Page 38 of Playing to Win

Jayna started typing on her phone, probably adding dates and plans, so I backed out of the slot and headed to the exit. When we got there she looked up to tell me to turn right, so we were back on track.

I wasn’t worried about Jayna meeting Mom and Dad. They were nice people and gave everyone a chance. They were a little confused by the fake dating, but if Jayna was helping me, they’d like her just for that.

But her parents? They didn’t sound like great people. Would Jayna want me to ignore anything hurtful they said and play nice, or do what I wanted and tell them to fuck off?

* * *

Jayna

I pushedthoughts of my parents aside and concentrated on being a great girlfriend to Braydon while we hung out with his teammates at the Top Shelf.

I knew Cooper because of his connection to Faith and Hunter. I’d dealt with some of the other guys doing PR for the Blaze. And at the get-together at Cooper’s I’d had a chance to meet some of them socially. The Bonfire had even had a few events with the Blaze in previous seasons.

But posing as a girlfriend was different. The guys were relaxed, not presenting their public faces. Made me wonder if some of them knew who I was. They were less careful with their words. They rehashed the game, of course, as well as the last one where Braydon played. But I’d have been pushed to the outskirts if I hadn’t kept myself a part of the group around Braydon.

Not many of the family guys were here, and the ones who were married and here with their partners were gathered at another table. Around us were the unmarried guys. A few of them had girlfriends, and the girlfriends were a group, sharing a friendship I wasn’t part of. I didn’t want to be. Nothing against them, but I was a player, and I wanted to share in the conversation about the game.

I had to give Braydon points. Sure, he’d get talking with, say, Crash, and would forget I was there. But he’d remember and bring me into the conversation. After a comment I’d made about the angle of someone’s shot, one of the second line forwards, Gerber, turned and looked me up and down. The team had acquired him at the trade deadline, and he wasn’t someone I’d dealt with.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, honey.”

Before I could blast him, Cooper, who’d been talking to several women the last I’d noticed, spoke over my head. “She knows more than you do, Gerbs. She’s a right winger for the Bonfire. When you’ve played as many games as a pro as she has, and win an Olympic gold medal, then you have the right to challenge her.”

Gerbs’s hands fisted around his beer mug. He wanted to argue.

“You should see this one video of Jayna, from the playoffs last year,” Braydon said. “I swear, no goalie could have stopped that shot. A beauty.” He wrapped his arm around me. “No, I change my mind. I don’t want anyone to see that because I don’t want them to try it on me.”

Boom. Idea in my head. I’d get Braydon on the ice with the Bonfire, let them shoot on him. I could post the shit out of that, as long as he didn’t act like a petulant toddler. And I was more confident now that he wouldn’t.

Oh, maybe I could let the petulant toddler across the table, Gerber, do something similar—shoot on Faith. He probably wouldn’t agree to doing it, but just the idea of it was a pleasant thought to help me through the night.

* * *

Between workfor the two teams, rehab, and going out with my teammates, I didn’t have time to work on fake dating…except for convincing my girls that Braydon was the exception to my not-dating players rule. Megan had told them that their attitude was why I didn’t tell anyone until it was serious.

Nobody mentioned that they wouldn’t be giving me such a hassle if I wasn’t the one who’d made a rule of it, which was why they were such great friends. I told them I was bringing my guy for a game, and that I’d be posting the hell out of it.

Two nights later the Bonfire had a game when the Blaze didn’t. It was the first and possibly only opportunity to have Braydon attend, depending on the playoffs. We agreed to take the subway up to the arena in North York since traffic heading out of the city was brutal at the end of the workday.

I didn’t want to be mobbed on the subway, so I’d suggested Braydon might want to change up his look a bit. If he was recognized as a member of the Blaze, people would approach him. So he’d let some scruff grow and was wearing a ball cap, this one for the local baseball team, as his cover.

Despite the video from his first game, he was still new and hadn’t played much, so there was a good chance this would work. Someone like Cooper could never get away with it. In jeans and a well-worn leather jacket, Braydon almost looked like a regular commuter. A tall one with broad shoulders and a fit body. People, especially women, still noticed him, and I slid my hand into his, gripping firmly. Just to keep up our story, and nothing to do with how that hold warmed and relaxed me. Being off the ice had obviously messed me up a bit.

I’d made sure not to wear any of my Bonfire-branded clothes, which meant none of my usual choices. I wasn’t wearing office clothes to the rink, and most of my casual stuff was tagged with something hockey. I’d picked out jeans too, with a favorite sweater and a jacket I borrowed from Megan. With my hair cut I didn’t look like my team photos either, but I was a lot less likely to be identified than Braydon.

I’d arranged Bonfire gear for both of us once we got there. At the game I wanted everyone to recognize us. This was the first step in making Braydon the number one supporter of the Bonfire.

We didn’t talk, since the subway was packed. He followed me off when we got to the familiar stop for our arena and caught the bus that would take us the final few blocks. We were a little early, as I’d planned. Not as early as when I was playing, but earlier than the spectators were likely to arrive.

Braydon looked around as we crossed the parking lot, heading toward a door at the back near the ice pile. “I thought this would be more like our—I mean, the Inferno arena.”

I snorted. “We wish. We’re lucky to get a thousand people at a game.”

His brow creased but he didn’t say anything more. I didn’t need him to tell me that the Inferno averaged six thousand fans a game. And the Blaze? Yeah, at least three times that. Our attendance had been creeping up all season—the last game had crossed the thousand spectator mark for the second time this year. I liked to think my efforts had helped.

He followed me down the familiar hallway to the locker room, and I wished I was doing this for real. Lacing up my skates, putting on the pads, getting on the damned ice and playing. I wanted to break the cane and be whole again. I shook my head. It would come. This much therapy had to lead somewhere.

We paused partway down a concrete hallway to the home team changing room. It was a far cry from what the Blaze hallways looked like. They’d built the Blaze arena when the expansion team was approved, and it was one of the newest, nicest arenas in the league. This one was old and scarred. But we still played the same game. The best game.

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