Melting the Ice (30 page)

Avery was playing hurt, and it showed. He’d given up four goals, and that just wasn’t like him. But their other goalie just wasn’t as good. It was their job to make Avery’s work easier while his thigh muscle was healing, and they’d failed.

Shit.

They had to find a way to win on the road. They all knew it, and the coach kept ramming it into their heads at the end of every period and after the games.

They were a much better team than they were showing, and they had to figure this out.

His head just hadn’t been in the game lately. He knew part of this was his fault, and it was time he started taking responsibility.

He’d lost focus, and he knew why.

Carolina. He’d been chasing her since preseason, had put all his focus and attention on her instead of the game, and it was costing him, and his team.

It was time he started concentrating more on hockey, and less on Carolina. Though the thought of seeing her less made his gut clench.

Some guys felt that dating women during the season was bad luck. He wasn’t one of those guys. Then again, when he played with his concentration fully on the game, he was an ass-kicker. He had to admit, he’d focused more on Carolina and less on the game so far this season, and it was clearly hurting his game.

Time to change that. As painful as it was, his career was his life, and he wasn’t going to let anything jeopardize that, no matter what—or who—that was.

He showered and dressed, then packed his bag.

There was a text message from Carolina.

Watched your game. Rough loss. I know you can come back from this. I believe in you.

He smiled at the message, then checked the next one.

We need to set a time for you to come in for your final fittings, talk about the advertising campaign, and decide on the date for the photo shoot. Can we get together when you get back?

He stared at it for a long few minutes, then typed a message back to her.

Have a lot of work to do, game-wise. We’re kind of a mess right now so coach wants extra practices. I’ll get back to you and let you know.

He knew Carolina needed him. But so did his team.

And he had to prioritize. As of right now, his priority was his team. His career.

Carolina would have to wait.

TWENTY-SEVEN

CAROLINA HAD SENT DREW MULTIPLE TEXT MESSAGES, and had even called him a few times, but he kept saying he was busy with hockey stuff and couldn’t find the time to work on her advertising campaign.

He’d actually popped in for the final fittings on a day she hadn’t been here. She’d been at the event center, taking some photos and talking to the event coordinator. Her staff had handled the fitting, and he’d been gone by the time she’d come back.

He hadn’t said a word to her. He hadn’t called her or told her he was coming by, so they hadn’t had a chance to talk about the advertising campaign.

She had the photographer ready to go. All she needed now was her model. A model who was being really goddamned uncooperative right now.

The test photos they’d taken had turned out phenomenally well. With a professional photographer on hand, she knew the real product would be spectacular. Half a day. A few hours. That’s all she needed from him to get this finished.

She paced in her workshop, everyone else having left for the day. She’d known Drew was going to let her down. She should have gone with someone else. Not that it wasn’t too late to do that. But dammit, the whole campaign was lined out perfectly in her head, and the only face and body she saw on there was Drew.

Maybe that was because she was personally involved with him, because she’d slept with him. There were many great-looking models who’d fit the advertising perfectly.

She tapped her pencil on her sketchbook, staring at it and getting nowhere. She pulled up the Travelers schedule. No game today, and yet her phone remained strangely silent, at least as far as Drew. Everyone else was texting and calling her about every last-minute detail, including wanting invitations to the show which was in three goddamn days. As if that wasn’t enough to tighten her chest and make it hard to breathe. But the one person she needed to hear from had gone silent.

She dialed his number, the phone rang several times and then she got his voice mail, which sent her blood pressure through the roof. She knew from looking at his schedule that he had a stretch of home games, which meant he was in town and was going to be here for a while, including for the show, thank God.

If he even planned to show up for that.

She grabbed her coat and shut down the studio, then grabbed a taxi, giving the driver Drew’s address.

She paid the driver, but asked him to wait while she went up to the door and pressed the buzzer. When Drew answered, she waved the driver off.

“It’s Carolina.”

