Page 4

CHAPTER 4

HEL

“U mmm. Sure.” Hel glanced over at Sadie, who nodded vigorously, indicating she thought it was a great idea to go and sit with the hockey players.

Of course she did. Sadie would love to set Hel up with a hockey player so she wouldn’t be the only single one in their trio of friends. Hel still couldn’t quite believe Clara was engaged to Taylor, not that her friend wasn’t amazing, but it seemed so unlikely: small-town doctor and Hollywood megastar.

Hel still blushed every time she thought about her first meeting with Taylor, not that she realised it was Taylor at the time with the giant beard he wore. Clara brought him to the pub quiz she and a few of the other doctors went to regularly, and bizarrely, the whole quiz was about Superman, a role Taylor had played on the big screen.

After the picture round, Hel demanded the picture of Taylor dressed in his Superman suit and sat it next to her, saying he was going to be her imaginary boyfriend for the evening. At the time, she thought it was hilarious. It was less funny when she found out she said it in front of Taylor.

Clara had been lovely about it, reassuring her over and over that she had nothing to be embarrassed about, and they all knew it was a joke.

But Hel couldn’t help it, every time she saw the actor, a small wave of discomfort washed over her, assuming he thought she was a bit of an idiot.

Glancing at the table of men sitting in front of her, there wasn’t much chance of being set up as most of the players were at least ten years younger than her and ‘occupied’ with ladies who were equally young. Frost was the only one close in age and he was taken.

“Great. Wait a minute, and I’ll take you over and introduce you to everyone.” Frost gestured over to the table of hockey players. “And make sure they pry their lips off their dates before you arrive.”

He added the last bit so quietly that Hel wasn’t entirely sure she was meant to have heard it.

Frost picked up the cocktail and wrinkled his nose at it, looking faintly disgusted.

“I’m assuming the frou frou drink isn’t for you?” Hel enquired dryly. Trying not to let her eyes stray to his forearms, where she could see rippling cords of muscle tensing under his tattooed skin.

“Yes, it’s mine,” he responded equally dryly with a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Ah, yes. I did pick you as a fancy cocktail man. The umbrella, in particular, is a very manly touch,” Hel joked back at him.

She was about to say more, but realisation hit her. Was she flirting with him? Why was she trying to flirt with him? He had a girlfriend. He had literally told them he wasn’t single. And the drink was quite clearly for said girlfriend, who was less than ten meters away.

Hel clammed up and dropped her gaze from his arresting green eyes. Feeling suddenly very awkward.

“It’s okay. Maybe we should leave the boys to their fun tonight. I can see them at the next game,” she muttered and turned away from him. “Sadie, there’s a table over there.”

Hel pointed to a table on the opposite side of the pub to the hockey team.

“Okay,” Sadie said, glancing between her friend and Frost.

“No,” Frost exclaimed so loudly both girls turned to stare at him. He dropped his voice to normal levels. “They’ll want to meet you. Trust me.”

And without waiting for any further objections, he strode off through the pub, the crowd of people parting before him as he manoeuvred his giant frame back to the table.

Sadie waggled her eyebrows suggestively, “That is one attractive man.”

“He has a girlfriend,” Hel responded flatly.

“And I have a husband. I was merely making an observation.” Sadie giggled. “Do you think if I ask, he’ll let me look at his tattoos? I wonder how many he has.”

“George.” Hel rolled her eyes at her friend, who tended to be a little bit distractible when handsome men were around, and Frost was handsome.

He had the physique that could only be achieved by someone who spent a serious amount of time working out, and his square jaw, covered in just the right amount of stubble, had Hel itching to stroke his cheek.

No, she wasn’t. What on earth was she thinking? She didn’t want to stroke his cheek. She didn’t want to touch him. The only one allowed to touch him was his girlfriend, who he had placed the colourful concoction the bartender created in front of.

