Page 6
Chapter Six
Viggy
Hockey Rule #17: What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room Media Rule #17: Everything is content
Seven years I’d lived in this neighborhood. Seven years in an overpriced condo. And seven years since I’d discovered this little dive bar tucked away on a side street. A ghost town Sunday to Thursday, the joint spun jazz music and draped string lights over a tiny patio. Over the years, this place had become my sanctuary.
Tonight, though, Lily fucking Sutton invaded that sanctuary.
The woman sat at a table in the corner, dark hair catching the glow of the lights. My pulse kicked up a notch before I could shut it down. What the hell was she doing here? This wasn’t her scene. Not a chance in hell. She was all bright lights and fancy cameras. Ms. Hollywood with her microphone and nosy-ass questions. Not the kind of woman to hole up in a dimly lit bar, hunched over a laptop.
And Christ, those shorts again? Almost eight months of professional pantsuits, but here was Ms. Hollywood flashing bare legs in another pair of those tiny shorts designed to wreck my self-control. One leg curled up in the chair, the other stretched beneath the table, that sexy heeled sandal kicked off and laying forgotten on its side. And apparently just the sight of her bare legs could make my dick twitch in my jeans.
Get it together, Vignier.
As if Saturday hadn’t been bad enough, now she was in my space. We’d made it through most of the season with her tucked into tailored suits and a professional distance that made it easier to keep my head down. Brief interviews. Curt exchanges. Enough to keep things contained. I’d kept my distance, boxed up the pull I had no business feeling—for a woman who stood for everything I resented about modern hockey.
But now?
How the hell was I supposed to deal with her in my private space? In my personal spot?
The urge to stride over there and demand to know what she was doing here clashed with seventeen years of maintaining control. A captain didn’t lose his cool. Didn’t let anyone—especially some producer or showrunner or whatever the fuck she was—get under his skin.
She tapped away on her laptop, the screen’s glow casting shadows across her face. That damn white cat of hers poked his head out of a backpack in the second chair, fixing me with the same annoyed expression from the lake. Great, even the cat judged me.
Beer in hand, muscles tight with the effort of not looking her way, I settled at a table a few feet from hers. The first cold swallow did nothing to bank the heat churning just under my skin. She was lost in her work, brow furrowed, fingers tap-tap-tapping away. The picture of focused concentration.
Bullshit. No way she didn’t know I’d arrived. This laser focus on her work was all for show. Had to be. People like her always had a motive. I wouldn’t make it easy on her. She wanted to pretend she wasn’t waiting for me? Fine. Game on.
Minutes passed. She divided her attention between her laptop and tablet, never once looking past that damn cat perched next to her. Never scanning the patio. Never looking my way. The studied indifference sparked something dangerous in my chest.
I would wait her out. She’d make her move eventually. I took another pull of beer, letting the cold burn fade while I drank her in. Couldn’t help myself. She looked different tonight, without her Hollywood armor. Softer. The messy bun exposed the delicate curve of her neck, dark strands breaking free to tease against her skin. My fingers itched to brush them back, to test if they felt as silky as they looked.
No power suit. No sharp edges. Just Sutton—Lily— stripped down to something raw and real. The way her teeth worried at that stylus, dragging against her bare lower lip... Christ. She had no idea what that did to a man’s concentration. Every little nibble sent blood rushing south.
Her toes flexed against her abandoned sandal strap, the unconscious movement drawing my attention to long, tanned legs. Legs that would feel incredible wrapped around... Lock it down, Vignier.
But my traitorous mind had already gone there. Already imagined how those legs would look tangled in my sheets. How that lip would taste without the usual bright red paint. How those escaped strands of hair would feel wrapped around my fingers while I…
Fuck me.
Here I sat, in my own damn sanctuary, letting this woman mess with my head. It didn’t make sense. She represented everything wrong with how the game had changed—the constant cameras, the manufactured drama, the invasion of private moments. Having her this close should piss me off.
