Offside (24 page)

For a moment there was only silence.

Bobbi cleared her throat and cocked her head
to the side. “What’s going on between you and Logan Forest?”

“Nothing!” Billie glanced up in surprise. “I
mean,” she swallowed and took a moment. “What do you mean? Why
would you say…” but she couldn’t finish her sentence because A) it
was a lie and B) her sister wasn’t stupid.

“I know you’re leaving the house every night
around nine and coming home before I leave for work in the morning.
So you’re spending the night with someone and since Shane says it’s
not him, the only other guy I can think of is Logan.”

See? Not stupid.

Billie sat up straighter, suddenly more
interested in the fact that her sister had talked to Shane.

“When did you see Shane?”

“Tuesday morning.” Bobbi’s cool façade was
back in place, in spite of the smudged makeup and glittery
eyes.

Billie thought back to Tuesday morning, back
to the moment when she’d practically been having sex with Logan in
his kitchen and Shane had walked in. Heat suffused her cheeks as
the image in her mind wavered. What the hell? Shane wouldn’t have
sold her out, would he? Logan had promised no one would know. If
anyone found out she was sleeping with Logan, her already shady
reputation would be mud. It would be worse than mud. It would be
heading into the crud that was beneath the mud kind of
territory.

She didn’t need that. Not right now.

She thought of the fundraiser that previous
weekend, of the jeers and insinuations thrown her way. She thought
of Sabrina Fairfax, joking about her servicing the entire league,
and her stomach rolled.

“What did he…” she cleared her throat and
grabbed the bottle of wine. After taking a long drink straight from
the bottle she wiped her mouth. “What did he say exactly?”

“That he wasn’t sleeping with you.”

“Oh,” she muttered, hating that her cheeks
felt as hot as the red paint on Bobbi’s nails.

“So you’re sleeping with Logan Forest.” It
wasn’t a question. It was definitely a statement.

So. Not. Stupid.

Billie thought about denying it but what was
the point? She pushed the bottle of wine toward her sister—who’d
just drained her glass.

“Does anyone else know?” she asked
quietly.

“Oh, Billie.”

God, she hated the way her sister inserted
that tone into her name. It made her feel like she was eleven years
old again, when she’d been caught peeking through the fence at
their then, fifteen year old neighbor Paul, while he was
‘entertaining’ his girlfriend in the back yard.

“Logan Forest? He’s way out of your
league.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Out of my
league? I’m not an idiot.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Bad choice of
words. Logan is just…he’s a player and you’re not.”

Billie was now really irritated. “First off,
Bobbi, you don’t know what I am or what I’m not. And secondly, why
exactly do you think Logan is a player? Because that’s not the vibe
I get at all.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he’s thirty
and nowhere near close to settling down. He dates a girl, six
months max and then breaks up with them. Just ask Sabrina or
Melanie or Christy, or—”

“I get it.” Billie took one more swig of wine
and got up from the table. “Maybe he hasn’t met the right girl
yet.”

Bobbi’s eyes widened and she cursed under her
breath. “Oh, shit. You don’t think…you’re not thinking of him as a
permanent kind of guy, are you?”

Billie made a face. “Of course not. We just
started hanging out, but give the guy a chance.”

The thing was, and she knew how pathetic it
looked, she [i]
was
[i] thinking along those lines. Heck,
she’d been thinking along those lines ever since she’d tricked him
into having sex with her all those years ago.

“I gotta go. I have a game.” Billie pushed
her chair back into place and stared down at her sister. “You can’t
tell anyone, not even Gerry, all right? With this whole hockey
thing,” she sighed, “it will just make things worse.”

“I won’t say anything but I hope you know
what you’re doing with Logan and that you keep your eyes wide open.
Because if I remember correctly he had a thing for Betty a few
years back and…”

Billie winced. It still stung to hear those
words.

“And?”

Bobbi filled her glass once more and settled
into her chair. “Look, don’t get upset but he slept with
Betty.”

Shit.

“How do you know that?”

