Page 53 of The Pucking Wrong Man

That would come soon enough.

Anastasia was sitting at the end of the row, her eyes wide and nervous as the other dance people talked around her. I really needed to do some research on ballet—not sure it would impress Anastasia for me to call them dance people in conversation.

Her arms were tucked around herself, and she was watching the ice avidly—mostly me, I noticed. I couldn’t wait until she was sitting with Monroe, Blake, and Olivia. I had a feeling my girl didn’t have a lot of friends, and I knew those girls would scoop her right up and love her.

Not as much as I would love her, of course.

Her “date” was nowhere to be found. I guess having your car towed and an eviction notice placed on your door meant you didn’t have time for a hockey game—or a date.

Thank fuck for Ryan. Ryan was a college bud who happened to be a detective with the Dallas Police Department. Since he spent most of his time with the underbelly of the city, sometimes he didn’t mind doing some more questionable things when asked.

Pro tip: If you find your fraternity buddy butt naked, peeing on a snowman during Winter Carnival, get him back to his room and into some clothes before his dick freezes off.

He’ll owe you for life.

“James, get back to fucking work,” one of the assistant coaches growled, and I reluctantly pulled my attention back to the ice.

It was still difficult to comprehend that I had something in my life that could actually distract me from hockey. I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. I breathed in the chill of the ice, I listened to the roar of the crowd, and I took in my teammates skating around me.

No matter how hard I tried...it didn’t quite light a fire in my bloodstream like it used to. What once was blazing color, the only thing I could see—it had dimmed.

It was terrifying.

Because it meant that I couldn’t afford to lose. Hockey has always been the focal point of my life. The only thing I needed.

If I didn’t get Anastasia, hockey wasn’t going to fill the gaping hole inside of me.

I took a shot at the goal and then started my stretches.

One thing about hockey stretches—they’re very necessary.

To be the kind of skaters we needed to be on the ice, we needed explosive hip abductors/extenders for our stride and strong hip flexors for a powerful brake.

Another thing about hockey stretches—they apparently were kryptonite for the ladies.

Although we weren’t really humping the ice—and I’d never had the thought that I was trying to hump the ice—a few TikTok videos had shown me it perhaps could be considered that way.

Which is why, as I started my stretches, I made sure to lock eyes with Anastasia, grinning when her cheeks flushed and she couldn’t take her eyes off of me.

I may have done a few extra stretches for good measure. Anything I could do to get her to picture what I could do with my hips—I was going to use to my advantage.

It was easier to really get into it with Neil Diamond blaring through the speakers.

“Trying to go viral, James? How about you grind your dick into the ice a little more,” drawled Logan as he skated by. “Not exactly ‘Grandpappy’ behavior.”

I scoffed, not ashamed at all that I was giving my girl a show.

Although, he did have a point about me potentially going viral. Now that I had dragged my gaze away from Anastasia, I could see that there were quite a bit more cameras pointed at me than usual.

I straightened up right in time to stop a puck that happened to be sliding by...and then I launched it at Logan.

“Hey,” he growled, rubbing at his leg.

“Whoops,” I responded, winking at him for good measure. “Guess that’s why I’m a defender.”

Logan flipped me off, and I’m sure my answering grin looked a little crazy.

“Did you have a hand in this song selection, James? Is your taste in music really this bad?” Ari asked as he skated up next to me. “Because there’s no way our entertainment department picked this.”

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