True Love and Other Disasters by Rachel Gibson Page B

even on TV anymore,” Jules grumbled. “That guy was kinda gay. I’m not gay.” Something in her face must have betrayed her because his gaze pinched. “You think so too!”
    She shook her head and rounded her eyes.
    “Yes, you do.” He made a motion with his hand. “Why?”
    “It doesn’t matter.”
    “Tell me.”
    She shrugged. On the ice below, the whistle blew and Sam Leclaire automatically skated to the sin bin. Sam might not be a great fighter, but that didn’t keep him from throwing his gloves and sitting out an average of seven penalty minutes a game.
    “It’s the way you dress. You wear everything really tight and your color choices are a bit bold for a straight man.”
    Jules frowned and folded his arms across his bulky chest. “At least I’m not afraid of color. You dress in beige and black all the time.” He glanced at the rink below, then back at her. “A few years ago, I was fat. I got really tired of wearing a size forty-six, so I decided to change my life. I work hard on my body. So why not show it off?”
    “Because sometimes less is better,” she answered. As in showing less skin, and she should know. “And sometimes loose is more flattering.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe, but everything you wear is so loose it looks like you’re trying to hide something under your clothes.”
    Faith looked down at her black turtleneck and black pants. Before Virgil, she’d worn tight clotheswith cutouts over her cleavage. She’d gone from one extreme to the other to try and fit into his world. Now, she no longer fit in either.
    “But I guess it doesn’t matter what you wear. You’re beautiful and don’t have to worry about it. Sometimes I worry that some guy is going to think I’m your bodyguard and try and start something with me.”
    Faith figured Jules was being weird and just a tad dramatic. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. You might dress like you’re experiencing some kind of metrosexual meltdown, but I need to keep you around. Plus,” she said through a smile, “your hair’s bangin’ .”
    He looked at her a moment as “Are You Ready To Rock?” blasted from the arena speakers. “That’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen out of you,” he said.
    “I smile all the time.”
    He raised his beer. “Yes, but you don’t mean it.”
    Faith turned her attention to the sports timer and the action below. Long before she’d met Virgil, she’d learned to smile when she didn’t mean it. Long before she’d stepped her first acrylic heel onstage and transformed herself into Layla, she’d learned to mask her true feelings with a smile. Life was sometimes easier that way.
    But life had a weird way of throwing curveballs, or curved pucks, rather. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d someday own a hockey team. It would never have even occurred to her in a wild fantasy, but here she was, watching her team shoot pucks and throw punches. She wondered what they were going to think when she boarded the jet with them tomorrow.
     
    The next morning she found out as she followed Coach Nystrom into the BAC-111. She couldn’t see beyond his wide shoulders, but a low hum of male voices filled the forty-passenger craft. It was seven thirty, and they were still keyed up from their win against the Sharks the night before.
    From the back of the plane, someone complained loud enough for everyone to hear, “The son of a bitch tried to shove his stick up my ass.”
    “Wouldn’t be the first time you walked around with a stick up your ass,” someone else said. This triggered a lot of deep manly laughter followed by numerous “up your ass” commentaries and speculations.
    “Listen up,” Coach Nystrom said from the front of the plane. “Mrs. Duffy is traveling with us to San Jose.” As if someone pushed a PAUSE button, all laughter and butt jokes abruptly stopped. “So keep it clean.”
    The coach took his seat and Faith was suddenly the focus of several dozen startled male