Players Page 7

  He nodded.

  Amy bent down, picked up her stick and held it horizontally between her hands. She came at him, using the stick to push him backward.

  “Hey!”

  She kept coming, kept pushing with the stick, until he nearly lost his balance. Irritated, he pushed back. The impact was hard enough to send her backward, but instead of landing on her ass, she used the momentum to do a spin and come right back around, laughing at him.

  Checking his body hard, she scraped up the puck between them and continued down to score yet again.

  Had he really just shoved her back on the ice?

  She glided up.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, trying to take his stick.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You can’t play me if you’re three feet away, so we’re done.”

  “I want to keep going,” he insisted, still dumbfounded that he’d pushed her.

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t want to get too close, what if I knock up against you or trip you up?”

  “What if you do? I’m tough. We could be evenly matched if you would play.”

  He shifted in his skates; he’d worked up a sweat and now that he wasn’t moving the moisture was drying, chilling him. She glided toward the barrier, sticks in hand. He left the puck lying on the ice and skated after her.

  “Amy, hold up. Maybe I could find someone—”

  “I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. We should just put this stuff away and go back to crossovers. Or maybe a drill with the sticks.” Her expression was irritated. No, more than that, she was mad. Her cheeks bright with temper, lips pressed into a thin line.

  Could he do this? It went totally against the grain. But she was right, she had speed and agility on him, the only advantage he had was his size.

  “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  “Don’t be a pig.”

  “I’m not.” He put his shoulders back affronted.

  Her brows lifted. “You are. You try or we stop, agreed?”

  He nodded. Could he even do this?

  Thirty minutes later he leaned against the rail. Once he stopped treating her with kid gloves, they were more evenly matched than he would’ve expected. Sure, she could skate circles around him, and she taunted him with her speed, but her stick handling was atrocious, and when he chased her down, most of the time she choked and missed, and in the battle for the puck, he was able to protect it better than she was.

  She came to a stop with the puck in front of him at the line. “You know, figure skaters are way tougher than hockey players. We move at high speed, launch ourselves into the air in a Lycra dress.” She tapped her chest. “None of this wussy padding. Trust me. It is way more painful to be a figure skater.”

  He shook his head. “What about the fights? Getting knocked around?”

  “You think I’ve never ended up in the boards in my leotard? Please. I’m no fragile flower. I’ve been knocked around for a dozen years.”

  “Do you have lasting injuries? You said your hip—”

  “No,” she responded, stepping off the ice. “I’m fine.”

  “Let’s head over to Café Ta for a drink, you up for it?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Chapter Nine

  Her door flew open and banged into the wall.

  Amy jolted upright in bed, staring at the figure of Kyle in her doorway.

  “Nailed it!” he sang.

  She scrubbed her face and glanced at the clock. 10:00 A.M. “What?” she mumbled.

  “Late night?” he taunted.

  She glared at him. “Yeah. So?”

  “At Café Ta after practice by chance?”

  Now how could he possibly know that?

  She surged to her knees as the answer hit her.

  Kyle nodded. “Yup. You got spotted, babe. And photographed, and speculated about. You’re on a few gossip sites this morning.” He stepped into her room with his hand up.

  Amy squealed and reached up to give him a high-five. “I’ve got it up on the computer. Get dressed and come see how you look.”

  Kyle turned on his heel and headed toward the living room.

  Amy leaped out of bed to shut the door. Finally. She didn’t bother to shower, but she brushed her teeth and pulled on her underwear, jeans, and a tank.

  Kyle had poured her a cup of coffee by the time she joined him. “Allyson around?”

  “She went to visit her parents.”

  She settled herself on the couch next to him as he pushed the button on his iPad. There they were—Shane was feeding her a bite of something. She sat up straighter in alarm and, judging by his knowing smile, Kyle didn’t miss it.

