Page 76 of Crossing the Top Line

“Oh, no, Coach. She’s worse,” Spencer adds, making Oliver choke down a laugh.

“I swear to Christ, if you weren’t already concussed, I’d knock some sense into that thick skull of yours,” I snap, mouth working before my brain.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he returns, wagging his eyebrows.

I let out a shriek through my teeth before shoving my way out of the exam room. Their combined chuckles follow me, but I push them aside.

This team is going to be the death of me.

@NOLAhockey: Tonight’s lineup: Jokinson – Young – Astrauckas ; Volkov – LeBlanc – Nilsson ; Janecyk – Tremblay – Dahlberg ; Finney – Boyle – Ozolins ; Parker – Pettersson ; Petrov – Voronov ; Fransisco – Hughes —— Hakala in net. Black still day to day.

“It’s always confused me why you can’t just say that I’ll be back in a week,” Spencer mutters from beside me in the San Jose press box.

“Because we can’t give any of our competition an edge,” I reply with a small smile.

Though I suppose from the outside, the intentionally vague language we use when discussing player injuries probably looks nonsensical. I’ve been in this role for so long that I can usually decode other teams’ announcements with nearly perfect accuracy. “Day to day” means “we have to keep him on the bench due to league rules, but he’d be back out tonight if we were allowed.” “Week to week” means “it’s going to be a couple months before he’s allowed near a pair of skates, let alone putting them on the ice.” And during the playoffs, it gets even more cryptic and vague. I swear a player could be getting an autopsy and the team would report him as “out with an undisclosed upper body injury.”

For Spencer, we both know that he’ll be back to playing games as soon as his mandatory concussion protocol timer is up. Oliver’s hand was fine after a round of ice and pain meds, which only served to underscore how little consequences there are when one of Logan’s players knocks out three teeth on the other team’s star player. The league made him pay a fine, but it was almost laughable how few fucks anyone gives. If anything, the locker room seems to be more supportive of Oliver and Spencer than ever before.

Not that anyone will tell me what was said to justify this level of violence.

I’m checking a few messages from my coworkers, saving the last round of graphics Rachel forwards me for tonight’s game, just in case Boyle does something interesting. Spencer’s eyes are locked onto me, but I don’t relent to the silent demand for my attention.

“Are you mad?” he asks, dropping his voice so none of the half dozen other people in the room can hear.

“No, just trying to do my job,” I reply, not looking up from my laptop screen.

“You seem like you’re mad,” he says simply.

I close my eyes and try to count to ten. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to goad me into a conversation since we were interrupted two days ago. I don’t know what he could possibly want to discuss, but I’m not about to give in to his pressure tactics.

“Is this because we won’t tell you what happened in San Fran?”

I whip my head around and give him a sharp glare, not that it does anything to shake the calm expression on his otherworldly handsome features. There’s a long moment of silence, neither of us willing to speak first. Eventually, I sigh and turn back to my laptop, trying to get my files in order before puck drop.

The tense silence stretches through the first period and intermission, eventually settling into something almost resembling comfortable. I steal a glance out of the corner of my eye a few minutes into the second period, and Spencer’s attention is fixed on the ice, following the play with the precision only an expert could possess. I’d been so absorbed in my work that I didn’t realize he mutters to himself, a running commentary on when a pass will fail, or when there’s going to be a turnover. If he notices me staring, he doesn’t react, his entire focus on the game. Only when there’s a stoppage does he break his trance, looking up at me and locking eyes before I can look away.

“I’m sorry, Tori,” he says simply.

I blink, not sure how to respond to that. Is he apologizing for zoning out and watching the game? Is he apologizing for not telling me what Tristan said about me? Or is this some new, secret wrong that I don’t know he’s committed?

“Tristan kept saying things about you, things I absolutely will not repeat because my mother raised me better than that. None of us believed him, but we couldn’t allow that sort of talk to go unanswered. If I hadn’t gotten checked, I would have punched King myself before the end of the game. I was just waiting for an excuse,” he says, words low and deadly serious.

My jaw drops, brain short-circuiting for a moment before I gather myself and look away, cheeks hot. I don’t have to think hard to imagine the sort of diatribe Tristan was spewing. He’s probably said the same, or worse, to my face before the trade. But after everything I’ve said, everything that’s happened between us, Spencer still stepped up to teach King manners. Chivalrous, but not smart. But try telling that to the omega part of me who melts like chocolate on a summer sidewalk.

“You didn’t have to defend me,” I mutter, still not looking at Spencer.

“No, but I wanted to,” he replies, no louder than a whisper.

I look back at that, taking in every inch of his profile as he stares down at the ice. His masculine beauty strikes me for the first time in a long time, and my heart flutters a little. It hits me then that I can’t see the face of the boy who left me in the dark. No, the man beside me has some of his features, but there’s a weight of experience pulling on his eyes, the years carving away the softness to his cheeks.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asks suddenly, still not looking back at me.

I swallow and nod, turning my attention to the game to avoid looking at him. “You walked through the doors of the clinic, looking like—”

He chuckles, and I see him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.

“That’s not the first time we met. Though I’m not surprised you don’t remember me,” he says fondly.

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