“Oh come on, Lori, you know getting shot in the face is your thing,” Carson jokes.
“So, Jenny, you gonna tell us how long Bev’s been planning this paintball situation with you?” Brady is painfully crushing on this girl, but I’m glad he’s talking since my tongue is suddenly frozen and my cock is midway to bursting through my pants. While it would be nice to end the small dick jokes once and for all, I doubt it’s how she wants this ride to go. “Because that felt like a setup.”
“Last night she asked me to join her in the assassination of the team.” Jenny laughs. “She somehow knew where the wedding venue was, so they all brought their gear. She’s probably been planning crushing you guys for a while.”
“Yeah, Bev was one of the few Sami trusted enough to tell wedding details to. I think she helped a lot,” Carson adds. “But back to the paintball, you are weirdly good at that for a girl living in New York.”
“I went to college in Montreal and my roommate there was huge into it. He forced me to join the team. They needed one girl on the team according to the rules. And I had already played”—she pauses and swallows hard—“sports my whole life. So it was easy to take a strategic sports brain and put it in the course.”
“Where in Montreal?” I ask, trying to sound normal.
“McGill.”
Her sentence, the fact Cap knew her, Montreal, and paintball hit and I blurt, “Holy fuck! You’re on Team Canada!” Her face behind a helmet flashes with her stats through my mind. She’s still one of the top scorers in the league.
“What?” Brady asks. “Team Canada?”
Jenny’s eyes widen and the humor and fun are gone. The girl she was on the porch with the cute smile and carefree attitude has vanished and the tense ball of stress is back.
“Team Canada?” Brady asks again. “What sport?”
“She’s only one of the best hockey players in the world.” I turn to her as I park the cart near everyone else’s at the pavilion. “You’re a killer. That’s how Cap knows you. You’re Jennifer Snowdon from Montreal on Team Canada, Number Twenty-two.”
Her cheeks flush as Brady leans right in. “You play hockey?”
“I haven’t played in a while,” she confesses.
“Goddamn. Is there anything you can’t do?”
She bites her juicy lip but the red lipstick doesn’t budge. It’s sorcery. Of course she has magic lipstick.
“Team Canada, what the hell? That’s what Cap was talking about when he said your story wasn’t his to tell.” Brady laughs and climbs out, offering her his hand. “Fuck, I thought he had some nasty band groupie story about your brother’s band.”
“Nope.” She laughs nervously and takes it, letting him help her off the cart.
“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. I had your poster in my room,” I say as I climb out after them, completely baffled that she is the—no THE—Jennifer Snowdon from Montreal whose hobbies include paintball.
“What?” She wrinkles her nose.
Brady winces because that’s the least cool thing I’ve ever said but there’s no recovering now. I said it. It’s out there and they’re all staring at me.
“Yeah, not like last week.” I laugh and realize how nervous I sound. Jesus, help me. “I was fifteen. And it was the whole Team Canada in full gear. They had just won the gold. You played two years, right? 2010 and 2014?” I change the subject from me.
“Yeah, two gold medals.” There’s pride mixed with the hesitation in her voice.
“How old are you?” Carson asks Jenny, earning an even more astounded look from Brady.
“Guys—” Brady mutters.
“Twenty-eight,” she answers that easily, but her voice wavers for the next part, “I played for Canada when I was twenty-one and twenty-five. They used my Montreal address because my first year on the team, that’s where I lived.”
“Will you play next year?” Rich asks.
“No, I’m officially retired.” She tries to sound nonchalant but is visibly uncomfortable. I don’t understand why. She’s an all-star and a legend.
“Fuck me. You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met. Team Canada. What the hell? How did you end up being our PR rep? So random.” Brady walks into the pavilion. Rich and Carson follow him, leaving Jenny and I standing by the lake. She doesn’t move so I don’t either.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt that out.”
“It’s okay.” She eyes the pavilion.
“Why didn’t you say something before, when Cap mentioned it?”
She bites her lip again and I try not to stare. “Honestly, it’s embarrassing.” She blushes.
“Embarrassing to be a superstar?”
“No.” She’s nervous. “It’s just—I’m overseeing the NHL PR contract for my boss who handles a bunch of sports contracts in Europe. So in a way, I’m in charge of the entire NHL while he’s away. At twenty-eight. It’s kind of a big deal.” She pauses and sighs heavily.
“Ohh, you don’t want people to think you got the job as a perk?” Of course, I understand that.
“Exactly.” She lightens up a bit. “I don’t want people to think I got my job because of the gold medals and being a hockey celebrity. I worked hard in university, even with playing on the team and working out and doing all the sponsor bullshit. I earned this job and I work hard every day to keep it and climb the ladder. So I try to keep my past separate.”
“That makes sense.” I completely understand her secrecy. “I swear, the fans and whatever will haunt me the rest of my life.”
“Well, and you are the Lawrence Eckelston,” she teases and seems to relax a bit again.
“So you handle all the NHL and no one ever recognizes you?”
“They do but rarely.” She starts walking to the pavilion. “Like how Cap did almost right away. But I don’t bring it up and I avoid talking about it if someone else does.”
“It’s cool. I was hoping to play on the team next year.”
“We both know you will.” She
