Page 2 of All I Want

“Anytime,” he replied.

“I think you should get a hat trick tonight, Westie,” Grayson said.

He chuckled. “I’ll try my best.”

“Just kick some ass, Westie,” Henry piped in.

“Henry,” his mother gasped, shaking her head.

Alex said his goodbyes to the rest of the room, his gaze meeting Maggie’s. She’d escaped to the back corner to check on Arabella. He gave her a nod, not sure what else to say. She’d thrown him for a loop, and he did not need that right before a game.

He stepped into the hallway. Dammit. Now was not the time to think about those memories. He had a game to win, and all his focus had to be on the ice.

***

“Tripping,” the refyelled, gesturing to Alex as one of Anaheim’s forwards pushed back to his feet.

“I barely touched the guy,” Alex grumbled before he looked toward the bench. Bugsy looked pissed and Alex didn’t blame him. They were down three to one and Anaheim’s power play was lethal.

“Come on, Allen practically skated into Westie,” Cheesy said, pointing to the replay on the jumbotron.

“Tripping. Minor penalty,” the ref said, before skating to the middle of the ice to make the official call.

“We’ll kill it, but what’s up with you? Your focus is off,” Cheesy said, skating over to the penalty box with Alex.

“I’m fine. The guy embellished,” Alex muttered, taking a seat in the sin bin, tapping his leg in frustration. Cheesy wasn’t wrong. Alex had been distracted all night. He refused to look up at his suite to see if she was watching, and then he felt like an asshole for not looking up to see the kids.

He’d never lost his focus like this before, and he’d be damned if he was going to let Maggie get to him. He’d get his answers from her, but for now, he had a game to win. He concentrated on his teammates. Anaheim fired the puck on Gally, but the Strikers’ goalie dropped to his knees and covered it.

Alex hated being the cause for his team to be a man down. He glanced at the clock. Thirty seconds left. He took a sip of water and stood up, his stick ready, and waited for Gally to hit his stick on the ice, signaling a few seconds left in the penalty before he could go back on the ice.

The penalty box door opened, and Alex darted onto the ice, catching Sully’s slight head tilt right before he passed the puck. It hit the center of Alex’s stick and Alex was off. Within seconds, he sent the rubber disk flying over the blocker-side shoulder of Anaheim’s goalie.

The goal buzzer blared through the arena and his teammates came crashing into him.

He looked up at his box. The kids were cheering and jumping up and down. He gave them a salute, loving how excited they were to come to the games. That’s why he’d created the Warriors. Every kid in that suite had gone through more than he could imagine, and if he could give them a reason to smile or not think about what they were going through for one minute, he would do whatever he could.

Before he turned back to his teammates, he spotted Maggie clapping in the corner. He hoped her smile was wide, like that smile she always used to give him when she watched him play.

Yes, he definitely had questions for her and he wasn’t going to let her avoid him again.

Maggie finished herfirst rotation Wednesday morning and stopped off at the nurses’ station.

“Heard someone had a good time at the game last night,” Callie, one of the nurses and Maggie’s first friend in the city, called out.

“What?” Maggie asked, setting down her tablet.

“The game. Westie. Heard it was a good one. He’s so dreamy,” Callie said, smiling as a few of the other nurses extolled Alex’s better qualities.

“Wait. What did you hear?” Maggie said, stopping next to Callie. No one knew about her and Alex. She’d kept their history under wraps, and until one of her colleagues had asked her to take his place at the game last night, she’d always found a way to get out of attending. To get out of seeing him.

Because what would he say to her? It’d been years since she’d ended their relationship. She’d had her reasons, which had seemed hollower as the years had gone by. She’d believed ending things had been practical, but logic hadn’t made it hurt any less when he’d tried to reason with her. It’d been for the best. They’d been so young, and she was preparing for medical school and he’d just been traded. Their lives were just starting, and they weren’t going in the same direction. She’d repeated her reasons over and over, drilling them into her brain, but if she was completely honest with herself, her heart had never gotten the message.

No man had ever measured up to her first—her only—love.

“Maggie? I take it you fell under his spell. We all have,” Callie said, cutting through Maggie’s memories.

“No, no. Of course not,” she said. “Aren’t you engaged?”

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