“Oh. Sure. Hang on while I buzz you in.”

She rolled her eyes when he hit the buzzer. She went inside and headed to his door. He’d already opened it and was leaning against the doorway. He didn’t have a shirt on, only a pair of low-slung sweats. His hair was wet, the ends curling around his neck. Despite her profound irritation with him, she couldn’t fight the surge of desire that kicked in as her gaze instinctively followed the droplets of water sliding down his chest.

Forcing her attention to his face, she saw him smiling.

“This is a nice surprise.”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

He frowned. “I must have been in the shower. Or maybe at practice. I just got home about twenty minutes ago and jumped in the shower right away. Sorry. Come on in.”

She took off her coat while Drew went into the bedroom and came back with a shirt on.

“Do you want something to drink? A beer or a soda or water?”

“Water would be good, thanks.”

He was being formal. He hadn’t hugged her or kissed her. She didn’t like it. It was like they had taken ten steps back in their relationship and she didn’t know what was going on.

He handed her water and grabbed one for himself.

“Take a seat,” he said, motioning to his sofa.

She sat and took a sip of water. “What’s going on, Drew?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re ignoring my calls and texts. You’re ignoring me. You came in for your final fitting, and you didn’t even tell me.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I only had a few minutes and you weren’t there. Your staff took care of it, and I had to hurry out of there. I told you I’ve been busy with games and practice.”

“We have the photo shoot to schedule and I’m running out of time.”

He didn’t say anything. She studied him, saw the tension on his face and the way he held his body.

“Tell me what’s bothering you,” she said. “Is it the road games?”

“You’re not really here to talk about hockey, are you?”

“I’m here to talk about you, about what’s been going on since we were last together. You’ve been avoiding me.”

“No, I haven’t.”

She cocked her head to the side and leveled a serious look at him. “Come on, Drew. Let’s be honest here. If you’ve changed your mind about doing the ad shoot, at least tell me.”

He stood and paced, spending more time looking out the window than at her. A bad sign. Carolina stayed on the sofa, because it was obvious Drew didn’t want her close. The thought stabbed through her, the hurt palpable.

“I don’t know. Work’s been tough, you know? We’ve lost some games and we’re all trying to figure out what’s not working for the team. It’s all I’ve been able to think about lately.”

“Understandable. When things don’t go right at work, it consumes you.”

He stopped and looked down at her. “You’re not mad.”

“How could I be? All I needed was an explanation of where your head was at. And I do know how you feel. But the bottom line is, I’m at deadline for the print advertising. You’re either in or out. My preference is you being in. It’ll only take a few hours for the shoot, Drew, and I really need you.”

She was laying it all on the line for him, telling him how much she was relying on him for this.

He looked at her, and she waited.

“I just . . . can’t right now, Carolina. I have to give everything to the team.”

“But you’re still going to do the show, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer her.

“Drew. You have to do the show. You’re fitted. It’s too late to get someone else.”

“Yeah. Sure. I did the fittings, right? I’ll do the show.”

She’d never seen such a lack of enthusiasm. Not that she expected him to be thrilled about it, but . . . God, she had spent a year getting ready for this. And now it was three days away and he wanted to bail on her?

“You could have said no at the beginning, you know. It wasn’t even my idea to have you in the show. It was Gray’s.”

He gave her a wry smile. “So you didn’t want me.”

She let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not saying that. But it’s too late now. I need you to say you’re going to be there.”

He shrugged. “I’ll be there. For the show part, anyway, because I promised you I would.”

He’d also promised her he’d do the advertising. Which meant he was giving her nothing. There was no emotion in his voice. He was walking away from her yet again. Somehow, it hurt more now than it had all those years ago when he’d dumped her. Maybe because she cared more now than she had then.

She stood, tamping down the hurt that wrapped around her like a pin-pricking blanket. She refused to take this personally. He’d made a business decision, and nothing more. “Okay. I get that your schedule is full regarding the print ad. I’ll just go in another direction.”

