Erik (Arizona Vengeance 2)

“I’m sorry—”

She holds a palm out to me and shakes her head. “Don’t apologize again. I accept. I just wanted you to know why it pissed me off. And then running into you again on the plane, and you called me a “party girl,” which just dredged up all that old crap. I was a party girl and I’m not proud of it. But I’m not that person anymore. So I took it out on you. I wanted to make it clear I’m a different person these days.”

“I’d like to think I’m different too,” I point out. “People can grow up and change a lot in five years.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me, lips quirking.

It makes me laugh. “All right…maybe I’m still a bit of a player these days.”

“You’ve been sued in that sexual harassment lawsuit,” she points out.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read,” I admonish her. I had indeed been named in a lawsuit by Brooke’s crazy ex-friend but I didn’t expect anything to come out of it. I never touched the woman.

“You’re right,” she replies quickly. “You’ve made a good point. Five years is a long time and your apology was sincere. How about we just let bygones be bygones?”

She sticks her hand out for me to shake. She’d be horrified to know I’d rather pull her into my arms and kiss her, because nothing about this conversation has turned me off from her in the slightest. If anything, I want her more.

But I place my hand in hers and she gives me a hearty pump. “Friends?”

Not really what I want, but I’ll fucking take it. “Friends.”Chapter 5BlueThe Carolina Cold Fury are the reigning league champions.

Two years in a row, to be exact, which is why this game has everyone totally jazzed. The Vengeance has been a well-oiled machine the last few weeks and come into tonight’s matchup with a 10–3 record, which is the best in the entire league.

So when you have the reigning champions and the brand-new leading expansion team playing for the first time, the atmosphere turns quite electric.

The Cold Fury’s arena is super loud as the teams take their warm-up skate. Rock music is blaring while strobe and laser lights cut through the air around us. It compounds the exhilaration running through me because I have grown to love this sport in the short few weeks I’ve been working for the Vengeance. I had been to hockey games before when I lived out in Los Angeles because the two teams there—the LA Demons and the LA Dragons—were a big deal. I was an LA Demons fan and that had nothing to do with the fact that Erik Dalhbeck played for them during the time I lived there. It’s purely because their arena was closer to where I lived and nothing more.

One of the perks of working on the team plane is that we get tickets to every single away game. Valerie, Sadie, Lyla, and I are all wearing Vengeance jerseys that the team’s owner, Dominik Carlson, provided for us. I’m wearing Tacker Hall’s jersey. Valerie, Lyla, and Sadie all chose to wear Bishop Scott’s jersey. They’re the two best players on the team and are natural leaders, which I guess is why they are captain and assistant captain, respectively.

The teams finish their skate and head back to the locker room. People scurry out to the concessions to fill up with food and drink before the game starts. We had hit up the vendors before we found our seats so we stay put. I’m nibbling on some candied nuts and drinking a beer. Valerie and Lyla have wine and popcorn—weird combo—and Sadie went with a big hot dog, despite the fact we had an early dinner a few hours ago.

I’m sitting in between Sadie and Valerie and Lyla is on the other side of Valerie.

“God, I hope we win tonight,” Lyla says, her voice pitched a little high in her excitement. She’s the petite one in our group.

“Tell me about it,” I reply, my nerves buzzing with pent up energy. “The game in Florida was exciting for sure, but this feels totally different, right?”

“Right,” the women agree with me.

The first game of this four-game road trip was in Miami against the Florida Spartans. Despite my years living in L.A., it’s still a bit weird to me that a state known for warmth and perpetual sunshine has a hockey team, but what do I know. We now have a team in sunny Phoenix.

The Spartans game was good because Legend’s trade to the Vengeance was controversial. He had been the number one goalie for the first two years he played for them, but eventually started losing ice time to a hot new rookie. They gave him up in the expansion draft, which I suppose has to sting a little.