Page 9 of The Rebel (Looking to Score 1)
Eventually, I fall asleep with Eden resting on my chest and my arm around her waist, holding her close.
• • •
In the morning, the only reminders that Eden was here are her lingering scent on my pillow, my almost empty bottle of whiskey, and the torn notebook page she’s left on my desk.
My heart rate increases as I anticipate what she could have written. Did last night mean as much to her as it did to me?
But as I begin to read, my lungs expel a sharp breath.
THIS WAS A MISTAKE.
I’M SORRY. I HAVE TO GO.
Her words are hastily scrawled.
But their effect on my heart, unfortunately, is much longer lasting.
3
* * *
EDEN
Six years later
Holt was right that night. Alex wasn’t worthy of the gift I saved for him, but I gave it to him anyway. Several months later, which is a story for another time.
Alex and I dated for almost five years, and I supported him through everything. His grueling training schedule, the wins, the losses, the cross-country trades. I even moved to freaking Canada for him, which ended disastrously one season later when Alex got in a fistfight with his own goalie and was released from the team.
Alex was the reason I became interested in hockey. My grandfather owned the team in Boston for as long as I could remember, but I never cared about hockey until I started dating Alex. Then I went to every game, proudly wearing his jersey as I cheered from the box, and cried when his team won their conference finals. My grandfather loved my newfound interest in the sport he’d spent much of his life working to further. Finally, something we could share.
But then my grandfather passed away, of pneumonia of all things. He spent six weeks in the hospital, the last three hooked up to a ventilator before quietly passing in his sleep.
And now I’m the first female owner of a major hockey team, and the youngest owner by more than a dozen years.
My critics laugh at me behind my back. Sports commentators make somber predictions about how long I’ll last. No one has any faith in me. I’m not even sure I have faith in myself.
Fun fact . . . After I was named team owner, protesters gathered outside the arena. People made signs—signs with my name on them—demanding I sell the team because they think I’m going to run the franchise into the ground.
Yeah, I might fail spectacularly, but I’m going to do everything in my power to keep that from happening.
For the last several years, I’ve lived and breathed hockey, and shadowed my grandfather’s every move for the past three. Once he saw how serious I was about the franchise, he took me under his wing. I think we both assumed I’d spend ten or more years under his guidance, preparing for a leadership role in this organization.
But I only got two.
Because while Grandpa Pete was healthy, he’d also smoked for forty years. It did irreparable damage to his lungs, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight off the pneumonia-like illness he came down with last winter.
Even when they admitted him to the hospital, our family wasn’t concerned. “He’s as strong as an ox, Eden,” my dad said, smiling. “He’ll pull through.”
I believed that. We all did. Even when Grandpa Pete was sent to the ICU and hooked up to a ventilator. After he was sedated, I could no longer speak to him, could no longer ask him all the burning questions I still needed answers to.
Three weeks later, he was gone. It still doesn’t quite seem real. And now I’m the owner of a struggling hockey team.
I feel lost. Alone. And scared.
These are new feelings for me. I’ve always been so confident, ready to tackle anything that comes my way. And of course, I can’t admit to anyone how absolutely terrified I am. Never let ’em see you sweat, my grandfather used to say. I have to make him proud . . . except there’s one more issue I have to contend with. And it’s the elephant in the room no one dares to talk to me about.
Alex Braun has been traded to my team in the off-season.
It was his dream to play for Boston, and now he does. I can’t help but wonder if that’s why he dated me to begin with, because of the connections I have.
Was our entire relationship some big ruse?
Well, too bad for him, because although he might have gotten his dream job—a spot on one of the country’s most-loved hockey teams—he now works for me.
The Boston Titans acquired him as a new trade in the off-season before I was named my grandfather’s successor. Alex Braun is now our starting center, and I’m the brand-new owner.
Our breakup six months ago has been spectacularly splashed across the sports media outlets, dominating the headlines. It was annoying. And accurate. Because while I once loved Alex Braun, I can’t stand the bastard. Things ended abruptly, and with a lot of animosity between us. Cheating rumors swirled in the media and on gossip blogs.
