Pucking Around: A Why Choose Hockey Romance (Jacksonville Rays Book 1)

“I’m just asking if she’s said anything about me,” Langley says lying on his back on the massage table.

The Rays gym is pumping out the rock tunes as players swarm everywhere. It’s a recovery day, with another game tomorrow, meaning workouts are light. Most guys are just doing a bit of cardio.

I jiggle Langley’s legs, working to release the lactic acid buildup from his strength and conditioning session. “Uh-huh. And I already told you, I haven’t talked to her in like a week.”

“So, she hasn’t said anything?” he presses.

I huff, dropping his legs down. “Why would she say something about you, Langley? You really think getting whacked in the head with a soccer ball left that big of an impression?”

“I—” He swallows his words, biting his bottom lip. “Well…no,” he admits softly.

I offer him my hand, helping him sit up. “Look, it’s sweet that you liked her, okay? But Tess is…complicated.”

He narrows his pretty green eyes at me. “What do you mean?”

“Well…she’s still married for one,” I say. “It’s been the divorce from hell, and her ex is literally the devil, but—”

“She’s married?” he says, his sweet, tender heart breaking.

“I mean, they’re separated,” I repeat. “Have been. And she’s never going back to that piece of shit. But it just complicates things.”

His softness forms an edge as he glares at me. “Did he hurt her?”

“I’m really not comfortable discussing her business with you, Langley.”

He sighs, nodding his head as he looks down at his trainers.

I take hold of his arm, helping him through some stretches to loosen up his shoulders. “Besides, the last thing you want right now is a long-distance relationship, right? You’re young. You’re focused on your career. You don’t want that hassle.”

He nods, knowing I’m talking sense.

“And I mean…you’re not really her type,” I add, moving over to his other arm.

He looks sharply at me. “What do you mean? I could be her type.”

I look him up and down, taking in his pro athlete body. That she can work with easily. Tess Owens loves a well-muscled man. It’s his All-American, preppy baby face. His sweet as pie personality. And he’s too young. Too uncomplicated. A total puppy. He would bore her in the end.

“Well, I’ve known her for a while now, and she has exactly two types,” I explain, ready to let him down easy. “Zoë Kravitz in Big Little Lies, and that actor who plays Jax Teller…playing the role of Jax Teller,” I add. “We tried to watch his other stuff, and she pitched a fit. That’s it. You gotta be a Kravitz or a Teller, and you’re neither,” I finish with a shrug.

“I can be a Teller,” he says, puffing his chest out. “I could grow a beard, I think.”

I snort. “Oh, honey. That’s literally the least interesting thing about Jax Teller. You gonna buy a motorcycle too? Treat her like an old lady? Start stashing guns and drugs in the Zamboni?”

“Well…no,” he says, his brain clearly chewing on the puzzle of how to appeal to Tess, a woman he’ll likely never see again.

My spidey senses tingle as I watch him. “Langley…did something happen between you two while she was down here?”

“No,” he says quickly. Too quickly.

“Langley,” I say in my best, most adult mothering tone.

Before he can respond, Poppy comes breezing across the gym. “Rachel! Rach! Girl, I need to talk to you!” She sings out the last sentence as she darts between the equipment like a blonde squirrel.

“What’s up?”

She’s always so perfectly polished. Her blonde ponytail looks effortless, all her flyway pieces specifically chosen to be let loose. Meanwhile, my hair is up in the same old messy knot. She’s matched the coral on her lips to the coral of her yoga pants, sparkling white Gucci tennis shoes on her feet. She’s finished the look with a Rays t-shirt that she’s artfully cut to be a scoop-necked crop top with just the barest little strip of her tummy showing. Honestly, it’s cute, and I’m stealing the idea.

“What do you need?” I say again, still working my fingers over Langley’s shoulder.

She huffs, glancing at him. “Get lost for a minute, honey.”

His eyes go wide. “But we’re in the middle of—”

“Yeah, that’s great,” she says over him, taking his hand and tugging him off the table. “Tell your story walkin. We’ll let you know when we’re done talkin.”

He huffs, stomping off as Poppy grabs me by the arm and pulls me away from the massage area back towards my office.

“Poppy, what—”

“Not here,” she says, breathless as she all but pushes me into my office and shuts the door. As soon as it closes, she spins around, dropping her purse to the floor. “My phone has been ringing off the hook all morning.”

