Page 23 of At First Smile

CHAPTER TWELVE

Pen-ance

Rowan

T he heavy clatter of weights reverberates around the training room.

Daily workouts aren’t mandatory during the off-season, but I’ve not lost the habit.

It keeps me at peak physical strength for the upcoming season, even if I’ll spend the first five games watching from the stands instead of playing.

My suspension means I can’t be within fifty feet of the bench, penalty box or dressing room. Completely cut off.

Lifting also offers some momentary mental clarity and respite from all that torments me.

With each mile on the treadmill or rep on a weight bench my brain settles into my workout and away from everything else.

It’s why I drove from my condo to the Bobcat’s training center.

Every morning, no matter where I am, I wake at six a.m. to workout.

Not every morning. With another triceps kickback, I attempt to push away the sensation of waking up just three days ago with Pen snuggled into me.

The melodic hum of her steady breaths. The softness of her body pressed against me.

The utter relaxation coursing through my veins at her in my arms and the panic that induced. It’s what drove me from her bed.

It’s not her you’re protecting . Greg’s smug face flashes in my eyes.

“Damnit,” I growl and drop the weights to the ground with a loud clunk .

“Tossing the equipment around won’t help you get brownie points that I assume you’re trying to get by being here while your teammates are on vacation.”

I look up and meet the gray eyes of Madeline Jacobson, the most powerful female team owner in the NHL.

In fact, she’s the only one. After her father, Cedric, passed suddenly from a heart attack last fall, she inherited the L.A.

Bobcats. The thirty-five-year-old is best known for her stint as a Real Housewife and a high-profile divorce from the quarterback for L.A. ’s second best football team.

Pulling up the hem of my shirt, I wipe off my face and then stand. “Ms. Jacobson. Sorry. I didn’t realize you were here.”

She arches a sculpted blonde eyebrow. “I do own the team.”

I rub the back of my neck.

“Also, my presence shouldn’t matter on you taking your bad mood out on the equipment. Although, I’d prefer you take your anger out on inanimate objects, not the faces of rival hockey players.”

Fuck. This is it. A knot pulls tight in my abdomen.

All communication about the trade threat funnels through Greg.

He’s been the one dealing with management.

Besides Coach Carlson’s growled, “What the actual fuck were you thinking?” before he turned and grumbled, “Get out of my sight,” as he walked out of the locker room, I’ve had no direct communication with anyone from the Bobcats.

“Why are you here, Iverson,” she asks, placing her hands on her hips.

Somehow the woman who’s eye level with my chest despite her pink stilettos towers over me. With a flick of her tiny wrist, she can decide my fate like tossing away a nonexistent piece of lint off her tailored white suit.

Forehead creased, I sigh. “I’m working out.”

“It’s the off-season.”

“I like to stay ready.”

“Glad you’ll be in peak performance to sit out for the first five games.” Her tone is curt, but expression placid, the two at odds with each other.

I clear my throat. “I want to be ready for when I’m back on the ice.”

“And what’s the plan when you can play?”

“Win.”

With her mouth in a firm line, she nods. “We have the same plan. I’d prefer we didn’t have a repeat of this season.”

That knot in my stomach coils tighter as if someone pulls the end of a string. Though isn’t that what’s happening? My contract isn’t up for another season. She’s the puppet master who decides if I play and where.

“I—”

She holds up her hand, stopping my words. “I don’t want to lose again. Last season was the closest we’ve come to the Stanley Cup in this team’s fifty-year history.”

“I’d like to get us that cup.” My words are slow and deliberate.

Hoisting the Stanley Cup in the air is every player, coach, and owner’s dream. In my decade-long career in the NHL spanning five teams, this season is as close as I’d come.

“What do you regret more…the loss or punching Landon?” Her assessing stare locks with mine.

“Losing.” I don’t even think. I just speak. The smart answer for a man hoping to keep their seat on this bench is to spout remorse for his actions, but I am not a smart man.

“Do you have any regrets about punching Landon?” She taps the pointy tip of her shoe.

I stand just a little straighter. “I regret letting down my teammates, my coach, and the fans. I regret embarrassing you.”

“But you don’t regret punching him.”

“I don’t.” I can almost hear Greg’s groan to be smart, to lie. I may hold back, but I never lie.

“Did you punch him out of spite for his scoring the winning goal?”

“No.” A furrow puckers my brow.

“Why did you punch him?”

“I have my reasons.”

“And you won’t share those reasons?” Her right brow arches.

I just stare back.

“What if I say it’s a condition to not trade you?”

I force myself to remain still. “Then it was an honor playing for the Bobcats.”

We face off like dueling gunslingers from an old movie. Expression steely, arms tense. Hands hovering over the trigger, but neither of us shoot.

I love wearing the Bobcat black and gold.

Playing in L.A. for the last three years is as close to a home as I’ve had in years.

The stability of being in one place. The security of that leading me to buy a bar and name it for my dad.

Working with Stefan Carlson, a man who first coached me at university and brought me to join him when he made the leap to the NHL.

Hell, even my Stockholm-syndrome friendship with Wes.

I’ll not hurt someone I care about to keep that.

I’ve had to rebuild before. Fuck, it’s been my life since dad died.

“I can respect that.” She sighs, breaking our standoff. “I took over in November. This will be the first full season under my leadership, and I want…I need to win. Can you help me win?”

“I’ll try.”

“I didn’t ask you to try.” Her brows knit. “Will you play to win?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” A grin spreads across her face. Turning on her heels, she saunters toward the door.

I can’t help but blink. What just happened? Am I staying?

