Hard Hitter Page 2

  Patrick was taking blows to his shoulder, but they barely registered. It was his good side, for one. And the angle wasn’t too intense. But time was slipping by. He needed to end this before the goon changed tactics. It was risky as hell, but Patrick tried a one-footed stance to knee the guy in the thigh and unbalance him. Then he gritted his teeth and landed one good punch a little higher up, right in his chest.

  Trekowski went down, and Patrick narrowly avoided landing right on top of him. He tore himself out of the guy’s grasp and righted himself just as the ref rushed in to pull him back. They always ended things when someone went down.

  The crowd’s roar—silenced before by adrenaline—now echoed in his ears. They screamed his name and waved foam fingers. Or jeered, depending on attitude, level of drunkenness, and team affiliation.

  A few minutes from now a video of the fight would be up on a website where fans would vote on it. He’d earn an 85 percent or 90 percent win rating for this one. Crazy job he had. When the night went well, he felt relief first and then pain later. When a fight went badly, he got stitches and curses from fans.

  He was a side show, like one of those circus freaks who used to bite the heads off chickens in front of a jeering crowd.

  It worked, though. The energy in the arena shifted in Brooklyn’s favor. Two minutes later his man Beringer scored a goal, bringing them into the lead.

  Boston wasn’t able to answer it in the remaining six minutes of play, and the Bruisers would go back to the hotel with two game points. So nobody could say his contribution didn’t matter.

  And nobody did.

  * * *

  In the visitors’ locker room, he took the longest, hottest shower of his career. Adrenaline was an amazing chemical. It always kept the pain at bay until after the buzzer sounded. But the comedown was a bitch. He ached everywhere. The soreness radiated outward from his hip. It climbed down his quadriceps and into his groin. It wrapped around to his lower back, gripping him like a vice.

  Every athlete played through pain. It’s just that the trajectory worried him.

  He was toweling off when Henry, the head trainer, stopped behind his bench. The man crossed his freckled arms and gave Patrick an appraising look.

  “What? You checking me out? The female fans always say I have a nice ass.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “It’s top notch, which is why I want to see it out on the ice for the rest of the season. So I need you to cooperate with your training staff.”

  Patrick fished a pair of clean underwear out of his bag. “I always cooperate in the gym.”

  “I set up a massage appointment for you and you blew it off. Twice.”

  “Stretching works just as well,” Patrick argued, pulling on his shirt. “Massage is too time-consuming.”

  “You know what’s also time-consuming? An injury. By the third period you were skating like an old lady trying to protect her handbag. I’m setting up massage appointments for five out of the next seven days. And I’m checking up on your attendance.” Without waiting for a response, Henry marched off.

  Five appointments? Hell.

  Patrick finished getting dressed. The screen of his Katt Phone lit up with a picture of a bus, meaning that one was now outside. And he was going to be on it. A good night’s sleep would do wonders for his muscle strain.

  But when the bus pulled up in front of their hotel, Leo Trevi didn’t let him escape upstairs like he wanted to. “Come on,” he said. “I want you to meet Adam Hartley. Can’t believe I played an NHL game against my college buddy. Unreal.”

  Patrick knew he could beg off after one whiskey, so he let himself be led to a table in the corner of the bar where a couple of his teammates already sat. He eased himself into the chair like an old man, hoping the painkillers he’d taken would kick in soon. “Evening, Georgia,” he said to the publicist, who was also Leo’s fiancée. “Thanks for leaving me out of the press conference.”

  Georgia Worthington grinned at him. “Why, Doulie! If someone else said that, I’d think he was being facetious.”

  “Fuck, no.” Everyone laughed. “Who skates off the ice, drenched, and says, I’d love it if someone shoved a camera in my face right now?”

  “Nobody loves the camera itself,” Castro argued. “You love being worthy of it.”

  “Dude, you’d break the camera,” somebody said. Castro wadded up his cocktail napkin and threw it down the table.

