Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(14)

This was fucking ridiculous. He was a grown-ass man. Who he texted or didn’t text wasn’t any business of anyone else’s—not even the guy who was his coach. And who had gone to bat for him when the front office hesitated about signing him. And who got the team to cover his living expenses. And kept the secret about what Zach’s parents had done. And was more of a father to him than his own dad had been. And…oh, for the love of Wayne Gretzky’s and Martin Brodeur’s love child.

“Fine.” He let out an exaggerated sigh and grabbed his phone from the bench. He didn’t have to scroll long to hit her number in his contacts list, there weren’t enough names in there for that. Then, he thumb typed a quick message.

Zach: U have 2 tickets for tmrw game at will call.

He hesitated and went on.

Zach: Sorry about pics.

He ground his teeth together at the whole rah-rah friendliness vibe of this conversation and took one for the team.

Zach: And thanks for not letting me die.

There. That just about said it all. Hallmark couldn’t have done it better. Also? He wanted to go throw up again. That exchange was about as close to touchy-feely as he got and for damn good reason.

He put his phone back on the bench and looked up at Coach. “Happy now?”

“Not until we beat the Rage tomorrow.” Peppers went to take a drink from his cup and then scowled at it, no doubt because it was empty. “Be sure your Lady Luck is there.”

“She’s not mine.” In fact, Fallon Hartigan was not shy about the fact that she pretty much hated his guts.

Coach shrugged. “But she is lucky. How else do you explain the change in your play?”

He picked up the roll of white tape because in a hockey locker room there was no shame in being superstitious. It was weirder if a member of the team wasn’t. “This.”

“Nope.” Peppers shook his head. “For that one-eighty you needed more than tape. You needed Lady Luck.”

That was a bunch of bullshit. Still, he couldn’t help but let Coach’s words roll over and over in his head as he watched the older man walk away to go have what Coach called “little chats” (translation: bossing-around sessions) with another player.

Fallon Hartigan as his Lady Luck? No way. No fucking way. And he’d prove that against the Rage tomorrow night.

…

Fallon stared at her phone.

Two tickets?

For her?

From him?

Thank you?

She flopped down on her bed, trying to get her brain to process this information. Leaving her thank-you tickets did not sound like something the most-hated man in Harbor City would do—at least not voluntarily. Maybe he was in a good mood for once after he’d had his best night on the ice since he’d gotten traded. The whole team had. They’d crushed the Kodiaks. No doubt, each one of the superstitious players was working the magic of their own particular good luck charm. As a card-carrying Ice Knights fanatic, she knew them all. Coach Peppers had a special tie he only broke out after a win, Stuckey did a handstand walk around the perimeter of the locker room, and—

She jolted into a sitting position, her brain whirring as everything clicked into place.

He hadn’t left two tickets as a thank-you. He’d left two tickets as a bribe for her to be his own human rabbit’s foot. Yeah, she wasn’t the fuzzy bunny type, even if it did get her team a win. A woman had to have standards.

She started typing.

Fallon: Thanks, but no can do on the tickets. Great game last night, though. That check on Nitski was killer.

Zach: Thx Why not?

Fallon: Some of us have to worry about paying bills so we take shifts on our day off.

Not a lie. If she was ever going to stop being her brother Finian’s roommate, she had to save up enough for first and last month’s rent.

Zach: Can’t u get someone to cover your shift?

Probably, but there was more to it than that.

Fallon: I’m volunteering at the clinic after.

Zach: To pay the bills?

She rolled her eyes at her phone, even though he couldn’t see it. It was that or suffer a fatal case of ingested annoyance. The man needed to stop acting like he had the brainpower of a box of rocks. No one who could read a play on the ice like he did lacked in the IQ department. Of course, she wasn’t about to tell him that.

Fallon: Volunteer = no $$$ Did Antoni’s dirty hit rattle your brain before you got sent to the box?

Her blood pressure got jacked up just at the memory of that vicious hit. She’d screamed so loud at the TV that even Finn had told her to calm down.

Zach: Antoni’s an asshole.

Fallon: Some might say it takes one to know one.

She swings. She hits it out of the park. She cackles in her bedroom while texting a guy who had this thing about him that made her nipples stand up and say hello. What? No. That wasn’t it. Not at all. Zach Blackburn was Lucy’s client, and she’d done a solid for a friend. That was all. Nothing more.

Zach: Coach wants you at the game against the Rage. Says ur lucky.

All of the bubbles of giddiness in her chest went flat. Fallon let out a long sigh and fell back onto the bed. And there it was. Confirmation. For once it would be nice if she were wrong about the way things were going to go down.

Fallon: Oh yeah, I’m sure.

Zach: I won’t beg.

Shocker. Next thing he’d be telling her the sky is blue.