Fake Shot (Boston Rebels Book 2)

“Ican’t really explain why, but I just don’t think he’s the right person for this,” I tell Audrey.

She scrunches her eyebrows together, forming the worry line between them that I used to tease her would become a permanent feature. But she’s a lighter, happier person now that Drew’s in her life, so I see that look a lot less these days.

“You have to have a reason,” she says. “You can’t just cancel the dinner and kiss three hundred thousand dollars goodbye because your spidey sense is tingling.”

The laugh rips out of me so quickly it’s practically a bark. It’s not like I think there’s some imminent danger, but as I glance at my phone where it sits between us on our kitchen table, his text with the restaurant details for Saturday night still lighting it up, something is telling me that Jerome Watson is not a man I want to be heavily involved in a project I care so much about. No matter how much money he has.

“He seemed like he’s the kind of guy who’d try to throw his money and his weight around,” I say, “and I don’t have the time or energy to deal with some guy’s ego. Working with him just doesn’t feel right.”

“Business is about more than feelings, Jules. You know that. Speaking of feelings, how’s it going living with Colt?”

A deep sigh rattles around in my throat and comes out sounding like a growl, but I’m secretly glad she’s changed the subject. I’ve been so paranoid I’ll let it slip that she’s not going to make it to dinner Saturday night.

“It’s fine, I guess. I mean, he just moved in today, so I haven’t really seen him.” Except for the closet debacle, but I haven’t told Audrey that I redid the closet because . . . I don’t know why, really. She knows I’ve updated her bedroom, adding decorative molding and paint, before I moved into it, but I’ve kept the closet just for myself . . . my own secret little safe space that I can retreat to.

“Are you . . . sure you’re okay having him here?”

“Audrey, it’s fine,” I insist, halfway regretting that I told my sister everything. But we made a pact when our dad left that we’d always be 100% honest with each other. She’s shared her biggest secrets with me, and I tell her (almost) everything too. “I made it clear that he needs to stay in his own space upstairs. Besides, he’ll be gone soon enough.”

“Hmmm.” The skepticism rolls around in the back of her throat, and that worry line appears between her eyebrows again. I know exactly where her mind is.

“It’s going to be fine. I promise.”

“It’s just . . . you haven’t spent any time with him alone since⁠—”

“I know,” I say, not wanting to talk about Vegas right now. Or ever, really. “Bad decisions were made, but I was in a different place then. Yes, my crush on him back then led me to make stupid choices, but that was a long time ago. I’m not going to lose control or be reckless.”

“I’m not worried about your decision-making abilities.” She gives me a sad smile. She should be, though. Because the only place in my life where I feel reckless and out of control is when I’m around Colt. Even now. Even though it’s been years since I had feelings for him. “I’m worried about your heart.”

“What heart?” I joke, but her smile doesn’t brighten. “Audrey, I have zero feelings for him and total control over my emotions. It’s going to be fine.”

I’ve set up my entire life so that I can avoid the kind of terrible choices I made in Vegas, when my jealousy and heartbreak, combined with too much alcohol, led me straight into the arms of someone who, as it turns out, I should not have trusted.

“I worry about you, you know. Especially with how closed-off you’ve made yourself since⁠—”

“There’s no need to worry,” I remind her. “I am who I am, and I’m fine with it. I don’t want to date. I don’t want a relationship. I don’t ever again want to feel like I’ve lost control.”

“I know . . .” she trails off when her phone buzzes, and she glances down at it on our kitchen table. We’ve been sitting here for half an hour, having a post-work debrief after I got home late from a job site and she finished up some house plans she was working on downstairs in the Our House office.

I watch her read the message, then she says, “Alright, I have to run. Graham’s baseball practice is wrapping up, and I told Drew I’d pick up dinner before they got home.” Now that it’s spring, Graham has hung up his skates for the season and is trying a new sport.

“Oh! You said you’d send me his game schedule. Don’t forget, okay?”

“Are you just asking because I told you how hot his coach is?” she asks, a hopeful glint in her eyes. I’m not sure she and my friends will ever stop suggesting guys to me, even though they know I don’t date.

“No.” I drag the word out. “But I’ve gone to almost every practice and scrimmage for Graham’s hockey team over the last two years he’s played. Of course I’m going to his baseball games as well.”

Audrey’s smile is practically a smirk. “Uh huh.” She says it like she’s trying to put ideas in my head, even though we both know it won’t work.

“Since I don’t want kids, the whole hot single-dad thing doesn’t really hold any appeal.”

“You might feel differently when you see him,” she teases.

“He’ll still have a kid.”

“Hey, you’re great with kids.”

