I’m not. “My brother, a former Blackhawks center, played in the exhibition game.”
“Oh. Right. Can you believe what happened near the end? Crazy to see those two chicks fighting.” She leaned closer, letting her breast graze my forearm. “You know they only did it for attention since no one really cares about women’s hockey and they finally had people watching them.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that type of comment and I hated that Gabi and other female players had to deal with this attitude—especially from other women. I flashed her a fake smile. “We’ll agree to disagree on that point. Enjoy the game. I’ve got to get back.”
She frowned. “But I thought maybe we could have a drink and catch up. It’s been a while.”
Not only did I not have a clue who this woman was, I couldn’t remember if I’d slept with her.
There’s something to be proud of.
Guess I’d be having that shot of scotch in the skybox after all.
I started to walk away and heard her shout, “I’ll catch you later.”
As I returned to club level, the oddity of our other Lund family members not being in this skybox occurred to me. Since my cousin Annika’s husband, Axl, played for the Wild, she’d scored her own box. I assumed that’s where my cousins and aunts and uncles were.
When Jax had told me about this exhibition this morning, he’d mentioned the Wild organization had donated one of the corporate boxes for the Western Conference players, their friends and families. So I’d walked in only knowing my parents, Lucy and Mimi and the instructors from Lakeside.
Then I’d recognized Tyson and assumed the blonde with him was Dani, Gabi’s sister. Two other women were in the back getting their drink on. From their expert commentary and their acquaintance with Dani, I suspected they were Gabi’s former teammates.
I’d been so pissed off that Gabi hadn’t told me about her participation in the exhibition that I hadn’t spoken to anyone while the teams went head-to-head.
But now that I’d returned and the Wild game had started, I had no choice but to be social.
After a shot.
I waited at the bar for the pour, and Gabi’s sister moved in beside me. “Is Gabi okay?” she asked, which threw me, because how had she known that’s where I’d gone?
After tossing back the shot, I chased it with a drink of water.
Dani said, “Tyson recognized you as Gabi’s friend, so I figured you’d gone to check on her.”
I faced her, allowing a moment to look for her resemblance to Gabi, but found none. This woman still had the baby-faced features of a girl, with her big brown eyes and long blond hair. Whereas Gabi was all woman.
Then she offered me a shy smile. “Oh. I’m Dani Welk, by the way. Gabi’s sister.”
“Good to meet you, Dani. I’m Nolan Lund, Jax’s brother and Gabriella’s . . . friend.”
“How is she?”
“Fuming, mostly, with a side of indignant.”
“Sounds like her. She and Ass”—she cringed—“I mean, she and Amelie have hated each other for years.”
“Don’t editorialize her nickname on his account,” a husky voice said behind me. “He’s Stonewall’s brother and the Hammer’s cousin by marriage. He understands bad blood in hockey, am I right, Lund?”
Then the voice turned into a body that moved in on my other side. I turned my head and we were eye to eye, which put her in the six-foot-two range. She pointed at my empty shot glass and said, “Two more,” to the bartender.
“I’m sorry, have we met?”
“Nope. I’m Mariah Aguirre. Gabi’s former teammate and longtime friend.”
“Nolan Lund. But you knew that.”
“Yep. Gabi roped me’n my girlfriend, Amy”—the woman she gestured to next to her offered me her hand and a shy smile—“into helping out with the LGBTQ mixer on Saturday. Then we got the invite to this and I’m like . . . hot damn, we’re movin’ on up in the world.”
I laughed. “I’m glad you’re here to support Gabriella and I’m really happy you’re helping out on Saturday.”
Mariah handed me a shot.
My protest, that I didn’t need another shot, died when she said, “To Gabi.”
“To Gabi.” I touched my glass to hers and knocked the booze back.
She said, “Whoo-ee. You and me could get into some trouble. None of these pansy-asses appreciate good scotch.”
I snagged a bottle of water. “Somebody please fill me in on the bad blood between Gabi and that Amelie chick.”
“We call her Asswipf—ass whiff—not only because she’s a stanky asshole, but her damn initials are right there in the name; Amelie SanSimeon-Wipf. Get it?” She laughed. “Gabi came up with it. She’s clever with words like that. Anyway, Asswipf is Canadian, which means we’ve played against her a bunch of times internationally. She’s whiny, entitled, a dirty player out for her own glory and not what’s best for the team or the sport. Gabi had a chance for some payback tonight and she grabbed it with both hands.”
“I just hope she didn’t spill blood because of me,” Dani said quietly.
Mariah leaned across me. “Girl, that high stick you took from her at the Olympic games was some serious bullshit since the goddamned refs didn’t throw her sneaky ass in the sin bin for it.”
Ah. So Gabi was still looking out for her little sister.
“Gabi always has my back, even to her own detriment sometimes,” Dani said. She paused. “What’d you think of the interview?”
Christ. Gabi hadn’t told her sister about tomorrow’s interview, had she?
“Gabs was fucking eloquent. As always,” Mariah said.
“Wait. What interview?”