I glance at the clock on the wall. “Pop, it’s barely 7:30—”

“You don’t think I know that?” she cries. “The calls started coming at 5:00am. It was all I could do to make myself presentable and get in here to find you!” She tugs her phone out of the side pocket of her leggings and taps the screen, showing me her call history. She swipes with her finger, showing me the list of red missed calls.

An ominous feeling of doom sinks into the pit of my stomach. “Just tell me.”

“They’re all about you. Asking about last night.”

I let out a deep breath. I logged out of all my social media apps years ago. And I never really check the news. “Show me.”

Shaking her head, she steps over, showing me her phone. Apparently, I was a trending topic on the hockey sites, the Ferrymen sites, and the celebrity gossip sites. There’s footage from several different angles—the official game footage, personal cell phones. All show the same thing. It’s the moment Jake skates up to the plexiglass, pounding on it, shouting at me and Caleb. Some of the montages are cut to make Caleb and I look much more touchy-feely than we were. Some show me giving him moon eyes. A few have the cheek kiss. The way we lean in so casually. Caleb looks calm. He looks happy. My soft heart hardens, wanting to protect him from the scrutiny.

“And these are just the short video clips that went viral,” Poppy explains. “People have questions, Rachel. They think they know what they’re seeing. I’m tryna stay ahead of it for you, but I need to know if what I know is the thing I think I know.”

I glance at her, trying to piece together what she just said. “The thing you—what?”

She huffs, tossing her phone down on the counter to put both hands on her size 4 hips. “Rachel Price, did you spurn Jake Compton and take Caleb Sanford as your lover?”

“What—no—no spurning,” I say quickly.

“Did you spurn Jake Compton and take Mars Kinnunen as your lover?” she presses.

I shake my head. “I haven’t spurned Jake, Poppy.”

She gasps, her eyes narrowing like a terrier hunting a mouse. “So, you are with Jake Compton. Why, you sneaky little minx. I didn’t suspect a darn thing! How long?”

“Poppy,” I say with a sigh, shaking my head. I thought we could stave off the unraveling longer than this, but apparently, it’s already started.

“Well, what was this then?” she says in a huff. “You were just teasing him? Wearing Kinnunen’s jersey to get a rise out of him? And what was Caleb doing involved? I thought they were friends.”

“They are friends, Pop. It’s—god, it’s complicated—”

“Oh my good gravy, is it a love triangle?” She gasps again, hand to mouth. “Is Caleb the spurned lover? Are they trying to make you choose? Have you decided—”

I groan, grabbing Poppy by the shoulders, lowering my face to hers. “Girl, pull yourself together. No one, and I mean no one is getting spurned here. I wouldn’t even know how to spurn something. Last night was an inside joke between friends, okay? We all work together, and it was a joke. That’s the official story, alright? No romance, no spurning, no broken hearts.”

“An inside joke between friends?” she repeats.

“Between colleagues,” I correct, slipping into PR crisis manager mode. “We’re all working on the same team, and the three of us had a fun night out in the stands, right? We ate our weight in junk food and we got to watch our friends play. Caleb and I played a little prank on the players where we wore their jerseys. Good clean fun, alright?”

She nods. “Yeah…good clean fun.”

I don’t need to offer up a single detail of how Caleb and I actually paid for that good clean fun. I’m wearing long sleeves to work today because of the marks on my wrists. And my poor pussy still has her own heartbeat. So fucking worth it.

I take a deep breath. This isn’t unmanageable. There was no kissing, no sex tape, no secret footage from last night floating on the dark web. If anything, maybe it’s good it happened this way to start. If the rumors are given a little air, a little room to germinate and grow…

I glance back at Poppy, furiously focused on her phone as her thumbs tap tap tap away. “What can I do to help?”

“Hmm?” She doesn’t look up.

She’s quiet for another minute and I clear my throat. “Pop?”

“Yeah—what?” She looks up at last.

“How can I help? My family has PR people too.” I take a breath, hating that the words are about to slip from my lips. “I could…talk to my dad.”

I’ve tried so hard to rehab my image on my own. Old Rachel is gone. I left her in California along with my Jimmy Choo collection. I’m not that partying celebrity girl anymore. I’m a sports medicine doctor. A highly educated, professional woman.

