Page 2

Jordan

F ive Years Later

“Emilia was right.” Diego Tapia tosses his bag onto the bench in front of his locker with a grimace in the Carvers’ locker room. “This place does smell like sweaty balls.”

I snort softly but don’t bother responding. It’s not like he needs a response anyway. Diego spends a good portion of his time in the net when Logan Moreno isn’t in it. The man is perfectly content talking to himself.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, he’s also perfectly content talking our ears off, too. It’s like he spends all the time he isn’t in the net making up for the time he does spend in it.

“Whoever smelt it, dealt it, bitch.” Joaquin Reed tosses a balled-up towel at him, smirking.

Diego ducks the flying towel, scowling. “Uh, aren’t you the one who refuses to wash that fucking towel because you swear to Satan that it’s your lucky charm?”

“That shit is disgusting, Joaquin,” Micah agrees, his nose scrunched up as he looks at the towel. “Wash the fucking biohazard already.”

“First of all, fuck you. That towel wins us games.” Joaquin flips Micah off, grinning good-naturedly. “Second,” he says, turning to flip Diego off, too. “I don’t swear to Satan. I’m a good Christian boy.”

“Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with that towel, man,” I mutter, tossing my practice jersey into my duffle. “Don’t put that on him.”

Diego and Micah both laugh, but Joaquin turns puppy-dog eyes on me. “ Et tu , Silvestri? And I thought we were cool.”

“No one is cool with that nasty-ass towel.”

“Told you!” Diego practically shouts.

I shake my head at him. Diego is…Diego. I think he was born being a pain in the ass. But he’s right about the locker room and that fucking towel. Both reek.

“Wash the goddamn thing already,” I mutter to Joaquin, who pretends not to hear me as he heads for the showers.

“You heading out?” Micah looks up at me as I zip my bag closed.

“Yep.”

“You coming out with us tonight?” Diego waggles his brows suggestively. “There will be bunnies all over the place.”

“Hell no.” My upper lip curls in disgust. The last thing I want to do tonight is deal with half the team chasing puck bunnies like it’s the last time they’ll ever get laid. Actually, that’s the last thing I want to do…ever. But I’m absolutely not feeling it right now.

“One of these days, we’re going to get you laid, Silvestri,” Diego says like he’s spitting prophecy while digging through his bag. “You can’t stay in the Sahara forever.”

I stride toward the doors, not rising to the bait. My sex life—or lack thereof—isn’t his business. And hell will freeze over before I let him set me up with anyone, especially a puck bunny that he and River St. James have probably passed around a time or two.

“Diego, fuck off with that shit,” Micah says, coming to my rescue even though I didn’t ask and don’t need it. Micah gets it, though. Unlike Diego, he doesn’t fuck around. He’s committed to his wife and kid.

And me? Well, that shit is complicated.

I was in love once. But if I ever had a chance with her, I lost it five years ago…

right about the time I knocked her brother out in front of an arena full of spectators.

All these years later, the clip of the fight between me and Jamison Peters still makes the rounds every damn time my team plays the Bucks… and they’re our next away game.

The clip is everywhere right now.

I never really see the fight, though. No matter how many times they play it, all I see is Sutton on her feet behind our bench, horror stamped all over her face when the camera pans past her. All I hear is the way she screamed Jamison’s name when he hit the ice…

He deserved what I did, but losing her because of it still haunts me. So I’m not really in the mood for Diego’s bullshit. I’m not in the mood for anything.

I just want to go the fuck home and pretend that I’m not still messed up in the head over a girl who slapped my face and told me to go to hell five years ago.

Apparently, that day isn’t today.

As soon as I step into the hall, River shouts my name.

I sigh, watching him jog down the hall toward me.

“You’re needed in the conference room.”

“Why?”

“How the fuck should I know?” He scowls at me. “I’m not your assistant. I didn’t ask for details. I just told Alice I’d deliver the message. The message is delivered. Get your ass to the conference room.”

Fucking great.

“Thanks,” I mutter, stomping that way with my bag slung over my shoulder.

