Page 30 of Home Ice

CHAPTER 24

GOOD TEAMMATES HAVE TO REALLY KNOW EACH OTHER

LILY

Who would have expected it to be this hard? He's a dog. You feed them and cuddle them. That's supposed to be all. No one ever mentions the walks or the fact that they apparently can't open the back door to let themselves in and out. Seriously, we can breed dogs that have the perfect coat or the perfect gait or that are even hypoallergenic, but we can't breed a dog with thumbs? Breeders have really been slacking for thousands of years. Oh my god, the trips outside. I swear Silver has needed out every hour for the day and a half he's lived with me. And most of the time, he doesn't even do anything. He just sniffs a meandering trail around the yard and then comes back inside. It's almost a relief to be back at work today.

"Morning Lily." Morgan smiles as I come up to her in the hall. She's the Director of Player Development and a serious life goal for any girl who loves sports. "Whoa, you look tired. Good for you, girl." She winks, makes some clicky noise with her mouth, and keeps walking. I wish my tiredness was something worth congratulations. I also found out that dogs can get lonely. Very, very lonely. And when they're lonely, they like to sit at the window, watching the street and whimpering. No matter what time of day it is.

I gave him space at first. I figured he would realize she's not coming back for a while. Then he would settle into his new routine. When that didn't work, I tried cuddling with him on the couch, but he would give me a few minutes before going right back to that window. So I joined him there. I put my arm around him and held him against me while I whispered that it's alright. Dad used to do that for me, and somehow it really did make everything alright. At least as long as his arm was around me. But what works on broken teen girls does not work on a dog who desperately misses his human. No matter what I did, Silver whined and whimpered, and it tore at me to see him hurting so much. But I know there's nothing to be done. He just needs time.

I practically sleep walk through the pre-practice exams and tape jobs. I couldn't tell you who I wrapped or who I poked and prodded. When the players are finally on the ice, I sit on the bench watching them. I know I'm not supposed to, but I'm too tired to stay in the quiet training room myself.

This morning, Coach has them doing shuttles, even Brant, and I can't help but chuckle, seeing him try to keep up with the rest of the team. It's like watching a whale try to change direction as fast as a nimble little fish. It just doesn't happen. But he still tries, and when he gets back to the start/finish line, I kind of want to applaud him. That's when I notice a couple of the other players looking my way.

I assume at first that they aren't really looking at me. I mean, why would they? But when Sammy smiles in my direction, my cheeks flush. There's no one else sitting here, so he has to be smiling at me. He leans close to Nikita Poporov, the one everyone calls Poppy, and now Nikita is smiling at me too. He even gives me that little head bob thing that men do, and my heart starts to pound.

It's nothing. It has to be nothing, right? Maybe I should have stayed in the training room. But Elijah will be in there, along with that annoyingly relaxing music he insists on playing. If I hear more than five notes of that, I'm going to be out. So I stay right here.

I wait for anything else unusual. Any other misplaced looks or grins that seem just a little out of place. But thankfully it's not long before Coach has them all so winded they couldn't look my way if they wanted to.

Not that I would notice if they do. I can't take my eyes off Brant now that he's moved to my end of the ice. He's finished with the shuttle skates, so he and Milo are working with the goaltending coach. They're doing simple drills, but I track every movement. He's so damn bendy. Never going to happen, I tell myself.

But when he flips his mask off and looks up, his eyes go right to mine. It's like he can sense that I'm staring at him. I should look away now that I've been caught, but I don't want to. I swallow. So loudly I'm sure everyone in the practice arena can hear it. And when he smiles at me, I'm convinced that the entire city can hear my hammering heart. This isn't like those earlier smiles from Sammy and Nikita. This is—no, it's a friendly smile. That's all. We can be friends. I can have friends other than Em. I have before.

Not a single one of them made me feel like this, though. Tyler didn't even make me feel like this. When Brant squirts water in his mouth and gives me one last look before pulling down his mask, it's too much. Easy listening for the win.

I'm still in the training room, absolutely not sleeping with my head down on a desk, when I hear a shuffling at the door. I snap my head up and whip the hair out of my face, expecting Elijah, back from his break. He's not my direct supervisor, but if he finds me indisputably not-sleeping on the job, I might soon be indisputably not-employed at said job. But it's not him.

"Hey," Brant takes a couple of steps into the room and then looks around. He's still wearing his pads and skates.

I give him a goofy wave that I instantly regret. "Hey. Practice over?" Seriously? Obviously practice is over or he wouldn't be here.

"No. I just walked off when I noticed you weren't there anymore. Practice isn't the same without you staring at me."

"I, uh... I didn't mean?—"

"You have a little drool. Right here."

I mirror him as he wipes the corner of his mouth. "It's not like that. I swear."

"So you weren't sneaking a nap before practice finished? I saw how tired you looked when you were sitting on the bench, so I figured that's why you came back here. That's what I would have done. And that's why I hurried back here to wake you up before anyone saw it. Wouldn't want you getting in trouble."

"Oh. Right," I say. "Yes, that's what I was doing. That's... the drool. That's what it's from. It's not from anyone else. Anything else. Just sleepy. I'm dog sitting for Chloe, and Silver's been keeping me up all night."

His brows knot. "Is Chloe okay?"

"She texted me last night and said that she's fine." I wipe around the rest of my mouth just to be safe, and he smirks. Damn, the way the right side of his lip curls up would probably be illegal under the old indecency laws.

"You don't believe her?"

Not really, but I won't say that to him. Not here. Besides, maybe I'm wrong and she really is fine. I hope so, but worrying about her is another reason I haven't been able to sleep at night.

He walks across the room until he's just on the other side of the desk. He towers over me when I'm sitting, and in his pads, he's massive. If I were an opposing forward, there's no way I would try to get anything past him. "You'd let me know if there's anything I could do for her, right? I mean it, Lily. Anything to help that girl, and I'm there. No questions, no limits."

Is he seriously trying to give me heart rhythm problems? "You don't even know her. Not really."

"I know she's a special fucking kid. And I know she means something to you. So she means something to me."

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