Page 2 of Offside and Off-Limits (Love in Maple Falls #2)

CADE

I make my way across the hardwood floor of my new living room and come to a stop by the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the landscape.

And there’s a lot of landscape in this new small town I’m calling home for the coming season. Which, if I’m honest, for a city guy like me, is a little unnerving.

Okay, it’s a lot unnerving.

I’m used to traffic and bars and people everywhere, living in the heart of Manhattan where I can get a pizza delivered to my place on the forty-seventh floor at 3:00 a.m. and never worry about running into the same person twice.

Here in Maple Falls, trees outnumber the residents by about 5,000 to one.

I blow out a breath, staring out at some of those trees. It’s mid-September and they’re just beginning to turn, creating a palette of greens and reds and oranges. The sun is high in the sky, partly obscured by clouds, with darkness on the horizon.

Here comes that famous Washington state rain.

I've been in Maple Falls for less than twenty-four hours, and although it's the complete opposite of the frenetic buzz of where I used to live, the place sure does have a certain small-town charm to it, much like those Hallmark Christmas movies my mom loves to watch.

I spent my first night at a lodge, breakfasting at a quaint diner on Main Street, run by a woman who came out to introduce herself as Shirley May, her eyes twinkling as she accurately guessed I was one of the new hockey players in town.

I meandered down Main Street, checking out the old-fashioned buildings and feeling like I’d not only just flown from the other side of the country, but that I’d stepped back in time like Marty McFly—only without a DeLorean and a pair of low-top Nikes.

After my hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, and a stack of pancakes, I walked back to my black BMW SUV, and it seemed every eye on Main Street was trained on me.

A couple of women threw me flirty smiles, and a boy of about eleven asked for a selfie with me.

Of course I obliged. This is the kind of place where everyone is up in everyone else’s business.

As my new home for at least this season, I want to fit in.

“Where do you want this?” a gruff voice says, pulling my attention from all those trees, and I turn to see five workers manhandling my prized baby grand piano. Sweat is pouring from their brows, and I’m thankful my prized Bosendorfer is all wrapped up nice in protective blankets and cardboard .

I’m kinda precious about my Bess.

And yeah, I did give her a name. Me and Bess are the longest relationship I’ve ever had.

After paying off my mom’s mortgage and putting a deposit on my own Manhattan place, Bess was the next thing I bought, thanks to the injection of cash signing with the NYC Blades brought.

We’ve been through a lot together. I couldn’t leave her behind in the city, not even for this one season with the Ice Breakers.

“Over there in the corner, thanks, guys,” I instruct them, pointing at an alcove by the fireplace. “Let me help.”

“It’s our job,” Ralph, the team leader says, but I join the guys anyway, the familiar stench of sweat hitting my nostrils as we position Bess just so.

“You play this thing?” Ralph pulls a cloth handkerchief from his overalls pocket and begins to mop his brow as the members of his crew begin to remove the cardboard outer layer.

“Sure do. My mom got me lessons when I was a kid. She figured it was good for me to have interests outside of hockey,” I reply, and a couple of the guys snicker, sharing knowing looks.

“Not including that,” I add with an internal groan, knowing exactly what they’re laughing at.

My reputation as a bad boy ladies’ man has clearly followed me over to the West Coast.

But the thing is, I’m not that guy anymore. In fact, I haven’t been that guy for well over a year now. Not that the media or even my teammates seem to have cottoned on to the fact yet. They still see me as the party guy, turning up with a woman on each arm and going home with another.

Don’t get me wrong, that lifestyle was fun. More than fun. What young guy, fresh out in the world after college, doesn't want beautiful and available women throwing themselves at him 24/7? And all just because he's good at playing hockey.

It's a giant ego boost, and one I was happy to entertain.

There were lots of girls, but over time, I worked out that they didn’t want to be with me, the poor kid from New Jersey who grew up with a single mom who had to work double shifts at a diner and made tote bags to sell at weekend markets, just to make ends meet.

They didn’t want to know that guy.

They wanted the rich, fun-loving, partying winger for the New York City Blades, the guy who would happily splash the cash, get them into club VIP sections, buy bottles of Cristal, and get recognized in the street.

I playacted that guy for years. Heck, I became that guy.

But it wasn’t real, and a part of me always knew it wouldn’t last. You can’t play pro hockey your whole life. Not even Marc-Andre Fleury could do that.

Then I hit my thirties and a bunch of my teammates began to settle down, some even starting families.

Suddenly, the bachelor lifestyle lost its luster.

It got old, all those parties, all those meaningless hook-ups.

I wanted what those guys had, the ones who had met the one, who’d fallen in love, who’d committed themselves to one person for the rest of their lives.

There was this one guy on the Blades. Jethro Drake.

He’d been one of my partners in partying crime, always up for going out on the town, always attracting a bevy of beauties wherever he went.

And then he met Bella, a schoolteacher of all things, and it was like he had a total personality change overnight.

One day he was party boy extraordinaire, and then the next he was accompanying Bella to her classroom after hours to decorate it with her students’ artwork.

At first, I didn’t get it. What was so special about this girl? But then I saw the way they looked at each other, and I felt it, right in my chest.

They were in love, and that wasn’t an emotion I was all that familiar with.

Or at all.

It was then that I lost the taste for the party scene, the puck bunnies, all of it.

I wanted what Drake and Bella had. Only I had no clue how to go about getting it.

I still don’t.

But that doesn’t stop me from wanting it.

Of course I didn't tell anybody about my change of heart, and my reputation has clung to me like a baby koala clings to its mom.

