Page 9 of Hat Trick Heart

“Pfft! That’s nothing. But I really enjoyed talking to you. I’ll see you around. Have good dreams tonight, Angel.”

There’s something there in his words that I don’t really understand. Something soft and pure and hopeful.

“You too, Emile.”

He grins at me and backs away until he reaches the corner and then he turns around and walks away.

I shiver. The cold of the night finally waking me up to the fact that I’m standing around outside my house instead of going inside.

I take one look at the dark corner he just walked around and then I unlock my door and walk inside, closing it on the night and the weird longing to follow him wherever he goes.

I have to remind myself that he’s nothing to me. I’m alone and that’s the way I like it.

4

EMILE

The next day, I grunt as I work out the next morning in the team gym lifting weights. I didn’t sleep worth shit. I just kept picturing Sassy in the dim street lights and then in my bed. It’s a big leap but I just can’t help it. There’s something about her that draws me in like a firefly to the light.

I’ve always dreamed of playing hockey. There’s never been anything else. But since I saw this girl, I keep dreaming about her. Nothing but her wakes me and gets me going. Even hockey is a distant second to her.

It’s crazy intense and it’s too soon and if I tell her what I’m feeling that skeptical look on her face is going to change to outright terror cause I sound like a crazy person.

I can’t concentrate and I know that my teammates would tell me that she’s just a girl. Stop taking it so seriously.

But it is serious. My whole life is always serious. Everything that I do is to make sure that I can still feel fit enough to perform out on that ice.

Because that’s my career and without it, I don’t know who or what I am. I’ve never done anything just because it feels good or I want to do it. It’s always with the ultimate goal of my career.

She’s a distraction that I can’t afford. But I can’t seem to shut it off.

“LaCourt! Get in my office!” The coach is screaming at me again and I groan, dropping the barbell that I’m lifting, slowly and carefully cause that fucker is heavy.

Then I swipe a towel across my face and stalk across the room, following the coach’s disappearing figure.

I reach the office and immediately my body stiffens when I see that it’s not just the coach. It’s the assistant coach again. And the GM. I was recruited personally by Robert Anderson and I like the guy. But the look on his face right now doesn’t bode well for me.

The coach sits down in his chair behind his desk. He’s flanked by the GM and Vic.

“What happened last night?” His voice is deceptively soft and my heart rate kicks up. I never fight and I don’t really know what he’s gonna do about it but it seems like they’re all pretty pissed.

“I saw this girl and she was trying to get away from this guy and he wouldn’t let her go. So I made him.”

Robert lifts his brows. “You broke the guy’s jaw! He’s in the hospital right now threatening to sue the whole damn team because of that stunt!”

“Hey! If he’d let that girl go any one of the several times she struggled to get away from him it would never have happened. It’s his fault,” I answer, pouty like a two-year old who needs a nap.

The coach glares at me. “You’re a helluva lot bigger than this guy and you had to know that you could seriously hurt him. What the hell were you thinking?”

I glare at all of them but I know that I can’t tell them that I was thinking about her. That I couldn’t stand his hands on her because she’s mine.

She’s not mine. She will probably never be mine.

So what the hell was I thinking?

I don’t really know. Which is a piss-poor excuse for what I did.

“Doesn’t really matter what the reason was. Point is that you put a guy in the hospital with his jaw wired shut. Because of some girl you didn’t know.”

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