Page 32 of Playmaker

Hopefully we could make it up to them going forward.

There was one small fly in the ointment about this newfound understanding, though. While it improved things for us and our team, it also made those things more difficult in a way I didn’t expect, but probably should have.

When we hadn’t liked each other, I’d just catch a glimpse of her and feel irritated. With that out of the way, every glance in her direction sparked an entirely different kind of distraction. One that did not bode well for things like, you know, playing hockey.

Lila was lean in that way hockey players were—toned and tight from head to toe. Her hips and thighs were all power, and her shoulders made my mouth water, especially when she was wearing a T-back tank top like she almost always did while lifting weights. Lila was the complete package—that gorgeous build along with a wicked smile and disarming blue eyes.

God. Maybe we should’ve gone back to disliking each other. At least then I could stay on my skates and handle my stick without faceplanting on the ice.

Get a grip, Sabrina. Jesus.

Honestly, it was still a little weird to be driven to distraction by a woman like this at all. Or, well, toadmitthat I was. Looking back, I’d always had crushes on women, and there were multiple instances in my life where I’d barely been able to think while in the orbit of a particularly stunning woman. In hindsight, my sexuality could not have been more obvious.

I’d had a few flings and hookups with women over the years. Each time, I’d snapped right back to dating guys because, damn it, I wasnota lesbian. I’d spent so long being defensive about that, I shoved myself back into the closet because… hell, I didn’t even know why. It had made sense in the moment. Now it just felt like an exhausting waste of too many years.

It had taken three years of marriage to Ty to drive home the point that, yeah… I was a lesbian. Not even bisexual. After my divorce, I’d had a brief thing with a woman—one that had unfortunately made it into the media—and suddenly I was out before I actually wanted to be. That had tarnished the whole process of accepting myself; I’d finally figured out who the hell I was, only to have the press turn it into a circus because Kendra and I got careless and let a camera catch us.

But at least now I knew who I was… and why I was having a hell of a time concentrating around Lila Hamilton.

I just wish I knew what to do about that, because it was—

“Hey. Mac.” Sims tapped my shinpad with her skate. “You coming?”

I shook myself and looked around. Oh, fuck me. While I’d been lost in thought—while I should’ve been getting into the right headspace for the game—my teammates had geared up and were starting to head out for warmups.

Face burning, I pushed myself up and grabbed my helmet. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

She gave me an odd look but let it go and followed our teammates out. Good thing the captain was always the last ontothe ice, so I still had time to put on my gloves and helmet before catching up. With any luck, Sims was the only one who’d noticed me spacing out.

Hopefully no cameras had.

AndhopefullyI hadn’t been stupidly staring at Lila the whole time. That would be hard to dismiss as nothing.

By some miracle, I pulled my head together enough that I didn’t fall on my face as soon as I hit the ice. I found my place in the team’s warmup routine, and I focused on skating, stretching, and (finally) getting my stupid head in the game. We were up against Boston tonight, and there was a reason they were situatedveryfirmly in second place in their division. The only way to beat them was to stay on our game for the full sixty minutes plus any overtime that came along. Every team in the League had quickly learned that Boston would take full advantage if a team took their foot off the gas even briefly.

We had to bring our A-game tonight, and halfway through warmups, I was in the zone I needed to be in. Physically, I was ready. There was a little twinge in my hip, but it was just one of those old injuries that came back to haunt me sometimes. Our athletic trainers had checked me out earlier today and were confident there was nothing to worry about.

“Let us know if it gets worse,” Connie had told me. “If anything moves in a way it shouldn’t, or it doesn’t feel right, say so. Otherwise, you’re good to go.”

So… normal. Nobody got to this level of hockey without a few lingering problems, and we all learned quickly how to tell the difference between pain that meant something was wrong and pain that just meant something was cranky.

I skated a few extra circles toward the end of warmups, followed by a couple of relaxed backward circles, just to work the twinge out a little. It helped, even if it didn’t completely resolve the problem.

My body was as ready as it was going to be tonight. I could work with that.

My head was in a good spot now, too. All through my warmup, I’d mentally replayed the film we’d reviewed as a team yesterday and this morning. I worked through strategies to keep Boston from breaking away, and noted again and again that their second defensive pair frequently fell apart during odd man rushes. If we could take advantage of that, we’d be good. Exploit their weaknesses. Don’t let them get breakaways. Oh, and don’t try to five-hole this goalie—our offensive coach had been emphatic during film review that this netminder was okay at stopping top shelf shots, but nothing down low would get past her. Biggest weak point? Up high, blocker side. So just aim for—

Someone skated past me, same as all my teammates did a million times during warmups, but the blonde hair beneath her helmet told me a second before I saw her number that it was Lila.

She crossed over, effortlessly carrying a puck on her stick as she wound between other players before passing it to Sims.

Something about the way she moved…

I looked down at the puck I’d been carrying on my own stick, and hell if I could remember what I’d been planning to do with it. And what was I thinking about the other team’s goalie? Something, something, top shelf?

I shook myself and fired my puck at the goal, then continued skating if only to keep anyone from noticing my brain had short-circuited.

Get a grip, Sabrina. Holy shit.

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