Page 3

CHAPTER TWO

MIA

A lthough there are a ton of people in this bar, it sure feels like the loneliest place on earth.

New Year’s Eve is not a night I like to celebrate, so I compromised and said I’d come out the night before, and that’s why I’m here. But had I known I’d be spending it with half of some random guy’s beer on my shoes and the Scorpions game on every surrounding screen, I’d have politely backed out of Tara’s invitation.

I know I need to make an effort. Despite being a freshman, I’m almost four years older than most of my classmates, though I’m pretty sure they’ve experienced going out to more bars than I have in my lifetime.

Daddy’s girl.

That’s what I am, and I’m painfully aware of it. The daughter of former NHL star Graham Jenkins and the girl who ran off to another city to study for her dream career—the first time I ever did what my dad didn’t want. The second I graduated from high school, he wanted me working alongside him, learning the ropes and moving toward a time when I’d ultimately take over for him after his retirement. That was Dad’s dream and never mine. And when I told him I’d applied to college and gotten in, he was pissed, determined I was making a huge mistake I’d eventually regret.

So, I have to make a go of this. I need to prove to not only him, but also to me that I can make decisions and stick to them. Running back to Daddy in Dallas is not an option.

Even though Dad doubts it, I didn’t deliberately choose this college for any other reason than my education. He thinks it’s highly convenient for me to be based in the same city as his former superstar winger, who won’t leave the damn TV screen above my head. Washington University happens to offer one of the leading undergraduate courses in America, and that’s what I told him. I also told him he would be doing me a disservice if he thought I was choosing a college to be close to a boy who wanted to be anything but near me.

Because he doesn’t.

But this man standing next to me as Tara, Hugh, Leo, and I sit at the bar clearly doesn’t have an issue with personal space—or invading it for that matter.

He does realize that practically sitting on my lap won’t improve his view of the game, right?

The friends I’m out with tonight are more like acquaintances. I guess I’m closest to Tara, but it’s hard to get to know anyone fully after only one semester.

And I don’t trust easily.

“Goddamn, he’s fucking fast,” Leo shouts over at us as he points at number forty-four, who’s flying down the ice with the puck.

I remember when that jersey was orange instead of black, white, and gray.

I remember how unique and spicy his cologne was as it wrapped around me. I can still smell it now. I can still feel his lips pressed against mine. I’d kissed boys before, but the way he kissed me, the way he made me feel, it was everything.

“Mia?”

Blinking rapidly, I come to, and the noisy bar begins ringing in my ears. “Huh?”

I twist my stool around to face Leo, who points at my wineglass.

“Another?”

I shake my head as his gaze lingers on me for a second too long. Shit, can he tell I’m upset?

Generally, I wear my heart on my sleeve. But I’m not especially keen to show this part of it. Jessie Callaghan is a distant memory I’ll bury deep in my mind. He’s gone, and the last time I saw him, he treated me like he didn’t even know me. Like I was dead to him.

Few people know we had a thing back when he was playing for the Destroyers and when I was my dad’s assistant. Dad made sure any evidence was buried, and the press never got word of the real reasons why Jessie had been traded. Sure, there were rumors of a love affair gone wrong, but nothing more and no details about me.

It’s easy to trade a player under the guise that they don’t work on the team or that they’re just not meshing well.

“Are you okay?” Leo hasn’t moved since I declined the drink.

I look up at him and offer a weak smile. He’s hot—I can’t deny he is. The classic kind of hot—tall, dark, handsome, blue eyes. He’s also a defenseman on our college hockey team—and a good one, if I believe his own hype. But I’m not interested, although I think he assumed his fake ID to buy drinks would impress me.

Negative.

Interest from guys is just—I don’t know—not really that interesting to me. Not that Dad allowed them within twenty feet of me anyway.

And the one guy who did get close—aka Jessie—I honestly thought my dad was going to castrate him there and then when he caught us making out on my bed. Turned out, he had only played nine holes of golf that afternoon, not eighteen.

Seeing his starting winger’s tongue down his teenage princess’s throat was not how he’d envisaged his Sunday afternoon playing out. And neither did Jessie envisage being put on the trade list immediately afterward.

“I’m fine,” I finally answer my classmate. Thumbing over my shoulder at the screen, I wince. “Just engrossed in the game; it’s a close one.”