“The one Gabi did for Channel 9 Sports today,” Amy piped in. “It aired during the six o’clock broadcast. It’ll be interesting to see if they try and re-interview her since she ended up in a fight and what she’ll say about it.”
Dani laughed softly. “It’ll just be one long bleep.”
Now I was anxious to see that interview. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I need to check on something.”
Both Lucy and my mother arched questioning brows at me as I exited the box again. I scrolled to the Channel 9 News website on my phone and pulled up the interview.
Holy hell. Gabi had nailed it. If her interview tomorrow went anything like this, she’d be golden.
Unless . . . they took the brawl on national TV into consideration. Then she might be screwed.
After I returned to the box, I had a restlessness the scotch hadn’t tamed. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through a hockey game. So I took Mimi off her mother’s hands and we shed our excess energy by running sprints down a deserted hallway. I didn’t do half-bad for wearing my office clothes and competing against a nine-year-old.
My niece kept me occupied through the break between periods one and two. The second period had just started when the players from Jax’s Western Conference team poured into the skybox.
My tongue nearly did a cartoonish flop out of my mouth upon seeing Gabi in the classy, sexy outfit she’d worn for the Channel 9 interview. She looked hot as hell.
But more importantly, the manic look I’d witnessed in the locker room had calmed.
Good.
After she’d filled a plate with food, she turned, and her gaze connected with mine.
Locked on mine.
Neither of us looked away.
The woman was something.
I stood and started toward her.
Then some handsy hockey player slithered up beside her and put his arm around her, leading her to a table in the corner. A cozy table for two.
She didn’t look back at me.
Because she didn’t care?
Or because she thought I didn’t?
Fuck. My head was s
pinning, and I’d only had two goddamned shots.
Let it go, Nolan.
But I couldn’t. I wondered if I’d gotten to her first, if she’d be sitting with me at that cozy table instead of him. If she’d be laughing with me rather than him. If I could coax her to eat something because all she was doing was pushing her food around on her plate. She finally took a bite and winced. That asshole was too busy trying to fucking charm her that he’d missed it.
“Why so glum, chum?” Margene asked and then saw where my focus was. “Our Gabi looks amazing tonight, doesn’t she?”
“She should be icing her mouth. She’s clearly in pain. And chucklehead there clearly hasn’t noticed.”
“Thanks for the ice earlier,” Margene said. “Gabi kept it on until she left for the first photo op and autograph signing.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Yep. The second one is the break between the second and third period. The players can leave after that.”
Which I had no doubt Gabi would, since she had the interview tomorrow morning.
So if I wanted to talk to her, I had to do it now.
Before I’d taken a single step, Dani and Tyson stopped at their table. Gabi popped up to give Dani a hug. Their conversation was a series of whispers and squeezes of their joined hands while both men looked on awkwardly.
Then Gabi set her hand on hockey douche’s shoulder and introduced him to Tyson, angling her body closer as if she and the puckhead were a couple.
Tyson seemed super uncomfortable.
Gabi’s smile appeared forced. Then I got it. She was using hockey boy to show Tyson that she’d moved on.
Wrong. If Gabi planned to use a man to show she’d moved on, it would be me.
Without tearing my gaze from the situation, I reached down and touched Mimi’s shoulder. “Hey, sport, you wanna go say hi to Coach Welk?”
“Yes!”
Perfect little ruse. No one would suspect it was my idea.
Mimi popped up, snagged my hand and dragged me over to the table. “Coach Welk, that was awesome seeing you play! You did so good.”
“Thank you, Mimi.”
“Well, except for you didn’t make a goal.”
“I tried, though. That’s what matters, right?”
Hockey guy—who I now recognized as the goalie—offered his hand. “Matt McCoy. Is this your daughter?”
“No, this is Jax’s daughter, Mimi. I’m Nolan Lund. Jax’s brother. Mimi is one of Coach Welk’s students at Lakeside.”
“I’m very happy to meet you, Mimi.”
But like mine, Mimi’s eyes were solely on Gabi. “You look all fancy tonight.”
“You’re used to seeing me in my coach or ref uniforms, huh?”
“You’re pretty.”
Gabi’s eyes softened. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“I heard Uncle Nolan say you looked pretty too.”
What the hell? That little liar. I’d never said that. But denying it, yeah . . . not going there.
“Well, I agree with both of you,” Matt said, smiling at her. “She does look fantastic.”
A smile Gabi didn’t return because she was too busy trying to fry my face off with her laser death glare.
“Gabriella, I need a word with you.”
“How coincidental that I have a word to say to you too, Lund.” She stood. “Mimi, why don’t you sit here and keep Matt company?”
“Sure.” Mimi scrambled into the chair. First question out of her mouth? “Have you won as many Stanley Cups as my daddy?”
God, I loved that kid.
Gabi bobbed and weaved through the people like she was on the ice.
I snagged an icy cold can of Coke before I followed her into the foyer.
She’d ducked into an alcove that separated the skyboxes on this level, and paced in the small area. As soon as she saw me, she opened her mouth.
“Ice that lip while I’m talking. You should be trying to keep the swelling down.”
