The party was scheduled for the following Saturday, and from the chatter last night, I guessed the whole town already knew. In a town this small, nothing stayed secret for very long.

I put Magnum on his "tree" and hit the showers. The water helped to obliterate my headache, but I was definitely moving a little slower than usual.

Stepping out of the shower, I swiped the steam from the mirror in order to shave my face, assessing the damage staring back at me. My skin was looking a little pale (but that could've been due to the fact that I didn't spend my days lounging around in the sun), and my normally green eyes were surrounded with red. I didn't think my odds were too hot that I'd find some Visine in the medicine cabinet. Now that it wasn't covered in stubble, the scar on my chin was more pronounced; a souvenir from one wicked pissa of a game back in my BC days when I took a biscuit to the face. Kept all my teeth, at least. And I guessed my hair was looking okay.

Decent hair, a clean-shaven jaw and teeth. That was about as good as it was going to get.

Sitting at my table with a bowl of French Toast Crunch, I attempted to slam down some breakfast. Magnum was perched on my shoulder, picking at the slices of apple next to my napkin when he wasn't bopping along with the stereo. He was uncharacteristically quiet until there was a knocking at my door.

"Knock knock! Knick knack! Sharona!" he screamed in my ear.

What the hell? The only way to my apartment was through the bar, and that was locked up until we opened for business. Felix must've been on fire or something, because he didn't normally bother me at home.

I answered the door to find Avery standing there, which pretty much knocked the wind right out of my gut. She took one look at me with my bird on my shoulder and busted up laughing. "Arrrrrggggh, matey! Where's your patch?"

"What are you doing here?" I managed to ask without much difficulty. Thankfully, her playful tone paved the way for an easy reunion, because I'd been a little worried about having to see her again.

"Helloooo. You get slammed into the wall one too many times? I just called to tell you I was coming over today."

"Yeah, but I thought you meant, like, later today."

"Sorry. I got anxious again."

"They have pills for that, you know."

Avery flipped the stopper and closed the door, locking it behind me as I carried in the last box from the van and plunked it on top of the bar. There were about a million more just like it stacked along two walls of my pool room, all the promotional stuff to give away at the event. I was going to have to go through them and put together a few care packages for my brothers as an apology. There was a good chance I wouldn't be able to get them into the party, and I wasn't looking forward to letting them down. I was thinking maybe some official NHL championship hats would serve as a peace offering.

We'd been screwing around all morning, busting chops and trying to one-up each other with the amount of stuff we could carry. Such a simple task shouldn't have been so entertaining, but it was.

Avery let out with a heavy breath and then bemoaned, "Oh my God! It's so hot out today! How are we supposed to focus on hockey when it's practically summer?"

You're telling me.

I swiped an arm across my forehead, wiping away the moisture that had materialized during our busywork in the scorching sun. At this rate, I was going to need a second shower. I took a look at Avery, who was flushed and out of breath from our box-transporting ordeal, her hairline damp with sweat. She looked hot. Maybe she needed a shower, too. Maybe we could take one together.

Apparently, I needed a cold one.

I shook the image from my brain as I made my way behind the bar. "How 'bout a drink? Water sound good?"

"Water sounds perfect. Thank you."

The bar wasn't set to open until twelve on Sundays, so I knew not to expect Scott for a few more minutes.

Which was good, because it gave me a little more time to be alone with Avery.

I'd have been grateful for the fact that she wasn't wearing one of those damned skirts again today, but she'd opted for a pair of stretchy pants instead. The frigging things outlined the perfect proportions of her sweet little ass, and I couldn't decide whether it was that or her legs that were causing me the greater agony.

Both. Definitely both.

Cut it out, Zac. Strictly professional, remember?

I grabbed us a couple bottles and took a seat on the stool next to hers. She cracked the cap and downed half her drink before letting out with a breathless, "Ahhh! Wow, I needed that."

I could use a bit of cooling down myself. I took a swig from my own drink, then rolled the bottle across my forehead, practically groaning with relief. When I opened my eyes, I saw Avery staring at me in a sidelong glance, her lips quirking in an almost imperceptible smirk.

"What?" I asked.

She shook her head and refocused her attentions on the bottle in her hands. "Nothing."

"What?" I asked again. "What's that look?"

"I said it was nothing."

"Ave, I know when there's something going on in that overactive brain of yours. You were definitely thinking more than 'nothing.' C'mon, spill it."

She huffed out a laugh. "Noooo. No, I'm not going there. Drop it, Zac."

"No."

"No?"

I gave out a sigh. "Look, Ave. I think today was a good turning point for us. I had fun working with you. You made unloading boxes fun. I know I said we should keep things strictly business, but I'd like us to be friends again. And we can't really do that when you've got this wall up between us. I know we didn't really end things so great all those years ago, but-"

"No. You're right. We didn't."

I was caught off guard by the tone of her voice. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. We didn't end things at all. You did. On that note, you can't really end something that never actually started."

I took a big inhale. Apparently, it was time to straighten some shit out. "We doing this?"

She was flipping the cap around her fingertips as she answered, "No."

That made me chuckle. "Look, Ave I wasn't exactly boyfriend material back then. I hope I never led you to believe otherwise." That was a lie. The truth was, I was more than ready to stop all the running around. Back then, sex in mass quantity was as much a part of my life as breathing. One night with her, and suddenly, I could give it all up. I wanted to.

"You didn't. I mean, not at first. I saw the way you were with those girls."

"I was an ass."

"Yeah, you were. But only because"

"What?"

She chucked the cap over the bar and into the garbage pail. "Two points!"

She was trying to avoid the topic but there was no way I was letting this go. "Stop changing the subject, Ave. It might be good for us to get all this out. You know, so we can start fresh."