Leo smirks in response, and I swear I see flirtation in his eyes, but I choose to ignore it. “I thought you’d be a Destroyers’ girl. I didn’t think you’d be rooting for the Scorpions.”

I wince again. “Gotta support the local side.”

“Holy hell, is he hot though,” Tara coos from beside me.

Leo rolls his eyes in her direction and walks over to the bar.

I turn to Tara, assuming she wasn’t talking about Leo. “Who?”

With her tongue practically hanging out of her mouth, she watches him move across the ice. “Jessie Callaghan. Who else?”

I can’t lie. He is undeniably hot.

When my dad picked him up in his academy, something he established during his NHL career for young, gifted hockey players, I remember him telling my mom, Jayne, over dinner that he’d stumbled across this insanely talented kid from a rough area. He needed a lot of support, but my dad had never seen skating like it. His speed and precision. He basically danced on the ice.

“He’s okay, I guess,” I reply with a casual shrug. “Not really my type.”

She quirks a brow. “Oh really? Is the rugged and tattooed Scorpions defenseman Zach Evans more your style?”

One thing I have learned about Tara is that she knows her hockey boys. Raised in Seattle, she knows the team well, mostly what they look like underneath their pads—if her wall calendars in the dorm we share are anything to go by.

I stare down into my empty wineglass and shake my head. “Not really. Plus, Zach’s engaged, and rumor has it, he and his fiancée have a second child on the way.”

“Lucky bitch,” Tara drawls.

“He’s, like, mid-thirties, and you’re not even twenty yet.” I laugh.

“True, but it’s not like it would be an issue. Jessie though, he’s, like, twenty-six, right?” She wiggles her brows at me in jest.

I’d laugh if it was funny and she wasn’t talking about hooking up with my ex-boyfriend.

No, wait. You’d have to have actually been dating to qualify as an ex, and we definitely didn’t have a label.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never hooked up with a hockey player before. You could use your dad’s connections.” She waggles her brows at me again. “You’re definitely missing out.”

I pick up her empty cocktail glass and wave it in front of her. “How many of these have you had?”

She shrugs. “Enough.”

I smirk. “You don’t say.”

“You know, I’ve shared a dorm with you for four months now, but I still don’t think I know the real you. Don’t you ever just want to let your hair down and go for it?”

“You mean, like, go out and get wrecked?”

She twists her lips to the side in thought. “Yeah, I guess. Skip class, leave an assignment until the night before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you break any rules. The perfect good girl.” She laughs, swishing her long blonde hair over her shoulder.

“I don’t see the point,” I reply in an even tone.

“Why not? The first year of college is for fun, hooking up, and having a wild time. I mean, I get you’re a couple of years older, but don’t you want that?”

Tucking a piece of my dark hair behind my ear, I watch as the second period ends. The players skate off the ice, and Jessie disappears off camera. I keep my eyes glued to the screen and press my lips together.

“It was hard enough getting here and convincing my dad this was the right move for me. I’m not about to put my one chance at studying for this career at risk by getting wasted and hooking up. My dad has successfully kept me out of the spotlight my entire life, and that’s how I like it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her nod and push away her glass.

“I get that. But there must be something that makes you want to go crazy.”

Yeah, there is—or was. But he disappeared off camera about thirty seconds ago, and every time we’ve tried to reach out to each other, it all goes to shit.

I look at Tara. “I don’t like doing anything where I feel out of control. So, partying and drinking just don’t appeal to me.”

“Because of, um … your mom?” she asks cautiously.

Christ, I wish I’d not come out tonight.

Although she’s right.

My dad has always been protective of me and my identity. But from the moment my mom died on New Year’s Eve at the hands of a drunk driver, he went overboard. Images of the accident reached every news outlet from here to Timbuktu, and at fifteen, it hit me hard.

I miss my mom. I miss her smile and the way I always knew it would be okay when I saw her. But most of all, I miss her hugs.

And whether he says it out loud or not, I know that’s why Dad didn’t approve of Jessie, the guy who has battled addiction. Dad can hide behind his reasons—like a breach of staff-player contracts and Jessie being a “dressing-room disruptor”—all he wants, but I know the truth, and so does Jessie.

He wanted him out of Dallas and as far away from me as possible, and a convenient trade two thousand miles away in Seattle was the perfect solution.