Page 95 of The Playmaker

I open it to find Jess and Cason standing there, both looking a bit awkward, if not uncomfortable, as they shift restlessly on the stoop. I hug my friend and look out into the street to see only one car. I crinkle my nose as my gaze goes from Jess to Cason. “Did you two come together?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jess says, and pushes past me, like she can’t meet my gaze.

WTH?

Why would those two be traveling together? Back in the day, Jess and my brother got along about as well as two cats in a duffle bag. They were always sparring, much like Cole and I.

Wait a minute…!

Afterword

Thank You!

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Thank you so much for reading The Playmaker, book one in my Players on Ice series. I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I loved writing it. Please read on for an excerpt of The Stick Handler. Stay turned for the third book, The Body Checker, coming Jan 2019.

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Interested in leaving a review? Please do! Reviews help readers connect with books that work for them. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.

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Happy Reading,

Cathryn

The Stick Handler

Luke

“It’s over, Arianna.”

“Over?” she spits out, her eyes venomous as they hold my stare. “Oh, we’re far from over, Luke.” As I square off against Arianna in her waterfront suite, the moonlight shimmering on Seattle’s Elliot Bay below, she points a finger at me, then wags it back and forth between the two of us. “In fact, you and me, we’re just beginning.” With that, she gives a defiant lift of her chin and flicks her long blonde hair over her shoulder, a dismissive gesture that I’ve grown accustomed to over the last six months. “Now go home, get a good night’s sleep and I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow afternoon.” She offers me her back and picks up her champagne glass, shutting me out, and this conversation down.

I glance at my watch, take in the late hour. Yeah, okay, putting the brakes on our relationship the night before our wedding is a dick move on my part, but isn’t it better to make a clean break now, before we find ourselves old and miserable and totally hating each other? Come to think of it, do we even like each other now?

“Ari—”

She spins to face me. “Do you need a Midol, or something?”

For fuck’s sake. “No, I don’t need a goddamn Midol.”

“Then stop acting like you’re PMS’ing!” she shouts back.

I shake my head. She might be a girl used to getting what she wants, but after overhearing her tell her friend she doesn’t love me, and revealing a few other facts that surprised the shit out of me, she can’t expect me to show up for the ceremony tomorrow. You’d think I’d be furious to find out her true feelings, right? But the funny thing is, I’m not really angry or upset at all, which says lot about the state of our relationship. I guess I’m grateful that I walked into the room during her private conversation. It snapped me the fuck out of the damn trance I’d been in for the last few months.

“You and I both know this is a mistake,” I say.

“A mistake?” she seethes. “How can you say that?” She finishes the champagne in her glass and struts to her kitchen to refill it. I pace her living room, glance out the floor-to-ceiling window. My gaze goes to the spectacular view of the waterfront ferris wheel at Pier 57, with the Washington state ferry in the background. Too bad I can’t quite seem to enjoy the Seattle Great Wheel, beautifully lit up this time of night. The tapping of Ari’s shoes reaches my ears as she comes back into the room.

“Why are you still here?” she asks.

“Because this conversation isn’t over.” I spin and point to the cellphone that never leaves her hand. “You just told your best friend that love isn’t important in a marriage.?

??

She glares at me for a long moment, the anger leaving her baby blues as dark lashes fall slowly, only to flicker back open over come-hither eyes. “Luke, honey, you know I love you. What I said, it’s just that Kari is just jealous of our relationship and I was being flippant. You know, to ease her pain, because she’ll never have what we have, baby.”

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