“Wait.”

She stopped, hoping he’d changed his mind.

“Look, I was going to have something to eat. Maybe run out and grab a cheeseburger. Do you want to join me?”

She couldn’t even force a smile. “I hate burgers. Thanks, but no. I have a lot of work to do, so I’ll just grab a taxi and head out.”

She put on her coat and went to the door.

“Carolina, I’m sorry.”

She didn’t want to see him anymore, couldn’t even form words, hating that there was a catch in her throat, that she wanted to cry. She had to be a professional about this, not act as if he’d just broken her heart.

But he’d just broken her heart, dammit. He’d let her down, and she couldn’t help the way she felt.

This was what happened when she allowed herself to get close. She should have known better. If she’d have kept things business-only between them, she wouldn’t feel as if he’d jerked her world out from under her right now.

She finally took a deep breath and turned around. “Don’t say anything. It’s all right.”

She opened the door and shut it behind her before she did something incredibly stupid, like bursting into tears or asking him why he didn’t care enough about her to do this one thing that meant the world to her.

A taxi was just pulling around the corner, so she hailed it and it stopped. She’d gotten lucky, was hoping she wasn’t going to have to stand there under the windows of his apartment for twenty minutes waiting for an available cab. She climbed in and gave the driver her address, then sat back and thought about which of her models she was going to use for the print advertising.

There was no time to wallow in her misery, no time to think about herself. She had to get moving on the advertising campaign. Work had to take precedence.

When she got back to her apartment, she went to her model portfolios and brought them up on her computer, searching through each face, studying each body, imagining them wearing the briefs.

She’d have to scrap the shoot the way she’d envisioned it. Without Drew, it would no longer make sense. She’d have to come up with something else, something equally enticing.

Reaching into her bag for her sketchbook, she propped her feet up on the table and closed her eyes, letting her imagination have free rein.

The only problem was, her mind had gone completely blank.

 • • • 

DREW LEANED AGAINST THE WINDOW LEDGE AND watched Carolina get into the taxi and drive away.

He was such a dick. It would have cost him nothing but a few hours of his time to go ahead and do the advertising campaign. They’d already run through it once. He knew what to expect. And then it would be over, she’d have what she wanted, and he could go on and do his thing.

But hell, what would he promote for her? Certainly not a damn winning image. He wasn’t a winner. Not this season, anyway. She should go in another direction, get some famous model whose face would sell millions for her.

He sat on his sofa and dropped his chin to his chest. He felt washed-up and finished, like a loser. And it had been a long damn time since he’d felt that way. In college, when he’d struggled it had taken a kick in the ass from Bill Briscoe to remind him why he was there in the first place, and all the things that were worth fighting for.

Bill would kick his ass right now if he could see him sitting here in the dark feeling sorry for himself, when he should be trying to figure out what the problem was with his play, or with his team’s play.

Instead, he was blaming the woman he cared about. But hell, he was grasping here, and what else did he have to grab on to other than Carolina as an excuse for everything that was fucked up so far about this season?

Something else Bill would likely kick his ass over.

His stomach tightened at the thought of not having Bill around to seek advice from.

He grabbed his phone and dialed Ginger Briscoe’s cell. She answered on the third ring.

“Well, hello, Drew. How are you?”

“I’m doing fine, Miss Ginger. And you?”

“Hanging in there.”

He didn’t want to ask the question, but he had to know. “How’s Bill doing?”

“Hang on just a second, Drew.”

He heard rustling, then a door closing.

“He’s sleeping right now, so I didn’t want my talkin’ to wake him up. It’s not good, Drew. Doctors think the next week or two at most.”

Drew took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Miss Ginger.”

“Nothin’ for you to be sorry about. It’s just his time. The nice doctors down here have done all they could but there’s nothin’ left to be done. It’s in God’s hands now.”