Page 2

TWO

Jolie

L ittle jitters of anxiousness fluttered inside my chest as we stood near the front section of the bar, the room getting fuller by the minute. I bit my straw, flicking my tongue across the end of the hard plastic.

“Tell me again why we’re here,” I said to my best friend and roommate, sipping a pink lady—a cocktail I never normally ordered, but it had sounded fun when the bartender mentioned it.

“Because our fake IDs didn’t work at the arena—they’re too strict there—and I needed a drink before we headed back to campus,” Ginger said. “You dragged me to the game tonight, so I dragged you here.”

“I didn’t exactly drag you.” I fisted several bunches of her dark curls, running my fingers through them.

The long-standing joke in our friendship was that she should have been named Jolie, and given my hair color, I should have been called Ginger.

“The second the word hockey came out of my mouth, you were more than in.”

“Ugh, true. You got me there.” She suddenly had heart eyes. “The thought of those sweaty, bearded men with endless chiseled muscles does everything to me.”

I shook my head, laughing. “We need to find you a hockey player to date. I mean, we have a whole team of them at Boston University. Why don’t we start going to hockey parties so we can score you a boyfriend? Or two?”

Once an athlete reached his junior year at our school, he tended to move off campus, living in a house with a slew of other teammates.

Ginger and I made our way around the party scene, but we almost always ended up at a frat house rather than the football, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, swim, or hockey house.

She snorted. “Jolie, we need to change that immediately and focus solely on hockey parties. Tomorrow night, we’re rounding up the girls and going to the hockey house.”

“Except they have an away game.”

“Only my luck.”

“Don’t worry, they’re home next weekend.” I curled my arm around her shoulders and pressed our cheeks together. “We’re going to make that dream of yours come true—mark my words.”

When I released her, she replied, “I sound like the biggest nut, don’t I?”

“What? No.” I squeezed her arm. “I get why you have a love for hockey dudes, trust me.”

“So, that means we need to find you one too.”

My head shook so fast that my long red hair whipped into my face. “Hard no.”

“Why?”

My cheeks puffed out as I took a deep breath. “I’m just … I don’t know.”

“You’re just, what ?”

The straw returned to my mouth as I thought about her question. “I’m in my distraction-free era.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“I’m talking about time.” I leaned against the back of a chair. “The last thing I need is someone who’s going to take up more of it when I hardly have any to begin with. Between classes and work, I’m swamped, girl.”

She pointed her finger at me and smiled. “Your ass needs to make time.”

I knew Ginger better than anyone—we’d been roommates since the first day of our freshman year; therefore, I knew where this conversation was headed.

So, I sucked down the rest of my drink, hoping the gin would make this talk a little less painful, and set the empty on the table in front of the chair.

“But there aren’t enough hours in a day to make that happen. You know I’m drowning as it is.”

She looked away, and I could tell she was annoyed, which was what happened every time we talked about my lack of a dating life, but when her stare returned, it appeared like her entire attitude had changed.

In fact, it was like the lotto had just put the fattest check in her hands, and she was gawking at all the zeros.

“Don’t look. But, oh my God , Beck Weston is literally staring you down.”

“Beck Weston?” That name needed no explanation. Hockey had been a part of my life since my earliest childhood memories. But I still said, “As in the captain of the LA Whales,” because I needed extra confirmation.

“Uh-huh.”

My heart was pounding. “We’re talking about the guy who slaughtered Boston tonight, scoring four out of their five goals?”

“Mmhmm.” Her eyes were as big as they could get. “And he’s, like, staring , staring at you. Not just looking. I’m talking full-on ogling.”

The nervousness that had been in my chest—the feeling that came whenever I had more work than I knew what to do with and I was trying to figure out how to balance fun and school and my job and failing miserably at all of it—moved to my stomach. “Why?”

She held on to my shoulder and shook it. “What do you mean, why? Because you’re the hottest thing to ever walk the planet. That’s why.”

“Stop.”

“You know it’s true—wait, I take that back. You don’t know it’s true.” Her hand stilled. “My mission in life is to make you one day realize it’s true.”

“Ginger,” I groaned.

“We can fight about this later. The important thing right now is Beck.” She waved her hand in front of her face.