That was close to two years ago, and I swear, time moves faster than it once did back in the good old days. Blink and it’s two years later.

Man, getting old sucks.

But age does come with perks, including the fact that, as an Unrestricted Free Agent, I could intentionally sign with a team located not only across the country from where I’d played most of my professional life, but in a small town where I could get the chance to reinvent myself as the man I am now. Not the man I once was.

With Bess sitting in pride of place, I pull a Stanley knife from my back pocket and cut open a box.

I pull out a framed photo of me, my mom, and my sister Tori and her two kids, taken last Thanksgiving.

All of us are grinning at the camera. We’d just eaten our turkey dinner with Tori’s husband, Lionel, my aunt Liz and uncle Don, and then played charades, the football game on the TV muted as we laughed at our terrible miming.

I wonder what this Thanksgiving will be like, now that I’m across the country from them all, playing on a new team, no longer able to drive over to New Jersey to see them.

When I told my mom I would move her to Maple Falls if it worked out for me here, she smiled like it was Christmas day. But there’s no point in uprooting her life if this isn’t going to be my forever home.

And I won’t know that until I’ve settled in and found my feet.

“Nice place you got here, Lennox,” a voice says, and I look up to see Jamie Hayes, my former NYC Blades captain and now fellow Ice Breaker, climbing over a bunch of boxes as he makes his way toward me.

“Hayes! Good to see you, my man,” I say as I clasp his hand in mine and slap him on his back. Like me, he’s in jeans and a hoodie.

“Good to see you, too, Lennox.”

“I’d offer you a coffee, but I’ve got no clue how to use the fancy machine that came with this place.” I gesture at the behemoth copper machine on one of the kitchen counters, looking like something from a Victorian locomotive.

“How’s the unpacking going?”

“We’re getting there,” I say.

He looks down at one of the boxes by his feet, labeled “Comics.” “You brought your comic books?”

“Of course I did,” I reply as though he’s asked me if I plan on breathing oxygen here in Maple Falls. “I’ve moved here, man. They go where I go. Period.”

“Is that why you’re always wearing tops with weird sayings?” He gestures at my black T-shirt with the words “Nexus Point” emblazoned across my chest.

“Don’t play dumb with me. You know The Timekeepers Chronicles is da bomb.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Da bomb?”

I chuckle. “You should get into them, man. There are so many twists and turns, plus the time travel warps your mind.”

He chortles, shaking his head. “You do you, Lennox. I’m hoping you brought your gym equipment. This place is big enough for it all.”

“Sure did. It’s all set up in the garage, ready for use as and when. Wanna see?”

“Lead the way.”

We make our way through the boxes and down the hallway, where I give Jamie a mini tour of the house before entering the garage.

The equipment has all been unboxed, and I’ve spent the best part of a couple hours helping some of the guys put the machines together after my breakfast, courtesy of Shirley May.

Jamie casts an appreciative eye around the space. “It’ll be just like NYC, us working out together.”

“Mostly, yeah.”

He arches an eyebrow at me. “Mostly?”

I chew on my lip for a beat. “I’m, well, I’m hoping this place will mean a fresh start for me.”

“Are you thinking of getting another weights system?”

“Nah, I mean more along the lines of reinventing myself. Leaving the old Cade Lennox behind.”

“New town, new you? Like a new hairdo if you’re a chick?” he asks with a grin, and I laugh.

“Something like that, only less to do with hairstyles and more to do with how I choose to live my life.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Meaning?”

“You know me. I’m a good time guy. I love to party. I love to meet women. I don’t do serious, and I don’t do commitment.”

“‘Loverboy Lennox,’ wasn’t that one of the nicknames the media gave you a while back?”

I cringe. “Yeah.”

“And ‘Manhattan’s Most Wanted.’ I remember that one ’cos a bunch of the guys on the team were jealous. They wanted that one.”

“They can have it. I’m done with all that.”

“You’re done with that whole rapper lifestyle you had going on?”

“Heck, yeah. I want—” I break off, thinking of the conversation I had with my mom last Thanksgiving. She told me she wanted me to have the world, and part of that was finding someone to share it with. I swallow. “I guess I want to make my mom proud of who I am as a man.”

“Huh.”

“What does that mean? ”

He pats me on the back. “It means my boy is finally growing up.”

I push his shoulder with the heel of my hand. “Shut up, man. I’m being serious here. I want to leave that guy behind. I want something more. Something real. Like Drake has with his girl.”

“Drake fell hard, and fast.”

“Yup.”

“And you’re expecting to meet the love of your life here in this small town? You do know the population is like a hundred people.”

“More like ten thousand, isn’t it?”

“You get what I mean. There are way fewer women in a small town than in a big place like the City.”

I shrug. “Sure there are. It’s basic math, Hayes.”

He slaps me on the back once more. “Good luck with that.”

“Thanks?”

He laughs. “I’m serious. If you want to change your life, Lennox, knock yourself out. Most of us want to leave bits of our past behind. I know I do, and turning over a new leaf in a place named after maple trees?”

“It’s kinda poetic.”

“As poetic as we hockey players get.”

Later that evening, with the boxes now mostly unpacked, I sit at Bess, my fingers resting on her keys.

I look over at the view through the living room windows.

The sun is beginning to set, casting a warm glow over the trees, the sky streaked with clouds dipped in vibrant colors. I play a few notes and smile to myself.

This is where it's going to happen. This is my fresh start. This place is where I become the man I always knew I could be.