“We knew it was coming,” my dad said.
There are somethings that human beings are not equipped to handle – one of them is seeing your parents defeated.
My dad was released from his coaching job with the Stars a week after they failed to make the playoffs for the second season in a row. It was a very tough blow, even expected, because so much of what had occurred was out of his hands. He would lace up skates and double-shift every game if he could do it himself. Behind the bench was hard enough for him, and now he didn’t even have that.
“They want you to stay,” he told me. I guess I’d done well in the job he’d gotten for me. But I was angry.
“If nothing better comes along.”
In truth, I didn’t love Dallas. Lots of people hate the place and while I see their point, it wasn’t that bad. It just wasn’t my long-term goal. And after two years back in close proximity to my parents I thought it might be time to regain my independence. They were taking a year off and heading back to Canada. I was on my own again.
The next day I started making phone calls to my friends with other teams. People who knew me and my work, rather than knowing I had been the coach’s daughter. Of course being the playoffs, no one was leaving their jobs right away. But people looking toward the end of the year might be shuffling around.
Three days later, a guy I knew named Leo with the Columbus Blue Jackets called. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we’re poaching someone from the Comm Department with another team. It won’t be out till they get eliminated, you might get in the door now.”
“Where?”
“Pittsburgh.”
My heart dropped like an elevator. But I couldn’t let one night – no, one kiss! – with one guy stop me from making a good move. If I even qualified. So I took a deep breath.
“Can you send them my resume?”
“The person we stole, Laura, is promoting her manager and hiring a replacement. You can meet her before she comes here. And she knows I love you.”
____
The biggest goal of my career came in double overtime. The NHL had me in a “History Will be Made” commercial practically before the goal horn stopped sounding. I was so desperate to contribute, to win and keep having chances that I believe I willed that puck into the net with sheer desire.
I knew Natalie would see it. I wanted her to miss me the way I missed her.
Then, when it all came crashing down, it felt like my fault. I wasn’t Crosby. I never claimed to be. But in the end that’s what we needed. And Tampa Bay won three in a row, outscoring us by nine goals in three games. Just like that the season was over. It was like being marooned on an island while a ship full of lucky guys sails away and leaves you starving.
I thought a lot about Natalie then, about the strange turn my life had taken with that single phone call saying I was traded. It’s something every hockey player has to face: your life is not your own. You cannot control where you go. Giving up that self-determination sounds easy until it pulls the rug from under your feet. The guys struggle to control everything else, to put down anchors and roots because they know how easily a so-called life is torn away.
When Coach Crawford was released from his job, I could have cried. Natalie’s life had been turned upside-down too. The phone sat there, accusing me of heartlessness for not calling him to say I was sorry. But I didn’t.
Instead wondered if Natalie ever thought of me, of that night in the store. I wondered what it meant. If only I could have called her - but I’d never even had her number when we lived in the same city. Of course, that was before she kissed me. And I clung to that tiny detail - she had kissed me.
But the surprise of goodbye had gotten me that night too, and my reactions were just as strange. I remembered so many things about her - the time she’d slipped on black ice at a Calgary hotel and I’d caught her, the time she and Morrow shared a seafood appetizer and got food poisoning, the way her nose curled in disgust at the smell of the locker room though she’d been in there ten thousand times. The moment Pittsburgh’s season ended, things got quiet and it Dallas came rushing back.
When other teams started losing, things got easier. Boston won the Cup and I was happy for them, but mostly happy for it all to be over so it could start again. So I could start again.
I went home to Canada and spent the summer working out with the boys. Teams and loyalties were suspended, even with my high profile friends like Stamkos and Skinner. Maybe I should have stuck closer to my Penguins teammates, but it felt so good to be where I belonged. I needed to reset everything and go back into camp ready to deliver. You always fit in when you’re scoring. My friends and I had plenty of fun too – trips to the lake, golf tournaments, a girl or two but no one special. Free and easy, like summer should be.
Late August came as quickly as ever. Huge question marks surrounded the Penguins, but I was excited to get back into the hunt. When I got back to town, a few of the guys were already there. Judging by their warm welcomes, it was going to be a lot easier for me this time around.
“Hey, Nealer!” Tyler Kennedy called as I made my way onto his deck with a six pack in one hand.
“Hi TK. Good summer?”
“Fershure! Back to the grind now, ya know? But psyched for it.”