  Their drinks arrived, and Patrick had just taken his first sip when a voice rang out. “Somebody order some cookies?” A smiling guy approached the table with a giant bakery box in his hands. O’Doul recognized him as the rookie whose shots he’d blocked all night.

  “Hartley!” Leo jumped up and hug-tackled the guy. “What’s in the box?”

  “Cookies. Duh. After I lose a hockey game to my buddy, I like to eat cookies.” He slapped Trevi on the back. “Buy me a beer, punk.”

  Trevi introduced his college friend to everyone, starting with his fiancée.

  “Damn,” Hartley said. “Trevi’s getting hitched? Who would have thunk it?” He gave Georgia a potent smile. “Can I just tell you how relieved we all are? He dated the most awful girls in college.”

  She laughed, and Trevi groaned. “This again?”

  When it was Patrick’s turn to shake hands, he reached across the table without standing up. If the guy thought he was rude, it wouldn’t be the first time someone did. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  Trevi sat back down, one arm around Georgia, the other around his college friend. Hartley opened the box and passed cookies around the table, and then the boys began to reminisce. They had several years of memories to chew through, apparently. Pranks and dormitory shenanigans. “And then you hid that thing under Orsen’s bed! Gawd. The stench . . .”

  Patrick listened with half an ear. He didn’t have ye olde college tales, like these kids. And the idea of living in a dormitory gave him the willies. It sounded too much like the group homes where he’d grown up in Minnesota. Too many people. Too loud.

  The minute he got his first paycheck from the minor leagues when he was nineteen, he’d started apartment hunting. He was still in the Midwest then, where housing was just cheap enough that he’d found something. It was a room over someone’s garage, but it had a private entrance and it was all his. He liked his silence. On the team, he had a reputation for being fair, and a sturdy team captain. But he wasn’t cuddly, that was for damn sure.

  Across the table from him, Georgia sat up a little straighter and began to wave at someone across the room. A moment later, O’Doul caught a whiff of lavender. He didn’t even need to turn to know who’d come to stand beside him. Ari Bettini, the team’s massage therapist and yoga instructor, greeted Georgia. She did this by putting a hand on Patrick’s shoulder and leaning over to kiss Georgia’s cheek.

  Against his better judgment, O’Doul took a deep breath of Ari’s essence. There was something about her that really turned his crank. From her dark, unflappable eyes to the irreverent gemstone in her nose, he liked the whole package. The soft, coal-dark waves of her hair brushed his ear as she righted herself again.

  Patrick took a sip of his drink, studying the ice cubes as if those suckers were interesting. Ari left her hand on the shoulder of his suit jacket, the warmth of her palm bleeding through a few layers of fabric to reach his skin. That was the only thing about her he didn’t really appreciate. Ari was a toucher. A massage therapist would have to be, right? But he preferred it when his friends kept their hands to themselves. Even the gorgeous ones.

  Turning her attention to him, she squeezed his shoulder muscle. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, thanks. Can I order you a drink?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’d better turn in.”

  “What?” Georgia yelped. “You’re going to leave me here at this
testosterone fest by myself? There’s a pinot grigio by the glass. Just have one.”

  Ari gave Georgia an indulgent smile and then pulled out the only available chair—the one next to Patrick’s. “I’ve been drinking a lot more often now that you’ve decided to become a party girl.”

  “Blame me. I don’t care.” Georgia waved to get the waitress’s attention. “Besides, these guys are in on a plot to get you drunk so you go easier on us at yoga tomorrow morning.”

  “You guys do yoga?” Hartley asked, his face breaking into a grin. “That’s something I’d like to see.”

  Ari put an elbow on the table and rested her elegant face in her hand. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it. Maybe you’ll win the next one.”

  “I really teed that one up for you, didn’t I?” Trevi’s friend asked, his smile widening.

  “You did,” Ari agreed. “And I do appreciate it.”