“I’m an amazing aunt. That doesn’t mean I want my own children. But don’t worry, I’ll enjoy the eye candy during the games,” I promise her.

Audrey laughs as she slides her phone into her back pocket before carrying her coffee mug to the sink.

“Just leave it,” I say. “The dishwasher’s full of clean dishes, so I’ll add it in after I’ve put them away.”

“Alright. Thanks again for being open to this dinner with Jerome. We’ll find the right donors, but to do so, we have to consider all our options.”

Once I say goodbye to my sister, I realize that I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything since midday when I sat out on the lawn of Drew’s mom’s house, enjoying the lovely streak of warm spring weather and eating my sub. We’re almost done with the renovations that will allow her to continue living at home safely and comfortably as her Parkinson’s disease progresses, and then we’ll be starting a new project next week.

I turn to the fridge and start pulling out ingredients that I think will make a decent pasta dish. Half an hour later, I’ve got a bowl big enough to feed a family. I don’t know why I can’t make anything in portion sizes appropriate for one person. After years of cooking for Jameson, Audrey, and Graham, I guess I’m still figuring it out. At least this way, I’ll have leftovers for the next few days . . . or until Jameson stops by again.

I’m grating some fresh parmesan over the bowl of pasta with Italian sausage, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and baby spinach in a white wine, garlic, and butter sauce, when the front door opens and my head snaps up.

For some reason, I’m expecting to see Audrey, even though she already texted me that she arrived home safely. It’s like my brain still hasn’t quite accepted that she doesn’t live here anymore. Instead, Colt walks through the door—and despite my earlier conversation with my sister, my brain definitely hasn’t registered the fact that he does live here now.

Across the kitchen and entryway, our eyes meet. Then he looks away, his short-sleeve t-shirt stretching across the wide expanse of his upper back as he turns to lock the door behind him. It’s one of those fancy T-shirts that probably cost $200 on Newbury Street, whereas I’m standing here in the leggings and old Our House T-shirt I changed into after I got home from the job site.

“What smells so good?” he asks.

“Just some pasta I whipped up.”

“Hmm.” Turning to face me, that smirk he’s so famous for graces his lips. It’s the one he flashes for fans and photographs, the one that so easily gets him into women’s pants. Colt’s got the easy-going attitude of someone who always gets what he wants in life. “That’s an awfully big bowl of pasta. You having company over?”

I suspect he knows I don’t have anyone coming over and is teasing me so he can offer to help me eat it. But that question rubs at me in a way that makes me feel kind of raw. As much of my life as I spent wishing I had some privacy—which I never had with Jameson and Audrey, and eventually Graham, always around—I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to live in this big house all alone once they each moved out. Moved on.

It makes me feel like I’m stagnant, while everyone else is growing.

Which doesn’t even make sense, because I’m happy with my life. I’ve got great friends, an amazing family, and a job I love. It’s exactly the life I wanted to create for myself, and it’s perfect for me. Safe and stable, just how I like things.

“Maybe . . .” I say, a heavy dose of sarcasm in my voice, “I just have a really big appetite.”

He looks me up and down, like he doubts I could eat half this much. His lips curve back into a small smile when he says, “Maybe you’re just really stubborn.”

“You know I’m stubborn, Colt,” I say as I fold my arms across my chest, hugging my T-shirt to me and wishing I had better armor against his charm. “This isn’t news.”

“Listen,” he says, shoving his hands into the front pocket of his jeans like he knows how awkward this is for me. “I’m sorry Jameson and I went into your closet earlier today. We thought it was just an empty room at this point. We didn’t know you’d made it into part of your living space.” He swallows, his throat bobbing in a way that makes him look guilty.

It shouldn’t be a big deal if he went into my closet . . . but if he started poking around, he’d find things I most definitely wouldn’t want him to see.

“It’s fine, Colt. You didn’t know. Just . . . stay out of there now that you do, okay?”

“Sure thing, Tink.”

Grinding my teeth together, I try not to let the old nickname from my childhood grate on me. No one ever calls me that anymore, except him—and I’m pretty sure he does it to piss me off.

I was a pre-teen when Colt and Jameson started playing together on the Rebels. Being eight years older than me, he’s always treated me like his kid sister. He teased me mercilessly, probably because I was so easy to get a rise out of, but I secretly basked in the attention.

Then I hit puberty, and as I morphed into a teenager—growing six inches and adding some curves—he continued to treat me like I was a little kid, when all I wanted was for him to see that I was growing up.

“You can stop calling me that any day now,” I say, hugging my arms even tighter across my chest.

To his credit, while he still teases me, he no longer treats me like I’m a kid. Which is good, because I operate power tools and boss people around for a living. I’m not inclined to take crap from someone whose only purpose in life is to prevent rubber pucks from going into a net.