He shoved the beer in an outdoor fridge while I greeted the rest of the group: Fleury and his girlfriend, Letang with a blond I’d never met, Jordan Staal and the friendly face of my old Dallas teammate Matt Niskanen. The absence of Max Talbot was immediately apparent, but it wasn’t my place to bring up their long-lost friend. So I popped a bottle and took a seat.
“Good summer?” Letang repeated TK’s question.
“Yeah, working out, hanging out.”
We traded off-season stories. Everyone looked healthy, healed and sounded anxious to get back to work. No one said anything about Crosby, so I didn’t either. More people came over, all local friends of Tyler’s girlfriend Kelsey. A cute blond named Allison flirted with me and I let myself flirt back. By the end of the night, I had asked her to dinner.
I saw Allison twice the first week and three times the second week. There was a lot of downtime before camp started and she was not back at school yet. She also had an eye for decorating and helped me move into my place like I meant it. On the fifth date, if you could call it that, we hung pictures all through the house. I kissed her for the first time with a hammer in one hand and a tape measure in the other.
Allison knew a few of the other WAGs besides Kelsey, and I found myself being invited almost as her date to more and more casual team gatherings. It was the same way I’d pictured Natalie as my ticket in - Allison was nice and fun and that made the pre-season easy. This was the time to become part of the group. I got more calls from the guys in two weeks than I had in two months. I didn’t tell Allison that of course - I was embarassed about not fitting in, about struggling and feeling so down. Getting a chance in Pittsburgh was a dream and no one wanted the emo hockey player. I kept my chin up and hoped that acting like this season would be good made it true. And the more time I spent with Allison the more I liked her.
The season came into sharper focus as we moved into the second week of September. I had been focusing on my game and on building my life outside of the game. Pittsburgh was looking up.
____
I stood in my new apartment, surrounded by a day’s worth of DIY furniture purchases and unmarked boxes of life possessions. My new apartment was bigger and nicer than Dallas – money went a lot further here. Looking around at the endless list of things to do before I would feel any kind of at home, I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed the keys and headed back to my car.
High above the river, I stood on the Incline observation deck overlooking the city. The football and baseball stadiums were right there, along with a hundred bridges. Downtown hid the hockey stadium among its taller buildings.
Pittsburgh.
The sound of the word made my stomach clench. I knew no one in this city and there was no dad to look out for me. When my parents left Dallas there was nothing left there for me. My colleagues felt strange about my dad being released and I seconded the emotion. The glass over my life started to splinter and crack - it was time to replace it.
So I chose a job. I didn’t pick the place or the team, I let it pick me. But once the word had been spoken - Pittsburgh - I never considered any other option. Now I was alone in a new city, about to jump into the shark tank.
A fall chill in the air made it feel like the right time to be getting back down to business. If only I could bring myself to push the green “send” button on my phone. After all, I’d gone to the trouble of getting into personnel files and finding his phone number. It was really the only one thing I hadn’t prepared for.
The knot in my stomach had been there for weeks.
I chickened out, predictably. Instead I let the beautiful little city swallow me up, tried to learn my way around town and went for long, lovely walks in the still-warm weather. Boxes stayed unpacked and furniture stayed un-assembled as the start of training camp drew near.
When the day finally came, the first day the players were reporting to Consol Energy Center for the first meeting of the season, I thought I would throw up. The guard looked at me weird when I arrived an hour earlier than usual. My hair was straightened, my makeup minimal and perfect because I’d been up since dawn. I wore a bright blue silk shirt and pencil skirt that fit me very well and was entirely professional - to anyone except a 24-year old guy. My shoes were plain back and not too high, but they had a delicate stiletto heel. It felt like armor today, and I knew I would need it.
I heard people arriving and greeting each other while I worked frantically on something completely unimportant behind my closed office door. Every ten minutes I checked the clock, only to find it was ten minutes closer to having to go out there.
Would he even remember me? Of course he would, but would he remember the kiss? Would he recall the fear in my eyes right before, or the panic right after? Did he even care?
It had been six and a half months, or two years depending on how you counted.
Knock knock.
“Ready Natalie?” my boss Catherine asked. I smoothed my skirt, pressed my lips together and followed her into the hallway.