Instead, my body hummed with awareness. Every shift of her shoulders, each absent swipe of her tongue across her lips, registered like an electric shock to my system.
I took another long pull of beer, but it barely registered. The bartenders knew better than to bother me—let me sit, let me think, let the noise fade. Most nights, that worked. Not tonight. Tonight, the low light caught the slope of her collarbone, and that damn V-neck left just enough skin visible to drag my focus exactly where it didn’t belong.
Walk away. Now.
I should leave. Pack my bag for Vancouver tomorrow. The team needed their captain focused on the road trip, not fixated on some producer with trouble written all over her.
Would she be on the plane?
The thought ambushed me, unwelcome but impossible to ignore. What Lily Sutton did wasn’t my damn business. But I couldn’t shake the image from the last flight—her shoulder brushing Silver’s while they shared her tablet screen, my quiet alternate captain making her laugh. The same guy who’d inherit my C next season. They’d fallen into an easy rhythm, heads bent close, trading comments like they’d known each other forever.
My fingers clenched around the bottle neck. The beer had gone warm. I shouldn’t care who she spent time with. Shouldn’t notice how natural they looked together, or how her smile lit up her whole face when Silver said something that made her laugh.
Years of maintaining control, and here I sat, letting myself get wound up over nothing. Over someone who wasn’t mine to worry about.
As if sensing my thoughts, she finally lifted her head. Those blue-green eyes caught mine, gleaming in the dim light. Without her usual red lipstick, her smile looked softer. More genuine. My stomach did a fucking somersault like I was some rookie with his first crush.
Damn it.
“Viggy,” she said, voice carrying easily across the empty tables between us. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I gripped the bottle harder, fighting every instinct screaming to close the distance between us. To trace my fingers along that soft-looking skin the string lights painted in gold shadows. “Just grabbing a beer, Sutton. What else would I be doing on a Sunday night?” I kept my voice flat. Emotionless. The same tone I used in post-game pressers when some damn reporter asked a stupid question. And downed another swallow of beer to stop myself from saying more.
“Right.” Her low murmur raised the hair on my neck. “Just a beer. On a Sunday night. Alone. In a dimly lit bar. Sounds like the setup for a thriller movie. Are you meeting your secret contact? Getting your next mission?”
The amusement in her voice, the underlying challenge inherent in her mere presence, fanned embers I couldn’t afford to feed. “You stalking me now? Don’t you have enough footage of me by now?” I scowled at my beer, grip white-knuckled around the bottle.
A laugh bubbled up from her—rich and real, nothing like the polished sound she used with her crew. “Hardly.” She tapped her stylus against the table. “My apartment’s just off Sixth, a couple blocks that way.” She gestured vaguely toward the street. “The diner I’ve been going to closed up. Being fumigated or something.” She widened her eyes dramatically. “A big, scary Health Department notice on the door. I asked Google for a replacement and...here I am.”
Her smile faded, a shadow flickering across her face. “I had no idea I’d run into you, Jack. Swear.”
My first name on her lips hit with the force of a body check—smooth and powerful and lighting up every nerve ending. Too intimate. Too real. Bad enough she’d crawled under my skin with her questions and that knowing look. Bad enough she made me want to spill secrets I’d never shared. But hearing my name in that soft voice of hers?
Fucking kryptonite.
And still I leaned closer, drawn in like a moth to the flame that would burn down every defense I’d built. Because that’s who Lily Sutton was—beautiful and lethal and everything I shouldn’t want. Everything I couldn’t stop wanting, no matter how many times I told myself to walk away.
A half-drunk glass of wine sat beside her laptop along with a glass of water and a blue plastic basket filled with pretzels. The bar didn’t offer much in the way of food. My mouth quirked up despite myself. “Hard at work with pretzels and wine?”
She motioned to her gear on the table with an exaggerated flourish. “Living the dream. What can I say? Some of us actually work for a living instead of just skating around looking pretty.”
