On the Line Read online

  “You’re rich, handsome and smart. You’re every woman’s type, whether they like it or not. You’re what ovaries dream of.”

  I smile. The compliment is an unexpected thrill, but I make the mistake of looking up. Jennifer catches my eye and waves me over. Ugh. I hesitate.

  “You can’t ignore her. And you shouldn’t,” Stephanie says to me, pushing her long hair over her shoulder. It looks so silky and soft. I want to touch it. “Just try to keep the noise down. Remember the walls between our bedrooms aren’t soundproof. I don’t want to hear your headboard banging all night long.”

  She shoves me toward Jennifer, but I don’t move. “You seriously want me to take her home?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t care either way.” She shrugs and runs a hand through her wavy brown hair, tucking it behind her ear on one side before taking another sip of her fresh drink. “But she’s interested.”

  “I’m not,” I reply swiftly.

  “Why not?”

  “Hey, Avery.” Jennifer is right beside me now, her hand on my forearm. “Will you take a picture with me? My brother is a huge hockey fan. He’ll never believe I met you unless I have proof.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure. Let’s get a group together.” I smile and walk over and grab Alex out of his chair because that’s what I was taught to do when a single woman wants a photo. Group shots don’t insinuate anything. She waves her friends over, too, and I watch helplessly as Stephanie walks away.

  I pose for a photo with Jennifer and her friends and Alex, which they need to do four times before they get the angle right. By the time I finally get the chance to politely excuse myself from them, Stephanie is nowhere to be found. I walk over to Ty and Maddie at the bar. “Have you seen Steph?”

  “She went home,” Ty tells me with a flicker of sympathy across his face. “But don’t worry, we’ll give you a ride back.”

  I nod tersely and head back to the table. Alex is there with a brunette, working his magic. He looks up for a second from her cleavage and starts to open his mouth, but I raise my hand. “Not a fucking word.”

  He smirks. Asshole.

  Chapter 6

  Stephanie

  An hour and a half after leaving the bar, I’m lying in bed, by myself, wide awake and in a crappy mood. The last I saw of Avery he was being Mr. Congeniality and posing for photos with Nude Pumps and her friends. About ten minutes ago I heard a bunch of voices out front on the porch—his voice, Ty’s and Maddie’s. I know it’s not his style, but I find myself wondering if he brought Pumps home with him. Why does the idea bug me so much?

  I don’t like Avery. I mean I like him as a friend and I’m attracted to him, because who wouldn’t be? The boy is built for sexual satisfaction. Not mine, of course. He’s too much for me to handle, and I’m not the right fit for him. Knowing that as certainly as I do and then indulging anything more than friendship with him would be purposefully traumatic. I have learned from all my recovery programs that self-destructive behavior is the root of all evil.

  Avery needs a girl who not only can uphold his image but one who mirrors it. I was a teenage runaway and recovering drug addict who got her GED and a paralegal certificate through an online school. I am not even using my degree. I am just a legal secretary for now, waiting for a paralegal job to open up in my firm.

  Don Westwood would probably have me killed before he let me date his son. I suppose we could have a random one-night stand. His father would never know about that and it would satisfy the craving I feel for him between my legs. But the problem is I already know I like Avery. Really like him. In spite of all his uptight, sometimes even robotic personality traits, deep down he is fun and sweet and kind. And he lets me tell him when he is being a putz without throwing a tantrum, which is insane because I’m fairly sure I’m the only one who has ever gotten away with putting him in his place. There’s a hard thump from the other side of the wall I share with Avery, the one that borders the left side of my bed. And then another. And then another.

  “Here we go,” I mutter, and it instantly puts me in a worse mood. He did it. He actually took her home.

  Thump. Thump! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  “He’s going to put her through the wall,” I mutter to myself.

  And then I hear him—through the open window above my headboard. “What’s that? I’m a sex god?…Yeah, baby, I get that a lot.”

  Is he fucking serious?!

  Thump. Thump! THUMP!