“Nah,” he says with a shrug, “you’ll always be Tinker Bell to me—a tiny blonde spitfire with a temper when she doesn’t get her way.” His smile is affectionate, like he’s remembering how tenacious I was as a kid. Telling me no, or that something was too hard, or that I needed to be older to do something, in my mind that only meant that I needed to try harder. Giving up wasn’t in my vernacular. Still isn’t.

“I’m hardly tiny, Colt.” I’m five feet nine inches tall, and muscular. Most guys are intimidated by my height and the fact that I can usually lift more than they can. Not Colt, though. He’s got at least six inches on me, and I probably couldn’t even lift his warm-up weight.

He steps a little closer so that I have to tilt my head back to see him. If it weren’t Colt, I would be intimidated as hell by a guy this large hulking over me like this.

“You’re still kind of tiny to me.” His voice is low and gravelly in a way that has butterflies shooting through my abdomen. I don’t even recognize his tone . . . it’s like he’s talking to someone else. Someone he most definitely doesn’t see as a little sister.

“Sit down,” I say with an exaggerated sigh as I briefly consider all the bad decisions someone could easily make with a guy like Colt. I lightly push against his chest with one hand while stepping back and moving toward the counter where I set the huge bowl of food. “I need help eating all this pasta.”

What I really need is for him to be farther from me, like at the far end of the table, so I can forget the way I felt just now with him that close. How I could barely breathe because of the proximity. How I wanted him to take one step closer, even while I assured myself I did not want that.

It’s just Colt, I repeat Jameson’s words in my head.

And if Colt is known for anything besides playing hockey, it’s the constant rotation of puck bunnies in and out of his life. It’s like he can’t help but talk to women like he’s trying to get them into his bed. I’m about to tell him to cut that shit out—because we antagonize each other, we don’t flirt—when he interrupts my thoughts by asking, “Can I get us some drinks? What do you want?”

“Just water,” I tell him.

“Water it is,” he says as he moves to grab two glasses from the shelf.

“There’s some beer in the fridge if you want it,” I tell him.

He gives me a look I can’t quite read but wish I could, and then he says, “Water’s fine.”

I take two large flat bowls and dish heaping piles of pasta into both, then grate some extra parmesan onto each while he fills our water glasses.

“So, you guys aren’t practicing this week?” I ask as we sit across from each other at the farmhouse table that takes up the middle of my kitchen. I get up early for work and basically want to know if he might be meandering through my space in the mornings. Do I need to put clothes on after my shower when I go downstairs to get my coffee, or can I go wrapped in my towel like normal?

“Coach gave us a few days off so we could rest and gear up for the playoffs, but yeah, we’re back to practicing tomorrow.”

“What time do you guys practice? Early morning?” For someone whose brother played in the NHL, I know shockingly little about how it all works. Jameson had his own place when he was playing for the Boston Rebels, so I have no idea what his schedule was like back then. By the time our mom died, our dad left us, and Jameson moved home, he had retired from the NHL.

“Nah, we usually don’t take the ice until around ten. So I get there about two hours before to get ready.”

“Of course it takes you two hours to get ready, pretty boy.” I roll my eyes as I fall into the pattern of teasing him that’s become our norm. We never have real conversations; we just needle each other, which is exactly how I like it.

Digging his fork into the pasta, he looks up at me with a grin, one eyebrow cocked as he opens his mouth to respond, and then his phone vibrates on the table next to him. He glances down, then back up at me quickly before declining the call.

When he looks up again, his easy-going demeanor has been replaced with the hard lines of a clenched jaw and narrowed eyes staring off past me.

“Everything okay?” I ask, when he doesn’t say anything.

He shakes his head. “Yeah, just a phone call I’ve been avoiding.”

Oh, I know all about those, I think to myself. It’s been over two months since my dad reached out, which means I’m due. These longer stretches with no contact are both a relief, and also incredibly anxiety inducing—like knowing something bad will happen, but not knowing when, or how, or where.

I’m not sure how to respond to Colt’s comment, but I guess I don’t need to because that devil-may-care grin is back, and he says, “So, to get ready for practice . . .” And then he’s off on a tear, explaining the ins and outs of what he brings to the rink, the protein-packed breakfast he eats once he gets there, and the warmup exercises and pre-practice workout he completes.

But I’m only half listening, because inside, my mind is playing back the way I watched his face go from easy-going, to hardened and angry, back to the cocky player I’ve always known him to be. And all I keep hearing, over and over, is the way my therapist assured me that we all wear masks. The hard part, she said, is knowing when we’re safe to take them off.