“I can’t even believe we’re breathing the same air as him.

I’m trying to keep my cool, but I’m fangirling so hard that I can’t stop talking.

” She jumped a little. “And he’s still looking at you, girl.

Like, he hasn’t even noticed me checking him out because he’s too focused on you. ”

The truth was, I couldn’t believe Beck Weston—a multiple Stanley Cup winner, highest-scoring left wing in the league—was in this bar either.

But my reaction to things was much different from my best friend’s.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter where he is. You can’t look at him. You have to keep your eyes on me and play it cool.”

“Why? It’s not like anything is going to happen.

For one, he may be staring, but he’d never be interested, not when he could get any woman in this state—or New England, for that matter—to have sex with him.

And two, even if he were interested—which, let me emphasize again, would be so far-fetched—I’d never do it.

I’m not the sleeping around type—you know that.

I’m practically allergic to the whole concept. ”

“Hold on a second. You’re telling me you wouldn’t?” First, she raised her brows, and as they lowered, she snorted. “Girl, are you high? I don’t care what you say, you so would.”

I couldn’t even put my brain there. The idea was that incomprehensible.

But for just a few seconds, I tried to envision what it would be like—the fantasy of Beck Weston slowly lifting through the thick clouds.

It was like I was standing straight under the sun—that was the level of heat that washed over my entire body.

But it wasn’t just a wave of scorching rays that hit me; it was a deep, consuming pulsing too.

What’s even happening right now?

“You might be right.” I nodded overaggressively. “I’d probably die for that chance.”

She smirked. “Just like I thought.”

“Not that it even matters. I’m sure he’s already gotten bored with looking at me?—”

My voice cut off after I turned my head, instantly connecting eyes with him.

Although I’d been to many games when Boston played LA—my father had had season tickets for as long as I could remember and I always went with him—and I’d seen pictures of Beck on gossip sites and on Celebrity Alerts, admiring him in person was something far different.

In all those pics, he was a super-good-looking guy, of course.

But as I stood less than ten feet away from him—where he was positioned by the bar top, next to the goalie of the Whales—I was absolutely certain he was the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life.

He had chestnut-brown hair that was long on the top, the sides shaved to the start of his beard, which was bushy and overgrown and so sexy in this alpha, unhinged sort of way. He had hazel eyes that were hooded as they focused on me, thin lips, a thick neck that had veins running down both sides.

And then there was his body.

He had to be around six-three and was extra broad. The first two buttons of his shirt were undone, showing a small dusting of hair and a gold chain, and the rest of the fabric hugged his bulging biceps and what I assumed was a set of chiseled abs.

I was positive I’d stopped breathing.

And thinking.

I blinked.

And then I blinked again, doing everything I could to remind myself that I was here, in a bar, beside Ginger, looking at one of the most famous NHL players to ever exist.

As each of those points processed through my head—the latter being the most dominant—I forced my stare upon Ginger. “I … can’t breathe.”

“Neither can I—and he’s not even looking at me.”

I needed to get my thoughts straight. Right now, they were bouncing like a dribbling basketball.

And I needed to get out of this spot. I felt claustrophobic even though we were in the center of a bar and there was plenty of air around me.

There was something about being under his stare that was making me feel cemented.

“I’m going to go get another drink,” I told her.

“You’re going to do what?”

“I need one more drink, and then I need to go home and finish the paper that’s due on Monday because at some point tomorrow, I need to go into work and get that to-do list cleared before I get too far behind.”

“Babe, do I need to check your temperature?” She put her hand on my forehead. “Are you all right?—”

I didn’t let her finish her sentence before I turned away and walked the short distance to the bar, squeezing my way between two people, hailing down a bartender.

“Can I get a whiskey sour, please? Make it a double and go light on the sour.”

“That’s too tart for me. I’ll just take the whiskey—also make mine a double. And put her drink on my tab.”

My back stiffened at the voice that had come from beside me.

I’d felt the shift and exchange of people as I was speaking my order to the bartender and sensed someone new was next to me, but it couldn’t be Beck Weston.

There was no way he’d followed me to the other side of the bar from where he’d been standing.

I took a quick glance.

Shit.

It was most definitely him.