Staring harder, she saw his girlfriend was at least ten years younger than she was, with the dewy skin and fresh look which could only be achieved by someone in their twenties. And she was absolutely stunning, with lustrous black locks, which hung in a shiny curtain down her back, and not a single hair out of place. As Hel watched, the other woman flicked her hair so it fanned out, then settled back into a smooth, inky sheet.

She reached up and touched her ginger curls without thinking. Well, they would be curls if she bothered to do her hair properly, but between working her full-time job and taking on hockey as an extra duty on her days off, she didn’t have time to do too much hair care.

Oh, who was she kidding? Even if she had all the time in the world to do her hair, she still probably wouldn’t bother, it had never particularly struck her as a priority.

And the other woman’s makeup was total perfection. It was clear she was wearing an absolute truckload of cosmetics, but it was done so well that men would likely stop her and tell her she was a natural beauty and not realise the time and effort which had gone into the look and the fact she was wearing enough products to season a wok.

She was so envious of this stunning woman. She was absolute perfection, she was—

“Babbbbeeeeeee,” Frost’s girlfriend exclaimed. “You know I can’t have anything green near my face, it totally washes out my complexion. You need to fetch a different-coloured umbrella for me.”

And suddenly, she wasn’t so attractive any more, as her grating, nasally voice pierced the ears of everyone in the pub.

“It’s fine.” Frost’s raised voice had a growling quality which made Hel’s stomach turn over until she once again reminded herself about the young, hot girlfriend.

Hel turned to the bartender. “Hey mate?” she called to get his attention. When he walked over to her, she asked, “Any chance I can grab a cocktail umbrella in each colour?”

“Ummmm,” the bartender hesitated, then cringed when even he heard Frost’s girlfriend’s high-pitched demands.

“Yeah, my friend over there needs them. I’m not sure why, but I think it must be something to do with world peace, as she’s making a massive fuss about it.” Hel observed.

She glanced over to see Frost telling the young woman something. His next words didn’t carry across the noise in the pub, but the high-pitched shriek of, Babbbbeeeeeee, definitely did.

“You’re the only one who can save him now.” Hel looked very serious and gestured towards the huge jar of umbrellas.

“Well, if a man’s life is in danger. It would be remiss of me not to help.” The bartender grinned winningly and leaned on the bar, trying to hold eye contact with her.

But Hel wasn’t interested in flirting with the bartender, who, while very attractive in that slim, youthful type of way, couldn’t have been more than nineteen, which held no appeal to her at all when she was thirty-five. She liked real men, close to her own age, like—. She cut the line of thought off before it could go too far.

“Thanks. You are doing a service to men everywhere.” Hel waited silently as the bartender tried to woo her for ten more seconds before he seemed to realise he was onto a loser and turned around to his jar of umbrellas, fishing a little handful out for her.

“Here you go.” He placed them in her palm, his fingers brushing over her hand.

Hel ignored him and pulled her hand back, saying, “Thanks, mate.”

She reached into her handbag, grabbed a five-dollar bill, and stuffed it into the tip jar on the counter.

“Let’s go.” Hel nodded at Sadie, who silently picked up the ice bucket with their bottle of wine in. “Get the comment out now before we go over there,” she grumbled, knowing her friend well enough to realise she had something, likely inappropriate, to say.

“Looks like Frost has a knight in shining armour.” Sadie giggled happily.

“Grab your horse, and let’s get this over with,” Hel replied, not wanting to delve too deeply into why she felt compelled to help Frost out.

It was because she was a nice person. Definitely that.

She led the way over to the table of hockey players, where Frost was still quietly talking to his girlfriend, and she was screeching ‘baaaabbbbbeeeee’ on repeat.

Even the guys who had been very absorbed in their dates—actually, she amended, most of them looked more like hookups—were now watching the show.

Sadie and Hel stood awkwardly at the table, waiting for Frost to make introductions, but he was too caught up with his girlfriend.

