“Shockingly, we don’t talk hockey, like ever. Anything I know is from what I’ve seen. He’s sort of closed off when it comes to the job. When he’s home, he asks me how school is going and talks to me about the future. That’s about it.”
Sounds pretty sad.
“But he’s never really been a talker,” she adds, probably to make him seem like less of an ass.
She doesn’t need to pretend. I know the type of man he is. One sneer will make any private part shrivel up.
“Not much of a talker? You don’t say,” I joke, which makes her smile.
“Yeah, he’s always kept to himself.” The elevator doors open, and we head down the hallway, but I stop right before the locker room to keep talking to her.
“Was he like that when you were growing up too?”
“Yes,” she answers. “He never talks about my mom, ever. He acts like she doesn’t even exist. He doesn’t talk about his feelings. Doesn’t talk about the wins or the losses. After you guys won everything last year and I congratulated him, he just nodded and kissed the top of my head. That night, we had dinner in front of the TV and watched Miracle. It’s the one movie we’ve both loved over time. I tried to get him into The Mighty Ducks franchise, but he wasn’t having any of it.”
“What?” I ask, shocked. “Not a fan of Gordon Bombay?”
“Not even a little. Nor was he a fan of the flying V.”
“Oh bullshit,” I say. “We have a very similar play to the flying V. Maybe he’s a secret fan, and you don’t know it. He doesn’t want to tell you out of fear of people thinking he’s copying Gordon.” I take a sip of my protein smoothie, enjoying the chocolate peanut butter flavor that floats over my tongue. So fucking good.
“Ooo, you know, I never thought about that,” she says. “What if he’s a secret fan? Perhaps he has an homage to him in his closet, behind some coats. After blessing his underwear, he says a prayer to the great Bombay before taking off.”
I let out a loud laugh. “Fuck, that would be amazing.” I take another sip of my smoothie. “Thanks for this, by the way. I know you were out late last night and the last thing you wanted to do was grab me something else for breakfast. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course.” She smiles that beautiful smile up at me. “That’s why I’m here.”
And then she leans against the wall, staring up at me, those stunning eyes sucking me in, making me want to reach out and touch her face, stroke her cheek, pull her in close.
If things were different and she met me in my kitchen, I would have scooped her up and carried her to the couch.
I would have held her and played with her hair while I talked to her about the day ahead.
She would have laughed at some joke I said.
I would have kissed the tip of her nose.
And then, when I slid my hand under her shirt, she would have—
“Posey!” Coach Wood yells from down the hallway, puckering my balls into a sunflower seed.
Jesus Christ.
I turn just in time to catch the fury in his eyes. “Yes, hey, hello. Howdy, uh . . . what’s up, Coach?” I try to act as casual as possible despite just daydreaming about his daughter.
“What the hell are you doing? Get in the locker room.”
“Right, yup, just finishing up some tasks over here.” I turn back to Wylie. “So get that stain out. Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” She smirks. “Good luck tonight. I’ll be watching.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.” I swallow hard, feeling Coach Wood staring me down. “Okay. Bye.”
I move away from her and head into the locker room where Coach Wood stands, staring me down. I offer him a nervous smile and scoot past him, clenching my ass the entire time.
Yup, having a great fucking time.
“Heardyou made your new assistant fetch you a smoothie this morning,” Pacey says as he pulls his socks up. “You really going to be that boss?”
I look over at Halsey, who’s happily in his own little world, texting Blakely, I assume. So now he’s just going to tell everyone my business, then not participate in the discussion?
He’s changed, and I’m not sure I like it.
“It’s called helping your employee fulfill their job responsibilities.”
“It’s called being a douche,” Silas says. “Get your own damn smoothie, man.”
“She wants stuff to do.” I will defend myself here. “There’s nothing wrong with giving her tasks so she feels like she’s aiding in the success of my life.”
“Is that how you’re really going to put it?” Eli says. “The success of your life?”
“I think it has a nice ring,” OC says.
All the boys turn toward OC, who sheepishly picks up his socks and puts them on.
“Dude, just tell us what the hell is going on with Grace so we don’t have to watch you pathetically suck up to Posey all the time,” Silas says. “You’re starting to lose our respect.”
“Don’t listen to them,” I say to OC. “You just write up that synopsis for me, and we’ll figure out what to do. Trust me when I say these morons have no idea how to handle a budding relationship.”
“Not this again,” Eli says with a groan. “If you’re so good, then why the fuck aren’t you with someone?”
“Great point,” Pacey says. “Explain to us why you aren’t the master of your own heart.”
Silas presses his palm to his chest. “That’s a nice way to put it, man.”
Pacey nods. “Thanks, it felt like it had a nice ring to it. Something in one of Halsey’s books.”
Halsey doesn’t even look up from his phone, where he’s smiling largely now.
I can see that the honeymoon phase hasn’t passed yet.
