Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)(50)

“No, it’d be great if you did.” I almost said that if he brought his kids, I’d be happy to introduce them to the team, but we hadn’t gotten to the subject of me even meeting his kids. For now, I left it alone. Instead, I went with, “If you give me a heads-up, I can probably score you some good seats. Maybe even one of the VIP boxes.”

“Oh, that could be fun. I might take you up on that.”

“Cool. I guess I should let you go. I need to sleep before tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too.” His smile made my toes curl. “I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon.”

We ended the call, and I was still smiling.

See you soon? Not soon enough.

*

“All right, ladies,” Coach barked. “Get out there.”

I grinned as I headed down the chute behind Wilson for warm-ups. Though my throat still burned from puking earlier and I still had some hardcore jitters, it felt good to be back in the groove. Life was truly back to normal now that I was diving headlong into the breakneck-speed existence that was the regular season.

Step one? Pre-game warm-ups.

Everything about warm-ups was an unspoken routine, from Coach’s shouts to the order we went out on to the ice. It was superstition—any deviation might jinx us and fuck up the game—but it was also comfortable. For me, anyway. It got my head in gear. Made me focus. As soon as this familiar routine started, my focus narrowed. There was nothing but my team, the ice, the puck, and the net.

With the fans roaring, my teammates started out on to the ice. First Bruiser, who went right and headed for the goal. Then Dane, who went straight across. Then Kelleher who headed right and started chasing a puck around behind the goal. Then Wilson, who was still pulling on his gloves, as always. And then me.

I always stepped out with my right foot first, and as I pushed off, I moved my stick from my left hand to my right. Halfway across the ice, just before I’d hang a left to join Kelleher firing pucks at Bruiser, I’d look up at the stands. Zero right in on seat 4K—fourth row, end seat—and that was what I did tonight, and—

He was there.

I didn’t hang that right turn where I always did. I slammed into Wilson, and Grady crashed into me, and we all collided with the boards. They grunted, and I swore as I found myself sandwiched between two big defensemen. Behind us, someone else swore.

The three of us quickly righted ourselves, and Wilson stared at me with wide eyes through his clear plastic visor. “What the hell? You okay, man?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I shook myself. “Just got a little distracted.” I clapped his padded shoulder. “What about you? I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?”

He grinned, revealing the gold incisor from when an errant puck had cracked him in the mouth. “You wish, fucker.” He gave me a playful shove. “Come on. Let’s go chase some pucks.” He skated off toward the two or three dozen pucks scattered between us and the goal.

I was about to do follow, but Kelleher skated up to me, his eyes wide with concern. “What’s going on?”

Grady’s expression was the same as he put a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, what the hell was that?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just…” Didn’t expect my ex to be here tonight. “I’m good.”

He and Kelleher scowled, and I didn’t have to ask.

You fucked all this up over nothing?

They looked equal parts annoyed and concerned. Annoyed that I might have thrown off our pre-game ritual over nothing, concerned it wasn’t actually nothing.

They let it go, though, and in a matter of seconds, we were where we needed to be—passing pucks and firing them at Bruiser while our defensemen and the opposing team went about their own warm-up routines. I could tell the team’s entire vibe was off. There were more confused glances bouncing back and forth across the ice than pucks. If I was going to fuck up our pre-game routine, did it have to be the first game of the season?

I stole a glance up at my ex, who was very there and very smug, and… Damn it. I needed to call the cops. I needed to call Geoff. The problem was I didn’t want to draw the team’s attention to what was happening. I could live with them thinking I’d lost my mind for a minute more than I could stand them knowing the truth. If I ever did tell them the truth, it wasn’t going to be now, right before a damned game.

I did my level best to ignore Nathan’s presence or how my neck prickled when my back was to him. My team seemed to be doing their level best to ignore how distracted I was. Fortunately, after several minutes, we all pulled it together enough that I was pretty sure we could still play hockey tonight. Maybe even play it well. My team could tear into me or shoot me dirty looks all they wanted after the game—and after Coach was done with me—but right now we needed to be the Steelheads, not a bunch of hockey players pissed off at the center for getting distracted.

So I focused, and they focused, and by the time the buzzer announced our warm-up period was over, things felt closer to normal than they had at the start. This had thrown us all off, but we could and would come back from it.

Once we were off the ice, Coach shot me one of those you’re going to hear about this looks, but he let it go. Now wasn’t the time. Instead, we returned to the locker room to grab some water, adjust gear if it was needed, and get ready for the game to start.