Charming as Puck(31)

We’re in Arizona for an away game before we hit the road for the Canada circuit half of the week, and everything’s wrong.

Klein’s starting tonight.

We lost Wednesday night. I can’t stop a puck to save my life.

And I can’t get the image of Kami’s bruised knuckles out of my head.

Who’s she with right now? What’s she doing? Fuck, I should’ve called her cousin and warned her not to fucking dare set Kami up with any more losers. What’s her name again? Misty? Megan? Georgina?

“Bro, you need to get laid,” Jaeger says to me. “Take the edge off. Got a number last night. Don’t mind sharing if you want it.”

We’re all hanging out in Frey’s suite before practice this afternoon. Because of that whole royal thing, he travels with a bodyguard and gets upgraded.

Every time.

So every time, we invade his suite and play video games.

Except I’m not feeling like playing hockey on a PS4 today.

“Fuck the number,” Zeus says without taking his eyes off the screen where he’s skating circles around Jaeger. Seriously. They’re playing the Thrusters in the game, and their little cartoon figures are skating circles around each other. “I got a bucket full of charm. All I gotta do is lean out this window, and I’ll get you a whole room of women.”

Jaeger’s shaking his head. “Your wife know you talk like that?”

“She knows it’s the truth.”

“So very odd, she actually agrees with him,” Frey chimes in, looking up from his phone. Dude’s clearly getting baby pictures, because he keeps grinning that dorky grin, which is even bigger than his normal grin. “It’s astonishing.”

“Fuck this,” I mutter. “I’m hitting the weights.”

I’m not starting tonight.

Might as well.

Lavoie and Ares follow me to the executive gym in the hotel.

“Have you talked to her?” Lavoie asks.

I ignore him and head for the treadmill, because the puny weight machine isn’t going to cut it, especially if I want to be in peak shape by the time we face the Indies.

Not that I’ll be starting at this rate. Fuck, I hope Klein’s up for it. Their front line is killer.

Ares gets to the treadmill first and sits on it.

Lavoie hops on the other machine.

I grunt and head for the bike.

Ares grabs it and holds it in his lap on the treadmill.

Dude’s a fucking beast. And he’s pissing me off.

“You like her,” he says.

“What’d you do to fuck it up?” Lavoie asks.

I’m almost certain Ares knows as much as Felicity does, which isn’t the whole story, because I don’t even know the whole story.

All I know is, she hasn’t texted, she hasn’t called, and she’s been to my parents’ house every fucking day this week to visit the cow.

Always when I would obviously not be there.

She hasn’t acknowledged any of my apology gifts either.

This isn’t like Kami. She’s always overly polite. Sweeter than sweet tea. Nice to the point of pain.

Which means I’ve fucked up bad.

“She wants forever,” I tell them both, because I don’t know how else to explain this weird neverland I’m in with her. I want her. She wants me. But she doesn’t want me. And she won’t talk to me.

“So?” Lavoie says.

“I don’t do forever.”

They both stare at me, Ares still holding the bike while he sits on the treadmill.

“Would you get up and let me use that thing?”

“You like her,” he replies. Again.

“Do you know anyone who doesn’t like Kami?”

“You like her more,” he corrects.

Lavoie drops his hands between his knees. “You ever had a slump before?”

“Slump? This isn’t a fucking slump. It’s just…” Fuck.

I’m in a damn slump.

“Happened to me after my divorce,” Lavoie tells me. “Can’t fight it if you don’t face it.”

I look at Ares. He’s never had a slump in his life. Sat out half of last season with a sprained ankle, but he worked his ass off in PT to get back on the ice, and he was always there cheering the team on.

As much as Ares ever makes any noise.

“Love got Z too,” he says.

I blink.

Right.

Zeus got traded from Nashville to New York a little over a year ago. In the middle of a slump.

Right about the time he met his wife.

He almost quit the league for her, but she wouldn’t let him.

The idea of quitting the game makes me break out in a cold sweat. I’ve lived and breathed hockey since I strapped on my first pair of skates. I stepped in front of the net as goalie in a peewee league game at five, felt an immense safety that had been missing from my life, felt a power I was too young to understand but desperately needed, and I’ve never looked back.

Being on the ice, pads on, stick at the ready—this is what I do.

It’s what I am.

The ice has always been my first love.

It fucking saved me.

I’m not ready to give it up.

I shove Lavoie. “Maybe I’m getting old.”