We wove through the hallways toward the meeting room. It was customary for the coach to introduce the staff who would work day-to-day with the players at the start of the season, and it helped. I knew all their names and faces already, now they’d know mine.
A couple of the people smiled or said hello - Pascal Dupuis became my favorite Penguin by bowing as we passed, making Catherine cackle. Tyler Kennedy pushed Jordan Staal palyfully, embarrassing the big blond as he stumbled into the wall. Marc-Andre Fleury shuffled past with a huge bag and gave me a zillion-dollar smile. By the time we turned the corner, I was already feeling better.
Whoosh.
Just like that, there he was. James wore a long-sleeved navy blue t-shirt and jeans, examining a long rack of sticks being readied for the first practice. His hair was longer, falling into his eyes. He must have seen me stutter step in his peripheral vision, because he lifted his head.
Those stunning hazel eyes locked right on mine.
Crash.
Whatever he’d been holding on the rack came apart. The crossbar fell out and a hundred carefully arranged hockey sticks fell to the ground like dominoes. The ruckus was huge; sticks bounced off each other and the wall behind, collecting around his feet. He just stood there, staring at me.
“Woah!” Fleury laughed, running to find the source of the noise. Kennedy was right behind him. Catherine and everyone else in the hallway had stopped dead and were looking from James to me and back to James.
“Natalie,” he finally said in a voice so soft I almost missed it.
“Hi James.” I tried to sound confident. “Long time.”
He ran one huge hand through his soft, shaggy hair. I knew he still used conditioner. He looked older, more manly and completely, shudder-inducingly gorgeous. My insides made a noise like the hockey sticks as they fell apart.
We stared at each other just long enough for the whole place to know something weird was happening here. Someone finally broke the silence.
“Maaaaan. The new girls always have boyfriends!” Tyler Kennedy said.
____
My heart stopped.
I had been thinking about Natalie that morning when Coach mentioned we’d be meeting the communications staff that day. On a day just like this two years ago, I saw Natalie for the first time. Now I knew her immediately, of course, but it was like I’d never seen her before. Her hair was longer, straighter and that outfit hugged her body like paint on a wall. All that was nothing compared to her eyes. Bright, flashing, happy. She was happy to see me.
TK broke the moment with a joke, and everyone laughed. Boyfriend. As if. My brain was slowly putting together the pieces and came to the worst possible conclusion.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping free of the knee-high pile of sticks. Natalie came a little closer.
“You guys ready? We’re starting,” Christine called over her shoulder. Natalie gave me a look like she wanted me to wish her good luck, then lead the way into the meeting room. I would have followed her anywhere.
Inside, she lined up to the left with the rest of the communications department. So it was true - she worked here now. Natalie dropped her gaze, but I couldn’t my eyes off her.
“Okay guys, time to run through the communications staff. If you’re new, you’ll catch on quick,” Coach said. He named people and their positions, they each gave a quick hello. It was about twenty people total from the public relations, community relations and the sports marketing departments. I waited and waited for Natalie’s name - he saved the best for last.
“And taking over Maureen’s job as Assistant Comm Manager, Natalie Crawford.”
Every guy in the room sat forward in his seat as Natalie gave us a little wave. It would take something like a 5’7” brunette stunner to make them pay attention to this meeting.
“Natalie comes from the Dallas Stars and yes, it’s Crawford as in Coach Crawford. So she’s smarter than all of you already,” Disco laughed at his own joke then turned to Natalie. “You must know Nealer and Nisky.”
She turned her eyes back to me, finally. The smile was a small one, saying yes she knew me. But I remembered the way those lips tasted like spun sugar.
“Well,” Disco said, “Talbot’s gone so you should be reasonably safe around here. Guys, behave yourselves.”
They all laughed, TK made a “wah waaaaaaaaaaah” and Crosby probably blushed. The staff filed out and Natalie did not look at me again. Disco started talking about pre-season line combinations and cold fusion and the Secret of NIMH, but I wasn’t listening.
____
I closed my office door and leaned against it, breath catching in my chest. Thirty guys had been looking at me in that room but I could only feel one pair of eyes.
God damn he was beautiful. And the way his face lit up when we made eye contact told me everything I had wondered and suspected. He hadn’t fit in here. He’d been lonely and frustrated, angry at not playing well without anywhere to turn. The sweet, funny and gorgeous boy from Dallas had struggled here like never before.
Oh. And he was crazy about me.
