Page 58 of Lost in You

Lincoln’s gone. Our cabin fling is just a memory now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lincoln

My teammates gape at me when I walk into the locker room, our goalie Lucas wiping the corner of his eye.

“You are the ugliest fuckin’ ghost I’ve ever seen,” Archer Holt says, approaching me with open arms and a grin.

When I hug him, the room seems to collectively exhale. I step back and look around at all the faces I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again when Trin and I were searching for shelter.

I told her a lot about my teammates when we were at the cabin. Not just their individual personalities but also stories from the locker room, games and vacations we’ve taken together.

Dane Foster, whose devil-may-care attitude means he’s usually the talk of the team, embraces me tightly. He was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning on a summer trip to Mexico, and none of us were surprised he hooked up with one of his nurses during this stay—and got her to sneak him a beer.

“Great to have you back, cap.” He embraces me and claps me on the back. “It wasn’t the same without you.”

“I mean, you don’t look bad for a dead guy.” Aaron Parker puts his hands on my shoulders and grins at me. “You’re an absolute legend, man.”

Every one of my teammates joined the search for the plane after the crash. Dalton told me all about it on our flight from Seattle to Tampa to meet up with our team. They flew back to Alaska on the team plane and searched until they had to fly out for their next game, and then they returned to search some more after that.

“You didn’t get frostbite, did you?” Aiden Rogers gives me a serious look. “We won’t judge if part of your dick fell off.”

“Eat shit. I could lose half of mine and it’d still be bigger than yours.” We both bust out laughing and embrace each other.

Dalton hangs back, probably because he’s already had lots of time to catch up with me. I’m concerned about him. He’s leaner and his eyes have a haunted look. I think he’s been holding himself responsible for what happened to me and Trin, even though none of it was his fault.

Once I’ve greeted everyone, I sit down in a chair by the training room, needing a minute to myself. I won’t be dressing for games until I’ve been medically cleared, which will be a process. The doctors in Seattle released me, but it’ll take a lot more to get cleared to play hockey again.

Will I be the same? I haven’t gone more than ten days without a stick in my hand since I was eight years old—until now. And going ten days was rare. I’ll still know how to play, obviously, but will I be as fast? As sharp?

I’m only five goals away from the Mammoths’ team record for most goals scored by a single player. And since I could be traded, this season is my chance to clinch it. I should be able to get medically cleared soon since I worked to keep myself in shape at the cabin. And then I know my teammates will have my back as I chase the record.

“Lincoln, welcome back! We have so much to discuss!”

I look up to see Tamara Curtis, the Mammoths’ head of PR, standing right in front of me, a clipboard tucked against her chest.

Her voice sounds like a chirping bird. This isn’t what I had in mind for my few moments of quiet.

“Hey, Tamara. Thanks. I’m not officially back yet.”

She sits down next to me. “Which works out perfectly because it gives us time to get in some interviews before you start dressing again. I’m thinking of giving Nikki Curtis the first interview. She wants you to bring anything you have from the day of the crash, like torn clothes, that you can show her on camera. She’s working on getting Trinity Lorenzo, too. I don’t know if she’ll want you to sit down for the interview together, but probably?”

I bristle. Trinity is still in the hospital. She’s not something for some vulture reporter to “get” so they can maximize clicks and views.

“No, we’re not doing that.”

Tamara pinches her brows together. “If you need to catch up on sleep first, I tot--”

“No. No interviews.”

She opens her mouth to say something, closes it, and then opens it again. “Is there anything I need to know about your...experience? Something that could make the team look bad if it’s discovered?”

My lips part with surprise. “My experience? We almost died. How could that make the team look bad?”

“I don’t know.” She puts her hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, the press is foaming at the mouth for details about where you’ve been and what happened. This interview is a way for you to get the story out there.”

“The story?” Anger tightens my chest. “This isn’t a story; it’s my life. Trinity’s life. And no one gets to know anything about any of it unless we choose to tell them.”

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