Page 173 of Hockey Halloween
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Trope: Long-Term Love
Costume: Garden gnome
Chase's mom has got it going on, but Xander should've kept those thoughts to himself. Instead, he betrayed his teammate and started a relationship with Chase's mom on the Denver Drift's Moms Trips. Now, after months of sneaking around, Chase still doesn't know that Xander and Jessica are in love and the dirty truth is about to get dug up on Halloween.
Xander
There were certain rules about the annual Moms Trip for the Denver Drift that Xander Kanale had to go over each year.
As the team captain, it was his job to remind players to be on their best behavior and cut back on the hockey player stuff when any of the moms were around. Leave the chirping on the ice. Be polite. Definitely no pranks. It was also good to show respect to all the moms, even the ones who weren't yours. Help with suitcases, keep the elevator door open for everyone, and things like that.
All pretty self-explanatory and passed down from captain to captain over the years as the Moms Trips became more popular.
This year would be a little different as Xander’s mom was vacationing in Rome with her sister. It would also probably be one of his last Moms Trips anyway. He was getting older and things hurt for days after a big hit during a game. Those rookies like Chase Masie, who was only twenty years old, could easily out-hustle him if he wasn't working hard enough.
Walking around the hotel late at night after a game helped him stay limber at least and he was usually one of the only people roaming the halls. It was nice to wander around alone some nights.
But tonight he wasn't alone. He noticed her come around thecorner, looking like a deer caught in headlights as she took him in so late at night. Then she gave him a small smile and nervously walked over to him.
"Xander." Her voice was a little gravely due to the late night, but it only made her more attractive. "We weren't able to meet yet. I'm Jessica. I'm Chase's mom."
"Yeah, I recognized you from the flight this morning."
He had done more than recognize her on the flight this morning. He had definitely lingered on her as she walked down the aisle along with the other moms. But the other moms didn't look like her. Yes, he had realized that as he got older when some of the rookie moms were attractive. It was only natural considering rookie moms were probably closer in age to Xander as he got older himself.
Jessica, however, was different. He wasn't sure why, but she was the first mom on any of these Moms Trips that made him adjust himself in his seat to hide the hard on she gave him. But no one could find out, especially since Xander was supposed to be a mentor to her son. How a woman that sexy could be Chase's mom though was a bit too hard to understand.
He needed to not think about any of that as he wandered the halls in a pair of lightweight athletic shorts and a white t-shirt.
"So, uh. Are you usually up at… whatever time this is?"
She laughed quietly, as if she realized just how late — or early — it really was. "Two thirty-two a.m."
"That's very exact."
She smiled and held her wrist up. "I have an Apple watch."
"Ah, gotcha. What else does that watch tell you?"
Oh, hell. Did he just smile at her as he asked that question? Was Xander flirting with this woman? This was not a good idea. In fact, she wasn't just "this woman" or something. She was Chase's mom.
And yet she seemed to be playing along with this.
"It says I'm being an insomniac and not getting enough sleep." She shook her wrist and put her hands in the pockets of the Denver Drift hoodie, a gift for the moms on the trip. "What about you?"
"I had a few more shifts than I expected tonight. I'm going to be in pain for the next game if I don't stay limber."
Jessica's eyes got wide at the word "limber" and he wondered what kind of thoughts were going through her head at that moment — or perhaps it was better if he didn't think about those thoughts.
There were things that didn't work well with being a hockey player. He was married once but got divorced when she couldn't handle all of his traveling. There were serious relationships that just didn't work, which is why he was into more casual things now. But Xander was getting close to retirement with probably only a few years left before he would hang up his skates. Casual was fine for now.
Except casual wasn't fine right at this moment, because right at this moment he was staring at his rookie's mom. Casual would be a very bad idea with a rookie's mom, especially one who was on the Moms Trip with the team.
On the other hand, he wouldn't mind the company rather than feeling like a loser wandering around a hotel in the middle of the night by himself.
"Uh, are you going somewhere specific?"
