Breaking the Ice

Chapter 1- December 1995

PART ONE

AVERY

   "Avery, so help me God, I'm this close to punching you in the boobies. Stop arguing. We're going out tonight. I'll pick you up in an hour."

   I hung up the phone with my best friend Casey and then promptly flopped backwards onto my bed. I wasn't in any mood to go out that night, but then again, I wasn't much in the mood to go out any night.

   Especially not to Johnny's.

   The bar itself was cool enough. It's just that Johnny's was right down the street from the local hockey rink and was a known hangout for the players. It just so happened that our local hockey rink was the Brendan Byrne Arena and the players were the New Jersey Devils.

   My father was their General Manager, so I knew a bunch of those guys personally and was friends with a lot of them. Even the guys I didn't know too well seemed okay, but a select few were downright assholes. I guess the constant exposure to professional athletes desensitized me to the godlike status some people had bestowed upon them, because ultimately, they weren't different from any other guys as far as I was concerned.

   Every September, there was a Welcome Back dinner, a chance for all the players, coaches, and their families to get to know each other before the season officially started. It was normally held at some stuffy reception hall, a place where everyone could pretend to be normal, upstanding citizens. I'd missed the dinner this year because I had just reported to my campus, but I'd been to the meet-and-greet practically every year prior.

   After the formal dinner, all the guys would usually go out to Johnny's for a night on the town. Last year was the first time I'd ever joined them; Casey had some fake I.D.s made for us and we'd been sneaking into places ever since. Prior to that, I was always "The GM's daughter," one of the many team mascots who hadn't yet come of age. Once I turned eighteen, however, it was like I was being let into a secret club.

   The gentle giants I associated with at those civil family dinners turned into absolute lunatics on the ice and even bigger monsters in the bar. A casual night out almost always devolved into a raucous evening of free-flowing booze, exaggerated tales of glory, and all too eager hookups. It was fun for a while, but only one short year later, I was already growing tired of that scene.

   Don't get me wrong—the guys were essentially very respectful toward me. But seeing the way they were with any of the other girls was pretty disturbing. The women would typically lurk around the arena and always at the bar, hanging all over the players, some of whom were married. I'm not going to name names, here, but a few of those married guys were more than receptive to the women's attentions. It was a bit of a rude awakening; I babysat some of their kids, for godsakes.

   The rookies were positively the worst, though. They were all cocky and conceited, every last one of them. Treating the bar like it was their own personal buffet, thinking they were God's gift, having sex with anything that moved.

   I grew up around the game, basically breathing hockey from the day that I was born. I liked the sport well enough, but Casey was practically rabid with her fanaticism. I knew she'd been spending a lot of time at Johnny's lately, because her letters to me at school always talked about her adventures at the place. She'd recruited our mutual friend Dana for her missions while I was away, but I'd been there with her a bunch of times myself, if for no other reason than it was a fun place to hang out.

   And now she wanted to head there to play jersey-chaser.

   It was my first night home from college, on leave for Christmas break. I still had unpacking to do, and after a four-hour drive, I wasn't much in the mood to play wingwoman for my friend. I'd called Casey soon after I got in, under the mistaken delusion that she would be content to just come over and watch a movie or something. I was excited to see her, and I couldn't care less what we did so long as we were together. But it was Friday night, and she was not only astounded that I wanted to stay in, but insistent that we hit the bar. She wouldn't take no for an answer.