Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Not only was she a smoking-hot redhead, but she also wasn’t one of those high-maintenance women who wouldn’t be caught dead on an ice rink in comfortable clothes. The fingers of her gloves were cut off, so I could see she didn’t have fake nails. No fake lashes, either.
One of the little girls she’d been talking to skated over to Jolie and hugged her around the waist. She smiled down at her, put an arm around her, and went back to listening to her dad.
I forced myself to look at my teammate Nash, who also volunteered coaching here. The last thing I needed was to get caught staring at Coach’s daughter.
She was on the rebound, making her ripe for a fling. But she was my coach’s daughter.
Coach dismissed everyone to start drills, and I groaned inwardly when Jolie and I were assigned to the same group, standing side by side and feeding pucks.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good. Thanks again for…you know.”
I nodded. “No problem.”
I dumped out our bucket of pucks to make our work easier. She fed a puck to the first skater, then I slid the next one toward her.
“It’s been a hot second since I had a stick in my hand,” she said lightly.
She knew what she was doing, no matter how long it had been.
“You play hockey?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. My dad wanted me to be the first female in the big league.”
“Hang on, guys,” Nash said to us. “I want to show them something real quick.”
I turned to Jolie as Nash demonstrated stickhandling form to the kids in our group. “I take it you didn’t want that?”
She laughed. “No. I was done with hockey by my sophomore year of high school, but my dad made me play through the end of senior year.”
“Hey, did you tell him about…?”
“Yeah, I told him I jumped in your car and pretty much forced you to give me a ride. Don’t worry, it’s me he’s mad at, not you.”
“Still?”
It had been several days since the wedding that wasn’t. I wondered how long Coach would stay pissed. He was known for holding grudges, but Jolie was his only daughter.
She shrugged. “I think he thinks Jarvis and I are going to patch things up and elope.”
I suppressed a groan. She’d dodged a bullet already. Why would she jump out in front of another one?
“Are you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’m done.”
“But your dad wants to change your mind,” I said.
She gave me a knowing smile. “He can be stubborn, but you probably know that.”
I laughed because that was an understatement. Coach Gizzard had once made me skate the same drill for two hours when he was pissed off about how I’d played in a game the night before. When he had his mind made up about something, there was no changing it.
“Is this part of your probation?” I asked her.
“Pretty much. My mom called it a peace offering. But I don’t mind, honestly. It feels good to be out on the ice again.”
Nash resumed the drill, and Jolie and I returned to feeding pucks.
“Jarvis giving you any trouble?” I asked her.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“He’ll find a puck bunny to distract himself.”
After a single note of laughter, Jolie said, “I’m sure he already has. He’s back in Chicago and I don’t plan to see him ever again.”
“Hope it blows over with your dad.”
“Thanks. If he wants to stay pissed about it, it’s okay. I’ll just avoid him. He’ll get over it eventually.”
We were split up for the next drill, Jolie working with her dad and his group of kids while Nash and I gently shot pucks at kids as they stood in goal. The excitement of the kids over the smallest things cracked me up and got my mind off of what my brother was going through.
“Boys, come on over,” Gizzard said to me and Nash after practice had ended and we were the only ones left on the rink.
“Coach, we can round these up,” I said, meaning the pucks all three of us were gathering.
“Yeah, do that and get everything put away in the equipment room, would you?” he said.
“No problem.”
Hell, I’d shine his shoes to stay on his good side. As soon as my agent got back to me about the prospects for a trade, I planned to have a one-on-one conversation with Coach and tell him what was going on with my brother. If he knew why I wanted the trade, he’d be more likely to work with me.
“My daughter is here helping, but don’t get any ideas,” Coach said. “She’s taken.”
“Jolie?” I said, confused about what he meant.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That better be the last time I hear her name come out of your mouth, Boone. Don’t talk to her, don’t talk about her, don’t even look at her.”