Page 3 of Stick Side
“Maybe,” Richie allowed, “but only because the hottest nakedwoman I’d ever seen invited me to do itwith her.”
Ben resisted the urge to shake his head. He and Richie might have developed a friendship over the years they’d both played for the Flyers, but Ben had never been able to understand Richie’s interest in casual hookups. Maybe it was because of the way he’d been raised, but the idea of sleeping with a woman whose name he barely knew made something inside him recoil.
A muffled bang sounded from the back of the locker room, causing both men to look in the direction of the closed door of Dodds’ office. If Ben had to hazard a guess, he’d predict another inanimate object had just felt the force of their coach’s displeasure.
“So, what do you think of Coach McGuire?” Richie asked with a jerk of his chin. It was clear Richie didn’t feel the need to ask about Ben’s opinion of their head coach.
“He seems like a nice guy,” Ben observed. “Fair. Decent. I like him.”
Richie nodded with great feeling. “Thank fuck he’s part of the coaching staff. Could you imagine if he wasn’t around to temper Jimmy Boy’s hotheaded ass?”
Ben knew Coach Dodds was revered as one of the most skilled tacticians in the NHL. He could outwit other coaches with the barest of efforts, keeping them guessing with his every move. Unfortunately, even though Dodds might qualify as a member of Hockey Mensa, he was also a shoo-in for Assholes Anonymous. It was a testament to Coach Dodds’ intelligence that he was still coaching. Now that Ben had spent time in his company, he knew how considerable it must be to offset his fractious demeanor.
Ben turned when he heard a knock on the locker room door. He watched as Alexei Volkov, an unassuming Russian whom Ben had rarely seen without a book in his hands, moved to open it. He never made it. No sooner had his hand raised to grasp the handle than he was unceremoniously pushed out of the way by the much larger Eric Cassidy. Nowhere but in the world of professional sports, Ben mused, could the six-foot-one-inch muscle-bound forward be considered small.
Beside him, Richie groaned. “Please tell me that isn’t the press. I really don’t want to deal with the press tonight. Some things are just too embarrassing to talk about.”
Ben wanted to assure his teammate they hadn’t playedthatbadly, but he’d never been a good liar. Instead of making things worse with platitudes, Ben focused his attention on looking beyond the locker room door. If there wasa reporter on the other side of the door, he’d rather know about it in advance. Notthat a minute’s warning was likely to do him much good, but it was better than nothing.
Ben’s curiosity grew as he watched Cassidy open the door just wide enough to poke his head through. From Ben’s vantage point, it looked like Cassidy was trying to block the knocker’s view into the room.
Cassidy conversed with the knocker for a couple of minutes before pressing the door shut. Although his eyes never left him, Ben was unprepared for the ear-splitting whistle that erupted from Cassidy’s lips when he drew his fingers to his mouth.
“What the hell, Cassidy?” team captain Kevin Phillips accused as he lobbed a hockey glove at him from the opposite end of the locker room. “Are you trying to make my ears bleed? We didn’t all grow up on a cattle ranch. My ears can’t take that decibel.” A few other team members muttered their agreement.
Cassidy dismissed their criticism with an unapologetic shrug of his shoulders. “I know I might be asking the impossible,” he said with a dramatic sigh, “but try to make yourselves presentable, will you?”
“Why?” Kyle Knight, a rookie who had barely been on the team for longer than Ben, asked. “Is it your girlfriend? Are you afraid she might see something she doesn’t see at home and decide to dump you for someone better?”
Cassidy treated the rookie to an exaggerated eye roll.
Knight was a first-round draft pick with some of the most impressive puck handling skills Ben had ever seen. Perhaps that explained how the kid felt confident enough to goad a veteran player when he was still so new to the team. Or maybe it was simply the folly of youth. Time would tell.
“You know damn well I don’t have a girlfriend, rookie,” Cassidy chastised. “And, if I did, she certainly wouldn’t have any reason to go looking elsewhere.”
One corner of Knight’s lips quirked up, though Ben couldn’t tell if it was because he’d achieved his goal of irritating their teammate or because Knight enjoyed the way Cassidy had thrown his own shit back at him.
Cassidy stared Knight down for another beat, perhaps waiting to see if he might say more, before addressing the room again. “Everyone decent?”
There were a few mumbled complaints, but at Cassidy’s prompting look, everyone proceeded to cover up all the essentials. Ben pulled on his pants. His naked chest wasn’t likely to send the woman into “a fit of the vapors,” as his mother liked to say.
Cassidy surveyed everyone’s state of dress before nodding his head, as though decreeing they’d all met his exacting standards. This time, when Cassidy reached the door, he swung it wide open.
Ben wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see when the door finally opened, but it certainly wasn’t a sweet-faced young woman. She was petite. Dainty, even. Probably not much more than five feet tall. She had an appealing heart-shaped face. Her long brown-black hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, save for a few face-framing wisps that appeared to have escaped to tickle prominent cheekbones that were currently raised from smiling. And what a smile. It lit up her face the way only the most genuine of smiles could. Her full lips drew him in and made him want to share her joy, whatever its origin.
He was too far away to identify the woman’s exact eye color, but it appeared to be some shade of brown. He couldn’t help but wonder if they would hold the same mesmerizing whirlpool effect as her lips.
At first glance, Ben would guess the woman was in her mid-twenties, but it was hard to know for sure. Her clear, brightcomplexion glowed with youth, but she carried herself with a confidence that belied her looks.
Ben’s gaze traveled down her body. Fitted deep blue scrubs hugged the curves of her chest and hips, but tapered into a defined waist. He’d never seen medical attire look so good. She had just the type of figure that appealed to him. Neither too slight, nor too full-figured. Healthy.
Ben smiled when his gaze dipped to her sneaker-clad feet. He knew it wasn’t common to pair scrubs with platforms or stilettos, but the woman’s selection left him with the impression she valued comfort at least as much as style. There was something refreshing about that.
Overall, the lady reminded him of a wholesome, girl-next-door version of a young Catherine Zeta-Jones. And, just like the Hollywood star, she was stunning.
And yet, as lovely as she was, there was something about her that called to him beyond her appearance. Some intangible essence that radiated from her like sunlight. He couldn’t quite describe it, but it was no less real for his inability to define it.
He watched as Catherine Jr. leaned up on tiptoes to give Cassidy a hug. The embrace was warm and friendly, but short-lived. It didn’t tell Ben much about the nature of their relationship. Cassidy might have just assured Knight that he didn’t have a girlfriend, but there was a familiarity about the way Cassidy had embraced her. Cassidy’s arms may not have lingered, but it was clear to Ben the lady was more to his teammate than a passing acquaintance.
