Jase (2 page)

He heard Daniel Rupert, owner and captain of the Chicago Mallets professional ice hockey team, blow out a breath in a long sigh, sounding frustrated and tired. Jase, a key forward of the Mallets, was expected to show up to things like…say…mandatory workouts. You didn’t blow Daniel’s orders off, not and assume you would remain a team member for long, even if you were good friends. Chuck in the fact their team had just made the final round of playoffs and they needed to stay in top physical form, and in a single
day,
he tallied up an infraction of epic proportions.
Then go ahead and pile on the knowledge Daniel was stressed, because he had recently broken up with his girlfriend, after which she retreated all the way to Texas…and it looked like this blowup could achieve nuclear capacity.
Fuck
.

“Jase, meet me down at the rink. Now. We’ll do some drills. You can do two-a-days for the rest of the week in the gym.” Daniel’s ruling was
lenient,
and Jase knew it.

“Thanks, Cap’n,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

Laced up and on the ice within an hour, he was soundly regretting missing the team workout earlier in the day. It would have been far easier than what he was doing now:
skating up and down the sheet, chasing pucks on legs that were shaky with exhaustion. Daniel seemed to have endless energy when it came to torturing him, and continued pushing him hard for the next forty-five minutes, smiling grimly every time he heard Jase out of breath.

“Again!” He heard the shout from across the ice and spun around, barely in time to deflect a puck shooting towards his knees.

“Goddammit,” he muttered, using the blade of his stick to slap the puck hard towards the net, eschewing accuracy for velocity.

“Again!” came the shout, and he skated
backwards into position
, crossing over to snag the next puck and snap a shot at the empty goal.

He huffed, “Fuck,” and kept his eyes trained on his friend leaning
against
the short wall
in
the bench area, watching yet another bucket of pucks make an appearance. They worked without speaking for the next thirty minutes, Jase skating up and down the neutral ice area, staying between the blue lines while setting up to take
shot
after shot. After completing that bucket, the third of their session, he slowly skated over towards Daniel, unsure of his reception.

“Stretch it out.” The order was barked at him, and he dropped to the ice,
gently stretching
muscles and tendons
hard
used in their fast-paced drills. As he stretched, there was an annoying twinge of pain in his groin, tender since the last game. Using the blade of his skates for leverage, he got to his knees and pushed over
backwards
, gingerly stretching out.

As he stretched, he watched Daniel skate around with his stick, gathering all the loose pucks into a pile inside the goal net. Moving the net, the man used his bare hands to pick up the
icy
pucks, scooping them into the buckets.
By the time he had finished stretching, Daniel was headed back. He was carrying two buckets and gently kicking a third across the ice in front of him, the handle of his stick trapped between his body and one bicep.

“Multitasking today?” Jase asked, laughing and reaching for two of the buckets.

Frowning at him, Daniel adjusted his grip on the remaining items,
skating past
Jase without a word, to
clomp
onto the rubber mats, angrily stalking down the hallway towards the locker room. Jase followed his lead, placing the buckets inside the equipment room along the way. Settling on the bench in front of his locker, he focused on getting his skates
off
and stripped the practice jersey over his head, leaving his torso in just his pads and undershirt. He tugged his
arm
pads down and held them in his hands, trying to decide how best to apologize again and make things right.

Looking up, he saw Daniel was sitting, elbows on knees, staring at the floor between the toes of his skates, not having moved since he sat down. “Cap’n,” Jase said and watched him stir, straightening up and putting his hands flat on his thighs. “I fucked up this morning. Won’t happen again. I’m down for the two-a-days, man. I’m sorry.”

Nodding, Daniel looked through him with a
distant gaze
, eyes bloodshot and haunted. “Sounds
okay
, Jase.” He paused then sighed heavily. “Mason came and talked to me a few days ago,” he said.

“About?” Jase questioned, waiting.