  “So what else is different about the Bruisers?” Hartley asked. “What’s Nate Kattenberger like?”

  It was a common enough question. The young billionaire was interesting to a lot of people.

  “The dude really likes his hockey,” Trevi said. “And we all have the same cool phone. They keep tabs on us with it, but it knows everything. And here’s something funny.” Trevi pulled his phone out of his pocket. “There’s a gold star on the screen after we win a game. See? We got a gold star tonight. Haven’t gotten those since second grade.”

  Hartley laughed. “What do they put up there when you lose? A middle finger?”

  “Nope.” Trevi shook his head. “It’s just a void where the star should be. And it’s weird, but I kind of hate knowing it’s missing.”

  “Then the mind games are working,” Georgia said. “The man is a genius.”

  When Ari’s glass of wine arrived, Patrick watched her lift the stem of the glass between elegant fingers. Everything on Ari was long and sleek. She turned her head suddenly to catch his ogling eyes. Busted. But her glance was more appraising then irritated. “Mr. O’Doul, how is your pain level this evening?”

  Hell. “I’m fine. I’ve been stretching really well.” In fact, the foam rollers he carried around in his suitcase had to be replaced every couple of months because he used them so often they tended to collapse from overuse.

  She gave him a patient smile. As if she was just humoring him. “Henry spoke to me on his way out the door tonight. He told me to be sure to get you on the table five times in the next seven days. But I can’t do that if you don’t set up some appointments.”

  “Right,” he said. “Send Rebecca some appointment times. She’ll put ’em on my calendar and I’ll be there.” The last thing he needed was the training staff butting in, criticizing him for blowing off massage treatments. There were three weeks left before the play-offs started. He had to hang in there and play as hard as he could.

  “Did you take anything for the pain tonight?” she asked, her cabernet lips pursed thoughtfully. Ari’s expression had a wisdom to it that O’Doul was always trying to categorize. She was beautiful, but not in a careless way.

  “I took some ibuprofen. I’ll use some ice before I sleep.” She was still studying him in that penetrating way she had, and he didn’t like it. “How’s your ankle healing?”

  Her gaze slipped. “Oh, really well. Almost like new.” She sipped her wine.

  “How’d you break it, anyway? I never caught that.”

  She grimaced into her wine. “By being stupid. Tripped on a set of steps in my apartment.”

  “Ouch.” There was something about her delivery that raised the hair on the back of his neck, though. He’d spent his whole life trying to read people, and he was pretty good at it. “Did you fall all the way down a flight of stairs?”

  “Nope. And I installed a night-light in the hallway, so it won’t happen again.” She cleared her throat. “Georgia, how are the wedding plans coming along?”

  “Okay, I guess? Ask Rebecca. She’s the one who’s keeping track. She wants me to pick out flowers this week, except she gets mad when I just point to the first thing we see.”

  “Flowers?” Leo asked, giving her a squeeze. “How could those be a big decision?”

  “Right?” Georgia laughed. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. You just focus on hockey and stay in your happy place.”

  “Did I mention how much I love this woman?” Leo grinned like he’d won the lottery. “She doesn’t care that I don’t care about flowers! Am I winning at life, or what?” He high-fived Hartley.

  “You are, honey,” Georgia said. “Carry on with your important discussion about hiding each other’s jock straps or whatever. Ari and I have got this.”

  Ari laughed, and O’Doul liked the sound so much that he didn’t even mind that she’d changed the subject on him.

  Across the table, Trevi asked his pal Hartley, “How’s Callihan? When is she going to move to Boston and marry you?”

  Hartley chuckled. “What are you, a marriage evangelist, now?”

  “Born again,” Trevi agreed.

  “I’ve played on three teams in three years,” Hartley said. “I can’t wait to shack up with Callihan, but we’re waiting until it looks like I might be able to stay put somewhere for more than a season. She’s got a great job in Chicago, too. Another year there will only make it easier for her to find a job in Boston or wherever.”