  That was the picture they got? Good Lord. Shane was ridiculously photogenic, his expression serious as he leaned over the table toward her. And that picture of her? In a baby doll tee, jeans and sans makeup she looked about eighteen, she thought with a frown.

  The camera had only captured her in profile. And that was a blessing. There was something sensual about taking food from his fork, and she’d been so completely caught up in the intimacy of that moment, her stomach had done a barrel roll . . . Kyle waved a hand in front of her face. “Kyle calling Amy. Come in, Amy.”

  She pushed his hand away, heat rising in her face.

  He was grinning, which wasn’t her first reaction by a long shot. “What is so amusing?”

  “You and him. From fantasy to reality. It’s really happening, isn’t it? You’ve lost it over this guy.”

  “Bullshit.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I’m good at faking it.”

  “You are so not. You have a thing for this one. I’ve seen this before, babe. It’s cool. You know I don’t care who you’re with only that you don’t get hurt. It wasn’t fun picking up the pieces after Alexei.”

  “That was years ago. I’m not that clueless girl anymore.”

  “Keep it casual. You do casual and this guy Shane,” he turned her face to his with a long finger under her chin, “he’s bent.”

  Amy pulled her face away and returned to the picture. Thank God the camera had captured his face instead of hers. She shuddered to think what her expression registered at that moment where her lips wrapped around the steak, before the lust and intensity in his stare. She shivered thinking about it. Thank goodness she hadn’t been stupid enough to kiss him again.

  She finished her coffee, put the mug down, and bounced on the cushion. “How long till they call?”

  Kyle studied the computer screen. “We have four weeks until training starts. My guess is anytime.”

  “I’m going to shower,” she said, grinning. This called for a celebration and she couldn’t wait to see Shane.

  At 10:35 A.M. Enchanted’s general manager, Matt, called her, offering her another year as the lead in the domestic show. She closed her eyes in relief, opened them, and mouthed “stateside” to Kyle, who did a double fist pump. They could’ve sent her overseas with another crew—not a bad thing, but she’d been in the United States with Kyle the past few years. They were keeping the team together. Amy rolled her eyes as the man on the other end of the line blathered on about the main office and how they’d neglected to send her contract out with the others.

  “We’ll start training in mid-August, so be ready, the costumes need to fit,” the man said. “I’ll messenger over the paperwork.”

  “Of course,” Amy replied. “See you at the rink.”

  Twenty minutes later, Amy came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to the sound of a cork popping. She dressed and met Kyle in the kitchen a few minutes later.

  “A toast.” Kyle handed her a glass of champagne. “To the newest, oldest princess with Enchanted Ice.”

  Amy stuck out her tongue and clinked his glass. “Cheers.”

  “Happy now?”

  “Ecstatic.”

  “So how go the lessons?” Kyle asked.

  “He’s doing really
well.”

  Kyle grinned knowingly.

  “No, really he is—he’s determined and disciplined. The guy has serious focus,” she admitted. “I admire his work ethic.”

  Amy heard her phone ring in the other room.

  Kyle’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, Amy, is that . . . ”

  Heat seared her neck and washed into her cheeks.

  He burst out laughing. “Drive Me Crazy is your ringtone for him? And the TruAchord cover of it.” Kyle continued to laugh as Amy went into the living room and picked up her phone, breathless.

  “You see it?” Shane asked. She could practically hear the smile in his voice.

  “See it? I’m signed, baby!”

  “Fantastic. Let’s go celebrate,” he said.

  “I’m already celebrating,” she said, unable to wipe the grin from her face. Her life was back on track, back under her control.

  “With Kyle?” he asked, stiffly.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you come over and have a glass of champagne with us?”

  “How ’bout I pick you up in a half hour and we have lunch?”

  “That works.”

  Chapter Ten

  Somehow lunch turned into to takeout at his place. She’d only been to his Ocean Avenue condo once before, when she’d dropped him off after the biker plowed into him, and that was only as far as the curb.

