Page 49 of Crossing the Top Line

“It’s okay. That’s just how it is sometimes,” I reply, trying to keep my heart from galloping clean out of my chest and onto the floor.

She shakes her head and steps around the camera toward me, crossing her arms. “No, it isn’t. I…” she trails off, glancing away with a distant look in her eyes.

I don’t push, my curiosity soaring.

“I’ve been around hockey my entire life, and I’ve never heard of that level of boy’s club elitist bullshit, ever,” she goes on.

I hum noncommittally. Hockey, at least men’s hockey, isn’t as immune to toxic machismo as she seems to believe, at least in my experience. The Mystic organization is very much the exception that proves the rule.

“It’s why I wasn’t too upset to be sent back to Michigan,” I laugh, speaking before thinking yet again.

She looks up at me, eyes wide with alarm. “You…went back?” she rasps.

I nod solemnly. “Yeah. I didn’t make it out of dev camp. But by the time I got there…”

I trail off as she looks back up at me, both of us knowing how that sentence was going to end without having to hear the words. I tried to look for her, but the clinic was no help. She’d been the TA for one of my freshman Gen Ed lectures, so I even went to the professor to ask if she was still helping out, which was where I’d learned Tori had left to attend grad school before the semester even started. I didn’t have the heart to chase her further back then. Not with my agent breathing down my neck morning, noon, and night.

“I appreciate you not trying to hijack the interview to talk about us,” she mutters, taking another step closer to me, almost subconsciously.

I nod. “Of course. You know I’m not…”

I stop as she looks at me, a realization hitting me. No, she doesn’t know that I’m not the type of person to force someone to do what I want. She doesn’t know anything about me other than I play hockey and I abandoned her when she needed me most. And I don’t know anything about her either, now that I think about it. Not anything important, anyway.

She smirks as I close my mouth, deciding against finishing that sentence. “Well, I do now,” she says.

A thought occurs to me as I look down into her mismatched eyes. Maybe I’ve been trying to come at this from the wrong angle. We’re not trying to rekindle something we used to have, because there’s nothing of substance to catch the sparks. I may have memorized every spot on her delicious body that can drive her wild with pleasure, but I know jack shit about her as a person. Something has to give to allow us a chance at something real. And if I’ve learned anything about Tori in the last month and a half, in a battle of wills, she willalwaysoutlast her opponent.

I nod, more to myself than to her, taking my hands out of my pockets and holding one out for her to shake. She stares at it, a wrinkle of confusion appearing between her eyebrows.

“I’m Spencer Black. It’s nice to meet you,” I start, a friendly smile pulling on my cheeks.

“What are you doing?” she asks with a frustrated huff mixed into her question.

I grin a little wider, laughing at my own joke. “Starting over,” I say simply.

We’re silent for another long moment, but I keep my composure. She looks at my hand, and then back at me, and then my hand again, her lower lip between her teeth. My stomach quivers with nerves, and the air in my lungs catches, refusing to leave as I wait. One heartbeat. Then another. And another. Silence, and her unflinching assessment. I’m starting to question this gesture, and I open my mouth again to walk this back. But then she lifts her hand and slides it into mine.

Her skin is soft and warm, but her handshake is firm. Not overly tight or rough, but a strong grip and decisive up and down motion. The type of handshake that doesn’t leave any question as to her confidence. She looks up at me, her face set with determination.

“Victoria Strauss, but please call me Tori,” she says politely.

My smile widens, holding her hand for just a second longer before I let go. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Tori. I can’t wait to see what you do with this interview.”

Hockeyhasthesecondlongest season in terms of number of games played, beat only by the insane professional baseball season. Ever since the league expanded to thirty-six teams a few years ago, we’re up to eighty-four regular season games. Tack on the half dozen or so preseason games, travel days, practices, and, if you’re good enough to get there, the playoffs, and you’re suddenly staring down the barrel of six plus months of madness.

And that’s just for the players.

For me, and most of the back-office staff, a real day off doesn’t come until after Memorial Day. Weekends, holidays, work-life balance? I can’t remember the last time I’ve had any of those. Hell, even on days that I’m forced to take off in order to not exceed my maximum PTO allowance, I’m still on my phone monitoring online chatter. I’m also pretty meticulous with my physical and mental health, so I don’t have to take sick days except in the most extreme edge cases.

Today is one of those cases.

I’ve been so busy preparing for the ticket go-live for the Mystic’s annual Mardi Gras charity ball that I’d let the automatic refill of my prescriptions slide by unnoticed. It wasn’t until yesterday that I learned that, due to a logistics issue between the warehouse and the pharmacy, my mood stabilizer wasn’t able to be filled on time and I’d have to go without it for a day or two. Now, I’ve gone short periods of time without it in the past—mostly due to bad timing of road games or holidays—but it’s not a walk in the park.

I take a heavy dose of an omega cycle blocker, which helps mellow me out some. The two different hormone replacements make sure my body continues to function semi-normally. My blood thinner keeps my birth control from throwing clots into my bloodstream. But my mood stabilizer? It does the heaviest lifting to keep my mind from falling apart at the seams.

I called Dee and told him I’d try to get work done at home last night, so I rise with my normal alarm and head into the kitchen, trying to stick to my routine as much as possible. I’m waiting for the coffeemaker to finish dispensing my cup of hot bean juice, when the first intrusive thought streaks through my mind.

Stick your hand in the garbage disposal.

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