Maybe that was the way I looked at him, because despite it being my first week on the job I was ready to climb over Staal and Malkin to get to James. When those soft, full lips said my name in the hallway I nearly passed out.
A strong knock on my door made me jump so hard I cracked my knee on the underside of the desk. Hissing a curse, I wheeled back to stand up.
“Natalie?”
I got to the door and threw it open in a heartbeat. Then I stopped, flatfooted and foolish, looking up at his color-change eyes and that perfect face. Without even a moment’s consideration I grabbed a handful of his shirt and hauled him inside. The sound of my door slamming echoed through the whole arena.
James stared back at me.
“You work here?”
“Just started.” I made fists to keep from reaching for him again.
“Wow. I...,” he stopped and looked at his feet. The posture rounded his wide shoulders, brought his tall frame closer to mine like he was trying to soak me up. “The last time I saw you....”
He reached out for my forearm, closed his huge hand around my slender wrist.
“In the store.” The word was out of my mouth on the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. It hung between us like a bomb waiting to explode on impact.
I kissed you. I grabbed you like this and told you everything without saying a word. And I’m afraid I’m about to do it again.
“Yeah.” James’ impossibly long eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he blinked, then looked up.
There was something in the air. Something crazy and electric - a current between us, rushing like water toward a falls. You couldn’t stop it. You couldn’t even contain it. He smiled and I lost my last defense. It was his mouth - I couldn’t be near him and not claim that spot as my own. My skin felt like it was crawling off my body. My pulse raced. I was either going to burst into flames or tears.
I threw my arms around James like I was drowning. He fit perfectly, scandalously against me. I had to stretch up to reach around his neck, elongating my body and lifting my breasts right into his chest. His lower body pressed into mine and I nearly moaned. He slid in until we were painted over each other, like he’d been waiting all this time just for someone to hug him. Everything he’d felt and thought since the day of the trade - the tough season and not scoring and feeling like an outsider - it all seeped out as he held me tight in his strong arms.
“James,” I said softly. He brought a hand up to my hair and stroked where it fell down my beck.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he admitted.
There are somethings that human beings are not equipped to handle – one of them is seeing your parents defeated.
My dad was released from his coaching job with the Stars a week after they failed to make the playoffs for the second season in a row. It was a very tough blow, even expected, because so much of what had occurred was out of his hands. He would lace up skates and double-shift every game if he could do it himself. Behind the bench was hard enough for him, and now he didn’t even have that.
“They want you to stay,” he told me. I guess I’d done well in the job he’d gotten for me. But I was angry.
“If nothing better comes along.”
In truth, I didn’t love Dallas. Lots of people hate the place and while I see their point, it wasn’t that bad. It just wasn’t my long-term goal. And after two years back in close proximity to my parents I thought it might be time to regain my independence. They were taking a year off and heading back to Canada. I was on my own again.
The next day I started making phone calls to my friends with other teams. People who knew me and my work, rather than knowing I had been the coach’s daughter. Of course being the playoffs, no one was leaving their jobs right away. But people looking toward the end of the year might be shuffling around.
Three days later, a guy I knew named Leo with the Columbus Blue Jackets called. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we’re poaching someone from the Comm Department with another team. It won’t be out till they get eliminated, you might get in the door now.”
“Where?”
“Pittsburgh.”
My heart dropped like an elevator. But I couldn’t let one night – no, one kiss! – with one guy stop me from making a good move. If I even qualified. So I took a deep breath.
“Can you send them my resume?”
“The person we stole, Laura, is promoting her manager and hiring a replacement. You can meet her before she comes here. And she knows I love you.”
____
The biggest goal of my career came in double overtime. The NHL had me in a “History Will be Made” commercial practically before the goal horn stopped sounding. I was so desperate to contribute, to win and keep having chances that I believe I willed that puck into the net with sheer desire.
I knew Natalie would see it. I wanted her to miss me the way I missed her.
Then, when it all came crashing down, it felt like my fault. I wasn’t Crosby. I never claimed to be. But in the end that’s what we needed. And Tampa Bay won three in a row, outscoring us by nine goals in three games. Just like that the season was over. It was like being marooned on an island while a ship full of lucky guys sails away and leaves you starving.