The tension had been brewing between us since the first day she came walking back into my bar. We'd avoided talking about it, and all that served to do was blow up into a huge fight. The screaming match in my apartment the other night was every unsaid thing between us coming back to bite us in the ass. If we had any hope of moving forward, we had to first clear up the past.

She hesitated as she thought about it, staring out the wall of windows to the beach. Some families were already out there, setting up for the relaxing day ahead, not a care in the world. I kept quiet, letting Avery come to a resolution on her own. She must have arrived at one, because her posture straightened as she cleared her throat.

"Fine." She twisted sideways on her stool and bent her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. Her stubborn chin was resting on her knees, but her eyes seemed to be having some trouble meeting mine. "The thing is, I liked you a lot back then, okay? You were like a double-fudge sundae with arsenic sauce. Tempting, but dangerous."

"Also delicious."

"Zac, shut up and let me get through this."

I turned my stool to face her and rested an elbow on the bar. All ears.

"I know we only hooked up that night because I was drunk enough to instigate it and you were drunk enough not to protest."

That one kind of threw me. "You think that's why we finally hooked up?"

"Isn't it?"

"Sort of." All the drinking that night was how it happened, not why. "But it's not like I never wanted to before."

"You thought about it?" she asked, incredulously.

"All the fucking time." I huffed out a laugh at that. If she only knew how much I'd thought about it, she probably wouldn't believe me. "I just always thought you didn't want to, you know, friendzoning me and all."

She was silent for a moment before admitting, "I didn't want to. I made a huge point to keep you at arms' length because I didn't want to just be another" She shook her head before meeting my eyes. "I just thought it was safer not to get involved."

"Me too," I busted, raising my brows and shooting her a smirk.

She finally unclenched her pose and sat normally, facing me. "But I guess I couldn't stay away any longer. I finally caved. I was kind of crazy about you back then."

My mind started spinning. All these years, I always just assumed it was a one night thing. Yes, we were friends. Yes, we flirted incessantly. But the way things were left between us I never allowed myself to believe she felt anything more for me. "You were? But you never said anything."

"It was hard to get a word in edgewise with all those other girls in your face all the time."

It was easy to avoid having to confront how much I really liked her while I was so busy whoring around. I guess I couldn't really blame her for not seeing it. Hell, I didn't want her to see it.

I didn't want to see it.

"They didn't mean anything to me. You-" I stopped myself, afraid to admit how much she meant to me, how my whole world changed in an instant all those many years ago how I was forced to forget it only hours later. It wasn't too hard to move on once I was in a new place, Avery thousands of miles away. It wasn't too hard to convince myself that I'd been mistaken about how hard I'd fallen, that I was drunker than I actually was.

But having her sitting right there next to me, I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I couldn't lie to her. It would have been so much easier to say nothing, but instead, I went ahead and spilled my guts anyway. "You could've been the one to change that. You were the one to change that. That one night we had I really fell hard for you. Hell. I'd fallen for you long before that, but I never wanted to admit it to myself."

Her eyes went wide. Hopeful. Gorgeous. "You did?"

"Hell yeah."

"But it was only one night."

"It was more than one night, Ave." I shot her a knowing smirk at that. Our love affair had gone on for years before it ever got physical. "You gonna tell me you didn't feel it, too?"

"No. I did. I just admitted as much, didn't I?" She broke her gaze to pick at her nails. "But when you told me that night, I thought it was all a lie. Because then you left."

"I didn't leave. I got traded. The very next day."

"Right. I knew that. I guess I just figured you were in on the decision." She shrugged her shoulders and met my eyes again. The smile was back as she said, "You know, a simple explanation could have cleared everything up years ago. There were phones back then, right?"

"Yes, which I would have used if I wasn't so angry with you."

"Huh?"

I sighed heavily, running a hand over my hair. "I told you the other night. I thought you went running to Daddy and got me traded off the team."

Her mouth dropped open in shock. "You were serious about that? Why would I do such a thing?"

"I just figured you were having some fun with me. Once the fun was over, you realized what a mistake you'd made and had to get rid of me."

"Which you now realize is insane, yes?"

It wasn't easy to talk about, but seeing as I was the one who instigated this conversation, I knew it would be unfair to hold anything back. "Yes. But you have to remember, I wasn't used to girls liking me for anything more than" I let out a heavy breath and then just laid it out there. "But then when you I actually thought there was a chance you wanted more. When I 'figured out' you didn't, I was crushed, Ave. Honestly, I was genuinely hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, obviously. But even beyond that, getting traded turned out to be the worst thing that could've ever happened to me."

"You were a hockey player. It happens."

"No, I know. I'm not pouting about it. Players get traded all the time; I get that. It's just that in my case, it created this crazy domino effect. I was let go from my dream team, then a few months after I got shipped off to Texas, I busted up my knee. Career over."

I paused for a moment, letting my failed life hang in the space between us.

"I guess I blamed your father for all of it, and by association, you. Like, if I'd still been here in Jersey, the injury would never have happened."

Avery gnawed on her bottom lip, mulling over my revelation. "I can see why you'd feel that way. But Zac, you know he's not to blame, right? Or me, for that matter."

"I know it now."

We were silent as the conversation rolled around in our minds.

Avery repressed a smile as she said, "So much for strictly professional."

I chuckled, then used her own words against her. "Phones work both ways, you know."

"Oh, right," she huffed. "Like I was going to be the one to call you. I didn't think a womanizer like you would even remember my name the next day, a fact which was confirmed when I never heard from you again."

I looked at her in astonishment. I'd seen her angry, but that was the first time I'd ever seen her be cruel. Jesus. She really fucking hated me.

"Jesus. You really fucking hate me."

"I don't hate you. I feel sorry for you."