Bobbi must have sensed something was up
because she straightened in her chair and plunked her elbows onto
the table. “Shane told me back when we were still together.
Apparently she hooked up with Logan at some Christmas party and
then blew him off, which is so typical of Betty, but…” her voice
trailed off and Billie shifted beneath the intense observation.
“You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not,” Billie offered weakly.

Bobbi made a face. “So you’re perfectly fine
sleeping with a guy who’s already slept with your sister? Your
identical sister to be exact? Don’t you find that creepy?”

[i]
Keep your mouth shut. Don’t say
anything else
[i].

“He didn’t sleep with Betty.”

“What?” Bobbi was confused. “Are you on
drugs?”

As if a tiny crack appeared inside her soul,
the secret she’d been carrying around for years came tumbling out.
She couldn’t help it. Her brain and her mouth were not getting
along.

“Logan thinks he slept with Betty because the
two of them had flirted outrageously all night. But she left with
someone else and it wasn’t Betty who followed him into that room at
the party. It was me.”

She waited for Bobbi to say something but her
sister remained silent, though her eyes were wider than before, and
with the smudge of liner around their edges she looked like a
deranged raccoon.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Billie
said quietly.

“You pretended to be Betty so you could nail
Logan Forest.”

“Pretty much.” She winced at the crude words
but what the hell, they were true.

“Why?” Bobbi asked, clearly puzzled.

“Because I wanted him.” Something twisted
inside Billie and it was nearly a full minute before she could
continue. “Because I was in love with him.”

“But he didn’t even know you existed! He was
all about Betty and her trashy reputation.”

The pain intensified. “I know.”

“What about now? Billie, you can’t be in love
with him. I mean, can you?’

“I don’t know.”

[i]
Liar
[i]. Had she ever stopped
loving him? Thinking about him? Hadn’t she compared every single
boyfriend she’d ever had to Logan Forest? Hadn’t she found every
one of them wanting?

For a moment there was silence and then Bobbi
spoke. “And you haven’t told him yet.”

Billie shook her head, ashamed. “No.”

“Are you going to?”

“I have to, I just…I don’t know how he’s
going to react.” She thought again of how disappointed and hurt he
had been when he’d shown up at their house the next day looking for
Betty. Of how she had lied to his face and sent him on his way.

“Doesn’t it make you wonder?” her sister
asked carefully.

“Wonder what?”

“Look I know it happened a long time ago, but
still,” Bobbi looked as if she thought Billie was crazy. “Doesn’t
it make you wonder if he’s thinking of Betty when he’s with
you?”

Bingo. That was the million dollar question.
But it was one Billie didn’t know if she wanted an answer to.

Three weeks later, on a Monday morning,
Billie was skating laps around the arena by herself. It was Logan’s
last official coaching session, but he’d left for the airport
sometime the night before and would be on the west coast by now.
She wouldn’t see him until Friday, possibly Saturday and maybe that
was a good thing. She’d spent every available minute that she could
with him—under the cover of darkness of course—but still, she
shouldn’t get so used to being with him.

It’s not as if they’d ever discussed the
future and he seemed more than happy to keep things low key and
secret. It shouldn’t annoy her since it was her idea, but still, it
would have been nice to know he wanted more than just Shane to know
they were together.

Though, was having lots of really, hot and
spicy sex considered ‘together’?

Billie pushed those thoughts away and
concentrated on the mechanics of using both her inside and outside
edges as she burned off a ton of restless energy. She flew along
the circles in the end zone. First forward and then twice
backwards, carrying a puck and shooting at the net as she finished
her cycle. Even though Logan was away she’d decided to take
advantage of the donated ice time. Though if he was home, she could
think of a lot of different ways to burn energy.

Her cheeks heated. A [i]
lot
[i] of
different ways.

She’d spent a quiet night with her father and
Herschel and it had been nice. There was no leaving early or
sneaking out. Bobbi had attended a wedding shower for one of her
co-workers—it must have been one hell of a shower because her
sister hadn’t come home until after Billie had gone to bed.