I thought a lot about Natalie then, about the strange turn my life had taken with that single phone call saying I was traded. It’s something every hockey player has to face: your life is not your own. You cannot control where you go. Giving up that self-determination sounds easy until it pulls the rug from under your feet. The guys struggle to control everything else, to put down anchors and roots because they know how easily a so-called life is torn away.
When Coach Crawford was released from his job, I could have cried. Natalie’s life had been turned upside-down too. The phone sat there, accusing me of heartlessness for not calling him to say I was sorry. But I didn’t.
Instead wondered if Natalie ever thought of me, of that night in the store. I wondered what it meant. If only I could have called her - but I’d never even had her number when we lived in the same city. Of course, that was before she kissed me. And I clung to that tiny detail - she had kissed me.
But the surprise of goodbye had gotten me that night too, and my reactions were just as strange. I remembered so many things about her - the time she’d slipped on black ice at a Calgary hotel and I’d caught her, the time she and Morrow shared a seafood appetizer and got food poisoning, the way her nose curled in disgust at the smell of the locker room though she’d been in there ten thousand times. The moment Pittsburgh’s season ended, things got quiet and it Dallas came rushing back.
When other teams started losing, things got easier. Boston won the Cup and I was happy for them, but mostly happy for it all to be over so it could start again. So I could start again.
I went home to Canada and spent the summer working out with the boys. Teams and loyalties were suspended, even with my high profile friends like Stamkos and Skinner. Maybe I should have stuck closer to my Penguins teammates, but it felt so good to be where I belonged. I needed to reset everything and go back into camp ready to deliver. You always fit in when you’re scoring. My friends and I had plenty of fun too – trips to the lake, golf tournaments, a girl or two but no one special. Free and easy, like summer should be.
Late August came as quickly as ever. Huge question marks surrounded the Penguins, but I was excited to get back into the hunt. When I got back to town, a few of the guys were already there. Judging by their warm welcomes, it was going to be a lot easier for me this time around.
“Hey, Nealer!” Tyler Kennedy called as I made my way onto his deck with a six pack in one hand.
“Hi TK. Good summer?”
“Fershure! Back to the grind now, ya know? But psyched for it.”
He shoved the beer in an outdoor fridge while I greeted the rest of the group: Fleury and his girlfriend, Letang with a blond I’d never met, Jordan Staal and the friendly face of my old Dallas teammate Matt Niskanen. The absence of Max Talbot was immediately apparent, but it wasn’t my place to bring up their long-lost friend. So I popped a bottle and took a seat.
“Good summer?” Letang repeated TK’s question.
“Yeah, working out, hanging out.”
We traded off-season stories. Everyone looked healthy, healed and sounded anxious to get back to work. No one said anything about Crosby, so I didn’t either. More people came over, all local friends of Tyler’s girlfriend Kelsey. A cute blond named Allison flirted with me and I let myself flirt back. By the end of the night, I had asked her to dinner.
I saw Allison twice the first week and three times the second week. There was a lot of downtime before camp started and she was not back at school yet. She also had an eye for decorating and helped me move into my place like I meant it. On the fifth date, if you could call it that, we hung pictures all through the house. I kissed her for the first time with a hammer in one hand and a tape measure in the other.
Allison knew a few of the other WAGs besides Kelsey, and I found myself being invited almost as her date to more and more casual team gatherings. It was the same way I’d pictured Natalie as my ticket in - Allison was nice and fun and that made the pre-season easy. This was the time to become part of the group. I got more calls from the guys in two weeks than I had in two months. I didn’t tell Allison that of course - I was embarassed about not fitting in, about struggling and feeling so down. Getting a chance in Pittsburgh was a dream and no one wanted the emo hockey player. I kept my chin up and hoped that acting like this season would be good made it true. And the more time I spent with Allison the more I liked her.
The season came into sharper focus as we moved into the second week of September. I had been focusing on my game and on building my life outside of the game. Pittsburgh was looking up.
____
I stood in my new apartment, surrounded by a day’s worth of DIY furniture purchases and unmarked boxes of life possessions. My new apartment was bigger and nicer than Dallas – money went a lot further here. Looking around at the endless list of things to do before I would feel any kind of at home, I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed the keys and headed back to my car.
High above the river, I stood on the Incline observation deck overlooking the city. The football and baseball stadiums were right there, along with a hundred bridges. Downtown hid the hockey stadium among its taller buildings.
Pittsburgh.
