Her thoughts were interrupted by action on the ice below. Paul Letestu passed the puck across the ice. In one fluid motion, Sean skated forward, pulled back his stick, and one-timed it on Badaj’s stick side. The Ducks goalie deflected it and the whistle blew.
“Try and think of one thing nice about each girl.” Marie pointed to the notepad. She was clearly not letting this go. “Create a subsection under Gettin’ Hitched bitches.”
Of the many things that Lexie and her best friend had in common, their love of detailed memos was near the top of the list.
Lexie figured that title was apropos. She’d been hurt and astonished, actually, by some of the things the other women had said behind her back and didn’t believe she owed them anything at all. “I don’t know where to even start.” Marie was right, though. Being nice cost her nothing. Looking like a bitch could cost her a lot.
“Start with Cindy Lee from Clearwater. Find something nice to say about her.”
Hmm. Cindy Lee had said Lexie never worked a day in her life. “How about, ‘Cindy Lee isn’t as big a bitch as Davina from Scottsdale?’” Davina had told the confession cam that Lexie looked like Sasquatch with dark roots. “Or that Summer’s teeth aren’t quite as yellow as corn.”
Marie frowned. “You’re not getting the point of this on purpose.”
Once more the whistle blew and it was game on again. Lexie’s gaze skimmed the ice, but she didn’t see number 36. “I get it. I just don’t like it.” She looked toward the Chinooks bench and saw him sandwiched between other players, their attention rapt as they pounded their sticks on the board, chewed on their mouth guards, and spit between their feet. Her dad stood behind them with the other coaches, their arms across their chests, their gazes lasered in on the players passing the puck and dumping it behind the goal.
The two men in her life. She counted on them both. One she loved and trusted with her life. The other she wasn’t even sure she liked. She couldn’t even trust him to follow the carefully outlined, super-easy memo she’d given him.
The whistle blew and the game stopped. “Crazy Train” pumped through the arena and the camera operator panned the crowd, stopping on Lexie and Marie and zooming in on their faces. All aboard, hahaha, Ozzy laughed. On all four fifteen-foot screens, she gave a little wave and smiled.
Another mission accomplished.
Chapter 11
•love is a battlefield
The retrofitted DC–9 took off over Seattle within a blinding ball of morning light. Almost at once, seventeen window shades lowered on the aircraft as it headed into the rising sun and a five-game, nine-day road trip. Twenty minutes into the flight, the seat belt light went off and coats and blazers were stowed in overhead bins, ties loosened, and breakfast was served from the catering service hired to provide the special diet for twenty elite athletes, coaches, and staff. While some of the hockey players ate omelets and bacon and hash browns, Sean stuck to a bowl of oatmeal, Greek yogurt topped with blueberries, and a vanilla whey shake. Each loaded up on carbohydrates and protein to begin the game-day process toward an optimal energy build. Their individual diets were dictated by years of conditioning and team nutritionists, but most of all by superstition. Adam Larson ate sausage but wouldn’t think of allowing bacon to pass his lips, on account of the 2010 final against the Rangers when he’d been carried off on a stretcher from a groin injury after the pre-game meal of a bacon sandwich. KO didn’t eat dairy, and Sean refused Gatorade on account of a neutral zone spew at the Air Canada Cup Nationals when he’d played in the midget league.
After breakfast, Sean pulled out his phone and watched game tapes of the Red Wings defensive line. When Howard was hot, he locked low and wide and committed with split-second timing. When he was cold, he hung out in the blue ice and lost angles and opened up holes. The question was, how to make a hot Howard turn cold?
“Hey, Knox.”
Sean lowered his phone and tilted his head to the right and glanced a few rows down the aisle into left defender Butch “The Butcher” Ferguson’s red-bearded face.
“Look what I found on my porch before I left this morning.” He handed something to Brody in the seat behind him. Brody passed it along to Adam, and he dropped it on the table in front of Sean.
Love on Ice. He looked down at the local section of the Seattle Times and the bold title just above the picture of him and Lexie. The photo of them sitting on the couch in his condo took up half the page. They both smiled into the camera, looking relaxed and natural. Seeing it, no one would notice the underlying tension or guess that it was all a lie. No one bu
t him knew that he’d tried and failed not to think of her naked the whole time. His arm around her shoulder had made him remember how she’d felt against his chest. Sitting next to her reminded him of how she’d looked sitting on top of him, the dip of her waist, her big breasts, and the deep blue of her eyes. Wild and the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He’d remembered how she’d felt, too. Soft and warm, their skin sticking together in the best places. She’d felt so good and tasted even better.
The photographer had captured a beautiful angle of her face, and Sean was relieved that he had a goofy look on his face. He unfolded the paper and read the caption beneath the photo: “I got a note from a mutual friend that Sean was waiting for me.” Lexie on why she left Pete Dalton at the altar. “He signed it with a little heart.”
The blood rushed from Sean’s head and the corners of his eyes pinched. Fuck.
“Sign my copy with a little heart,” the left defender said before his booming laugh filled the plane.
“Eat me, Butch.” Sean shoved the paper back down the row. It got as far as two seats before Tim Kelly paused to read it. “I never met a celebrity before.”
Just when he’d passed the new-guy hazing phase, this. He glanced toward the front of the plane to see if John had overheard the conversation. The only thing he saw was the sleeve of the coach’s shirt and part of one hand flipping through game tapes on his laptop.
“I met Adriana Lima at a Victoria’s Secret show,” Chucky bragged. “Never did get an article written about my love life, though.”
This wasn’t his love life. Sean pushed a big grin on his face like he wasn’t the least bit bothered by the story or the razzing. “Maybe you’re not as pretty as me.”
Brody upped the ante. “I met Scarlett Johansson after a Kings game a few years back.”
“Was that when she was dating Sean Penn?” Stony wanted to know.
“Why does that matter?”