Page 10 of A Shot at Love
How was she going to play this if Cam asked? Should she pretend like they didn’t know one another? Should she act like they were old friends? Or, and this would be the smartest option, just be honest and admit that they actually lived in the same building and had first encountered one another in the gym?
With her phone in hand, Jules flopped onto her bed and opened Instagram. She couldn’t keep herself from searching for Frankie Stevens and the first account that popped up was exactly the woman she was looking for because the feeling Jules got in her chest, the tug of undeniable attraction she got as she looked at the photos, was the same thing she'd felt when they'd crossed paths in the gym.
Frankie had over 100,000 followers, which didn’t surprise Jules in the slightest given the public nature of her new coaching job and the follower count was definitely bound to grow once the season officially began. Being one of two women in a male centric league gave you celebrity status.
Jules scrolled through the posts, finding herself smiling at the videos of Frankie doing drills, at the photos of her with the team coached to junior championships with, but it was the candid photos Frankie had posted of herself that made Jules smile the most.
Before she knew it, Jules had scrolled back four years on the timeline and as she tried to quickly scroll back to the top of the profile feed, she accidentally liked a photo posted three years earlier.
“Fuck,” she muttered, quickly unliking the post.
It was a lakeside photo of Frankie in a t-shirt and denim cutoff shorts standing on a dock with a golden hour sunset behind her. The caption “perfect summer vibes at the cottage with friends but always missing the ice” accompanied the photo and damn did Frankie look good.
Her toned legs from her consistent years of heavy skating and her strong arms were drool worthy and maybe if it were a recent post, Jules liking it wouldn’t be so bad but something from three years earlier? Howembarrassing. Surely having hundreds of thousands of followers meant Frankie wouldn’t even notice a one off notification of a random person liking an old photo…
With a dramatic sigh, Jules tossed her phone aside and closed her eyes. Tomorrow she was going to see the woman who had occupied more space in her mind over the last few days than she would admit. She wanted to see Frankie again, wanted to know her, but seeing her at the rink? Seeing her in her hockey element? That meant that Jules would no longer get to beher own personanymore when it came to Frankie.
She was going to be Cameron Clarke's sister and for most of her life, that was the only person she'd ever gotten to be. The disappointment she felt in that weighed heavily on her and she reached for a pillow, burying her face in it.
Chapter 7
“You really made them bag skate?” Elliot asked from where he was perched on his desk in the office he and Frankie shared.
One of the other assistant coaches for the Halifax Harbour, Elliot was on the younger side just like Frankie was but he was talented with one full season spent working with another team under his belt.
“Absolutely. I told them if they didn’t focus and pay attention to my drills, which they didn’t because I basically had to spell it out to a pair of blue liners, that I’d make them suffer,” Frankie said. She shrugged and leaned back in her chair with a smirk. “And suffer they did.”
“Damn, Stevens. You’re bold, I’ll give you that.”
“Hey, they need to respect me and if making them bag skate until they puke proves that Imeanwhat I say, then it’s worth it to me. I already know they don’t push themselves as hard when I'm with them as they do with Neil and I don’t appreciate it.”
Elliot raised his hands in surrender. “Fair enough, Coach. I support your decisions and I’d be shivering in my skates if I was ever on the other end of one of yourdon’t piss me offstares.”
Frankie laughed and tossed a crumpled up piece of paper at him. “I can give you one of those stares anytime, bud. Watch your back.”
“You scare me, Stevens. You really do.”
There was a rap of knuckles on the open door of their office and Frankie looked up to find Cameron Clarke standing in the doorway dressed in his gym clothes. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled at her.
“What can we do for you, Clarke?” Elliot asked as he hopped off his desk then walked around it and slid into his leather desk chair.
Cam looked between them and waved him off. “Nothing major, just wanted to say that my sister Juliette is popping by for a visit and a tour of the training rink today. She was supposed to be here earlier to watch the skate but apparently the elevator in our condo building crapped out on her and she was stuck in it for like 45 minutes.”
Frankie grimaced. The building she lived in had apparently been dealing with some similar issues but luckily she hadn’t experienced any herself yet. “Yikes, that’s rough, but I look forward to meeting her.
“Just remind her that taking photos and videos is prohibited, okay?” Elliot jumped in to say. “Training camp is a pretty hush hush thing but I know I don’t need to tell you twice.”
“No problem,” Cam said, giving a thumbs up. “She’s been around hockey her whole life. She’s followed me to every team I’ve played for so she’s super familiar with how it works and to be honest, sometimes I think she knows more about all of this than I do.”
“She probably does,” Frankie said with a laugh. “A woman after my own heart.”
An hour later, Frankie was in the viewing room getting some film ready for a small group of players to watch when she heard distant voices in the hallway outside the room. The sound grew louder as whoever was wandering the hallsgrew closer and she threw a glance over her shoulder just as Cam walked into the room with his…
Jules.
Her Jules.
Well, not HER Jules but…the Jules she knew. Kind of.