  “Uh-huh. Sounds like stalling.”

  His friend pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s sober-dial her.”

  “What is that?” Georgia asked.

  “We can’t drunk-dial her because we’re not drunk,” Hartley explained. “Obvs.”

  “Obvs,” Trevi repeated. Then, while his friend tried to raise his girlfriend on FaceTime, Trevi hugged the guy hard and gave him a noogie. “I miss the hell out of you!”

  If anybody did that to O’Doul he’d probably chuck them across the room.

  “Hello?” a voice came from the phone’s little speakers. “Omigod! Look who it is! Trevi—I want to meet your girlfriend!”

  The three of them put their smiling faces together in front of the phone, like a goddamn pack of puppies. He took a gulp of his Scotch, feeling like the Grinch. His hip gave a throb, and he set the mostly empty glass on the table. “I think it’s time to turn in,” he said to Ari.

  “You take care of yourself,” she said, her dark eyes sparkling. “Good work tonight.”

  The compliment made a warm spot right in his chest. Or maybe it was the whiskey. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Sleep well.”

  She gave him a soft smile, and he carried the memory of it all the way upstairs.

  TWO

  THURSDAY, MARCH 10TH

  Standings: 3rd place in the Metropolitan Division

  17 Regular Season Games to Go

  It was four more days until Ari got O’Doul onto her therapy schedule.

  At first he’d agreed to see her at the rink in Toronto during the pregame warm-ups. But then “something came up,” and he rescheduled. Again.

  Now the team was back home in Brooklyn. Ari waited for him in her treatment room at the practice facility. She was perched on the countertop, wondering if he’d show. He was five minutes late already.

  A girl could start to take this personally. She’d held this job for almost two years without ever seeing the captain on her massage table.

  Before now she’d chalked up his absence to his exceptionally good health and flexibility. The wrist injury he’d had earlier in the season was not the kind of thing that sent a man off to the massage room, either. But now that he was in such obvious need of her help, it was odd that he wouldn’t seek it. Many of the other players would book a massage twice a day if her schedule allowed it.

  Not O’Doul.

  She’d asked him once in casual conversation whether he saw a private massage therapist. Som
e players were so into massage that they paid up for a private masseuse to visit them at home every morning. As a veteran, O’Doul could afford to hire a staff of thousands if he wished.

  But when she’d asked, he’d just shaken his head.

  Ari had a theory about O’Doul, though. He didn’t seem to like to be touched. At all. During yoga class, she never corrected him with her hands, because she’d noticed early on that his postures got worse instead of better when she adjusted him. At first she’d assumed he was embarrassed to be corrected by a woman.

  But his reluctance to have a massage had shifted her thinking. Maybe O’Doul didn’t like to be touched at all. She’d tested this theory the other night at the bar, laying a hand on his broad shoulder in passing. He actually flinched a little.

  Weird.

  The training team was worried about a strain to his right hip flexors, so they’d asked for her help. And now here she sat watching both the door and the clock. If O’Doul didn’t show this time, she’d have to tell Henry—the head trainer—that she might not be right the right therapist for O’Doul’s needs. If the man was sensitive to being touched, he might do better with a therapist he chose himself.

  This possibility made her jumpy, though. It shouldn’t be the end of the world if one player snubbed the staff therapist. But job security was always in the back of her mind, and she really wanted to do well for this team. She wanted to do well, period.

  Every hockey team had a staff masseuse, but the role was usually held by a man. Ari was proud of her position on the Bruisers. And since the breakup with her boyfriend of eight years, her job was the one steady thing in her life.

  Luckily, this train of thought was interrupted when the door to her therapy room flew open to admit O’Doul. Right away she was struck by how absurdly handsome he was. It ought to be against the law to have a jaw that rugged and eyes the color of a tropical sea. As a massage therapist, Ari believed that all bodies were beautiful and miraculous. However, some were more miraculous than others.