The sound of the word made my stomach clench. I knew no one in this city and there was no dad to look out for me. When my parents left Dallas there was nothing left there for me. My colleagues felt strange about my dad being released and I seconded the emotion. The glass over my life started to splinter and crack - it was time to replace it.
So I chose a job. I didn’t pick the place or the team, I let it pick me. But once the word had been spoken - Pittsburgh - I never considered any other option. Now I was alone in a new city, about to jump into the shark tank.
A fall chill in the air made it feel like the right time to be getting back down to business. If only I could bring myself to push the green “send” button on my phone. After all, I’d gone to the trouble of getting into personnel files and finding his phone number. It was really the only one thing I hadn’t prepared for.
The knot in my stomach had been there for weeks.
I chickened out, predictably. Instead I let the beautiful little city swallow me up, tried to learn my way around town and went for long, lovely walks in the still-warm weather. Boxes stayed unpacked and furniture stayed un-assembled as the start of training camp drew near.
When the day finally came, the first day the players were reporting to Consol Energy Center for the first meeting of the season, I thought I would throw up. The guard looked at me weird when I arrived an hour earlier than usual. My hair was straightened, my makeup minimal and perfect because I’d been up since dawn. I wore a bright blue silk shirt and pencil skirt that fit me very well and was entirely professional - to anyone except a 24-year old guy. My shoes were plain back and not too high, but they had a delicate stiletto heel. It felt like armor today, and I knew I would need it.
I heard people arriving and greeting each other while I worked frantically on something completely unimportant behind my closed office door. Every ten minutes I checked the clock, only to find it was ten minutes closer to having to go out there.
Would he even remember me? Of course he would, but would he remember the kiss? Would he recall the fear in my eyes right before, or the panic right after? Did he even care?
It had been six and a half months, or two years depending on how you counted.
Knock knock.
“Ready Natalie?” my boss Catherine asked. I smoothed my skirt, pressed my lips together and followed her into the hallway.
We wove through the hallways toward the meeting room. It was customary for the coach to introduce the staff who would work day-to-day with the players at the start of the season, and it helped. I knew all their names and faces already, now they’d know mine.
A couple of the people smiled or said hello - Pascal Dupuis became my favorite Penguin by bowing as we passed, making Catherine cackle. Tyler Kennedy pushed Jordan Staal palyfully, embarrassing the big blond as he stumbled into the wall. Marc-Andre Fleury shuffled past with a huge bag and gave me a zillion-dollar smile. By the time we turned the corner, I was already feeling better.
Whoosh.
Just like that, there he was. James wore a long-sleeved navy blue t-shirt and jeans, examining a long rack of sticks being readied for the first practice. His hair was longer, falling into his eyes. He must have seen me stutter step in his peripheral vision, because he lifted his head.
Those stunning hazel eyes locked right on mine.
Crash.
Whatever he’d been holding on the rack came apart. The crossbar fell out and a hundred carefully arranged hockey sticks fell to the ground like dominoes. The ruckus was huge; sticks bounced off each other and the wall behind, collecting around his feet. He just stood there, staring at me.
“Woah!” Fleury laughed, running to find the source of the noise. Kennedy was right behind him. Catherine and everyone else in the hallway had stopped dead and were looking from James to me and back to James.
“Natalie,” he finally said in a voice so soft I almost missed it.
“Hi James.” I tried to sound confident. “Long time.”
He ran one huge hand through his soft, shaggy hair. I knew he still used conditioner. He looked older, more manly and completely, shudder-inducingly gorgeous. My insides made a noise like the hockey sticks as they fell apart.
We stared at each other just long enough for the whole place to know something weird was happening here. Someone finally broke the silence.
“Maaaaan. The new girls always have boyfriends!” Tyler Kennedy said.
____
My heart stopped.
I had been thinking about Natalie that morning when Coach mentioned we’d be meeting the communications staff that day. On a day just like this two years ago, I saw Natalie for the first time. Now I knew her immediately, of course, but it was like I’d never seen her before. Her hair was longer, straighter and that outfit hugged her body like paint on a wall. All that was nothing compared to her eyes. Bright, flashing, happy. She was happy to see me.
TK broke the moment with a joke, and everyone laughed. Boyfriend. As if. My brain was slowly putting together the pieces and came to the worst possible conclusion.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, stepping free of the knee-high pile of sticks. Natalie came a little closer.
