Behind the Net (Vancouver Storm, #1)

by Stephanie Archer

My mom’s dealt with depression and anxiety for years, ever since my dad passed in a self-inflicted drunk driving incident when I was a baby, but while I wasn’t looking, it turned into something so much worse.

At the end of last season, one of the worst in the Storm’s history, Tate Ward made headlines after he was announced as the new head coach. The guy’s in his late thirties, not much older than some of Vancouver’s players, and he had a promising career as a forward in the league until a knee injury ended it. He coached college hockey until last year, and from what I’ve read in hockey news, the fans are skeptical. Head coaches are normally older, with more experience coaching at the pro level.

Ward lowers his voice. “If your mom needs any help, we can provide that, too.” When I requested a trade to Vancouver, he was the one who called me to ask why. I told him everything. He’s the only one who knows about my mom. Anxiety spikes in me, and this is why I shouldn’t have opened my fucking mouth. Now people want to get involved.

It’s always just been me and my mom. I’ve got it handled. I always have.

My heart hammers while I stand outside Jamie Streicher’s apartment building. The last time I saw him in person, I had just spilled a blue Slurpee all over my white t-shirt in the high school cafeteria.

Our high school was huge. I was the dorky music girl, always hanging with the band kids, and he was a hot hockey player. I’m two years younger, so we didn’t even have classes together or friends in common.

He’s one of the best goalies in the NHL, with the looks of a freaking god. The fact that he’s known for not doing relationships seems to make people even more feral. Last year, someone threw panties on the ice for him—it was all over the sports highlights.

I went to school for marketing, and it’s time to pursue that path. The only Vancouver job postings in marketing require at least five years’ experience, so I wouldn’t even be considered. According to my sister Hazel, who works as a physiotherapist for the Vancouver Storm, a marketing job with the team is opening up soon. They prefer internal hires, she said.

His frame fills the doorway. He’s a foot taller than me, and even under his long-sleeved workout shirt, his body is perfection. The thin fabric stretches over his broad shoulders. I’m vaguely aware of a dog barking and racing around the apartment behind him, but my gaze follows his movement as he props a hand on the doorframe. His sleeves are pushed up, and my gaze lingers on his forearm. Jamie Streicher’s forearms could get a woman pregnant.

gorgeous, famous people are allowed to be complete assholes. The world lets them get away with it. Jamie Streicher is no different.

Pippa Hartley is standing in my living room, playing with the dog, and I can’t breathe. When I opened the door, I thought I was hallucinating. Her hair is longer. Same shy smile, same sparkling blue-gray eyes that make me forget my own name. Same soft, musical voice that I’d strain to hear back in high school while she was talking and laughing with the other band kids.

Grown up, though, she’s fucking gorgeous. A knockout. Freckles over her nose and cheekbones from the summer sun and strands of gold in her caramel hair that’s neither brown nor blond. Although her braces were cute back in high school, her smile today nearly stopped my heart.

I can’t fucking think around Pippa Hartley. It’s always been like this.

In an instant, my mind is back in that hallway outside the school music room, listening as she sang. She had the most beautiful, captivating, spellbinding voice I’d ever heard—sweet, but when she hit certain notes, raspy. Strong, but at certain parts, soft. Always controlled. Pippa knew exactly how to use her voice. She never sang in public, though. It was always that fucking Zach guy singing, and she’d play guitar as his backup.

I wonder if she’s still with him, and my nostrils flare. Over the summer, I saw his stupid, punchable face on a billboard and nearly drove off the highway. That guy is the opener on a tour? He could barely play the guitar. His voice was average. Not like Pippa. She’s talented.

“He could barely play the guitar. His voice was average. Not like Pippa. She’s talented.”

I’m about to open the front door when a noise in my apartment stops me with my hand on the door handle. Singing. Fleetwood Mac plays inside my apartment. Over the tune, her voice rings out, clear, bright, and melodic. She hits all the notes, but there’s something special to the way she sings it. Something uniquely Pippa. I can’t move. If I go inside, she’ll stop singing.

My gaze sweeps around the apartment. Most of the boxes are unpacked. She’s set up my living room, and the photo of my mom and me sits on the bookshelf. She’s arranged the living room furniture differently than my apartment back in New York. The Eames chair faces the windows, overlooking the city lights in North Vancouver, across the water. The dog is sleeping on the couch, curled up in a ball.

The apartment looks nice. It feels like a home. I was dreading unpacking, but now it’s almost done. I don’t even mind that the dog is on the furniture.

“Daisy and I went for a two-hour walk around Stanley Park, and then I spent most of the evening training her to do tricks.” My eyebrows pull together. “Daisy?” She shrugs, smiling over at the dog on the couch. “She needs a name.”

My mind flashes back to a month ago, in the airport, waiting for my flight home. The tour manager had arranged my Uber, which I thought would take me to the meeting spot for the tour bus so we could all travel to the next location. Instead, it went to the airport, and when I started phoning people in confusion, no one answered. Finally, Zach called me back. “Ah, shit,” he said. “Did she already send you to the airport? I was going to talk to you first.” He dumped me over the phone. He said we were different people now, that we weren’t teenagers anymore, and that he wanted to see who he was apart from me. We dated for eight years, since grade ten, and he had his employee send me away.

Guys like Zach and Jamie? They think the world revolves around them. They think they can dispose of people after they lose interest.

I’m so sick of being that girl, the one who gets disposed of.

I’m trying to nap, but I can’t stop thinking about my pretty assistant. Ex-assistant. Fuck.

“How’d you get upstairs?” She needs a key or to be buzzed in. She waves me off. “The guys from yesterday remembered me, and I gave them cupcakes.” Of course they let her up. This woman could talk a cop into handing over his gun. All she’d have to do is smile and flick her ponytail, and he’d be like, you want the bullets, too?