  He parked the car in the garage and they walked through the tastefully appointed retro style lobby.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing like what the Astors are accustomed to.”

  People always assumed that. Her parents had a lot of money. A home in Westchester, an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But she hadn’t grown up in those places. Home had been a three-bedroom craftsman in upstate New York where she’d lived with her tutor, best friend, and surrogate mother Rowena.

  In fact, she’d only been in the New York apartment where her father lived during the week a time or two. Holidays she’d spent in the elaborately decorated house in the affluent New York suburb her mother inhabited, her interactions with her parents as stiff and formal as the furnishings.

  It was Shane’s level of affluence she was not accustomed to.

  His apartment was decorated in a mix of sixties retro style and modern comfort. She glanced around, the décor so perfectly suited to the building, he’d either had a decorator or was hiding some heretofore unforeseen flair. She’d bet the former. She knew set designers and graphic artists with less put together places.

  Amy gasped as Shane led her into the living room. The entire wall was curved glass. Through two sets of sliding doors, the Pacific stretched out to the horizon, its surface pricked with whitecaps. Palm trees surrounded a pool that lay below. No rats in these palm trees, they were perfectly manicured.

  “Beautiful view,” she said, reverently.

  “I never get tired of it,” he acknowledged, handing her the bag of takeout food. “I’ll get some glasses and plates. What do you want to drink?”

  “Seltzer?”

  He nodded.

  Amy opened the door and stepped onto the patio. There was an onshore breeze, but the sun was fierce. She lamented not bringing a hat or a jacket.

  Shane came out with the supplies, laid everything down on the patio table and put up the umbrella.

  “So thanks again,” she said.

  “For?”

  “For playing the game, for your part in helping me get re-hired.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, I’m sure Ike is . . . well, honestly, I’m grateful to you, too. Those photos will do wonders for my bad rep. But I don’t want you to think I did it for that reason alone. I am really enjoying hanging out with you. Even if you kick my ass out on the ice.”

  Amy smiled though her heart skipped a beat at his words. “Am I that bad of an instructor? You push yourself.”

  “You’re a great teacher. And a better hockey player than I ever would have given you credit for.”

  She hugged herself. The breeze made it chilly in the shade.

  “Cold?”

  “I’m fine.” More nervous than cold, as her teeth were locked together. Her brain couldn’t let go of the idea that she was in his house, steps from his bedroom.

  He raised a brow and disappeared back inside, returning moments later with a flannel shirt. He held it out and she shrugged into it.

  She rubbed her cheek with her shoulder and closed her eyes at the delicious Shane smell emanating from it. She’d assumed it was cologne, but maybe it was some marvelously citrusy laundry detergent mixed with his own scent.

  He was studying her curiously.

  She froze.

  “Would you rather eat inside?” he asked. He laughed at the expression that must have appeared on her face. “Just asking.”

  “It’s amazing,” she said, taking in the sight and smell of the ocean only a block from his sixth floor condo.

  “It is. And it never gets old. There are a few months where it’s foggy and you can’t even see the ocean, but then there are times when the ocean is so loud—and the sunsets? I love it,” he said simply. “I’ve been here for six years.”

  • • •

  Shane watched Amy push the lettuce around on her plate. She’d barely eaten anything. “Not hungry?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. I am, I’m eating,” she replied. “I have to keep an eye on my weight, with training starting. I have costumes to fit into. I tend to gain a little weight when I’m not skating two shows a day. Management will give me no end of grief if they have to alter the costumes.”

  He eyed her across the table. With all the running she did, he had a hard time believing she’d have difficulty fitting into anything. He’d never been attracted to the ultra thin types—he liked his babes to have some back—and Amy’s was damn perfect.

  She watched him eat. “It must be nice to not have to worry about it.”

  He raised his brows and lifted his fork. “I need to gain for the hockey audition, but I’ve got a few months to add some weight. Want a bite?”