“Said he’s going to Texas to bring her back.” There could be no question to
which
‘her’ Daniel referred. It had to be Mica Scott, the girlfriend…ex-girlfriend. Davis Mason—now he was
harder to classify
. He was a local businessman, president of a biker club, a friend of Daniel’s, and apparently Mica’s best friend. “He told me if I didn’t want
her,
he would be making a play.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to
say
to him. She’s already left me, voted with her feet. So what was his gain in talking to me?”

He turned his head, looking at Jase. “Did you know her ex-boyfriend hunted her down? Made threats against her? From years ago, he hunted her down. That’s why she walked away. At least, that’s what Mason said. Why wouldn’t she just talk to me? Why did she run like she did? He said she was trying to keep me safe.”

He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. “She fucking broke me, man. I’ve never been like this over a woman. If she does come back to Chicago, do you think she’s going to want to see me? See me like this? At all? Jase, man—I don’t know. When I was with her in Houston a couple weeks ago, I thought there might still be something there, but I kept remembering that she
broke me
. I love her, but I can’t set myself up for that again.”

Jase moved over to sit beside his friend. He didn’t
exactly
know what to say.
Daniel was clearly hurting, and that was a position he had never been in. But, Jase knew from hearing other people talk that simply having someone to vent to could help with the pain of a relationship breakup.
Not that he knew from personal experience. He had always
been
more of a love ‘em and leave ‘em
kinda
guy, but he could try
to listen at least
.

Daniel reached over his head, grasping the collar and pulling his jersey off roughly, dropping it into his lap where his fingers picked at the seams and folds nervously. “Am I wrong?” He threw the fabric into the locker, bending
over
to unlace his skates, jerking them off with hard, angry movements.

Jase shook his head. “I
dunno
, man. Do you think you still want her? Are you still in love with her?”

Daniel froze in place, a startled look on his face as if he hadn’t just been asking the same question. “I am. I feel it. God, I should have told him. I can still tell him. I love her.” Standing, he grabbed his phone from the top shelf of the locker,
dialing
a number and waiting, sock-covered foot tapping a brisk beat against the mats. “Yeah, is Mason around?” There was a
pause,
and he said, “Slate, it’s Daniel. Is Mason around?”

Jase frowned. Slate was Mason’s
go-to guy.
If he was answering the phone, it probably meant Mason was already traveling to get Mica.

Daniel’s face
fell,
and he responded, “I see. When will they be back?” Yeah, from that exchange, it was clear Mason was probably on his way to Texas.

There was a longer pause, and Daniel closed his eyes. “You sure he’ll want me there, man? I would hate to show up if he’s not expecting me.” A deep
sigh,
and then he grunted, “Huh. Okay, see you there.” Stabbing the phone with a fingertip, he disconnected the call. “Fuck,” he breathed, “I have a meeting.”

“What’s going on?” Jase asked, not at all sure what he heard
on
the one-sided phone call, but assuming it didn’t mean good things for his friend.

“Mason and Mica are already on their way back. I guess he bought a bike in
Texas,
so they’re riding back on that. Slate’s putting together a party tomorrow, a kind of ‘welcome home’ thing for Mica. He wants us all there, all the Mallets. Said Mason left specific instructions for
me to
‘show the fuck up’, and Slate intended to call me today. I have a lunch meeting with sponsors tomorrow, so I guess I’ll be heading over to the party after.”

He looked gut-punched, and Jase was sorry for the guy.
If his girl was gonna be riding on the back of some other dude’s bike for hundreds of miles, her long legs wrapped around his hips, titties snuggled up to said dude’s back, he thought he might look gut-punched too.
“Okay, I’ll call Gary and get the rest of the guys notified. You need anything else, Cap’n?” He didn’t know what he could do to help, but he at least wanted to offer.

“No.” Daniel sighed then said, “Yeah, why don’t we go get something to eat?”

He nodded, turning for the showers.

***

Jase called their friends and teammates Gary Millson and Dierk Hammond, a Mallets defenseman and their rookie goaltender, to meet them at Jackson’s. It was a local bar owned by Mason and, for the most part, ran by the Rebel Wayfarers motorcycle club members.
It might seem a masochistic selection on Daniel’s part, but months ago, the Mallets had made it their unofficial bar for the team. Over the past season, the players had become regulars and logged many hours sitting in booths or at the bar debating game calls and plays with the club members.

