Delayed Penalty (Crossing the Line, #1)(23)

Taking a different route to work ends in an accident. Planning a vacation for years, only to die in a plane crash. A chance of a lifetime destroyed in that one split second when that year becomes different from the last.

But then there was the second chance, the swerve to miss the car coming into your lane, and you gain control, your adrenaline taking over and you're thankful for being alive. The choppy weather and turbulence stabilizes, and the plane rights itself. You're safe and you look out the window.

A deep breath, a second chance, and everything seems different and will because it's new, it's your chance.

Those who wanted that second chance got it. Those who didn't were left trying to either prove there was nothing wrong in the first place or ignore that it was even there.

Ami was living it.





Crashing the net – Players head with full steam to the front of the net into the goalie's space and into the goal. It can also be known as crashing the crease.




We had Friday off before we headed to Ohio to play the Blue Jackets again. That gave me a whole night to spend with Ami. I was avoiding my team; Leo kept calling, and my parents were asking all sorts of questions. It didn't matter. I seemed to have only one focus.

She was in her room again having just got back from another scan, her spirits the same as they were a few nights ago. Every time I walked into that room, her pretty, starry eyes lit up the same way, and it gave me a stabbing sensation in my heart every f*cking time. It didn't matter how long I was away, five minutes, five hours, five days, she acted as if I was the person she was waiting on to return, and when I did, everything about her lit up.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" she asked, as if she even had to ask. Earlier she had asked why I came back. I'd said to be with her. We were friends after all. She liked that and teased that I'd be trying to lie in bed with her next. Ami liked to tease, and f*ck if I didn't give it right back.

"I bet you I can fit in that bed with you," I said, teasing, putting a movie into the DVD player in her room. The lighting was low so I bumped my thigh into the bed when I moved around it to take a seat next to her. She laughed.

"Oh, I don't think so." Ami tried to mess with me and sprawled out in the bed, as if she could actually fill it. She was tiny. I wasn't sure how tall she was, but she looked no bigger than a little over five feet. "It's kind of small."

Challenge accepted. I stood, she smiled looking up at me, her lashes longer than ever. I thought she was going to say something, but she didn't.

I took her hands, moved one around my shoulder, and then situated her legs over mine so we could both fit in her bed. The touch was casual but intensely intimate at the same time. Our breathing told me so. I'd never felt a sensation quite like when her hand came to rest on my stomach. Her giggles filled the room, but then her hand slipped when she squirmed in my lap and went lower, just above the waistband of my jeans. Instant hard-on.

She felt it, too. There was no denying it. I tried to play it off, as did Ami, but the red in her cheeks told me she knew. "Okay, point taken." I was about to move when she grabbed my hand and forced me to stay there. "Two can fit in the bed."

Clearing my throat, my brow furrowed slightly, trying to decipher if she wanted me to move or not when she relaxed against me, her head on my shoulder. "Thank you, Evan. I really mean that, too. You're a pretty cool guy to keep coming back and checking on me. I know you've probably got shit to do."

"You gotta stop thanking me, Ami. I did it because it's what anyone would have done given the chance. And yeah, friends check on friends."

"Clearly not everyone would do the right thing, Evan," she said, motioning to the bandage on her head, "but I wasn't referring to saving me. I was referring to this…being with me in here…making me laugh."

"No problem." My eyes shifted to the table beside her bed, looking for the remote when I saw Detective Paulsen's business card there. "Was he here today?"

Ami looked at the card and then at me. "Yeah, he was asking questions about what I remember. I wish I could remember more, but I think it's probably a good thing. Looks like I got the crap beaten out of me." Another eye roll as if it annoyed her. "I hope I at least gave the guy a black eye or something."

"Still no memory?"

"Nope. The last thing I remember about the night was leaving the dance studio and then walking past Redfish. I don't even know where I was going. I had been staying with my dance instructor and his wife. I assumed maybe I was going to catch a cab. I don't know. I remember something he said to me."

"What?"

"He said, 'You want it, don't you? I bet you like it rough.'" Ami looked at me and took a deep breath. "I can see his eyes sometimes…they were dark, almost black."

My f*cking gut was in knots as I pictured the guys standing outside Redfish that night, wondering which one of those *s was the guy. I wanted to go back to that night and kick the shit out of all of them for either doing it, or standing by while such a brutal attack took place.

"Did the doctors tell you what all happened?"

"Yeah." Her voice was filled with sadness. "They said I'd been raped and had a nasty head injury. Believe me, the headaches told me so."