“I don’t even think he’s been with anyone in a while,” Silas adds. “I haven’t seen Posey with a girl in, I don’t know . . . a few months.”
“Unless he’s been hooking up at home,” Eli says.
Pacey shakes his head. “No, you can always tell when Posey is backed up. He gets this tic in his jaw whenever he sees us around our girls.”
My jaw ticks right at that moment, and Eli points it out. “You mean that tic right there, where it pops out like a heartbeat?”
“That exact one,” Pacey says.
“Can you stop looking at my jaw, you perverts,” I say. “Staring at a man’s jaw is like staring at a pair of tits, and I don’t appreciate the ogling.” I press both of my hands to my jaw.
“Not the same thing.” Eli shakes his head.
“Not even a little,” Silas adds.
“Not even close.”
OC holds up his finger. “You know, I actually think a man’s jaw—”
“Shut up,” Silas, Pacey, and Eli say at the same time, and OC clams right up.
I turn to him and say, “Don’t let them treat you like that. You go ahead and compliment me. I’ll be sure to add it to the running tally of reasons I like you and why I’ll help you with your love life.”
“Jesus Christ,” Silas says on a groan. “Yeah, have fun, OC, working with a real wizard. The guy has zero credentials. No love of his own. No girlfriend. Not even a recent one-night stand.”
“You don’t fucking know that,” I shout, losing my cool. We can thank the makeup-free face of Wylie Wood this morning for that and the restricted access to her.
“From the sounds of the outburst,” Pacey says, “we do.”
“Seems odd, though,” Eli says. “Being that he’s the guy who always has a girl with him, even secretly. What has changed?”
I look over at Silas, who now studies me, his hand to his chin. “You know, ever since last year, it seems like he’s paid more attention to us and less attention to himself, and then there was that girl he was crushing on that OC told us about.”
“I, uh . . . I was lying,” OC says. “I didn’t say anything. I was drunk. Medicated. Mistaken. Anything you heard from me was a fabrication.”
Silas just rolls his eyes and looks back at me. “He’s hiding something. All of this tension, all of this backup, it has to do with that girl.” I look down at my skates, and that’s all Silas needs. He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. He’s going through girl troubles, and he won’t tell us.”
“Is he really?” Pacey asks.
“That can’t be right,” Eli says while bending at the waist to try to look me in the eyes. “Are you having girl troubles?”
“No,” I growl as I stand. “I’m not having girl troubles. I’m having . . . fuck, I’m having bologna withdrawals.” I grip my hair, ready to lie right through my teeth because I can’t fathom telling them anything else. “I’m trying to quit cold turkey because Grace said it wasn’t good for me. So yeah, I’m crushing. You’re right. I’m crushing hard on lady bologna, so if you all don’t mind, I’d prefer for you to leave me the fuck alone so I can deal with my anxiety and heartache in private.”
With that, I stomp toward the bathroom, locking myself in a stall and leaving the tension, anger, irritation, and frustration to bottle up in my shoulders.
It’s not going to be a good game tonight.
I know it already.
Sending well wishes to the opposing players . . .
“You seem tense,”Eli says over the roar of the crowd while I squirt some water into my mouth.
“Not tense,” I reply, eyeing Vladmir Popov out on the ice. He’s been fucking with me all night, and when our line is called in, I’m going to do something about it.
“Uh-huh. You have a snarl in your lip. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say as I slam my water down and grip my stick tightly.
“Yeah, I’m not going to take that as a response. What’s going on?”
“Dude, we’re in the middle of a fucking game. This isn’t a therapy session,” I snap, just waiting for the moment we’re called out on the ice.
“Yeah, and I’m afraid you’ll do something stupid if we don’t discuss it.”
“I’m not going to do something—”
“Change it up,” Coach Wood yells, and I’m off the bench and out on the ice in seconds. I spot Vladmir, who has the puck, and I charge after him with one thing on my mind.
Slamming him into the boards.
I sprint toward him, only hearing Eli briefly in the background, and with his back toward me, I slam into Vladmir, sending him right into the boards and freeing the puck to toss it down to Holmes.
“Fuck,” Vladmir shouts as he pushes off the plexiglass and then turns toward me. Immediately, he drops his stick, wraps his arm around my neck, and starts punching me in the ribs.
Perfect. Just what I wanted.
A way to release my frustration.
The crowd erupts, and whistles are blown as I spin out of his grasp just enough to cock my arm back and clock him in the head, sending him down to the ice. I free my gloves, ready to take this further, when I’m grabbed from behind by one of my teammates, stopping me from getting out the rest of my aggression and pent-up irritation.
I’m sent straight to the penalty box with a five-minute penalty, leaving the team short-handed, but thankfully, Vladmir is serving as well because he started the fight.
“Think you needed that therapy session,” Eli says as he skates past.
Yeah, maybe, but at least I got one good punch in before it was broken up.