I shake my head when I pass a supply closet and hear Emilia Lariat, the coach’s daughter and our new shrink, giggling from inside.

I’d bet my left nut that Nash Whatley is in there with her, doing shit that’s going to get his dumbass kicked from the team when Coach finds out.

But that’s not my business, so I keep my mouth shut and stride on by, pretending I didn’t hear anything. The less I know about what my teammates are doing, the better.

I learned that shit the hard way. Every man on the Bucks knew why Jamison and I got in that fight.

And all but one pretended they didn’t have a clue what he did.

Pablo Gutierrez was the only person who spoke up in my defense.

Everyone else acted like I was some fucking monster.

They threw me to the wolves to protect their precious captain.

And management believed them. Why wouldn’t they, when the evidence was long gone by that point, deleted as if it never existed at all?

My teammates now are different…but trust is damn hard to come by when you’ve been burned like I have.

“You couldn’t just call me with whatever you have to tell me?” I growl to Alice, the conference room door slamming against the wall when I push it open. But our publicist isn’t inside as expected.

“What the fuck?” I mumble, rocking back on my heels as Sutton Peters spins to face me, her gorgeous brown eyes locked on my face. Shock rips through me, wiping my mind clean.

“Um, hi,” she whispers, tucking long, glossy strands of hair behind her ears.

I don’t say anything for a long moment. I just…stare.

What the fuck am I supposed to say, anyway? It’s been five years since we were last in a room together, not since the day I was booted from the Bucks for attacking her brother. Attacking. As if the prick didn’t deserve it.

She was mad as hell that day. Sometimes, I wake up thinking I still feel the sting of her palm against my cheek. Her fiery, tear-filled eyes haunt me.

They aren’t blazing with fury now, not the way they did that day. They’re full of nervous anxiety, like she’s worried I’m going to tell her to get the fuck out of my face or something. As if I’ve ever been capable of that.

I would have done anything for her…but that was then.

Now, just looking at her hurts.

Christ, she’s still the prettiest little angel I’ve ever seen, with stunning doe-eyes, curves for days, and acres of gorgeous olive skin I’ve been dying to taste for six fucking years.

But that ship sailed into an abyss when she watched them cart her brother off the ice. When he woke up in the hospital, he sank the remnants. Filled her head with lies.

And I let him do it.

“What do you want?” I ask, my tone borderline hostile. I don’t want to hurt her. I just want her gone so I can go back to pretending I didn’t set my entire fucking world on fire for her. But that is what I did. Just so she didn’t lose her brother.

She flinches at my tone, seeming to draw in on herself. “How have you been?”

It’s a loaded question I have no interest in answering. “What do you want, Sutton?”

“I…” She glances around her, spotting the camera in the corner and huffs out a breath. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

“Nope.”

She huffs again, the same way she always used to huff when something was pissing her off. I used to love that sound. Turns out, I still do. More than I should.

Hasn’t that always been the problem? I’ve cared far more than I should, for far longer than I should have. She was too young, too sweet when I met her, and I was a fucking asshole for falling for her. But I fell anyway.

“Please, Jordan?”

I just stare at her, trying not to bend or crack.

I want to, though. When it comes to her, I never could say no.

But that was then. Before she left her palm print across my face and her accusations ringing in my ears.

Before I tore down everything and walked away because her brother left me no goddamn choice.

“Why are you here, Sutton?”

“I need your help,” she whispers. “Jamison–”

“Don’t even say his fucking name to me,” I snarl, my hands clenching. “If you’re here to talk about him, you can go.”

“He’s not the only reason I’m here. Maybe I miss you.” She bites her lip, glancing down at her feet as if that admission cost her dearly. “I…I know he lied to me back then. You weren’t trying to hook up with Vanessa, were you?”

I don’t say anything for a long moment, not sure how to respond. Back then, Jamison convinced her that the fight was all because I wanted to fuck Vanessa. It was laughable, but Sutton believed him.

And I fucking let her believe it. I didn’t tell her who her brother really was or correct her when she confronted me.