“Don’t boss me around. What makes you think I want to hear anything you have to say?” She put her hands on her hips and stared me down. “Especially after that bullshit flattery you fed your niece and then you used her to tell me.”
“I didn’t. That was all Mimi. She just repeated what everyone else had been saying about you.” I kept my eyes locked to hers. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. You are hot as fire in that outfit and you know it.”
“Omigod, Nolan Lund, you are the worst. You admitted that I’m not your type. Then you apologized for it. But you never claimed you changed your mind about finding me attractive until I showed up at a party, in an outfit you picked out for me. To add further insult to injury, when another man acts like he’s attracted to me, you decide that I’m not so bad after all?”
For fuck’s sake. Did she really think I was like that?
“Yes, Nolan, I do.”
This woman tied up me up in knots so completely that I don’t know when I was talking to myself or out loud.
“Well, you’re wrong. Completely, utterly and totally dead fucking wrong.” I crowded her against the wall. “You weren’t wearing that sexy outfit an hour ago when I was in the locker room cleaning the blood off your face, were you?”
That stubborn chin went higher. “That doesn’t count.”
The hell it didn’t. “Fine, you wanna back up? We’ll back way up. To the night at the barcade when you admitted you overheard things at Buddy’s I’d said that upset you. You let me apologize, and what’s more, you saw I was sincerely sorry about hurting you. You could’ve walked away at that point and left it at that.”
“I should have.”
“But you didn’t,” I reiterated. “You wanna know why I said you weren’t my type at Buddy’s that night?”
She opened her mouth. The look in her eyes suggested she was about to let a zinger fly.
So I warned, “Consider your words carefully.”
She did. Then she grudgingly admitted, “Because you didn’t know me.”
“Exactly. The best part of my night at the Full Tilt opening was getting to know you.” My eyes searched hers and I moved in close enough to catch a whiff of her warm and sweet scent. “I seem to remember you didn’t try to run away screaming from me that night after we cleared the air.”
“I didn’t. But—”
“Huh-uh. We’re past the time for buts, aren’t we?”
After a moment, she nodded.
“I’m going through the order of events so when I get to my final point, you’re not gaping at me in shock that how I feel about you isn’t such a goddamned surprise after all.”
Gabi swallowed hard.
I gently pressed the soda can to her lip and this time she held it there, watching me with those ridiculously beautiful eyes. “In the first four months of our acquaintance I only saw angry, hurt, nervous and indignant Gabriella.” I took a chance and slowly moved my hand to her cheek to push a stray section of her hair behind her ear. “In the past few weeks, I’ve seen funny, sly, kind, sweet, tipsy and thoughtful Gabriella.”
“And?”
“And . . . I like you. After that night at Full Tilt I realized you were one hundred percent the type of woman I wanted to be more than frenemies with.”
She blinked at me and lowered the hand holding the Coke to her side. “But that was—”
“Before I saw you half-naked while I helped you find a killer interview outfit? Yes.” I canted my head so my mouth was right above her ear. “So you don’t get to blame my interest in you on lust either.”
“Nolan.”
I let my breath drift across her damp skin. “Know what really cemented my crush?”
“What?”
“The first random text you sent me. Christ. That might’ve been the corniest joke I’d e
ver heard, but I laughed my ass off for like five minutes. I’d had a shit day, I was still at work, feeling alone and pissy, and then your text pinged. For a brief shining moment, I knew someone in the world was thinking about me.”
“For real?” she whispered.
“Absolutely for real.” I let my lips brush the top of her ear. “I kept it casual and friendly. Biding my time until . . .”
“Until what?”
“Until I could make it clear to you that I intended to take friendly to a whole new level with us.” Feathering my mouth between her cheekbone and her ear, I murmured, “So tell me, Gabriella, when was I supposed to do that this week? When you came to me in a panic on Monday? When I texted you and asked if you had time for lunch on Tuesday and you turned me down? Or when I stopped by the rink last night and you sent me packing? Or tonight when I stormed into the men’s locker room because I worried you were really hurt?”
“You . . .” A shiver rolled through her. “Stop whispering in my ear, goddammit, it’s making it hard to think.”
She rolled her shoulder—to get closer or to get away from me? I froze. Waiting. When she stayed put, I had the answer I needed.
And looky there, she’d also given me better access to that tempting neck. “Jesus, you smell good.”
“It’s just lotion.”
“It’s just you,” I half growled. “Have I mentioned that you were fucking magnificent on the ice tonight?”
“No . . . Oh god, that feels . . .” She moaned as I planted soft kisses down the front of her throat.
“Mmm. I want to do this all night. But I won’t, because you have a big day tomorrow. And I won’t add to your stress of that by keeping on about this, but we both know it’s been building toward this.” I nuzzled the skin below her ear. “Am I wrong?”
“No.”
I eased back and said, “Look at me.”
Gabi gave me that slow sexy blink that would’ve had my mouth on hers instantly—if not for her busted lip.
And mine.
“Once you’re through your interview, call me.” I gently stroked her cheek. “I won’t wish you luck, because I have a feeling you won’t need it.”