  “Oh, baby! What? You wanna call your friend to join us? How about I just ask my neighbor if she’ll join? She’s listening right now.”

  I fling the blankets off, stand on my mattress and push the screen aside to poke my head outside. He’s leaning out his own window, his head tilted toward me, a big smile on his full lips and the moonlight twinkling in his mischievous caramel eyes.

  “You’re a total shithead!” I can’t help but burst out laughing.

  He laughs back. “You should have seen the look on that pretty face of yours!”

  “Jerk! Why didn’t you bring Pumps home?”

  “Because I knew fooling you would be much more fun!” He laughs again. “Are you sleepy? Have you watched tonight’s Walking Dead yet?”

  “No. And no.”

  “Come over. Let’s watch it,” he tells me, and winks.

  “Okay.” I smile. “But if that girl is really over there and this is a threesome attempt, I will castrate you, Westwood.”

  I close my window to the sound of his laughter, grab a sweatshirt and pull it on over my tank and pajama bottoms and head downstairs. Leave it to Avery to put me in a good mood. Jerk.

  Chapter 7

  Avery

  We’ve just finished an offensive drill, which I fucking owned if I do say so myself, and I’m skating across the ice toward the coach when Echolls skates up behind me. “You get off on showing up your teammates?”

  “Don’t start today, Beau. Seriously.”

  I’m not in a good mood to begin with. The day started with a phone call from my dad, who apparently has decided to stick his nose in my love life, not just my business life. He was nagging me to take Lizzie back. He was so belligerent about it I hung up on him, which I’ve never done before. So I’m not in the mood to deal with Beau Echolls’s ego.

  He swings around in front of me and starts skating backward as he glares at me from behind the visor on his helmet. “FYI, Westwood, these are drills not a fucking play-off game. Stop showing off.”

  He’s pissed because I just beat him on a drill. Deeked the puck around him like he was a pylon and scored on Furry. He’s sort of right—I don’t need to go all in because not only is this just practice, but it’s also optional practice, so the guys who did show up are taking it easy. But I like to work my aggression out on the ice, and I simply don’t know how to give less than one hundred and ten percent when it comes to hockey. If Echolls had the same work ethic, maybe he wouldn’t have lost the captaincy. But I don’t say that. I bite my tongue like I always do and mutter, “I like to give it my all. Always.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not the fucking Olympics, Golden Boy,” he bitches.

  “I know. I’ve made the Olympic team twice and won gold both times,” I bark back, skating closer so I’m up in his stupid fucking face. “But, please, tell me about the Olympics. Enlighten me. When were you on the team, exactly?”

  He shoves me. Hard, right in the chest. Then suddenly Alex Larue is between us, his back to me and his fists curled into Echolls’s jersey. “Back the fuck down, Beau. Not fucking kidding.”

  “Let him fight his own battles, Rue. Stop being his bitch!”

  Alex shakes him roughly. “He’s my captain. His battle is my battle, and if you knew how to play the fucking game, you’d fight his battles, too, instead of being one, bitch.”

  Beau flings his gloves to the ground. Then Coach Meisner’s whistle blares and the goalie coach and the assistant coach both step in and pull Beau and Alex away from each other. “Save it for the games, kids,” Meisner shouts. “And your actual opponents. Got it?”

  Both of my teammates nod gruffly, and I do too. Coach looks at me and then at Echolls, but he points at Larue. “Rue is right, Echolls. Get on board with your team and your captain. I’m not going to tell you again.”

  He turns and motions me over to him as he announces the end of practice. Everyone skates for the tunnel and the locker room. He waits until the last player is off the ice and then levels me with a serious stare. “Can you sort this out?”

  “I’ve been trying,” I reply.

  He gives me a curt nod. “So can you keep trying, or should I step in? Because if I step in, this won’t end well for Echolls.”

  I know that. I know I literally have the power to get that stupid jackass kicked off the team. They’ll either trade him or throw him back down to the minors. Probably the latter, because I honestly don’t see any other team having a lot of interest in him. Beau is a mediocre defenseman who was given an inflated salary when he was made captain, a position he failed at. So, yeah, he’ll be dropped to the minors because no one will pick up his salary, and he’ll probably stay there permanently. I have that power. “Nah. Give me a little more time. I’ll work it out.”