Now, though, after suffering through his teammates harassment over him missing the workout this morning, he was having second thoughts about inviting them. Especially since he now had to listen to them dissect a couple of nights not long ago, when he met someone he could have liked, but who hadn't been interested in him like that.
At all. Ego-killing disinterest on her part.

“I think I was sitting right here when I saw you with that biker chick,” Gary laughed, pointing at Jase. “You threw out all your best moves, man, and she just batted them out of the air.
Kinda
like our
slick-ass
goalie here does with pucks. ‘Hey, baby, you come here often?’
BAM
. ‘Sweetie, you look good in leather, but you’d look better
under
me.’
WHAM
. ‘
Darlin’
, you look a lot like my next girlfriend.’
SLAM
. ‘Do you have a jersey?
Because I need your name and number.’
SMACK
. Right
outta
the air.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Jase leaned over and punched him in the shoulder, hard.

“Oww, fucker,” Gary complained, rubbing his arm. “You know I’m right. She wasn’t having any of even your finest moves. She shut you down, even before puck drop. Close da door.”

Dierk chimed in, “No, Gary, you missed it. You weren’t here the last night she was in town. There were some dirty dancing moves going down out on the floor. Based on the body language, I would wager she was as much into Jase as he was her. I think our man here just failed to seal the deal.”

Daniel opened his
mouth,
but seemed to reconsider his choice of topics when he saw the slant of Jase’s jaw. “Knock it off, guys,” he said instead. “Talk to me about the Fort Wayne team. We’re in their house Friday for game five.
Give me
your thoughts.”

Hockey dominated the conversation from there forward, and it wasn’t until a couple hours later, as they were leaving the
bar, that Daniel
reached out and stopped Jase with a hand on his arm. “Jase,” he finally asked his question, “what biker chick were they talking about?”

Jase’s gaze flicked down to the sidewalk. “DeeDee.”

“DeeDee have
a last
name?” Daniel laughed.

“Yeah, Moser. DeeDee Moser. She’s from Fort Wayne and, God, you should see her—she’s beautiful, Cap’n. Smart and funny…and hot as hell. And she can dance circles around me.” He looked up and knew he had a silly grin on his face, but didn’t care.

“If she’s a biker chick, doesn’t it imply an old man in the club?” Daniel frowned at him, a puzzled look on his face.

Shaking his head, Jase told him, “Not
any longer
, she’s single. She was up here helping out while Mason was…” His voice trailed off.

“While Mason was in Texas with Mica the first time.” Daniel blew out a breath. “I get the picture.”

“Yeah,
anyway
,
she’s fun
to talk
to
. Handed
cheek and sass
right back to me as good as she got. Fearless, man. She’s something else.” His grin faded as he remembered how unlikely it was he would ever see her again.

“Okay. I was wondering, ‘cause you hadn’t mentioned meeting anyone. You need a ride home?” Daniel dug in his pocket for his keys, jingling them impatiently once he had them in hand.

“Nah, I can grab a cab. I’m going to head back inside for a minute. I need to ask Slate about something, and then I’ll be heading home.” He gave a wave, turning back towards the door of the bar with a laugh. “See you tomorrow. I got two-a-days to deal with, because I’m a jack and my captain is easy.”

***

“You really think Road Runner’s gonna want to sell his scoot?” Jase used the mug’s handle to twist his beer back and forth in the small puddle of condensation on the bar top. “It’s not the first time you’ve told me you found me a ride, man. Not to question you, just—questioning you.” He laughed, looking up at Slate.

As Mason’s second in command here in Chicago, Slate was in charge of a variety of things, and tonight, one of those things happened to be the bar at Jackson’s. Since Jase met DeeDee a few weeks ago,
Slate had
been helping him look for a bike.
He didn’t want to admit she was the only reason he had become interested in riding, but since she had her own bike, if…when he saw her again, it would give them something in common—
if he had one, that was.