But there’s no way he’s seen me in the packed student section. Lizzie pushed and shoved us through the crowded seats until we were only a few rows up across the ice from the home team’s bench. It’s amazing really, how easily and quickly she gets her way all the time.
Ice dust flies into the air as someone from Minnesota comes to an abrupt stop and I’m certain the ice flying through the air will ruin Jude’s concentration, but like so much else when it comes to him, I’m dead wrong. He snags the puck and takes off across the midline, slapping his stick back and forth, dribbling the puck with such ease and quickness everything blurs as he moves. He passes it to their left wing, Richardson, leaving the center behind them, blocking the other team.
In less than a few seconds, the puck is back in Jude’s possession and I’m not even sure how it happens, but I’m on my feet, squeezing Lizzie’s hand and yelling right along with the hundreds, possibly thousands packing the arena.
“Jude! Jude! Jude!” We all chant his name, and I swear, a tingle occurs at the tops of my thighs. Seeing him like this, in his element, it’s impossible to deny how completely sexy and athletic and absolutely amazing this man is.
He pulls back his stick, slaps it forward. A hush falls right before the light on the top of the goal goes off, indicating he’s scored and the entire crowd loses their minds. He did it. With twenty-five seconds left on the clock, Jude has scored the goal that puts us in the lead.
I’m pulled into Lizzie’s arms as she shouts, “He did it! He did it! Go Jude!” She’s jumping up and down, pulling me with her and swinging me every which way, I don’t realize or am aware of the chaos on the ice, until someone taps my shoulder and I pull back. Another girl, long brown hair draped to her waist and the top of her head covered in a stocking hat with two C’s, our logo in red and black, is scowling at me.
“Um. I think he wants you,” she says and points toward the glass wall.
I turn slowly. Time stops.
On the other side of the glass is Jude, his hockey stick against the glass like he was just banging on it and a smile on his face.
And in his hand? The hockey puck. He raises his brows and makes a throwing motion with his hands.
What is he doing?
I hold my hands in the air and he tosses the puck easily into the air, right into my palms.
“Do you know him?” the girl asks.
“Um. Kind of. We’re friends.”
Her gaze scans my body and her scowl deepens. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
She turns and claps her hands together, shouting his name, but he doesn’t look at her. He just points his thumb at himself and then points at me, before his team surrounds him, slaps him on his helmet and they skate off to reset for the next and probably last face-off. No way can Minnesota pull off a win with so little time on the clock, not with how well Chicago is playing.
I squeeze the puck in my hands, debating.
Do I give Jude more of me, or do I take that girl’s scowl and words as a sign? She’s right. It makes sense for us to be friends. It doesn’t make sense for us to be anything else.
And yet I can’t help it. He’s consistently proven he’s not some dumb jock or a player just because everyone—men and women—know him and want him.
He seems to want me.
Maybe it’s not so dumb to give him a chance? After all, in a few months, we’re going our own separate ways, anyway.
What can it possibly hurt besides my heart to enjoy him for as long as possible?
Chapter Seven
Since the guys don’t have any more games until after Christmas and with finals being done, I’m certain that the party tonight will be absolutely insane. Chicago’s hockey team beat one of the best in the country, and rumor has it that two of Jude’s brothers were at the game and are coming to hang out with him afterward.
That’s good, though. It probably means we won’t spend too much time alone together.
After watching him play, feeling that weight in my stomach as I watched him do what it’s clear he absolutely loves to do, I might tackle him to the floor and slam my mouth to his as soon as I see him.
I need a chaperone. His pro-hockey-playing brothers are perfect for it.
My arm is looped through Lizzie’s as she opens the front door and pushes us in. And push we have to do. The house is absolutely packed with bodies, the same kind of barely clad female bodies, most wearing hardly anything. Some wearing sweatshirts with the Chicago college logo. At least I’m not totally out of place, but for the first time since I can remember, I’m nervous.
Over a guy. Heaven help me.
This shouldn’t even be happening and yet I’m smoothing down my school sweatshirt and tapping down the hoodie at my back to ensure my hair lays nicely and isn’t poofing out all over the place. The music is crazy loud and Lizzie has to pinch my arm to get my attention.
“Garrett’s probably in the kitchen! Keg!” She points toward the same direction we headed the other week. I nod, acknowledging I hear her and follow her. On the way, she drops my arm and clasps my hand so we don’t get separated and we step into the kitchen. It’s so similar to the last time I was here. Bodies everywhere. Men. Women.
Garrett, like he was last time, is behind the keg, dishing out red plastic cups and taking money.
There’s one noticeable difference, and I hate instantly that I notice it. Or the tightening in my stomach as I see Jude across the room, a head above everyone else.
There are two girls, boobs out to there and pressed to Jude’s chest. They’re laughing at whatever he says. He has his arms around them, his hands propped at their waists. He’s talking to a few guys, and it only takes a split second to realize Lizzie was right. His brothers are here. They all look so similar with the same shaggy, dark, almost black hair. One has a tooth missing when he smiles, but it doesn’t detract at all from their builds or the curves of their chests, their size, or their rugged features.
And holy crap. Jude Taylor came straight from a hottest hockey player of America catalog, cut and pasted and made to look like his siblings.
He doesn’t notice me at all while I follow Lizzie to Garrett, ducking my head. It shouldn’t bother me that he has his hands on other girls. He can do whatever he wants, right? He also doesn’t know I’m coming, which I think is what hurts the most.
With all the attention he’s showered me with over the last couple of weeks, the interest he’s shown despite me pushing him away… he doesn’t seem all that bothered by the attention he receives when I’m not around. Am I just a game to him? Or is his interest real?
Why go to the effort of finding me in the crowd tonight, tossing me his game-winning goal puck if any girl who presses her body against him later is okay with him?
It makes no sense, but it does make my brain hurt as Lizzie pushes us through the kitchen to where Garrett stands.
“Lizzie! My crazy girl!” Garrett drapes his arm over Lizzie as we get close and kisses the top of her head. “You see our game tonight? We kicked ass!” he shouts over the noise, louder than necessary.
“We saw! You did great, too.” She pats his chest and easily slides two cups from the bottom of the stack he’s holding. The look he gives her when he realizes what she’s doing is hot enough to melt panties straight from a body. Perhaps that’s why all those panties have hung outside in the past. They get soaking wet as soon as their wearer is the focus of a hockey player’s smolder.