Hel’s eyes flew to Sadie, wondering if they should leave, but her friend shrugged and leaned closer to make sure she didn’t miss anything from the argument.

She rolled her eyes. Sadie loved gossip, other people’s, not her own, as Sadie’s life was incredibly happy and stable.

Hel felt a little twinge and brushed it aside, she wasn’t jealous of her friend’s happiness. She was glad her two best friends were happy, but it didn’t mean she didn’t sometimes get a bit lonely.

“I asked you for such a small thing, babe. I don’t understand why you won’t go and fetch it for me.” Frost’s pretty girlfriend whined.

“Because it’s a stupid umbrella. Does it matter what colour it is?” Frost sounded exhausted.

“Are you blind? Of course, it matters! This green umbrella with the pink drink will ruin the whole aesthetic of my post, and it washes me out! The Star-lifers expect a certain look on my posts. I need to maintain my brand.” The girl pouted. Her lips sticking out in a way that looked attractive and cute.

Hel surmised the other woman had spent a long time perfecting the look in front of a mirror and a fair bit of money on injectables to have lips like that. Lips, which at first glance looked lush and full, but when you saw them from the side, looked too pouty and slightly weird.

“It’s an umbrella.” Frost’s voice growled.

Hel stepped forward, holding out the umbrellas Frost’s girlfriend had demanded. “Hi, I’m Hel. I’m the team doctor. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I noticed the drink Frost got you didn’t have the nicest-coloured umbrella in it, and I thought you might like these.”

The other woman blinked, her impossibly long and perfect eyelashes brushing her cheeks when her eyes closed.

“Oh. Thank you.” Star took the umbrellas, laying them out on the table and ignoring Hel as all her attention was on creating the perfect-looking drink.

Hel looked up and met Frost’s emerald green eyes, and he mouthed ‘thanks’ at her.

She nodded and mouthed ‘no problem’ back.

“Boys. I’d like to introduce you to our team doctor. She was out on the ice with Aiden earlier. This is Hel.” Frost put his hand on her shoulder.

Hel froze, he was touching her. Why was he touching her? Oh, he was being friendly. Yeah, that was it. He was being polite. Nothing else. His girlfriend was right there. Choosing an umbrella as if she were searching for a cure for cancer. Hel controlled the errant snort of laughter, but only just.

The longer his hand was on her shoulder, the more flustered she got, and then a bucket of water was thrown on her when Sadie coughed and said, “Ethel.”

Turning her head, she glared at her friend, who was standing there looking as innocent as a lamb.

Opening her mouth, she was about to berate her ‘alleged’ friend when she realised every hockey player was on their feet, and they were all looking at her and applauding.

Staring in surprise, she took in the wall of men in front of her, and it really was a wall, with none of them below six feet tall, and a fair few of them must have been six foot five.

Hel wondered what she was supposed to do. Should she bow? No, that was weird. Wave? Also a little weird. Run away to the other side of the bar and pretend all the men weren’t looking at her, and some of their girlfriends—hookups—weren’t glaring daggers at her.

In the end, she settled for saying, “Hi.”

And then gave a small, involuntary wave, which turned out to be as awkward as she thought it was going to be.

“I’ll find you ladies’ chairs.” Frost took his hand off Hel’s shoulder as he spoke, and a wave of disappointment washed over her.

Nope, she was not doing this. He was attractive, tall, muscled, had tattoos smothering his arms—wait, what was she thinking about? Oh, that’s right. She definitely wasn’t thinking about a hockey player who had a girlfriend, who was currently rifling through umbrellas.

“I like his accent,” Sadie murmured into Hel’s ear. “Where’s he from?”

“Canada,” Hel supplied so quickly that she winced. Shit, she had already told Sadie that. Her friend was baiting her.

“Good knowledge. You should go and talk to him.” Sadie nudged her in the ribs, a massive grin splitting her face.

