Page 76 of False Play
Nothing worked…untilher.
To many, she was a woman with an impressive career, but cold and calculating. She was serious and closed off, and it was difficult getting a read on her.
I was one of those people once, too. Until one day, I wasn’t.
It was becoming impossible to dwell in the darkness around a woman like Kennedy Jones because, to me, she was sunshine itself.
It was scary, you know? Like jumping into deep waters and not knowing where I would end up. But still, I was ready to jump into the unknown.
And wasn’t that pathetic?
“Enough about me.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Tell me, why hockey?”
I almost asked why she was trying to deflect, but I thought better of it. Getting on her bad side twice in one day wasn’t something I wanted. Not anymore. I craved more of these little moments when she let her walls down low enough, even if it was for a fraction of a second.
Her question threw me for a loop. “What do you mean?”
“There are so many sports you could have chosen, so why hockey?”
The question made me pause and think, which was rarely a good thing. Being too inside my head was a recipe for disaster.
My parents bought me my first pair of skates before I couldeven walk.
That was the Anderson household way.
My father wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and I was a child who craved his approval. I didn’t know better then. When you’re a kid, you…missthings. Become blind to what the other side of the curtain holds. But the older I got and the more I witnessed, the more I realized how different I wanted to be from him.
Yet, the thought of not playing hockey never crossed my mind, despite knowing this had been something my father instilled in me. The game became my only salvation, and I poured my heart and soul into it formyself. If you were to ask my deadbeat of a father, he would say I did it for him. But the truth was, I liked the exhaustion and extreme discipline hockey asked of me because it was better than what waited for me at home. His hockey schedule was demanding until the very end, and the day he got his career-ending injury, he became the monster people warned kids about. And Ineededthe escape, for my goddamn sanity.
Instead of trauma dumping on our first—technically second?—fake date, I said, “I’m Canadian, baby. It’s in my blood.”
Her brown eyes settled on my face with a scrutinizing expression. “Why are you lying?”
I forced a laugh. “I’m not.”
“You do that a lot, you know?”
“What?”
“Deflect.”
“When did this become a therapy session?” I joked.
“When you decided to start lying to me,” she replied bluntly, leaning back in her chair.
I didn’t like this. The way she saw me so openly. It was embarrassing for me, but more than anything?Terrifying. Like I was teetering along the lines of something I wasn’t ready toface. But as I would come to find out later, Kennedy always pushed me to be my very best and to stay true to myself.
“Okay, if you must know the truth, hockey became sort of an escape.” I cleared my throat at the unexpected feeling that wanted to settle in the pit of my stomach. “What about you? Why public relations in sports?”
“You’re deflecting again, but I’ll let it go.” She smirked knowingly then sighed. “I’ve always loved hockey,” she whispered, lost in thought. “But honestly? Ever since I was a little girl, I admired women who weren’t afraid to enter a male-dominated field to leave their imprint. It takes a lot of courage. We’re often criticized and judged for the same things our male colleagues do, simply because society believes women belong at home.” She blew a short breath, shaking her head. “But I want to make a difference and show young girls they can do and be anything they want to be when they grow up.”
I nodded, holding on to every word she spoke. This didn’t help tame the infatuation I had for her. If anything, it fueled it. The fierce determination in her eyes and the way she shared this information so wholeheartedly, it was attractive.
“Has anyone ever told you how fierce you are?” I asked softly.
She gave me a small smile, avoiding my gaze. “I’ve been called a lot of things over the years. High-maintenance. Too eager. Too forward. Too loud. But no. Never fierce.”
My body all but roared in outrage, but I kept myself in check as I stood from my chair and crouched in front of her. My hands found the warmth of her face, and I caressed her jaw back and forth with my thumb gently. Electricity ran up my arm, like touching her rewired something deep in my bones.
