Of course, there had only been one woman on my mind for the last couple of years, but she was thousands of miles away and I was here. Sporting a semi as I drank beer with my teammates.
Nope.
I wasn’t going to think about her tonight.
“Hey!” Another teammate, Tore Brekken, had just arrived and sat down across from us. We’d pulled three high top tables together and had gathered as many stools as we could since most of the team had said they were coming. A few of the guys were going home to their families, but the last night of the season tended to be one time the bulk of the team showed up.
“You guys suck.”
I bristled, taking a breath before turning to see who the smartass was. It wouldn’t be the first time disgruntled fans approached us in public after a loss, but this was the wrong night to mess with me. Driving my fist into the guy’s face would probably feel really good.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Jared said, lifting his glass in the man’s direction.
“You could’ve won back-to-back championships, but you had to put Lacroix in for Martensson.”
“When you’ve played and coached pro hockey for two decades, you can tell me how to do my job,” Jared replied. “Until then, that’s life.”
“Coach Barnett wouldn’t have done that.” The man wasn’t letting this go and I shifted on my stool to give him a look.
“Coach Barnett retired, man.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jared turned away, shaking his head.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, asshole.”
“Why don’t you walk away?” I said to the man. “Being an asshole isn’t going to change the outcome of the game.”
“Fuck you too!” he snapped.
“Come on, Bo, don’t do this tonight.” Our usual waitress, Kelly, approached the guy with a tired smile. “Let me buy you a beer and—”
“I’ll buy him a beer,” Jared said. “Put it on my tab.”
“Fuck you,” the guy grumbled. “I don’t want your fucking money.”
“Bo, if you don’t settle down, you’re gonna have to leave.” Kelly seemed wary and I watched with a frown as the guy reluctantly walked off.
“There’s always one,” Jared said, taking a pull from his beer.
“Asshole,” Tore muttered. “I’d like to see him on skates.”
“Right?” Ian chuckled from my other side, shaking his head. “Wanker wouldn’t last five minutes on the ice.” Ian was from Scotland and often slipped into the vernacular of his native tongue.
We went back to joking around, our tables getting more crowded as other guys and their significant others arrived. A handful of fans had shown up as well, most of them stopping by to merely say hello and wish us well, or thank us for a great season. The guy who’d been ragging on Coach Wylde was truly the exception because we had great fans here in Vegas. There were always a few who were jerks, though. Having been a professional hockey player for a decade, I was used to it. I simply wasn’t in the mood for it tonight.
I kept my eye on the asshole named Bo because he seemed to be giving Kelly a hard time and it wasn’t fair for him to take out his bad mood on her. She was almost always our waitress when we came in, so we tried to take care of her both financially and by not causing a scene when we came in en masse. Her grandfather owned the place and she worked a lot of hours to help out, so we tried to stay low-key since we came here often.
When Jared got up and headed for the restroom, I watched Bo watching him and part of me worried he might go after him. Bo didn’t move, though, so I sipped my beer and made a mental note to keep an eye on him until Jared came back out.
“So, I need to talk to you about something,” Ian said to me.
“What’s up?” I took a pull of my beer and glanced at Ian. He was my best friend, both in hockey and life, and we’d been roommates until he’d gotten engaged last winter. I was going to be the best man at his upcoming wedding as well.
“It’s Isla.”
“Everything okay?” My heart rate kicked up a little at the mention of her name. His twin sister was the woman of all my dreams and fantasies, but I’d never had the balls to do anything about it.
“Yes and no.” He seemed uncomfortable.
“You’re kind of freaking me out, bro.”
He nodded. “Right. So Granddad’s been on a kick the last couple of years to get Isla married. I’m not sure what prompted it, other than our father dying, of course, but he seems intent on making it happen and this time he tried to arrange a date for her to my wedding. She panicked and without thinking announced she was seeing someone, so she already had a date. She hoped no one would push it until after their guest was gone, but they did, so all she could think of was to say it was you.”
My mouth opened but no words came out.
This was fucking awesome.
It was also a fucking disaster.
What the hell was I supposed to say? One of my biggest reservations in going after Isla was that it was too big a risk because of my friendship with Ian.
“Er, okay. So your family now thinks we’re…dating?”
“She told them the two of you were taking it slow because of the distance, but yes, that it’s been long-distance since you saw each other at Christmas.” Isla and the rest of Ian’s immediate family had come to Vegas over the holidays to see him play and to spend time with him and his fiancée, Everly. Isla and
