Him (Him #1)(4)

“And now you have to play him,” Holly muses. “It’s a lot of pressure.” She’s rubbing my hip now. I’m pretty sure she has some plans for the two of us involving a different kind of “pressure.” She’s looking for round two, but I don’t have the time.

Catching her hand in mine, I give it a quick kiss. “Gotta get up. Sorry, babe. We’re watching tape in twenty minutes.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed and turn for an eyeful of Holly’s curves. My friend-with-benefits is sexy as hell, and my dick gives a little twitch of gratitude for the fun we already had.

“Shame,” Holly says, rolling onto her back invitingly. “I don’t have class until this afternoon.” She runs her hands up her flat stomach and onto her tits. With her eyes locked on me, she gives her nipples a flick then licks her lips.

My dick does not fail to notice.

“You are evil and I hate you.” I grab my boxers off the floor and look away before I get all boned up again.

She giggles. “I don’t like you at all, either.”

“Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.” But then I clamp my lips together. Six weeks before graduation, it’s unwise to start even a playful conversation about how much Holly and I like each other. We’re strictly casual, but lately she’s been making noises about how much she’ll miss me next year.

According to Holly, it’s only forty-three miles from Detroit, where I’ll be next year, to Ann Arbor, where she’ll be in med school. If she starts wondering aloud whether there are any apartments for rent halfway between those cities, I don’t know what I’m going to say.

Yep. Not looking forward to that conversation.

Sixty seconds later I’m dressed and heading for the door. “Are you cool letting yourself out?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Her laughter stops me before I can turn the knob. “Not so fast, stud.”

Holly gets up to kiss me goodbye, and I make myself stand still for a second and return it.

“Later,” I whisper. It’s my standard goodbye. Today, though, I find myself wondering if there are other words she’s waiting to hear.

But when the door closes on her, my head is somewhere else already. I sling my backpack over one shoulder and slip out into a misty April morning. Five days from now I’ll be on the east coast, trying to help my team clinch the national championship. Man, the Frozen Four is such a rush—I’ve been once before. It was two years ago, and I was the backup goalie instead of the starter.

I didn’t play, and we didn’t win. I like to think those two things are related.

This time it’ll be different. I’ll be waiting between the pipes, the last line of defense between the other team’s offense and the trophy. That’s enough pressure to freak out even the chillest goalie in college sports. But the fact that the other team’s star center is my ex-best friend who abruptly stopped talking to me?

That is whack.

I meet a handful of my teammates on the sidewalk as we all approach the rink. They’re laughing about somebody’s antics on the bus last night, joking and shoving each other through the glass doors and into the gleaming hallway.

Rainier did a massive rink renovation a few years ago. It’s like a temple to hockey, with conference pennants and team photographs lining the walls. And that’s just the public area. We pause in front of a locked door so that Terry, a junior forward, can swipe his ID past the laser eye. The light flashes green and we push through to the opulent training area.

I haven’t said a word to anyone yet, but I’ve never been as much of a smack-talker as the rest of them, so nobody calls me on it.

In the team kitchen, I pour myself a cup of coffee and grab a blueberry muffin off the tray. This place makes me feel like a spoiled brat, but it’s useful when I’ve overslept.

Ten minutes later we’re watching tape in the team video room, listening to Coach Wallace’s analysis. He’s at the podium wearing a little mic that amplifies his voice all the way to the back row. But I can’t hear him anyway. I’m too busy watching Ryan Wesley dart across the ice. I see clip after clip of Wes passing through the line of defense like smoke, creating scoring opportunities out of nothing but ice shavings and quick wits.

“The number two offensive scorer in the nation, the kid has balls of steel,” our coach admits grudgingly. “And enough foot speed to make his opponents look like my ninety-seven-year-old granny.”

Shot after unlikely shot flies into the net. Half the time the on-screen Wes doesn’t even have the good manners to look surprised. He just glides onward with the grace and ease of someone who’d practically been born with steel blades under his feet.

“Like us, Northern Mass woulda made it to the finals last year, but they were hampered by injuries in the post-season,” Coach says. “They’re the team to beat…”

The footage is mesmerizing. I’d first seen Wes skate the summer after seventh grade. At thirteen we all thought we were hot shit just for attending Elites, the world-class hockey training camp in Lake Placid, New York. Hear us roar—we were the best of the ragtag players on our club teams back home. We were the kids to beat during pond-hockey pick-up games.

We were mostly ridiculous.

But even my punk-ass junior-high self could see that Wes was different. I was a little in awe of him from the first day of my first summer at Elites. Well, at least until I discovered what a cocky bastard he was. After that, I hated on him for a bit, but being assigned as roommates made it difficult to keep up my hatred.