That teasing lilt in her voice did dangerous things to my control. Maybe she hadn’t planned this. Maybe it was just bad luck. Life had a way of piling on the complications lately. Busted knee. Retirement breathing down my neck. And now this—running into Sutton in the one place I let my guard down. Seemed the hockey gods hadn’t finished testing me this season.
I shifted my focus to the cat poking his head up from the depths of his backpack. Safer territory. “Maybe you’re the one hiding out. Or plotting world domination with your feline overlord here?”
“Jokes?” Her laugh hit me right in the gut, warm and genuine. Something I hadn’t heard before; something I suddenly craved. “I don’t believe it,” she continued. “The mighty Jack Vignier, making jokes? What have you done with the stern captain?”
I looked away, her playful tone scraping against raw nerves. Once upon a time, even just last season, she’d have met a different man. I would still have hated the idea of her show, but everything else? The bum knee, the restlessness about what to do after hockey... that would have been different.
Her smile softened as she caught whatever darkness must have crossed my face. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop teasing. To be honest, I’m running on fumes, but I have to get these show notes to Malone or else.” She popped a pretzel in her mouth, crunching thoughtfully. “Though I suppose there are worse places to be working late.”
The casual intimacy of the moment carved straight to the bone. No cameras, no crew, just Lily being... Lily. The scent of her—citrus and something spicier—wrapped around my head like an intoxicating fog. The way she tucked one leg under herself, making those tiny shorts ride higher on smooth thighs. The gentle curve of her neck exposed by that mess of dark hair, begging for my mouth to trace the delicate line of muscle and tendon.
My dick throbbed, already hard from just watching her exist in my space. From imagining how that soft skin would feel under my calloused hands. How those full lips would part on a gasp if I gave in to the urge to taste her. To find out if the real thing matched the fantasy that had been torturing me for months.
My body moved before my brain caught up, taking seven strides to her table. The closer I got, the stronger that citrus-spice scent of hers wrapped around me. “You mind?” I pulled out one of her chairs, already knowing I’d regret the move tomorrow.
“You have to sit there quietly. I’m working.” But the way her dark brow arched, that little smirk playing at the corner of her mouth, sent heat straight through my blood.
“I thought you’d have the show notes for the next episode done already.” I forced a neutral tone, professional. “Don’t you have that shit finished up way ahead of time?”
“We have a vague outline, but it’s never set in stone. We never know what’s going to happen from week to week. For instance, the three-legged iguana showing up in Coach Mack’s office this morning?” She nodded toward her work. “But this is for a special episode. Malone is determined to fill the week you guys don’t have a game with something special.” Those sea-glass eyes fixed on me, sharp and assessing. “I was hoping it would be your episode, but we’re playing with the idea of doing a feature on the coach instead.”
A muscle in my jaw ticked. “Mack?” She wasn’t the only one who could do assessing. “Is that going to get Malone the views he wants? Mack is a fantastic coach, one of the best, but the man is a walking cliche.”
The corner of her lips ticked up. “He is, but he’s more than just a cliche. He’s fascinating.” Something sparked in her expression, that passion that made her dangerous. “This morning he told me he was weirded out by the iguana, but he refused to let on to the team. Said you guys needed to get out of your heads this time of year. That if it meant losing his office to an iguana, that was a price he’s willing to pay.” Her focus lasered in on me, making my skin prickle. “Everyone’s got a story to tell, Vig. It’s just a matter of finding the perspective, presenting it in a way Johnny Public can identify with.”
I snorted. “Perspective? Is that Hollywood talk for fancy editing to get the most views?”
“No.” Her voice hardened, that edge back—the one that both intrigued and irritated me. “It’s Hollywood speak for showing every person’s unique viewpoint. Showing viewers how people think, what’s important to them, showing them what’s at stake. It’s about making them feel something real.”