Her eyebrows pinch together and she blinks rapidly, looking like a kicked puppy. Oh, fuck. My heart sinks. I hate this feeling. I hate her feeling like this, and I especially hate knowing that I did that. She’s right. I was an asshole yesterday. I didn’t mean to be, though. I don’t know how to be normal around her. She showed up looking like a Disney princess, and I could barely say two words to her.

There’s no way I can tell her the truth—that she’s the girl I was obsessed with for two years in high school.

And everything she said? She’s right. I like the way she set up my apartment. She tired Daisy out yesterday more than I could have. I can already tell this dog needs a ton of mental stimulation as well as physical exercise. Deep down, I trust her with this dog.

I like this girl. She’s scrappy. It took a lot of guts for her to show up and call me a dickhead. No one talks to me like that.

I can’t screw her over like this. I’ll find a way to focus this year. I always do. I’ve had years to practice discipline. This year, I’ll just have to practice harder. I can’t fire her, but I can keep her at arm’s length.

“Wait,” she says, handing me the cupcakes. “Take these with you. You can give them to the team or whatever.” I give her a strange look. If I show up with cupcakes, I’ll never hear the end of it. Nevertheless, I take them. I can’t see that look of disappointment on her face again. On the street outside, I open the container and shove one into my mouth. My eyes roll back in my head as the sugar hits my tongue, and I nearly moan in ecstasy. It’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever tasted.

Jamie Streicher is standing in his living room, staring at me in my towel.

My brain isn’t working. That’s the only explanation for why I’m just standing here, staring at an almost-naked Pippa in a tiny towel.

She was singing in the shower, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I couldn’t move.

Jamie leaves and I stare at the door, stunned. He’s such a dick. He’s the one who was home early. I was just following the schedule he gave me.

My headphones connect, and my jaw drops. They’re singing a song that Zach and I wrote together. I mean, I didn’t get writing credits because we just played around with the tune on one of our off days, but still. I didn’t just get dumped—I got replaced. By a newer, shinier model. My eyes sting and I blink the tears away.

You don’t have it, Zach said to me once when I floated the idea of trying to write my own album. I’ve always wanted to. Being in the spotlight is really hard, he told me, like he was protecting me from it.

Through the glass, my gaze locks with Jamie’s. Seriously? It’s like the universe keeps finding the worst time possible for me to run into him. I put my head down, hoping the glare on the glass hides me. If I just pretend I didn’t see him, maybe he’ll go away⁠— Nope. I peek over at him. He’s at the coffee shop door. He’s opening it. Shit. Maybe he’s just getting a coffee. Nope. He’s heading toward me.

She’s sitting at a table beside the window, wiping at her eyes, trying to hide her tears. Alarm shoots through me, and my protective instincts flare. In a shot, I’m inside, in front of her.

My chest hurts, watching her like this. I hate this.

“He dumped me last month and now he’s on stage with someone new.” A fresh wave of tears spills over. I want to kill that guy for making her feel like this.

I hate that guy. I hate him so fucking much. He has a soft, squishy, punchable face. Goalies almost never get into fights, but if that guy were on the ice at my game tomorrow, I wouldn’t hesitate.

I hate everything about this. Every protective instinct in my body surges with the need to make things better for her. “Move in with me.” We stare at each other. I don’t know where the fuck that came from. I’m not supposed to be spending more time with her; I’m supposed to be avoiding her. Living with her isn’t keeping her at arm’s length.

My pulse is picking up. I picture her in my apartment, lying on the couch, reading a book with Daisy at her feet. Playing her guitar like she used to with her friends back in high school. My chest warms. I like that image.

I don’t care if this is a bad idea. I can’t let it go. Besides, I’m busy with hockey and visiting my mom in North Van. I won’t even see her. And I won’t be worrying about her, so that’s something.

Pippa is intoxicatingly pretty, and around her, my mind blanks, but I feel a twinge of excited anticipation that I haven’t experienced in a long time.

I feel the weird urge to tell her about Pippa. What would I even say? My assistant is a drop-dead gorgeous songbird who I had a crush on in high school. Who’s incredible with my dog. Who stocked the fridge with all the foods I like even though I barked “stuff” at her as a grocery list. And now she’s going to be living with me, sleeping on the other side of the wall.

“You’re treating me with kid gloves.” That’s because you’re fragile and you don’t have the best track record of keeping it together, I think. And in my head, I’m ten and making my own school lunch during one of her low points of depression.

I stay silent. “Is she pretty?” I rake a hand through my hair. “I don’t know.” “I mean, you have eyes, don’t you?” She asks it so innocently, like she doesn’t know the answer.

“Yes, okay?” I rush out. “She’s very pretty and she has a beautiful singing voice and Daisy loves her.” My mom rolls her lips to hide a smile, but her eyes are bright. “What?” I demand. She bursts out laughing. I groan. She has a way of getting things out of me.

My mom thinks Erin and I broke up because I couldn’t handle hockey and a relationship, which is technically true. She doesn’t know that when Erin told me her period was a week late, I panicked. Erin was so excited, and I had terror written all over my face. We were nineteen, for Christ’s sake. It was my rookie year and I was working harder at hockey than ever. Every chance I could, I was flying home to visit my mom. My best friend growing up, Rory Miller, wasn’t interested in being friends now that we played for separate hockey teams. Everything was different and I was barely holding it together. Adding another commitment to my life was terrifying. I would have done it, though, no matter how hard it was. She got her period a day later, but the damage was done. We both knew the relationship was over, and a week later, I saw the news about her leaving modeling. She fell off the face of the planet for almost five years.