Undefeated Page 3

  “Yeah, no,” Brandon said.

  “Get the fuck off me, man.”

  Brandon’s hold tightened. “Just fulfilling my team captain duties.”

  The whistle blew again, then the ref edged to a stop between Liam and the Ultimate Nachos player he’d been about to pummel. “Not on my ice.” He nodded to Brandon. “Whoever’s taking the drop needs to get in position. Let’s get this game done and get out of here.”

  Liam shoved away from Brandon’s restraining arm. “What’s up, ref, you in a hurry to get your free nachos?”

  Pancho Pete’s, the fast-food Mexican restaurant chain that sponsored Ultimate Nachos, had a deal with the team that they changed their name every season to highlight a new menu special. What the team got in return was the reason their fans were so rabid. Every time the team won, any fan in attendance could redeem their ticket stubs at a Pancho Pete’s location for that season’s menu special.

  The ref pushed away and glided backward on his skates toward the face-off circle, gesturing at Liam with his whistle. “Free nachos is a powerful motivator.”

  Liam chuffed, smiling despite himself at the ridiculous truth of the statement. “I liked it better last year when they were Wet Burrito Grande.”

  The ref spun again and put his back to Liam. “Get your hat and stick off the ice before I call a delay of game penalty on you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A few moments later, Liam crouched into position next to Brandon on the outer edge of the face-off circle, waiting for Ultimate Nachos to get their guys in place.

  “Maybe we need a sponsor,” Will, their enforcer, said. “I bet we could find the will to win if Harper handed out free pints at Locks.”

  Harper was the owner of the team’s favorite tavern in town, Lock, Stock, & Barrel. She had an on again/off again thing going with Brandon, and it was always fun to watch him squirm whenever her name came up.

  Liam leaned in, smirking. “We could change our name to Beer Squad.”

  Brandon rolled his eyes. “I’m not making any more deals with Harper. The last one nearly killed me.”

  Liam snickered along with Will. Brandon’s last deal with Harper was a bet he’d won involving her being obliged to let him get to first base with her every time he scored the winning goal through the end of the NHL’s regular season.

  “Maybe that’s why we’re on a losing streak,” Liam said. “You’re not being properly motivated to score goals anymore.”

  “Screw you,” Brandon said. “Look, Coach told me he has a plan to get us out of the slump. A secret weapon. He said she’s meeting us at Locks after the game.”

  “Wait—she?” Will said, sounding panicked. “She, who?”

  Even if Brandon knew the answer, the whistle chirped and the puck dropped. Ultimate Nachos won the bid and the game play raced to Bomb Squad’s net. Liam wanted to know who the secret weapon was as much as Will, but they didn’t have long to wait to find out. There were only three more minutes left on the clock until Bomb Squad suffered their ninth loss in nine weeks—and until they found out what, or who, Duke considered a secret weapon powerful enough to whip a crew of distracted, off-their-game veterans back into fighting shape.

  ***

  Marlena popped a jalapeño slice in her mouth, relished the heat as her eyes tracked Liam to the boards, then back to the bench when their coach, Duke, called a time-out. She’d spent the game tracking his every move and look, which was nothing unusual because he’d always called to her, but in the two games Bomb Squad had played since the disastrous night of his massage appointment, she’d thought of little else except him and what had gone wrong between them. Though they hadn’t spoken—hadn’t even made eye contact—since that night, she felt as if the invisible, cosmic strings running between them had pulled tighter than ever, binding them with the tension of steel cables across an ever-shrinking bridge.

  Before he’d come for his massage, she hadn’t realized the depth of volatility and damage roiling inside him. She would forever be haunted not only by the way she’d screwed everything up by freaking out, but by the dark, hurt look in his eyes from across the parking lot, and the way he’d hunched over, drawing inward away from her diatribe, smoking and walking into the night. Her stomach twisted into a fresh knot of humiliation and she reached for another jalapeño.

  “Is it wrong that I’m secretly rooting for Ultimate Nachos?” Presley mused.

  “Yes,” Allison and Olivia said in unison, as though the notion of supporting Bomb Squad’s cross-town rivals was akin to blasphemy.