“Orrrrr. I shouldn’t talk to him.” She subtly gestured to his girlfriend, who took her second, no, third, no, fourth, no, fifth—well, it was turning out to be a massive number of photos of her drink. “What is she doing? How can a drink be that interesting?” Hel murmured loud enough for her friend to hear.

Sadie sidled across so she could see the screen of the young woman’s phone. “She’s on Instagram.”

“Is she posting the photos of the drink?” Hel craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the screen too.

“Yeah, but it looks complicated. There are filters, stickers, and some loopy video thingy.” Sadie tilted her head a little to see better.

“Why is she doing that? Who could possibly be interested in a drink?” Hel whispered.

“Her Star-lifers.” Frost’s voice was right next to her ear.

Hel jumped in surprise and stumbled against Frost, who caught hold of her and gently set her back on her feet. Her eyes fell to his calloused hands as they gripped her arm and touched her waist. She tried to make out what the ink peeking out the bottom of his sleeve was, but it was too dark in the pub.

Sadie cleared her throat, not so subtly, and Frost released Hel, stepping away.

For a moment, Hel felt cold without the warmth of his body against her back. She actually rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and instead concentrated on what he had said.

“What’s a Star-lifer? And why are they interested in a drink?” Hel looked up at Frost, meeting his stormy green gaze, which was a big mistake as she wanted to keep on looking.

So instead, she turned to Star, who was now taking another thirty or forty photos of her drink, but this time with a different coloured umbrella.

“She’s an influencer. She’s got a huge number of followers she calls ‘Star-Lifers’, and they eat up every little detail of her life.” Frost sounded exasperated, and Hel guessed he wasn’t keen on the details of his own life being documented.

“Hence the umbrella crisis?” Hel gestured to the little pile of cocktail umbrellas.

“There’s always some kind of pointless photo crisis,” Frost muttered.

Hel barely heard him above the music and was pretty sure she wasn’t meant to have caught him being rude about his girlfriend, so she politely ignored his comment.

“Thanks for grabbing the chairs.” Hel gestured to the two stools he had placed on the floor next to them.

“No problem, you can come and sit by—“ His words were interrupted by Star’s nasally voice.

“Babbbeeeeeee,” she called and waved her hand at him, summoning Frost to go over to her. “Babe!”

Star’s gesturing became more emphatic, and as Hel looked at her face, it morphed from the most stunning woman she had ever been this close to and became something unpleasant, as if her personality was reflected on her features.

Hel shook herself. Where had that thought come from? She didn’t know the girl, she shouldn’t be thinking bitchy thoughts about her. It wasn’t Star’s fault Hel wanted to examine Frost’s tattoos more closely and maybe the muscles under them.

She threw the brakes on the thought. Um, what now? The man helped her out in a life-threatening situation, and her stupid, desperate, single for far too long brain was being annoying and trying to read things into it.

Hel opened her mouth to suggest he should go across to his girlfriend but didn’t get any words out before Star snapped again.

“Babe, I need you to take the wide shot with me in. I’m in the golden hour for posts when my Star-lifers are most engaged, so you need to take them now!” Star waved her phone at Frost.

“Okay,” he called back, then nodded to Sadie and Hel. “I’ll try and talk to you later.”

Hel thought there was an edge to his voice, although it might have been wishful thinking on her behalf. The hockey player walked away, back over to his girlfriend and bent to give her a soft kiss, which made Hel’s heart squeeze a little bit, so she turned to Sadie.

“Where shall we sit?” Hel picked her stool up and glanced around the circle, looking for a gap in the cluster of hockey players.

A man the size of a bear with pitch-black hair and a matching neatly trimmed beard boomed at them from the other side of the table. “Come sit with us, Hel and friend!”

He waved so enthusiastically the petite blonde girl who was clinging to his arm was thrown off her chair.

“Oh shit,” he bellowed. “I’m so sorry!”