With three boyfriends…on the same NHL team.

And I think two of my boyfriends might be boyfriends.

And my other boyfriend wants to play in the Olympics. As in, he’s actively being recruited for a coveted spot on a National Olympic Team. Now. This weekend. Scouts are here to watch him play again tomorrow.

And here I thought it would be cute to play a game of jersey-switch in front of the cameras.

Yeah, this is a PR disaster waiting to happen. I will not apologize to anyone for loving three men, but I am in so far over my head. And I’m breaking the cardinal rule of the Price Family. I’m flying solo. I have been for months. We’ve learned through hard experience that the only way we survive is together.

I love my boys, but they’re not Prices. They have their own names to protect, their own families, their own reputations. My protective instincts flare as I think of the press hounding them the way they’ve hounded my family. The salacious stories, paparazzi outside my house day and night, going through my trash. The barrage of personal questions that constantly overshadow all attempts to promote your work, your art, your career.

Just the thought of their lives being inconvenienced in any way makes me see red. I want to take every gossip paper and burn it to ash. I want us all to hide out in Jake’s beach house for the rest of our days, four little turtles in our sandy shell.

It hurts because I woke up feeling so hopeful. Now, watching as Poppy St. James goes into PR crisis mode, the truth is glaringly obvious: there was never any hope that this would ever be anything but bad. Really bad. Apocalyptic bad.

Jake and Ilmari will be reduced from star NHL player status to benched oddities. The Rays owners won’t want the constant bad press they bring to every game, every interview. They’ll get traded to different teams. That’ll be step one, as their agents and the League attempt to cool the heat of the press. They’re still great players. Someone will want them enough to scoop them up. Ilmari will end up in Winnipeg or back with the Liiga while Jake gets transferred out to Texas.

Then the PR rehab will really begin. They’ll fly under the radar, go on coordinated dates so they’re photographed with nice women, uncomplicated women. Women who aren’t me. My heart breaks at the thought.

And I can’t even begin to think what will happen to Caleb as they rehab Jake’s image away from him too. The ‘just friends’ bullshit parade will march boldly across every corner of the hockey internet. Because a man can’t possibly be a damn fine defenseman, checking players into the boards every day, only to go home to another man at night. Jake’s agent will give him a doomed offer: our salacious relationship, or his starting position.

Ilmari will be just the same: your lover and her lovers, or the Olympics. Choose.

“Rach? You okay, hon?”

I glance up to see Poppy looking at me, her head tipped to the side in quiet curiosity. I shake my head. “No. I’m not okay.”

She steps forward, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Oh, honey, it’s okay. This is no big deal. I know I came in all gloom and doom. You can just call me Lil Miss Storm Cloud,” she teases with a laugh. “I get in my head and go deep into ‘manage it’ mode. I’m sure you get it.”

“Yeah, I do,” I murmur. I really do. If she’s the queen of managing crises, I’m the empress, the goddess, the all-powerful genie. I’m going to manage the shit of out of this situation, protecting my guys at all costs. I don’t care if I take the fall. I’m not dragging them down with me.

“You leave this with me,” Poppy soothes. “Nothing a lil polish can’t make shine.”

“You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?” I say, still going through the motions with her. I need her to leave. I can’t breathe until she leaves. Can’t scream. Can’t cry.

“Just do your job, Doc,” she replies with a smile. “You leave the PR to me and Clairy B.”

She leaves, letting the pulsing beat of the gym music filter inside this small room, thumping in my chest. In this moment, my office has never felt smaller. I look around the four white walls, devoid of decoration save for a pair of health inspection certificates in cheap gold frames. I feel a panic attack coming on. Shit, I haven’t had one of these in years. My breath is short and tight in my chest. I need help. I need to lift this crushing weight off my chest before I pass out. I need him.

Raising a fluttering hand to my chest, I open my phone and tap my contacts. It’s far too early, but I don’t care. Finding his name, I hold my phone to my ear and wait, the call ringing. On the third ring, he answers.

“Thank fucking god. Where the hell are you?”

“Harrison,” I whimper into the phone, tears coming. “I need you.”

“I know. I’ve been wandering this damn arena for fifteen minutes trying to find you. Where are you?”