  She shook her head and finished her water and smiled shyly at him. He caught his breath. He was used to beautiful people in his line of work. So used to it he hardly noticed anymore that unlike the town of his origins, everyone in this town had perfect hair, teeth, and bodies—money and medical intervention could fix a host of perceived flaws. As the offspring of one of the most privileged families in America, not to mention a world class athlete, Amy had likely been privy to all the benefits of their status from birth: orthodontia, nutritionists, trainers, plastic surgeons, and whatnot. She was stunning, a princess come to life. And it wasn’t hair and makeup. He’d seen her sweaty and flushed, both running and skating and even then she radiated a natural unaffected beauty. The hell of it was, over the last few weeks he’d discovered the inside matched the outside.

  “So, are your parents psyched you’re back in?” he asked.

  She laughed. “No. I mean, they don’t know and I’m sure if they did know, they wouldn’t be pleased. I don’t talk to them.”

  He stopped chewing. “They don’t support your career?”

  “Hell no. They never recovered from me leaving the circuit.”

  He put his fork down and sat back in his chair. “Tell me.”

  “It’s a long story.” She toyed with her hair and glanced out at the ocean.

  “I’ve got time.”

  He could see she was debating sharing her personal information with him. The woman was as guarded as they came. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

  Amy’s face relaxed into a smile and his stomach clenched. Hard to believe he’d ever thought she was a soulless beauty queen type. He’d give his left nut to fuck her. But for once he was trying to keep it professional. He enjoyed skating with her, enjoyed being with her, and he didn’t want to ruin it the way he usually did.

  “My mom had been a gymnast—she was good, college-level good, but she was never great, yo
u know? She had a gymnastics scholarship to Yale and that’s where she met my dad. He was—well, he’s an Astor.”

  He nodded. “I can see where this is going.”

  “Can you? My mother’s ambition, my father’s money and connections.”

  “I figured you for a debutante.”

  “Being a debutante is like . . . graduation. First there’s pre-cotillion, rising cotillion, all sorts of balls and parties and—” she laughed at the look on his face. “I flunked out. Eventually it took too much time away from my training. My mom had me doing dance and gymnastics from the time I was a toddler, but I never took to it. Then one of my mom’s friends suggested skating and I loved it.” She smiled wistfully.

  He pretended to shiver.

  “Oh, I know. I loved the cold rinks, the echoes in the building, watching the girls spin in their skirts. I did lessons for a year or two locally, then when I was nine I showed enough aptitude for them to ship me upstate to train with a Russian figure skating coach.”

  “Nine? Good God. You had to leave your family at nine?”

  “Well, it was only my mom. I never saw my dad. He worked eighty-hour weeks, first as an investment banker, then a hedge fund manager.

  “That must’ve sucked.”

  “You’d think, but it didn’t. I had an amazing tutor, Rowena. We lived in a house my parents bought near the rink and did all kinds of fun things—sledding, skiing. Took trips. She was more fun than my parents, and more loving. She gave me a normal childhood. Rowena was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Is that how you came out of that scene so normal?”

  “Ha! I’m not normal. But any bit of normality is thanks to Rowena. She was my best friend, surrogate parent, teacher.” Savior. “What about you?”

  “I was marveling at the similarities in our stories. I was trailer park trash.”

  She laughed.

  “As far as our moms go—my mom was a pageant winner. Mostly small-time stuff. She pushed my sister, Natalie, down that road and I had to go along for the ride. Natalie danced and she was decent, but never did well in competition. Too much pressure and she would choke. I’d have rather played soccer—any sport really, but that wasn’t an option. So I learned a little here and there at her lessons. I paid attention, stepped in. There aren’t too many boys taking dance lessons in the South, so I was a hot commodity. And it didn’t cost my mom anything so she went along. The irony is all of my mother’s hopes and aspirations were so wrapped up in Natalie, she didn’t notice me—and it turned out, I had reasonable talent.”