Authors: Toni Aleo
Bad.
Her decision to wear a brand new pair of black Kate Spade ankle boots on the night of the Assassins’ holiday party would haunt her for weeks. She wanted to look cute though ─ she knew she would be seeing a lot of customers and some of her friends, so she had to dress to impress. Wearing a high-waisted black pencil skirt with white lacy shirt, she knew she had done that.
Even if her feet were killing her; it was the price of fashion.
Fallon tried to walk lightly as she made her way around the bar to look over the crowd of 500 that had gathered at the Luther Arena to celebrate the New Year. The party was in full swing; not only was the crowd celebrating the New Year but also the run for the Stanley Cup. The Assassins were doing great from what Fallon was told, not that she cared.
Those days were over.
All Fallon cared about now was that the sponsorship was perfect between Rocky Top Wines and the Assassins. For the most part it was. Rocky Top Wines had its own level in the Luther Arena AND a restaurant. But what Fallon
really
wanted was a cellar in the arena, somewhere customers could pick up a bottle of their favorite wine for the after party at home. It was her dream, and she was working hard to make it a reality.
Fallon slowly leaned against the bar, sipping on her own glass of the company’s Chenin Blanc. It was one of her favorites, going down smoothly as she took in the scenery of the arena. The team colors, purple and black, covered every inch of the arena. People moved around her, buying bottles and getting refills of their favorite wines as Fallon watched and answered any questions anyone had.
God, she loved her job. Being surrounded by wine all the time?
Who could ask for more?
A smile broke across Fallon’s face when she spotted one of her dearest friends. Of course, Elli Adler was dressed to impress in her floor length black sparkly dress. Her beautiful brown hair was in an intricate updo and her makeup was done up to the nines. No one would ever be able to tell that Elli had just had a baby two months ago. No matter how many times Fallon told her that, Elli still didn’t believe it but it was true. Elli was beautiful. She was also the team’s newest owner, which made her the center of attention that night. Elli wore a full smile as she wrapped her arms around Fallon, hugging her tightly.
“Now I know you’ve been here at least an hour! Why am I just now seeing you?” Fallon teased as Elli rolled her eyes.
“You know I gotta go around sucking up to people! You become the darn owner and everyone wants a piece of you!” Elli said as she talked with her hands, “Plus, why am I gonna come on over here to my favorite wine bar when I can’t drink?” Elli asked with an annoyed look.
They both shared a laugh at that. If Shea Adler, the Assassins’ captain, had his way, he probably would. “Well the good thing is that your kids will be like me and my sister. We are 10 months apart and the bestest of friends.”
“Yay.”
Fallon laughed as Elli just looked over at the wines longingly. “Oh come on, I know you’re excited.”
A small sweet smile went over Elli’s face as she said, “I am, but it’s gonna suck the next couple months with him being gone all the time.”
“I thought he was quittin’.”
“He said he will when this baby is born, but I know he won’t. He loves it too much and who am I to ask him to quit?”
Fallon was green with envy as she listened to Elli talk about her perfect relationship with her hunky, gorgeous husband and perfect baby girl with another on the way. Fallon couldn’t be happier for Elli. She loved Shea and baby Shelli, but Fallon wanted it all.
“Great, Shea will be on a break,” Elli said with a grin. She still got that dreamy look to her when she talked about her husband. It was expected though; they had only been married for 10 months.
“Good luck with that,” Elli said with a laugh before a pair of arms came around her. They both looked up to see Elli’s gorgeous husband smiling down at them.
They shared a laugh before Fallon took a drink of her wine. She loved hanging with Elli and Shea, they were so cute and perfect together. Even if their love made her want to puke, she still loved them.
Elli giggled as Shea smiled, then Elli said, “You sure are babe! Oh Shea, there’s Ricky Owen. Hey, excuse us Fallon, I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Sure, great seeing y’all,” Fallon said. She watched as they walked away, hand in hand, with big smiles on their faces. They were so stinkin’ happy, it was sickening. But then she thought of what they had to do to get to where they were, and she couldn’t help but be happy for them.
What could she say; she was a sucker for love.
Fallon stood for a little while longer before she starting noticing guys checking her out. Since dating was the last thing on her mind, she took that as her cue to start working the room. She grabbed a bottle of the Rocky Top’s Big Orange Cabernet Sauvignon and started towards the crowd.
Fallon always walked with confidence ─ she had to or no one would buy from her. She knew what she had with her products and knew that with only one taste anyone would fall in love with Rocky Top’s wine. It was
that
good.
It had been in the family for over 80 years; there wasn’t a moment from Fallon’s childhood were she didn’t remember being in the fields, picking grapes to eat. She grew up with dirty feet and grape-stained clothes. She loved it, she lived it, and now that Fallon ran the PR department, it was finally getting to the level it needed to be. Rocky Top needed to be at the top and if Fallon had anything to do with it, it would be.