The passion in her voice vibrated through me, but I couldn’t afford to trust it. To trust her. “Everyone’s got a story, Sutton. But not every story needs telling.” Let her read between those lines. I wasn’t about to hand her ammunition for her show.
“Right.” She unfolded her leg, stretching beneath the table. Though the edge blocked my view, the sight of those long, tan legs in those damn shorts was burned into my brain. I shifted in my seat, fighting back images I had no business entertaining.
“I was thinking of talking to some of the guys about Mack. His coaching style, his impact on the team...”
“Waste of time. They’ll just give you the usual platitudes.” I dragged my hand over my jaw, the scrape of stubble grounding me against the way she dominated my space, my senses. “Mack’s a great coach. He pushes us to be our best.’ Blah, blah, and more blah.”
“You think so?” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and everything in me went still. The string lights caught the delicate curve of her cheekbones, played over the fullness of her lips. Damn my life, she was a beautiful woman.
“I know so,” I said, my voice rougher than intended. I tore my gaze away, focusing on her cat instead. The damn thing had poked his head further out of the backpack, glaring at me like I’d personally offended his entire species.
“Well, then.” She stroked the cat’s head, her thumb rubbing behind his ear. The damn thing melted into her touch like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Maybe you could do better? Be a little more honest? On the record, of course. For the feature.”
Something in her tone raised my hackles. “My perspective?” The laugh that escaped held no humor. “Fine. My perspective is that he’s a pain in the ass. He’s demanding. Pushes us harder than any coach I’ve ever had—wearing that fucking smile the whole time. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to knock that smile right off his face.”
She laughed. “See?” she said, her eyes sparkling behind her glasses. “That’s a great description. Raw, honest. And if we let it be known that you’re cooperating, more of the guys would be a little more honest, too.”
The way she said “cooperating” scraped against my nerves. “Not if you don’t come up with better questions.”
“How about… How does he inspire players to greatness?”
I snorted. “What, now you think he’s a miracle worker?” I shook my head. “He’s working with world-class athletes. The best players on the planet. A career in the NHL is greatness. It’s the pinnacle. Doesn’t get any better.”
The chair creaked as I leaned back. Her gaze stayed locked on me, steady, unreadable.
The next question glowed between us like a neon light. Once you’ve reached the pinnacle, what the hell came next? Some guys had families, kids. Something to fill the void. But I’d been so focused on the game, on my career, that the rest of life passed me by. I rubbed my thumb over the label on my beer, peeling the edge.
“It doesn’t get any better than this, huh?” Something in her voice made me look up.
The Cup flashed before my eyes. The one thing that had driven me for seventeen years. That drove every hockey player worth his salt. The ultimate prize.
Sutton swirled her wine, the glass catching the glow of the lights. “Must be something. Dedicating your whole life to a single goal. And then…” Her voice dipped. “What comes after that? What can possibly hold a candle?”
Her words tunneled straight into the doubts that kept me up at night. The same questions that had haunted me since the season started, screaming louder with every twinge in my knee. I wasn’t ready for my career to end. Sure as hell wasn’t ready to end it early because of a fluke injury.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with things I couldn’t afford to say. What came next? When the arena went dark and I hung up my skates, what then?
I fell back on the move that had served me all season with her and every other reporter hunting headlines. Deflect. “Everything comes to an end sometime, right? What about you? What do you have lined up after Unleashed ?”
She pulled her cat from the backpack, cradling him against her chest like armor. “That’s the million dollar question.” Her gaze drifted past me to some point in the darkness beyond the patio. “I don’t have anything lined up, actually. Unleashed is... Well, it’s my first project in almost three years.”
“Three years?” The timeline didn’t compute with the driven woman who’d prowled our practices for months, always hunting the perfect angle. “You took time off?”
“Not on purpose.” She buried her face in her cat’s fur, but not before I caught the shadow in her eyes.
