I didn't overthink it. I said yes. But I'd be lying if I said the responsibility doesn't sit heavily on me. The A means more than wearing a letter on your jersey. It means you represent the team. On the ice, in the locker room, and at events like this one.
You shake hands with sponsors and smile for photos. You make small talk with people whose names you'll forget by tomorrow.
None of it comes naturally. I'm not Cole or Liam. I don't have the words or the charm or the ease. But I wear the A, and that means I show up. So I show up.
Blake has drifted off to talk to Theo and his wife, Olivia, who are standing near one of the high tables. Theo is animated as always, his hands moving while he talks, Olivia laughing at whatever he's saying.
I'm alone at the bar, and it's the first time tonight I can breathe. I take a sip of my whiskey and turn to set the glass down, then someone sidles up to me. Her perfume tells me it’s a woman. From the corner of my eye, I catch the woman leaning against the bar, signaling the bartender.
“Vodka soda, please.”
I know the voice. I turn and look at her. Jasmine Bennett. Shock reverberates through me even though she gave me a heads-up that she would be here.
It’s been ten years, but looking at her now, it seems like no time has passed, and yet, she’s definitely changed. She looks nothing like the girl I left and everything like the woman I always knew she'd become.
Her hair is down, black waves falling past her shoulders. She's in a black jumpsuit with a gold belt cinched at her waist and gold earrings that are catching the light. Full lips, dark red lipstick. Heels that put her almost at my eye level.
She's looking at me with those dark brown eyes, and her expression is calm and composed.
She is the most beautiful woman in this room, but that’s nothing new—she always was.
“Logan,” she says and smiles.
“Jasmine.”
“You didn't text me back,” she says in a teasing tone, conveying that she didn’t take it personally.
“I didn't know what to say.”
“You could have started with hello.”
“Hello.”
She laughs and turns away as the bartender sets her vodka soda on the bar. “Hello.”
The event moves around us. Someone laughs near the window, and a waiter passes with a tray. Liam's voice cuts through the noise from across the room, telling a story that's making a group of executives double over. None of it touches us. We're in our own pocket of the room, and the rest of it has gone soft at the edges.
“So,” she says. “Ten years.”
“Ten years.”
Her gaze sweeps over me. “You look good.”
“You look—” I stop. Good doesn't cover it. Nothing I can say will cover it. “Different.”
Her head cocks to the side, the corner of her mouth curving with amusement. “Different how?”
“Grown up.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I was grown up at eighteen.”
“Yeah. You were.”
She takes a sip of her drink. “I hear you made alternate captain.”
I clear my throat to shove down the shock that she’s kept up with me. “Yeah. This year.”
“Congratulations. That's a big deal.”
