Page 67 of The Best Friend Power Play

"Where's Culver now?" Beth asks.

"Away in LA for a few days. Training session."

"Okay, so you have a couple of days to yourself?" Beth checks, and I nod. "Looks like you have some thinking to do, babe. Because even though you may be in a friend place with Culver, maybe he isn't anymore? Maybe his feelings are changing?"

"A guy letting a girl—or wanting a girl—to wear his clothes is romantic, in real life or in a romance novel," Amiel supplies.

"At the same time, I wouldn't get too carried away," Beth says, her anti-love streak emerging. "We are only analyzing one isolated gesture, so we can't make the leap from that to him being head-over-heels in love with you. But it's likely, highly probable even, that it does mean something."

"Right." I blow out a breath and pace up and down the aisle a few times.

I came to the bookstore because I was searching for an answer. I hoped Beth would confirm my suspicion that this is a sign of Culver feeling something more for me, but now that she and Amiel have, I've got more questions than I did before.

I have a hunch that if I told them about the kissing, they'd only see it as further proof of Culver's feelings for me. But in my mind, the kissing is different from the shirt-wearing because the kissing was my idea. The shirt-wearing was his, and he suggested it before the kissing.

Which means…I don't know what it all means. That's what I can't piece together in my brain.

Are his feelings changing? Could Culver actually be starting to look at me as something more than just a friend?

Beth's right. Looks like I've got some thinking to do while he's away.

10

Culver

The sound of skates slicing through the ice fills the air as my teammates skillfully maneuver around the cones, passing the puck between them with precision.

I'm in the center of the designated area on the ice. Cones are set up around me. Coach adjusted my role in the drill to allow me to participate without aggravating my hip. I'll remain static, focusing on making and receiving passes without the need for much movement on my part.

Fraser sends the puck to me.

I focus on maintaining good form—my stick firmly on the ice, my body slightly leaned forward for better balance and control—and I shoot the puck to Donovan.

He makes a firm tape-to-tape pass to Slater, then rotates positions, skating to an open cone.

Slater sends the puck back to me.

Fraser's rotated positions, so I carefully adjust my body and launch the puck to him.

I'm bummed we've had to modify this drill so I'm stationary, but I couldn't ask for better teammates. The three of them made out like it's no big deal, and Donovan tried to make me feel better by pointing out that remaining in the one spot is a great way to train and improve my awareness on the ice.

They're good guys, and I love the Swifts. I don't want to get booted off the team. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears for me to even get here after five years in the wilderness.

I did the usual thing, advancing through the junior league. I got drafted into the NHL at twenty-one to play for the Boston Bullets. We won the Stanley Cup in my rookie season and followed it up again the following year.

But as the saying goes, what goes up must come down.

Injuries sidelined me for most of my third season, resulting in a period of getting traded multiple times.

After dealing with compounding injuries and bouncing around teams for five seasons, I was at an all-time low.

And then I landed at the LA Swifts, joining them at the same time Fraser did.

The first two seasons, I played the best hockey of my life. My body cooperated, I managed to avoid serious injuries, and I felt the same fire and motivation I'd had when I first started.

And then last year happened. The injuries started stacking up again, and a twenty-eight-year-old body doesn't recover as quickly as a younger one.

The ongoing hip pain, which I tried to mask until the MRI confirmed a hip labral tear, was the unofficial final nail in the coffin. It's not completely out of the question that I'll play another year, maybe two, but the odds of me making it even that far are not in my favor.

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