She stops and looks over her shoulder. “Oh, Iverson, tell that new girlfriend of yours I’ll be in touch to discuss universal design for the arena.”

My nose scrunches. “My girlfriend?”

“Penelope Meadows.”

“Pen isn’t my?—”

Her husky laugh cuts me off. “Oh, Rowdy Rowan you don’t think I can spot a planted story from a mile away? I’ve been on a first name basis with my family’s publicist since I was ten.”

Universal design? Story? My hands clench and unclench at my sides.

Sasha made calls, but I thought it was to make the pictures go away. There shouldn’t be a story.

“You two make a cute couple.” She winks then points to my discarded dumbbell. “Try not to break the equipment or I’ll take it out of that outrageous salary I pay you,” she warns and walks out the door.

As soon as Madeline is gone, I pull my mobile out of my gym bag I’d tossed into the weight room’s corner.

Plopped back onto the weight bench, I quickly google universal design .

It sounds like a term a villain from a dystopian sci-fi film uses to enslave humanity.

Rather, it’s an architectural term that focuses on the creation of spaces accessible for all.

Spaces that don’t require accommodations because everyone, no matter their ability, can easily access it.

The article pulls me back to Pen talking about accessible trails as we hiked down to the waterfall’s pool.

“There’s a trail at this state park about an hour away from where I grew up that is wheelchair accessible and has clear borders to trail your cane if you’re visually impaired.

” She’d vibrated with excitement as she described how individuals with physical disabilities could have the same experience as those without while on the walking path.

My mouth curves into a smile. It’s not just Pen’s passion and advocacy, but the mere thought of her that tugs in my chest. I’d told Sasha to make Pen go away.

Sitting here, surrounded by the silence of an empty weight room, I know that’s impossible.

Since Pen’s bright smile blasted me at the Buffalo airport, I’ve been gone for her.

Even if I never see her again, she’ll never be gone.

I type Pen Meadows and Universal Design into Google. Several links come up. Opening the top result, an article from the LA Press , that knot in my gut pulls tighter.

Universal design may be the new goal after a famous hockey player assists a popular social media disability advocate at the airport.

Thanks to Rowan Iverson, L.A. Bobcats star defensemen, Penelope Meadows, a legally blind social media influencer, was able to safely navigate two different airports during her recent trip from Buffalo to Los Angeles.

“This is bullshit.” My fingers move before my brain catches up. I dial Sasha and place the call on speaker phone.

“Good morning, Rowan.” A smile is evident in Sasha’s voice.

“What is this article?”

“Why good morning, Sasha. How are you, Sasha? I hope you slept well, Sasha,” she deadpans.

I close my eyes and scrub my hand over my face. Christ, even her snarks are sweet. I take a deep breath and soften my tone. “Sorry.”

“Good boy,” she coos. “So, I take it you just saw the stories. There are three, but a few other outlets picked it up.”

“This isn’t what I meant.” I stand up and pace along the bench. “I thought you’d make a few calls and just make the pictures go away.”

“I don’t have a magic wand. That’s not how this works. If you want one story to go away, you need to feed the press sharks another story. That’s what I did.”

I rub at my temples. “A story that makes Pen look like a damsel in distress, who needed saving. She didn’t need me for a goddamn thing. It also paints me with some knight in armor bullshit. That’s not what happened. I don’t like using Pen to make me look good.”

“That’s not?—”

“Sasha, you of all people should get this.” I kick the bench’s leg. The slam of my foot against the metal surface subdues the snarl in my voice.

“Don’t you dare try to mansplain loving and advocating alongside my husband who is in a wheelchair,” she snaps back.

I slosh a long breath. “I’m an ass.”

“You are.”

I huff a small laugh.

“But I’m used to overprotective men that get ass-like about their ladies.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have raised my voice or accused you of not having our best interest at heart.”

“Our?”

“Sasha,” I groan.

“I thought the LA Press piece did a nice job of capturing the experience of people with disabilities while traveling – people like Greg and Pen. As independent as Greg and Pen are, there’re still challenges for them in an ableist society.

Sometimes those obstacles need to be highlighted to push change.

Being in a relationship with someone with a disability means seeing their ability and the ways they are challenged.

It’s part of who they are. If you don’t see both, you’re not seeing them. ”

“We’re not in a relationship.”

“He doth protest too much,” she drawls. “This was the best solution. The headlines are about something that Pen is passionate about. We’re using your fame to platform her issue.

You may not like how it was done, but it got you what you wanted.

To the world, Pen Meadows is just the adorable woman you assisted at an airport, nothing more. Unless…”

Groaning, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “This just feels wrong.”

“Of course, it feels wrong because what you asked me to do isn’t what you really want.

What you really want you won’t let yourself have.

I’m going to tell you what I told Greg when he’d got all caught up in his head and avoided asking me out for months after we first met…

Pull your head out of your ass and do it already.

Seriously, Rowan, for a man who spouts about how capable Pen is and how much she doesn’t need you, you seem to forget that she’s capable of determining what she wants. ”

I sit back on the bench. “You’re right.”

“Naturally,” she says, cheekily.

“How do we come back from this? How do I make it right?”

Each action stacks like unbalanced blocks in front of me. I did not reveal who I am. I’d left her at the airport, rather than explaining anything. I’d inadvertently used her to make myself look good. Just like her asshole ex, Alex.

“Get out of your head,” Sasha chides. “I can hear you hate-spiraling over the phone. Stop telling yourself all the ways you fucked up and focus on how to do something about it.”

“How?”

“You need to beg for your Pen-ance.”