Hel and Sadie exchanged a glance, wondering if the little blonde was about to get angry with the giant man.

But the other woman brushed herself off and giggled good-naturedly up at the giant, who was now clearly trying to make it up to her and was whispering something into her ear, which made her blush.

“Do we go across?” Hel asked.

“Yeah, come and sit with us,” the tiny blonde girl called and waved.

“Yup. Come on.” Sadie picked up her stool in one hand, clutched the ice bucket precariously in the other, and weaved her way around the table.

Hel felt eyes on her and glanced across at Frost, but his were firmly on Star. Shaking herself, she picked up her chair and followed her friend.

“Ladies!” The bear with the booming voice exclaimed when Sadie arrived in front of him. He reached out and grabbed the ice bucket off Sadie placing it on the table, then thrust his hand out to her.

Sadie took it, and an immediate wince crossed her face, even as she said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Sadie, one of Hel’s friends.”

“Rocky!” The small blonde woman chided. “She’s not one of your teammates. Don’t crush her hand!”

The giant, who evidently was called Rocky, immediately let go of Sadie’s hand, and his lips flattened out into an apologetic expression.

“Sorry, bad habit.” He nodded to Sadie, and his gaze moved to Hel. “I might wave to you if that’s okay?”

He then proceeded to give her what could only be described as ‘jazz hands’.

“No problem.” Hel suppressed a giggle and waved back. “Nice to meet you. Is Rocky your actual name or a weird nickname?” she asked as she pulled up the stool so she was sitting next to the giant’s girlfriend.

Sadie was next to a man who was even bigger than the giant, but he wasn’t paying them any attention as he was deep in ‘conversation’ with a woman.

“Nickname. My name is Sylvester.” He shrugged.

“Stallone?” Hel queried, a smirk on her face.

“No, unfortunately not, it’s Williams.” A throat clearing next to him had him looking down at the blonde by his side. “And this is my girlfriend, Abbey.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to his side.

“How does it feel to be a hero?” Abbey addressed Hel.

Shaking her head, she opened her mouth to answer, but Sadie jumped in before she could.

“Yeah, how does it feel to be a hero?” Sadie asked sweetly, grinning at her friend.

Hel rolled her eyes at the sarcasm. Over the years, they had both been involved in more resuscitations than they cared to recall. Sometimes, they got the patients back, and sometimes, they didn’t. But the reality was it wasn’t anything to do with heroics and everything to do with years and years of training to make sure they could function in a situation a lot of people wouldn’t be able to.

“What my very sarcastic friend here means to say is, I did my job, and today I got lucky, and Aiden got lucky, and we got the outcome we wanted. It wasn’t me being a ‘hero’.” Hel emphasised the word.

“Nope. Take the compliment,” Abbey said. “Are you a doctor too?” She asked Sadie.

“Yeah, I’m an anaesthetist,” Sadie supplied.

“That’s awesome. I’m in my third year of a medical science degree. I’m hoping to apply to dentistry.” Abbey beamed at the women.

“What have we said about that?” Rocky chided her.

Hel stiffened, waiting for the big man to be misogynistic and tell his girlfriend she was crazy to apply or she should do something more womanly.

“Don’t say hoping. I am applying to be a dentist, and I will get in.“ Rocky patted Abbey’s knee. “We’ve spoken about the mind game. You have to want it and believe you deserve it.”

Hel sagged with relief that she wouldn’t need to make a scene telling Rocky off. Her eyes wandered to Frost, and Sadie must have noticed as she leaned in, gave her a nudge, and wiggled her eyebrows.

Hel winced when Sadie managed to shove the spot Frost’s elbow had collided with when he ripped open Aiden’s shirt.

She murmured to Sadie, “Stop.”

The man had a girlfriend. It was pretty embarrassing that Sadie was carrying on, but even so, her eyes strayed over to Frost, and he was staring right back at her.