and Callie Caplan. Jessie is clearly the one who gasped, her mouth is still open, and her eyes are as wide as hockey pucks. Callie, not surprisingly, is still giggling deviously. She’s the first to speak, which is also not a shocker.

“Hey, Seb.” She steps forward and gently punches my shoulder. “Good to see you’re still getting a workout even though you’re not on the ice.”

“Callie!” Jessie chastises her younger sister. Her eyes move to Shayne and she smiles. “Please excuse my sister. We’re pretty sure she’s got some kind of disorder, like she was born without the tact gene.”

Shayne doesn’t respond to that; she just says swiftly, “I have to get back.”

She moves past all of us and disappears back into the hallway. At least she didn’t leave. I can always go back in there and finish what we started…or at least, I can try. Callie watches her go and turns back to me. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine. It wasn’t going anywhere anyway,” I reply and smile. “Came to watch your boyfriend try to kick my ass?”

“Yep, but I hear you’re injured,” she replies, her brown eyes twinkling. “Hope it’s not serious. I’d like to see him kick your ass in the playoffs later this month.”

I laugh. “I’m sure he’ll get another chance.”

“So you and Shayne? It’s happening?” Jessie questions.

“Not really,” I admit, and I know I look disappointed. “I mean, we were getting somewhere, but then she found out I play hockey, and now she’s treating me like a serial killer.”

“She plays tonsil hockey with serial killers?” Callie questions and winks at me. “She’s even crazier than me. That’s something.”

“She won’t date me,” I clarify.

“But she’ll fuck you?”

“Yeah, she’s been swayed in that direction a few times…” I admit sheepishly. “But that’s not what I want. I mean, not only what I want.”

“Oh my God, what is wrong with men these days.” Callie sighs and rolls her eyes. I realize Devin Garrison is much more of a man than me if he was able to tame this wild woman.

“I didn’t know her dad was Glenn Beckford,” Jessie laments as we all start down the stairs. “She never mentioned it. Not even after I told her I was engaged to a player. Of course, she’s been avoiding me since the first day we met. I don’t know what I did.”

“You’re engaged to a hockey player,” Callie says simply and shrugs, like it’s obvious. “This girl hates hockey players. That must have come from something her dad did, since he’s the hockey player in her life. And you two are part of that profession.”

“But why?” I can’t help but ask. “What’s the big fucking deal?”

“I can’t tell you,” Callie replies. “Our dad was a professional hockey player and we hate him, but not the sport.”

I blink. I didn’t know that. How did I not know that? Of course I was obsessed with hockey my whole life, watched every game I could growing up; my mind goes straight to Drew Caplan, who played for Sacramento. “Drew Caplan?”

They both nod, and their faces are wearing similar pained looks; it makes them look even more alike. The look passes from Callie’s face first. “We don’t talk about it. There’s nothing to say. He bailed before our mom died and didn’t come back after the fact. Anyway, hockey life isn’t for everyone. Just ask Devin’s ex-wife.”

“Maybe Shayne had a crappy childhood growing up with her dad on the road all the time,” Jessie suggests. “But either way, she shouldn’t hold it against you. Or me.”

“You’re right. And I’m not going to let her.” I nod and stop. We’re on the landing with half a flight to go before we hit the ground level where the locker rooms and family lounge are located. I’m sure that’s where they’re headed. “I’m going back up there.”

“Of course you are.” Callie laughs. “Hockey players never take no for an answer.”

I grin at her. “If Devin can wear you down, anything’s possible.”

Jessie bursts out laughing at that, and Callie swats her. I turn and take the stairs two at a time. Thank God for hockey conditioning. I’m not even out of breath when I swing open the door. I start striding down the hall toward the VIP box. The hall is empty except for one or two arena ushers wandering back and forth. That’s why I notice them right away.

Glenn Beckford, in a dark corner of the curving hallway. Under a framed photo of him lifting the Stanley Cup, he’s kissing a woman who’s not his wife.