It Wasn't Just a One-Night Stand

I held up my voice recorder and squeezed my way into the team's media room.

Forty camera lights blinked on at once. Forty microphones pressed in around him, and he hadn't answered a single question.

I tried to step forward, but a press officer blocked me immediately. "The Crease? Ma'am, we don't take questions from bloggers."

Somewhere in the corner, someone laughed.

"Let her ask. What kind of question is a dying website going to come up with?"

The mockery swept through the room like a wave.

Nova took his time pressing a bandage over his bleeding brow, then looked up past everyone and found me.

The indifference in his eyes was nothing like the heat of that night.

It hit me then. In six years, I'd lost eighty pounds. I was no longer that girl who'd nursed a secret crush on him.

That night had been nothing but an accident.

And the man he was now probably didn't remember me at all.

I let out a breath, gripped my voice recorder, and stepped forward.

"Mr. Nova, how do you respond to being photographed entering and leaving a nightclub with two women last week?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Nova's brow furrowing, but he made no move to answer.

The press officer couldn't hold back. "Is this the caliber of journalism at The Crease? Nova just took home the MVP award, and all you care about is tabloid gossip?"

"Ma'am, the team reserves the right to sue you for defamation."

I looked at Nova through the crowd and dipped my head. "My apologies. That was out of line."

With that, I turned and walked out of the media room.

My phone was buzzing nonstop in my bag. I sprinted to the parking lot and didn't pull it out until I'd made sure no one was around.

It was Claire.

"I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"Maggie, listen to me." Claire's voice was barely above a whisper. "The board signed off this afternoon. The Charles Aldridge Foundation earmarked funding for The Crease, on one condition: Sienna starts tomorrow as a special correspondent. The boss gave her Nova's file too."

"I fought for you. All the boss would agree to is this: whoever lands the exclusive first, stays."

Sienna Aldridge.

Six years later, the name that had haunted my entire student life rose again like a nightmare.

The Zamboni nickname came from her.

Back then, I was the beat reporter for Ashbury's hockey team. Medication for an illness had ballooned me up to two hundred pounds.

And because my father, Patrick Quinn, drove the Zamboni at the rink, they gave me that revolting nickname.

I thought time would bury all of it.

But the moment those same people reappeared in my life, I realized how foolish that hope had been.

I leaned against the cold metal of my car, helplessness threatening to swallow me. "How could she..."

"Because she's an Aldridge, and you're just the poor scholarship kid her family sponsored." Claire went quiet. Several minutes passed before she spoke again. "There's something else. Diane was rushed to the ER again this morning. The clinic says the dialysis bills can't wait any longer."

Only then did I notice six missed calls from the dialysis center.

"Maggie?" Claire said tentatively.

I wiped at my eyes. "I'll get Nova's exclusive. I'll find a way."

After hanging up, I searched online as I walked, looking for places Nova frequented so I could stake him out.

I'd barely reached the parking lot exit when a black SUV pulled up at the curb and the window rolled down.

"Maggie." A man in a suit held out a card. "I'm Nova's agent. Head to the training center. The back door will be open for you."

"Why would I go?"

He extended the card another half inch. "Because he's offering you something no one in the league has gotten in six years."