  Allison’s one-year-old, Katie, started to cry, as though chiming in with her opinion on the matter.

  Harper, at the gamekeeper’s table in front of them, tapped her pencil eraser restlessly on her score sheet and leveled judgy eyes at Presley from over her shoulder. “I think you can afford to buy yourself some nachos.”

  Presley raised her hands, the ruby-red polish on her nails a wicked contrast to her show of surrender. “Okay, sheesh. But let me just say, for the record, that free nachos taste way better than nachos you have to buy for yourself.”

  Olivia lowered Presley’s surrendering arms with a soft karate chop. “None of us should be eating at Pancho Pete’s. That’s, like, funding the enemy.”

  Marlena washed her jalapeños down with a sip of her beer. “You talk a good game, but you’re forgetting there’s a Pancho Pete’s location across the shopping center from my studio. I’ve seen you there. All of you.”

  Olivia gave a mocking gasp and pretended to clutch invisible pearls. “I would never.”

  “Mm-hmm. The food there is so bad for you. As your yoga teacher and, might I add, spiritual counselor—”

  Presley rolled her eyes. “Oh brother.”

  “Let her finish,” Harper said, her narrowed eyes skimming the rim of her plastic beer cup. “I want to hear her lies.”

  “As I was saying, as your spiritual counselor, I highly advise you to cut taco-shop fast food from your diet. It’s not good for you—body or soul.”

  “Says the woman eating a jar of pickled jalapeños like they’re candy.”

  Marlena cradled the jar that was empty save for jalapeño juice. “That’s different. That’s part of my spicy-food addiction.”

  “Hold on,” Olivia said. “You can’t see Pancho Pete’s from your studio. If you saw me there, then that means you were there.”

  It was Marlena’s turn to clutch invisible pearls. “I would never.”

  Presley held up her beer in a toast. “To never, ever indulging in Pancho Pete’s. On our honor.”

  “Here, here,” Marlena said through a smile so wide it made her cheeks ache. Thursday night hockey games with her friends were one of her life’s many pleasures. She and Olivia had been attending Bomb Squad games since its inaugural season nearly fifteen years earlier, because Olivia’s father was buddies with Duke, their coach, who founded the team as a way to help veterans assimilate back into civilian life. He had a handshake deal going with the local VA hospital and rehab center to send vets his way. Then he helped them find housing and jobs, often hiring them for his general contracting business—as he had Liam—with only one requirement: they had to join Bomb Squad.

  She and Olivia had clicked with Harper and Presley several years back because all of them were female business owners in Destiny Falls, with Olivia having the complication of balancing the running her family’s apartment complex with her day job as a high school science teacher.

  Allison had only joined their group a few months earlier when she moved to Destiny Falls to run Cloud Nine, an Erie Canal boat rental company, along with Theo, another of Bomb Squad’s players. She’d been a natural fit to the group and they’d all been thick as thieves ever since.

  Play resumed with forty-five seconds left on the clock. Gabe, Bomb Squad’s goaltender, skated to the bench, replaced by Dante, another big scorer on the team, and leaving Liam as the only Bomb Squad defensiveman on the ice.

  “Adios, amigo,”
called one of the more obnoxious Ultimate Nachos fans a few seats away. “Thanks for the free nachos!”

  Olivia tossed her ticket stub at them. “You can have your disgusting nachos and another one on me. We’ll be at Locks enjoying some real food that won’t give us heart attacks.”

  “Hey, screw off. Don’t be a big baby just because Bomb Squad’s chances of making the playoffs just . . . blew up,” one said with a cackle as he pocketed Olivia’s ticket.

  “Funny, very funny.” Olivia smoothed her hands over her pants, then added to Marlena in a whisper, “I really want to kick those guys’ asses in defense of Bomb Squad’s honor, but some of my students and the principal are here, and I don’t think that would go over well at my next performance review, since I already tussled with the shop teacher this week.”

  “You tussled with the shop teacher? Why?”

  Olivia groaned. “I’ll tell you after the game, at Locks. Let’s just say he’s almost as annoying as Ultimate Nachos’ fans.”