  Coach has skepticism all over his gruff face, but he just nods and lets me skate off the ice.

  I feel as skeptical as he looked, but I know this team is divided. A lot of the guys still think I’m an asshole for waltzing in here, taking the C and a shit-ton of money they could have earned. The Saints dumped four players to make room in their budget for my salary. Some of the guys up for contract negotiations this summer won’t be getting the salaries they want if they stay.

  Sure, we’ve been winning more since I got here, and most of my teammates smile and nod and tak
e my orders on the ice, but deep down there are more than a few who feel like Echolls. He’s just the only one stupid enough to voice it. If he gets sent to minors or traded, every single guy will know it was on my orders, whether I admit it or not. And they’ll all hate me even more. I don’t want that. Even if it would be fucking awesome to get rid of Echolls.

  I walk into the locker room and hurl my gloves into the equipment bin at the door. I march over to my locker and shove my helmet on the top shelf before dropping with a thud onto the bench to untie my skates. Some of the guys still undressing glance up at me and give me sympathetic smiles. Others pretend they’re too busy undressing to notice me. They’re most likely the Echolls sympathizers.

  Alex is walking back from the showers as I grab my towel to head toward them. As I pass him, he says, “Is Echolls going to evaporate?” I shake my head and Alex rolls his eyes. “You know Saints is just the name of the team, not a lifestyle you have to live. Man, you are too fucking nice for your own good.”

  “I’m a saint now? I thought I was a monk?” I quip back.

  “Both. You’re an overachiever, as usual.” He grins at me as I raise my middle finger in his general direction and keep walking into the showers.

  When I get out of the shower, Ty and Alex are the only two left in the locker room. Ty is just slipping on a Saints baseball cap. “I’m having a barbeque tomorrow night. On the beach in front of my place. Five o’clock. Bring booze and meat.”

  “I can’t,” I say without even actually thinking about it.

  Ty rolls his eyes and glances over at Alex, who says, “I told you.”

  “Told him what?” I question as I drop my towel and reach for my underwear.

  “That you would say no automatically, without hesitation,” Alex explains. “The way most people say yes.”

  “We have four days in a row without a game, Westwood,” Ty reminds me. “What the fuck else are you going to be doing?”

  “I have to go to L.A. for business meetings, and I have a concept meeting for my new line of workout wear, and—”

  “The barbeque is tomorrow. Is your meeting tomorrow? On a Saturday?” Alex asks as he puts some gel in his hands and runs it through his hair.

  “No, but—”

  “Maddie and Steph are coming,” Ty says. “It’s a shame you won’t be there.”

  Without another word, he and Alex walk out of the locker room. As they walk down the concrete hall, I hear Alex’s voice bounce back to me. “Stephanie’s single, right?”

  My stomach knots uncomfortably. Then suddenly my phone is ringing. I’m grateful for the distraction until I read the call display and realize it’s my father. He’s honestly the last person I want to talk to, but I know if I don’t answer it’ll only make things worse. “Hi, Don.”

  I haven’t called him dad since I was sixteen. Because he’s my manager, he feels it’s more professional if I call him by his first name. “Avery. Have you finished throwing your tantrum?”

  Funnily enough, his rule of me addressing him like an adult doesn’t mean he has to treat me like one. I ignore the dig and answer with a question of my own. “Are you done trying to dictate my love life?”

  “Of course not,” he replies without even a second of hesitation or remorse. “And I’m not dictating, simply advising. I know what you need better than you do, because I’m unbiased and not thinking with my dick.”

  “Do not talk about my dick,” I warn. I can’t help the sour expression that I know has contorted my face. “Please.”

  “Avery.” He sighs. “I’m a man too. I get that you have needs, especially at your age, and that I’ve asked you to be overly discreet for too long. But I don’t understand why, when I finally tell you to get serious with someone, you don’t want to do it.”

