Page 124 of Rookie Recovery

“And at center, your captain …”

Aaron whirled out, and I gave in to the panic. The crowd took the roof off again as Aaron lifted his gloved hands in a salute or an embrace, his blond hair and model good looks on full display under the bright lights.

Where was Bowie? Why wasn’t he out there? Why wasn’t he starting? That was his line! Had they moved him? Had I been wrong that his injury and his time off the ice wouldn’t affect his position?

Or worse: had something happened? But they’d have called me, right? He was my patient—unless they’d transferred him to someone else, didn’t trust my judgment anymore. I’d been too wishy-washy, let my personal life into my work life, and now …

“Jamie …” Katie’s voice sounded distant, like it was coming from down a long tunnel. Too far to break through my growing bubble of panic.

I whipped my phone out, checked it. Nothing. Scanned the bench again. No number eleven. No blond. No Bowie. The lights dimmed for the national anthem. The crowd climbed to its feet, and I was slow to stand because my mind was still elsewhere, trying to put the pieces together.

The plaintive, warbling notes of the Star Spangled Banner drifted out over the sudden, almost religious silence that stole over the arena. We stood, hands over hearts. The players bowed their heads, gloves over pads. The music built and carried and washed over me like a wave, but when it died down, there was still no Bowie. Not on the ice or on the bench.

The audience slid back down into their respective seats. I, once again, was slow to sit, still searching, head swiveling, scanning the crowd now, because—

I froze.

Because there, at the bottom of the stairs, in the space previously blocked by the shiny bald head of the guy in the neighboring seat …

Stood Archie Bowman.

Looking like a fucking vision in a black suit and charcoal grey tie as he started up into the stands.

His green laser-gaze locked onto me. That beautiful bowed mouth curled upwards in a cocky grin, and the floor tilted under my dress shoes.

“Hey, Kitty.” His voice was soft, but somehow, even with the blaring rock music echoing out over the ice as our boys lined up for the faceoff, it reached me. He slid into the aisle. Mere feet away.

Katie muttered something that I wasn’t sure comprised real English words, then slipped out behind Bowie. Leaving me. And him. Alone. Together.

“Bowman.” My voice came out in a low rasp. Below us, the game was a whirlwind of colors and scraping blades and slapping sticks. The music faded, the crowd settled. “What are you … Why … Shouldn’t you be down there?”

I jabbed a finger down at the ice. Where Aaron and Zac slung passes back and forth as they wove through the defense, and their right wing—who was not Bowie—hurtled along behind. Trying to keep up because he was not Bowie.

“Yeah.” He plopped into Katie’s vacated chair. “I should be. But I figured I’d be out there for the next one. Once my shoulder’s healed.”

I swallowed down the big, dry lump in my throat. “What? I thought it was healed?”

“I mean, it feels pretty good.” He lifted it, rolled it around in demonstration. “But I have this annoyingly strict PT, right, and he says the safe thing to do is wait. And ’cause he’s smart and an amazing doctor, I figured I’d listen.”

“Bowie,” I groaned. I stared at him, with my jaw a little slack, because I didn’t have words, not real ones, to describe what I was feeling. I didn’t understand what I was feeling—that was the issue.

“He’s also, like, really, really hot. I mean, abs for days—”

“Bowie.” I forced myself to sit forward, lean towards him. The soft scent of soap and his shampoo drifted in to caress my senses. Or maybe assault them, because being this close to him was torture. Like being right outside your home and realizing you’d forgotten your keys. “Tell me you didn’t do this because you think that it’s what I—wanted—or that we—”

“Jamie.” His face softened, the cocky grin relaxing into his authentic smile. Archie, not Bowie, looked back at me with earnest green eyes. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it because you’re right. One little game shouldn’t be this important. Shouldn’t be my whole life.”

Hockey was life, and we both knew that.

But at this level, when you’d come this far, when you wanted to keep going, you had to look past the game in front of you. Had to see the big picture. Had to know your own fucking value, your importance, had to be certain of what you meant to your team.

I hadn’t been.

But he was Archie fucking Bowman.

One miss wouldn’t cost him his career—and we both knew it.

“Are you sure?” I leaned onto the armrest of my seat, because it brought me closer to him. Because I could look at him, study the lines of his face and the softness of his mouth and the certainty in his eyes. “I mean—what made—you were so—why?”

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