  One point would have tied the game, but the guys couldn’t seem to sneak the puck past the goaltender. After Brandon’s third attempt on goal, an Ultimate Nachos player sent the puck careening over the ice in the direction of the empty net. Liam made the save and waited behind the net for the Bomb Squad offense to get over the blue line.

  The crowd was on its feet, with Bomb Squad fans and Ultimate Nachos fans rivaling each other in volume and passion. Liam passed to Theo, but time was winding down. They raced over the ice as the crowd counted down along with the clock. Theo’s first shot on goal ricocheted off the goaltender’s skate. Brandon recovered it, wound back, and slapped it at the wall of Ultimate Nachos defensemen in the goal crease in one last Hail Mary attempt as the seconds ticked down to three . . . two . . . one.

  The final buzzer sounded as the puck bounced off a defensiveman’s shin and landed at Theo’s feet. Cheers erupted throughout the stands from the Ultimate Nachos fans along with a collective groan from the Bomb Squad supporters.

  “It’s official,” Harper said. “This is now the worst losing streak in Bomb Squad’s history.”

  Allison cringed. “This is bad. Theo’s going to be cranky. I’ve got to get home to put Katie to bed, so you guys have to help get him tipsy tonight at Locks to take the edge off his foul mood.”

  Olivia stood and brushed popcorn crumbs off her lap. “Will do. I like Theo when he’s tipsy. He starts acting like he’s a genius and the world’s greatest comedian. I just don’t know how the guys are going to get out of this slump. It’s as though playing the Wounded Veterans International Exhibition game in April used up all their hockey mojo.”

  Harper stood and gathered the scoring supplies. “I don’t know about that. From what I’ve seen, Brandon’s still scoring plenty.”

  Nobody missed the undertone of frustration behind Harper’s sarcasm. She and Brandon had been circling each other for years, but the press from the Wounded Veterans game had led him to a series of amateur modeling gigs—apparently there was quite the market for ripped, classically handsome combat veterans who weren’t afraid to flaunt their battle wounds and, in Brandon’s case, a prosthetic leg—and more women than usual were lining up to throw themselves at him.

  “I think it’s more than the WVI game that’s responsible for their downturn,” Presley said. “Allison and Theo’s business is more successful than ever and eating up all their time. Will’s friend Sully went missing in action. Gabe has a new game prosthetic that he’s not a hundred percent with. And I don’t know what kind of stick Liam’s got up his you-know-what, but he was ready to brawl with that Ultimate Nachos player over that sombrero, and his defense has been terrible during the last two games.”

  Yes, it had—a point that hadn’t escaped Marlena’s notice either. She wasn’t so narcissistic as to believe his poor performance on the ice could be attributed to a funk she’d put him in with her uncalled-for freak-out, but the timing was quite a coincidence.

  “Nobody ever knows what’s up with Liam. He certainly doesn’t talk to me,” Olivia said.

  Marlena kept her mouth shut. She hadn’t breathed a word about what had happened with Liam, and if she got her way, she never would. Though she couldn’t quite let go of the regret over what happened, she’d decided that ignoring it was the next best solution. Lucky for her, she was an expert at ignoring unpleasant thoughts.

  Another development she hadn’t told her friends about was the deal she made with Duke to help the team. He’d come to her studio the day before with a proposition that didn’t make much financial sense for her business, but made a lot of sense personally because she cared about the team and supported Duke’s calling to help wounded vets.

  She’d spent the last twenty-four hours processing the choice and the implications of that choice for her relationship with Liam. Or non-relationship, as it were. And while she had a stomachache anticipating his response to the news that she’d be helping the team, she couldn’t wait to enjoy her friends’ reactions and had specifically waited to tell them in person so she could see the expressions on their faces.

  She cleared her throat to get her friends’ attention. “Before we go to Locks, I have to tell you guys something.”

  “You’re finally ready to admit that you eat at Pancho Pete’s, like, every other day?” Olivia said.

  “What? No. That stuff’ll kill you. Here’s my news: Duke asked me to start volunteering with the team by training them in yoga and offering pregame massages. He thinks I can help the guys break their slump. I said yes. He’s announcing it to the team tonight at Locks.”