Everything about her in that moment screamed vulnerability—the way she held that damn cat like a lifeline, the careful neutrality in her voice, the tension in her shoulders. Every detail a glimpse of something new, something unguarded and vulnerable, a side of her I hadn’t seen before. A side that made my protective instincts flare.
“Something happen?” Even as the words escaped my mouth, I wanted them back. I didn’t want to know more about this woman. Didn’t want to feel any sort of understanding for whatever situation had derailed her career. I couldn’t afford to soften. Couldn’t afford to allow her any closer. Couldn’t allow any of that and keep my sanity.
She hesitated. Maybe she didn’t intend to answer. I nodded. Good.
Then she shrugged. “You know how a person can fool you? Let’s just say I learned the hard way that not everyone in this business plays by the same rules.” She stroked the cat’s fur, drawing her fingers along his back to the very tip of his white, fluffy tail. “But that’s okay. Lesson learned, right?”
“Sure.” The word came gruffer than intended, but the alternative was asking for more answers I didn’t need to be prying out of her.
“And I’m not giving up.” Pure steel flashed in her eyes. “I’ll deal with all the Mark Malones in the world if it means I get my career back. And this time around, I won’t be fooled.”
The raw determination in her voice triggered an ache in my chest, a pull I couldn’t afford to let sway me. She tucked the cat back into his backpack, movements sharp, deliberate. When she looked up at me over her laptop, her walls were back in place. “Anyway, enough about me. We were talking about Coach Mack.”
“ You were talking about Mack.” I scrubbed my hand over the scruff along my jaw. Her quick shift back to business should have been a relief. Instead, it left me off-balance, craving the glimpse of vulnerability she’d shown moments ago.
“So.” She leaned forward, eyes locked onto mine like I was footage she needed to unravel. “Has he ever lost his temper?”
“A time or two.”
“I heard about him throwing water bottles once, when he was seriously pissed at Doyle. I’ve heard he can unleash some epic locker room rants, too.” Her lips curved up. “I might even have footage from the night you guys lost to Anaheim. Mack was very expressive that night. Looking at him, you’d never guess he had such a temper.”
“Not fair to call that a temper. He’s passionate about the players and winning. If he thinks you aren’t giving it your all, he’s not afraid to let you know.” And Doyle—the subject of his rant in Anaheim—was a lazy prick who deserved every bit of Mack’s wrath. A first-class idiot who only put forth enough effort to stay on the roster.
“Sounds like a good story to me.”
“This sport isn’t about being good enough. It’s about being the best.” My voice came out hard. “And the best isn’t always pretty.”
“That’s what makes hockey interesting, though, isn’t it?” Her voice dropped low, intimate, as she leaned forward again. The movement made her shirt gape, giving me a glimpse of delicate lace beneath thin fabric. My mouth went dry.
Every muscle in my body tensed with the need to reach for her. To trace that hint of lace, to feel if her skin was as soft as it looked. Her voice continued, but blood roared in my ears, drowning out everything except the primal urge to drag her into my arms.
“The struggles, the sacrifices, through injuries and setbacks, the moments of doubt... coming out on the other side. You’re not the same person anymore, are you? That’s what makes a story real, don’t you think?”
I wrenched my gaze from temptation to meet her eyes. The weight of unspoken truths and hidden agendas pressed between us.
The patio lights flickered overhead, and without another word, she closed her laptop, stowing her tablet in her bag.
Wind gusted through the patio, rattling the furniture. Goosebumps prickled my arms as storm clouds rolled in, matching the turbulence in my gut.
“Did you walk here?”
She glanced up from packing her laptop, hands busy with cords and cases. “I did, yeah.” The wind tugged more hair loose from her bun, dark strands dancing around her face. “Which is why I need to get a move on. Bright’s not a fan of getting caught in the rain.”
The cat yowled his agreement. She stood, shoving her feet into sandals and hauling that ridiculous backpack over her shoulders. Before she could grab her computer bag, I had it in my grip. “Let’s go.”