Page 115 of Power Play

My thumbs fly across the screen, typing out a message.

Me

Hey. Can’t find you at the game. Lexi said you have a migraine.

Do you need anything? I can stop by after.

I lock my phone and tuck it under a jersey. If Coach catches me with it, he’ll make me skate laps until I collapse. “Done.”

“Nothing you can do but wait, man.”

“How are you so good at all of this?”

“What, communicating with people?” Hudson teases. “Thank my parents. My mom and dad had a great relationship.They talked about everything. I grew up learning to share what I’m feeling instead of letting it fester into something toxic and unfixable because two people don’t want to be honest with each other.”

“Sounds horrible,” I say.

“It kind of is. The truth hurts sometimes.”

I’ve never missed a day of practice.

I’ve never not dressed because of sickness or fatigue.

I’ve never left a game early, but I’m considering it tonight.

This sport is my fuckinglife, but what good is that life if someone I care about needs me and I can’t be there?

I drop my head back and groan.

I told Piper she’s my best friend, and I wasn’t lying. I’m happier when she’s around. Everything is more tolerable when she’s there, too, and her absence is noticeable.

So is my attraction to her.

I’ve been trying to fight it.

Even more so now that we’re fuckingmarried, but it’s getting harder to deny and hide.

My head is screaming at me to go check on her. To sayfuck hockeyand make sure she’s okay, because suddenly waiting twenty more minutes seems like too long to find out.

“What if I left early?” I say under my breath. “I wouldn’t sit the third period.”

“You’d be fined,” Hudson says.

“Don’t give a shit about that.”

“Do you want to leave early?”

The only thing I want is to know she’s okay.

I’m sure she is.

She probably turned off her phone and fell asleep. She probably wouldn’t want me to bother her.

“No.” I stand and grab my gloves. “We still have work to do on the ice.”

He glances up at me with a slow smile. “You like her.”

“Everyone likes Piper.”

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