  Allison blinked, her head cocked and her eyes narrowed as though she couldn’t quite visualize Theo striking a yoga pose. Neither could Marlena, truth be told, but she’d get to witness it soon enough. “Duke asked you to do what?”

  “Lead the team in a weekly yoga class and give them holistic massages before games. He thinks it’ll help them rediscover their team spirit and get out of their heads. Duke’s wife, Barb, takes my gentle yoga class on weekday mornings, and that’s what gave him the idea.”

  Allison chuckled. “Oh man, that’s not going to help Theo’s mood. What I wouldn’t give to be in the room to see the expression on his face when Duke drops that grenade on them.”

  “Same here,” Presley said. “This is probably a stupid question, but how are the guys who are amputees going to do yoga?”

  Marlena shrugged. “Most poses can be adapted, and we won’t do the ones that can’t. I’m looking forward to the challenge.” She just wasn’t looking forward to having Liam back in her studio.

  As they shuffled toward the exit along with the rest of the crowd, her thoughts stalled on Liam. Despite the energy she’d spent trying to repress the memory, she’d played that night over and over in her head and no amount of meditation or reminders to herself not to live in the past could get her to stop dwelling on him—and on the different course that night would have taken if she’d been able to voice her preferences before they escalated into fear.

  Maybe once she paid him the apology she owed, she could put the memory to rest once and for all, but she hadn’t yet been able to screw up the courage. As if she had any idea what to say. “I’m sorry I freaked out and accused you of trying to rape me” seemed horribly inadequate. Her cheeks heated. God, she’d made a fool out of herself. So much so that she’d almost turned down Duke’s proposal. Then it’d hit her—maybe this was the universe giving her the chance to make amends in the way she was best suited to.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Olivia said. “Something has to be done, because these losses are getting painful to watch. I just worry that you’re going to get a lot of pushback. It isn’t only Theo whom I can’t picture sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat while he channels his chakras. There’s no way Liam would agree to that. And Will? No way.”

  “They’re going to have to. Duke told me he’s going to make the yoga classes mandatory.”

  Presley whistled under her breath. “If the
y give you a hard time, don’t take it personally. They’re a bunch of tough soldiers who probably think the only good thing about yoga is that it keeps all of us ladies in tight black leggings.”

  “Did Liam ever redeem that massage certificate from the exhibition game auction?” Olivia asked.

  Marlena’s throat squeezed; her ribs tensed. She kept her gaze on the exit door that was still a good twenty feet away. “The first one, a couple weeks ago. I don’t think he’ll be back for the other three, though.”

  Presley nudged Marlena’s shoulder with her elbow. “Let me guess, he couldn’t relax.”

  “No. I bet he wouldn’t let you touch him. He doesn’t like to be touched,” Olivia said. “I couldn’t believe he bid on that in the first place. What was he thinking? You two never got along in high school, and that was before the army chewed him up and spit him out as a monster.”

  Marlena gaped at Olivia, at a loss for words. She’d heard Olivia talk about her brother like that since his discharge from the army almost three years earlier, and in the absence of any information about Liam other than the way he’d treated Marlena when they were teenagers, she’d had no reason to doubt Olivia’s assessment.

  Now, despite her and Liam’s disaster of an encounter, Olivia’s opinion of her twin seemed cruelly exaggerated. “He’s not a monster. Massage just wasn’t his thing. Sometimes, our egos trick us into believing we want something that we already know is wrong for us. And the only way to see the truth is to let ourselves fail.”

  ***

  In the locker room, everyone was in a foul mood, but the tension in Liam eased as soon as they were away from the relentless, disappointed gazes of the spectators. These guys were his family, soldiers every one of them. Every one of them hurt on the battlefield. Even Duke. They got Liam. They gave him space. They didn’t look at him with disappointment—or like he was some freak to fear, as his sister and parents did, and as Marlena had that night . . .

  He stripped his jersey over his head, then his pads, and gave himself a mental smack. She was the last person he should be thinking about. The way she’d turned on him when he let his alpha flag fly didn’t explain why he was still stewing over her words two weeks later, or why he couldn’t get it out of his head that he owed her an apology. He didn’t. She was the one in the wrong.