  I pause to pull my shirt over my head and then press the phone to my ear again. “Because the person you’re telling me to get serious with isn’t the person I want to get serious with.”

  “Who is?”

  Loaded question. One that more than anything else in the world I do not want to answer. I cram my feet into my shoes like a rushed ten-year-old and start out of the locker room. “Not Elizabeth.”

  “Yeah, because she’s perfect, so of course that’s not good enough.” I can practically hear my father rolling his eyes in exasperation.

  “On paper, yeah. But I’m not paper, Don,” I explain for probably the hundredth time since I was signed to the NHL. “Sometimes what’s good for my brand isn’t what’s good for me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he counters firmly, his already deep, loud voice booming with confidence. “I would hate for you to find that out the hard way.”

  That tone used to intimidate the hell out of me. It used to make me bend like wax in the sun on everything he wanted me to for way longer than I’m comfortable admitting. But not in the last year or so. Now I’m able to see it as it really is—a bullying tactic.

  “I appreciate that you’ve protected me from a lot of potential pitfalls,” I tell him, and I’m being totally honest. He’s been a good guide and a brilliant confidant on a lot of my professional choices. “But this is a personal matter, not a business one, so I’m going to handle it personally.”

  He sighs so loudly that it sounds like wind coming through the phone. I walk across the parking lot; the sun is shining and the saltwater air is warm. I really do love San Diego. I could see myself here long after my career is over. “Do I need to hang up on you again?”

  I’m half joking, but only half. My father doesn’t see the humor in any of it. I don’t remember the last time I heard him laugh at anything, actually. “Don’t forget you have that meeting in Los Angeles and the—”

  “Concept meeting for the workout gear. I know. I’m on it.”

  “Call me after the business meeting and before the concept meeting,” he orders. “I am sending you some sketches I had drawn up to better explain your vision.”

  I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah. I will. I always do.”

  Of course, when he says “my vision” he means his vision of my vision. But whatever, the sketches might be good.

  I hang up as I climb into my car, which is brand-new because it turns out I wrecked the engine on the last one when I ignored the check engine light. I went for a top-of-the-line Audi Q5 hybrid. I sit there staring at my phone for a few minutes and then finally break down and text her.

  Hey Steph, are you going to Ty’s BBQ?

  It doesn’t even take a full minute to get a response.

  Yeah. I hope you are too.

  I smile.

  See you there.

  Chapter 8

  Stephanie

  Everyone is drunk. Silly, stupid, fun drunk. All twenty of the guests at Ty’s impromptu barbeque. I take another sip of my mojito and dig my bare toes deeper into the warm sand. I lean back in my beach chair and realize I’m slightly dizzy, which means I’ve had way too much to drink. So I subtly, and even a little regretfully, poor the rest of my drink into the sand under my chair and quickly cover it up.

  “Are you going to eat that?” Avery drops to his knees in the sand behind my beach chair and wraps one of his long arms around to reach for the half-eaten hamburger on my plate.

  I whack at his hand, grab the burger and take a giant bite, turning my head so he can see the ketchup and mayo smeared on my lower lip.

  “Classy, Steph. Remind me to take you to a five-star restaurant sometime soon.” He winks at me. His brown eyes are sparkling in the late afternoon sun and he has a nice light golden glow to his sun-kissed skin.

  He laughs and uses his thumb to wipe the condiments off my chin. It’s a thing a mom or dad would do to a kid but somehow, when Avery does it, I feel a sexual rush. He smiles deviously and then sticks his thumb in his mouth to lick it off. Holy fuck, my ovaries just did backflips. To lighten the tension building—in my body, if nowhere else—I take the remaining chunk of hamburger and shove it into his smiling face.

  He laughs and grabs it, finishing it in two big bites that were much more elegant than the one I took. Maddie laughs, too, as she walks by carrying a plate of burgers fresh off Ty’s grill. “You know we’ve got enough to go around; you two don’t have to fight over food.”