After working the room handing out business cards and vouchers for free bottles, Fallon spotted Elli standing with some older guy that had an empty glass. Since he looked like he had money, Fallon made her way towards him. She always liked to schmooze the big money guys ─ they always bought case after case for their companies. If Fallon got lucky, they usually hired them as the wine for their parties.
Which was always great for business.
“He has a bad rep. Money, booze, females, I don’t know,” the older guy said when Fallon reached the group. It was only Elli, Shea and the older guy, and Elli didn’t seem very happy.
“I’ll knock the damn chip off it for him if I need to, or hell maybe we’ll get Fallon to sophisticate him,” Elli said with a grin when she noticed that Fallon was just standing there staring at them. “Ricky Owen, Fallon Parker with Rocky Top Wine. She is one of our biggest sponsors.”
“Who?” Fallon asked totally ignoring Ricky’s hand, and hoping like hell that there was another Brooks in the NHL that fought a lot.
Because she only knew one…
“You probably don’t know him, Lucas Brooks? He was just traded in from the Sharks.”
Fallon wasn’t sure how the bottle of wine slipped from her hands, but the next thing she knew it was in pieces around her beautiful boots. Cabernet Sauvignon was everywhere, and Fallon’s face was beet red as she tried to catch her breath. Everyone looked down in shock before looking back up at Fallon’s stunned face.
Great, that was just
fucking
great.
**********************************
“You know back in the day, we would be hung over instead of moving into a new house on New Year’s Day.”
Lucas Brooks looked over at Levi Moss, his best friend, and laughed as he nodded in agreement. Levi was right – five years ago, they both would still be face down in their own puke or in some female’s breasts on New Year’s Day, not moving into their new house.
“You’re right, but I would probably be broke and without a job too,” Lucas added.
“True, very true indeed,” Levi said as he nodded his head.
Lucas smiled as he piled the boxes by the stairs that needed to go upstairs. The new house he had bought was huge. He had asked for a simple home and got this — nine bedrooms, six baths, two dens, and to top it off there was an ice rink on the lower level. Lucas had to admit that was the best part of the huge house, but still. It was too big for just him and Levi.
Lucas still couldn’t believe he was in Nashville, Tennessee. After living in San Jose for the past nine years, he couldn’t believe he had moved or even left the Sharks. He loved his team, he missed the guys and he had only been gone a week but moving to Nashville was much needed. Lucas needed a new set of faces and a new team, no matter how much he missed the guys. Lucas was getting into too much trouble in San Jose and if he wanted to stay sober, he had to leave where the temptation was.
And everything in San Jose was a big temptation.
Lucas knew the spots, he knew the women, he knew how to get in trouble and the past four years had been hell trying to be good, so he had to leave. He just had to. Thankfully, Levi supported him, uprooted his life, and followed Lucas to Nashville with no question at all. Lucas figured that Levi knew they had to get out of San Jose or he was gonna relapse. Lucas’ mom was happy too ─ he was only eight hours from his home town of Eaton Rapids, Michigan now, and that made Molly Brooks a very happy woman.
So all around, moving to Nashville was going to be great as long as he got along with his team. Lucas had played the Assassins many times and hated playing their defense. They were intense, hard-hitting assholes, and a game didn’t happen without him fighting someone from that team.
Now he was going to play with them.
Yay.
After taking all 14 boxes up to his room, Lucas looked around the room that was his and nodded his head. The home decorator, Beth, had done a great job with giving him what he wanted. He wasn’t sure about the colors he wanted, but after talking to Beth, she seemed to know what he wanted. She wanted to base his room off his eyes, so the walls were a perfect shade of gray, and the bedding was gray with black and white accent pillows. The headboard to the massive California king bed (something he couldn’t leave in California) was black and reached up to the ceiling. He had always liked big beds, and luckily the room was still massive even with the bed in it.
Along the walls, there were black and white portraits of him as a kid — him with his mom and dad, some of just his dad — and then a lot of him during his years playing hockey. His favorite picture was the one that was on the wall across from his bed — it was of him when he was four with his dad, James, on the first day he had ever played hockey. James’ face was bright with excitement and Lucas’ matched it — it was one of the best days of his life and he loved waking up to that picture.
Tearing himself from the picture that held so many memories, he looked over at the closet that held every stick he had ever played with and smiled. When Beth said ‘I’d be damned if there is going to be a room for your old sticks, I will think of something’ he didn’t even think twice about her statement. What else was she going to do with 46 sticks, but she had surprised him with the closet. After cutting and gluing each stick to the wall around his closet, he decided that Beth King was a pure genius and he couldn’t wait for his mom to see it.
Now all he had to do was unpack his personal stuff. He was doing just that when Levi came in with a box in his hand. Lucas didn’t pay any attention to him as he hung his clothes up until Levi said, “Please explain to me why you brought Fallon Parker’s stuff with us to Nashville?”
Lucas ignored him as he went back to hanging his clothes up. “I just don’t understand it. It’s been a billion years since she left. You haven’t seen her or talked to her. Why keep her things when we both know it still bothers you,” Levi asked.