I’d always known there were other women—I would have been a fool not to—but I’d convinced myself that if I was overly accommodating that, eventually, he would see that I was the devoted woman he needed by his side as he navigated the ups and downs of his professional career.
That day never came.
Instead, I’d grown tired of waiting for him and taken matters into my own hands.
A few months ago, I told him I was old enough to know what I wanted for my life and that he was it. I wasn’t asking for a ring or anything, but I wanted to be the only woman he was seeing.
I’d asked Nix for exclusivity, and he dropped me like a hot potato.
In hindsight, I should have seen it coming. But I‘d been blinded by the off-the-charts hot sex we had when he did call me up to come over.
He might have been an asshole, but Nix knew how to fuck.
Yeah, probably because he was banging his way through North America.
Sighing, I focused on the highway, hoping the monotonous landscape would allow my mind to veg out and shut off for a while.
But apparently, even that was too much to ask.
My path to Nix could be traced back to a single day—the day my dad took me to my first-ever hockey game.
When I was ten, Dad finally splurged on season tickets for the Connecticut Comets, our hometown team. That meant he had two seats at every home game they played in Hartford.
Most of the time, he would take old buddies from high school or coworkers, but one night, he didn’t have anyone to fill that second seat and Mom suggested he take me along.
I grew up as the only child of a sports-obsessed man, knowing that there was a small piece of him that wished I’d been born a boy. I was sure he’d had big dreams of sharing moments at games with a son instead of a girly girl who loved pretending to be a fashionista.
But he took me to that game anyway, and it sealed my fate.
Dad went all out, buying me a Comets jersey and every snack imaginable once we entered the arena. When we got to our seats, he urged me to take the steps down to the glass, where other kids were huddled holding signs up as the players took the ice for what he explained was their warm-up.
With my nose pressed against the glass, I stared in awe at the giant men gliding across the slick surface like it was no big deal, like it was as easy as walking. I was mesmerized. It was beautiful, like poetry in motion.
Then, one of the players approached the congregated kids and they all began screaming, begging for a puck, a stick, or a selfie. Honestly, they wanted anything that the player was willing to give.
I will never forget how his whiskey-colored eyes locked on mine. He pointed at me with a gloved hand before flipping a puck over the glass and into my hands. Shocked that he’d singledmeout—a girl, no less—I stared down at the black rubber disc before peeking back at him. Long black hair fell across his forehead without a helmet on, and a crooked smile curved on his lips before he winked at me and skated off.
That player turned out to be a twenty-year-old Jaxon Slate, the very young, fresh-faced captain of the Comets, who was expected to be the franchise’s salvation after a decade of losing records. And instantly, he became my first-ever crush.
From that day forward, dark-haired hockey boys were it for me.
I begged my dad to take me to more games, wanting to learn everything about the sport. Dad soaked it in, glad to have a partner to share his obsession with.
Jaxon might have been my first player crush—and the one I held onto the longest, pining for him from the ages of ten to sixteen—but he wasn’t the last. Grudgingly, I had to admit to myself that Jaxon was too old for me, and as soon as my boobs came in, I began trolling the local rinks during high school hockey games.
I wasn’t the only amateur puck bunny in attendance, but I had a leg up on most of my competition. Not only did I know the sport inside and out and could talk hockey with the boys, but I had a secret weapon—red hair. I stood out in the crowd, catching the eye of players from where I stood along the glass during games. Nothing beat hearing the rumbles between them, wondering who the cute redhead was.
High school brought me a few hockey boyfriends, but nothing serious. Then came college, where I decided to stay local and attend Connecticut Central. They didn’t have the best hockey team in the area, so I often hopped over to Hartford State, where they had a kickass team, and I dated a few guys who played there.
Still attending Comets games with Dad as often as I could, I caught the eye of Nix during warm-ups one day. I knew I was too old for it, but I still found myself pressed against the glass with the kids. It was habit by that point.
Nix saw me standing there—my red hair acting like a beacon as it always did—and skated toward the glass. With a grin, he breathed on the clear surface, creating a foggy patch before removing a glove and writing his phone number through it with a finger. Stunned, I stared as he winked, giving me acall megesture, and skated off.
That was the start of it all.
I thought I’d done it, snagged a professional player, and I was only twenty then.
By that point, my first crush, Jaxon, had settled down and was happily married with kids, and I watched on with a new longing. He and his beautiful wife, Natalie, along with their children, became the first family of hockey, practically American hockey royalty. I coveted their life, their love.