And that would be in her own bed—something
she hadn’t done in over three weeks and something she’d be doing
for the next few days. Sure, Cosmo probably had a ton of articles
on why it was a good idea to be away from Logan for a little while.
They’d been burning hot and fast ever since that first night.

But it was such a [i]
good
[i] hot and
fast that she was kind of annoyed, which was most likely the reason
she’d had such a crappy sleep in the first place.

She flew over the blue line, shooting pucks
at the net on the other end of the rink and tried to clear her
mind, but it was so hard. She hadn’t seen Logan since Sunday
morning when he’d woken her with a slow, lingering kiss. The kind
of kiss that curls your toes and makes your stomach tremble.

God, she loved watching him while they were
having sex. Everything he felt was reflected in his eyes. He had
treated her to a morning of incredible, steaming hot sex and they
hadn’t surfaced until nearly noon. And that was only because Weird
was hungry and wouldn’t leave them alone. Not surprising since the
damn cat had perched on the end of the bed and refused to leave for
hours.

What the hell could the damn cat see out of
one eye anyway?

“Hey, Billie!”

She rounded the far end of the rink and waved
to Kendall and several of her teammates. They practiced every
Monday morning at six as well, and she was surprised to see them
milling about the player’s bench. They should be doing laps on the
other pad.

Billie skated over to the girls. “Aren’t you
guys on the wrong side?”

Their trainer, Dave Sloan, leaned over and
smiled. “Where’s Forest? He couldn’t take it anymore?”

“No,” she grinned, “he’s out of town.”

“Ah.” Dave Sloan straightened. “So you’re on
your own today?”

“Yep. ‘fraid so.”

Sloan cleared his throat and looked as if he
was going to say something but before he could, Kendall butted in.
“We want you to teach us your drills.”

Billie looked at the eager and expectant
faces and then back to Dave who was staring at her with an equally
large, equally hopeful grin.

“The girls have been watching the tail end of
your sessions with Logan and I gotta tell you, Billie, they’d
benefit a lot from someone with your skill set and knowledge.”

“Oh,” she was surprised and flattered.

“Please, Billie.” Kendall smiled and poked
the girl beside her. “We’ll pay.”

She was horrified at the thought of
collecting money from a bunch of teenagers, especially since the
ice time had been donated. “Don’t worry about that.” She glanced
around the large expanse of empty ice.

Why not?

Their enthusiasm for the game was written all
over each and every face and she felt a spark hit her square in the
chest. It mobilized her and she moved back, pointing toward the
pylons and bucket of pucks in the corner.

“Okay girls, but rest assured I’ll work you a
lot harder than I did Mr. Forest.”

The girls scrambled onto the ice while their
trainer Dave thanked her profusely. “This is so good of you,
Billie.” He looked a little sheepish. “I have to be honest though.
I was opposed to you playing in our league. Hell I almost
considered pulling out and driving twenty minutes to the city to
play, but my wife told me I was being an idiot.” He shrugged. “She
was right. You’ve shown me that the desire to play trumps all that
small stuff. In fact, I think the whole level of play has been
elevated because you are in the league and you have to know that a
lot of guys don’t agree with Longwood’s dirty play the other
night.”

“Thanks,” she smiled. “That means a lot.”
She’d heard that Longwood had quit the league and was playing in
the city. Whether it was because of backlash from some of the other
players, or a direct result of Logan and Shane’s personal visit,
she had no idea. And she didn’t care. The guy was an asshole and if
he didn’t have Billie to use as a personal punching bag, he would
have found someone else.

“And some guys claiming that having a woman
in the league cuts down on their guy time are full of shit. From
what I’ve seen they don’t act any different with you around than
they do when you’re not.”

She thought of Dearlings’ hairy ass. “I hear
ya, there.”

“So,” Dave said. “We’re good?”

“We’re good.”

“Awesome, so what do you have in store for
us?”

Indeed.

Billie put the girls through their paces.
Running drills that would help improve their stick handling, as
well as some that would improve their speed and agility on the ice.
She’d been playing hockey her entire life and had worked with a
host of world class coaches and trainers, but she’d never applied
what she’d learned in an environment like this.