“You guys ready? We’re starting,” Christine called over her shoulder. Natalie gave me a look like she wanted me to wish her good luck, then lead the way into the meeting room. I would have followed her anywhere.
Inside, she lined up to the left with the rest of the communications department. So it was true - she worked here now. Natalie dropped her gaze, but I couldn’t my eyes off her.
“Okay guys, time to run through the communications staff. If you’re new, you’ll catch on quick,” Coach said. He named people and their positions, they each gave a quick hello. It was about twenty people total from the public relations, community relations and the sports marketing departments. I waited and waited for Natalie’s name - he saved the best for last.
“And taking over Maureen’s job as Assistant Comm Manager, Natalie Crawford.”
Every guy in the room sat forward in his seat as Natalie gave us a little wave. It would take something like a 5’7” brunette stunner to make them pay attention to this meeting.
“Natalie comes from the Dallas Stars and yes, it’s Crawford as in Coach Crawford. So she’s smarter than all of you already,” Disco laughed at his own joke then turned to Natalie. “You must know Nealer and Nisky.”
She turned her eyes back to me, finally. The smile was a small one, saying yes she knew me. But I remembered the way those lips tasted like spun sugar.
“Well,” Disco said, “Talbot’s gone so you should be reasonably safe around here. Guys, behave yourselves.”
They all laughed, TK made a “wah waaaaaaaaaaah” and Crosby probably blushed. The staff filed out and Natalie did not look at me again. Disco started talking about pre-season line combinations and cold fusion and the Secret of NIMH, but I wasn’t listening.
____
I closed my office door and leaned against it, breath catching in my chest. Thirty guys had been looking at me in that room but I could only feel one pair of eyes.
God damn he was beautiful. And the way his face lit up when we made eye contact told me everything I had wondered and suspected. He hadn’t fit in here. He’d been lonely and frustrated, angry at not playing well without anywhere to turn. The sweet, funny and gorgeous boy from Dallas had struggled here like never before.
Oh. And he was crazy about me.
Maybe that was the way I looked at him, because despite it being my first week on the job I was ready to climb over Staal and Malkin to get to James. When those soft, full lips said my name in the hallway I nearly passed out.
A strong knock on my door made me jump so hard I cracked my knee on the underside of the desk. Hissing a curse, I wheeled back to stand up.
“Natalie?”
I got to the door and threw it open in a heartbeat. Then I stopped, flatfooted and foolish, looking up at his color-change eyes and that perfect face. Without even a moment’s consideration I grabbed a handful of his shirt and hauled him inside. The sound of my door slamming echoed through the whole arena.
James stared back at me.
“You work here?”
“Just started.” I made fists to keep from reaching for him again.
“Wow. I...,” he stopped and looked at his feet. The posture rounded his wide shoulders, brought his tall frame closer to mine like he was trying to soak me up. “The last time I saw you....”
He reached out for my forearm, closed his huge hand around my slender wrist.
“In the store.” The word was out of my mouth on the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. It hung between us like a bomb waiting to explode on impact.
I kissed you. I grabbed you like this and told you everything without saying a word. And I’m afraid I’m about to do it again.
“Yeah.” James’ impossibly long eyelashes brushed his cheeks as he blinked, then looked up.
There was something in the air. Something crazy and electric - a current between us, rushing like water toward a falls. You couldn’t stop it. You couldn’t even contain it. He smiled and I lost my last defense. It was his mouth - I couldn’t be near him and not claim that spot as my own. My skin felt like it was crawling off my body. My pulse raced. I was either going to burst into flames or tears.
I threw my arms around James like I was drowning. He fit perfectly, scandalously against me. I had to stretch up to reach around his neck, elongating my body and lifting my breasts right into his chest. His lower body pressed into mine and I nearly moaned. He slid in until we were painted over each other, like he’d been waiting all this time just for someone to hug him. Everything he’d felt and thought since the day of the trade - the tough season and not scoring and feeling like an outsider - it all seeped out as he held me tight in his strong arms.
“James,” I said softly. He brought a hand up to my hair and stroked where it fell down my beck.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he admitted.
He had no idea.
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Eeeeepp. Shit, what about Allison? Don't keep us waiting too long!
ReplyDeleteSooo excited to see where this goes :)
ReplyDelete