Page 63 of My Best Bet

“How long have you lived here?”

“Like… six years? Bought it right before Lucy was born,” he said with a shiver as he pulled the covers over him.

Interesting. I wondered why he wouldn’t have decorated more.

As I exited his room, I flipped on his fan, knowing that’s how he always used to sleep.

15.Colt - An Angel – 12 years ago - winter

As soon as I exited the team bus, the freezing Canadian wind and snow blasted at me, and I really regretted wearing a peacoat over my suit instead of a down jacket.

Up ahead, some of my teammates were crowded around our door, laughing.

Hiking my hockey bag higher on my shoulder, I stalked over to figure out why they were laughing. Maybe someone pulled a prank, which I was not in the mood to deal with after our tough loss today. I was never quite sure how other guys bounced back so quick after losing when I was stuck in a shit mood ‘til our next game.

Greyson Scott, our captain who was in a perpetual bad mood, actually cracked a grin as he peeked in our room. “Shit, never seen a rookie mistake this bad.” He arched an amused eyebrow. “Westerly’s gonna beat someone’s ass.”

What the fuck was he talking about…

Oh.

Yeah.

This was bad.

I stopped short and JP ran into me.

Westerly, a burly defenseman who picked the short stick and had to room with JP, Kappy, and I for this road trip, dropped his bag and cracked his knuckles. “Where the fuck is that Kappy kid?”

Oh shit.

JP made eye contact with me, telepathically questioning if we had to stick our necks out for Kap.

I gave a slight resigned nod and rubbed my forehead.

“It was an honest mistake,” I told Westerly, really hoping he wouldn’t take his anger out on me. I wasn’t afraid of a fight, but as the team’s enforcer, he was basically only here to smash up guys on the ice. He had about five years on us and was built like a brick house.

“Guys, what’s up?” Kappy asked, casually walking toward us with a smile.

I shook my head at him.

“You were the last one here, you didn’t close the fucking door? It’s like negative thirty fucking degrees!” Westerly yelled at him.

His face dropped. He looked from the door to Westerly to us. Then he dropped his bag and ran.

Westerly immediately bolted after him.

“Should we help?” JP asked.

I shrugged. “He’s fast.”

Our motel room was completely frozen.

There was actually some snow on the ground in the entrance hallway, the covers were stiff as a board, the water in the toilet bowl was frozen, the heating completely broke.

JP had the idea to turn on the shower and sink to try to get some heat from the steam. Bad idea. The shower head broke and water sprayed everywhere. Nothing came out of the sink. I think we busted the pipes.

A half hour later, our bathroom was an ice rink because the water that sprayed out froze up.

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