So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(48)

Pride at the pleasure he had brought her puffed him up, fueled by the knowledge she had gone to bat for him to plead his case. Having Isobel in his corner invigorated him. Made him feel anything was possible. He hoped she didn’t think there was an ulterior motive to his seduction of her. Although, looking back, he would say Isobel had seduced him.

Completely.

Once the game started, all thoughts of Isobel fled his brain. In the months since he had last played competitively, the pace appeared to have increased. More likely, it was Vadim’s need to adjust. Blink and the game moved on. Hesitate and your mark left you behind.

By the end of the first period, he was sweating buckets and had barely touched the puck.



“Vad, you dill-hole, hit the damn puck!”

Vadim’s sister, Mia, pounded the glass of the visitors’ box at the Spartans’ arena and let out a groan. For the last ten minutes of the first period, she had spent most of her time on her feet and all her speech haranguing her brother.

Harper and Isobel shared a smile.

“I think you’re scaring Gordie Howe,” Isobel said. She wasn’t, because the pom, currently sitting in Harper’s lap, looked right at home. Dogs were normally verboten in hockey arenas, but the pup was certified as a therapy dog because of Mia’s prior illness.

Mia turned around and took the dog from Harper’s arms. “Come on, Gordie Howe, time to see how your uncle is playing.” She caught the eyes of the adults, including an amused Dante. “I’m sorry. I just get so excited when I see him play, and with him spending so much time on the bench last season, I freak out. He really should be playing better than this, shouldn’t he?”

Yes, he should. Vadim looked slow out there, a step behind everyone else. Isobel could have watched from the sidelines but she didn’t want him to feel awkward. Or perhaps she was more worried about how weird she would feel. How obvious her desire would play on her face. She may as well have well-fucked tattooed on her forehead and a Vadim Petrov wuz ’ere sign pinned over her jeans zipper.

You’re his coach, Chase. Time to defend her player and her methods to the Rebels’ management.

“He’s a little rusty. Practice is all well and good, but nothing substitutes for actual game play. He just needs to get his ice legs under him.”

Mia looked unconvinced, especially as Vadim was immediately dispossessed of the puck for the third time in the last five minutes. The end of the period couldn’t come soon enough.

Had Isobel let her attraction for Vadim influence her decision to sign off on him? So far, he wasn’t displaying the sharp skills and canny moves she’d come to expect. He looked awkward playing on the left wing, which was supposed to be his natural fit. She wouldn’t be surprised if Coach Calhoun pulled him for good.

With the end of the period, Mia stood. “Time to go pee-pee!”

Dante raised an eyebrow at Isobel.

“She means the dog.” And then to Mia, “Right?”

“Yeah, I do. He has a bladder the size of a pea.”

Her phone rang, and her face crumpled. “Oh, I have to take this. Could you—do you mind—” She dropped Gordie Howe in Dante’s lap, then left in a gust of wind.

Dante stared at the dog, then shifted so he was more settled in his lap. The pom gazed adoringly at all that Italian pretty and unmistakably preened.

“Vadim will improve,” Isobel said defensively before Dante could light into her.

Their GM gave a rare smile. “I know. I just think we should have second-or third-lined him for this game. At least we’re still scoreless.”

“Yeah, Burnett’s playing a barn burner,” Harper said. “Some great blocks in that last five. Thank God he stayed.”

“He wanted to leave?” Dante asked with surprising sharpness.

Harper nodded. “The possibility of a trade was floated a couple of weeks before the deadline, but I spoke to Cade and it seemed like it was coming from his agent more than him. He’s so young that I think he’s susceptible to suggestion.”

Cade Burnett was only twenty-three and had been with the Rebels for two years. Isobel saw that in hockey a lot—players looking for fast results, disappointed that it wasn’t all happening immediately.

Dante was off in some weird headspace, his gaze focused on the empty ice, his hand rubbing through Gordie Howe’s shiny coat.

“Don’t worry, Dante,” Isobel said. “Petrov will start playing better.” He had to.

“From your lips to the hockey gods’ ears.”

Someone up there must have been listening, because when the second period started, so did the miraculous return of Vadim Petrov to pro hockey glory. The turning point looked inauspicious: the Russian in a one-on-one situation with a defenseman, which usually meant the goalie had the advantage. Really a one-on-two. Typically the defenseman’s presence allowed the goaltender time to get to the top of the crease, and for most forwards, the opportunity was already dead because there was no opening. All you could see was the goalie crowding the net.

What did Vadim do? He changed the angle with a toe drag. Holding the puck at a distance outside his body, he then pulled it to his feet before taking the shot. Surprised by the release point, the goaltender had no time to react to the new angle and the Spartans’ D-man had no chance to deflect.

First blood drawn by the Rebels, courtesy of the mighty Vadim Petrov.