I just…didn’t say anything at all. I knew if I did, she’d never let it go.

She’d throw a massive fit, and he’d end up in handcuffs.

Any other tapes he had of her best friend would end up leaking once they got into police hands.

Her whole world would blow up. So would her best friend’s.

Their friendship wouldn’t survive that shit.

At the time, it made sense to protect Sutton from the fallout as much as I could.

She’d already lost her parents. At least with her brother’s lies in her ears, she got to keep the only remaining family member she had.

She got to keep her best friend. Jamison didn’t fucking deserve her or her loyalty, but he always protected her, always took care of her. She needed that.

Especially since I had nothing to offer her.

I had no career left. Reporters were hounding me.

Management was shipping me out of the city, intending for me to languish in the minor leagues until they figured out how to get rid of me once and for all.

They were pushing for Jamison to press assault charges. My whole life was in shambles.

And I never felt worthy of her to begin with. How the fuck could I? She was a perfect little princess…and I was the asshole who fell in love with her knowing it was wrong.

“How’d you find out?” I finally ask.

“He told me.”

I grunt, surprised by that. I figured the prick would die telling that lie.

“What really happened, Jordan?” She glances up at me, her brown eyes fathomless. Pleading for an answer.

For a split second, I consider telling her.

But I swallow the truth back the same way I did five years ago—not for Jamison’s sake but for hers.

Because, even now, she doesn’t deserve to feel guilty for idolizing an asshole like her brother.

She deserves to believe the best in at least one person in her life.

“Ask your brother if you want to know,” I say, stalking toward the door.

“I have,” she blurts behind me, freezing me in place. “I’ve asked over and over again. He told me to ask you if I really wanted to know.” She pauses. “I hoped maybe you’d give me the truth.”

I laugh, a raw, painful sound, and glance back at her. “Why the fuck would I do that, Sutton? You didn’t want to hear what I had to say five years ago.”

Her face falls. “That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is. When you came to see me after they booted me from the team, you never asked my side. You never asked if it was true. You slapped me across the face and told me to go to hell.”

Guilt flickers in her eyes. “That wasn’t…”

“Wasn’t what? What happened? I was there, princess. I remember exactly what that little hand felt like against my cheek.”

“I was hurt!” she cries.

“You think I wasn’t?” I ask, arching a brow. “My whole goddamn life fell apart. I lost everything I cared about.”

I lost you. But I don’t say that part. I know damn well that I’m not being fair right now, but fuck fair. I’ve spent five years in hell, knowing she believed a lie. There is not fairness here.

Guilt and regret flicker across her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, her shoulders drooping. “I know that doesn’t help anything because I believed him. I don’t understand why he lied about it. What did he do that was so awful, Jordan?”

“Like I said, ask your brother if you want the truth.” I start walking again, done with this whole fucking conversation.

I can’t stand here, looking at her anymore.

Not when I’ve spent five years trying to convince myself to get over her…

only to realize that maybe I never will.

With her in front of me, that’s never been clearer.

Sutton Peters is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, and I’m not sure who I hate most for that. Her brother…or myself.

Letting her hate me for something I didn’t do was so goddamn easy back then. It was the lesser of two evils. If Jamison was a bastard for what he did…what the fuck did that make me for falling for her when she was still seventeen?

I asked myself that question a thousand times. I still don’t have an answer. Didn’t really matter if she was legal by the time the fight happened. Didn’t even matter that I never made a move on her. None of that changed the fact that I fell for a girl I knew was too goddamn young.

“I’m not giving up,” she calls softly, her voice full of the same stubborn conviction that used to drive me wild. “I l-live here now. In DC. I took a job in accountant at one of the hospitals a few months ago.”

Fucking hell. That’s exactly what I need. Living with the ghost of her memory and my regrets was hard enough. How much worse will it be having her haunt me live and in living color?

I don’t want to find out.

“This city is plenty big enough for me to avoid you.” I stalk out with my heart in my throat.

This time, even though it fucking kills me…I don’t look back.