Page 7 of Mine

“What the fuck what that?!” head coach, Trevino, yelled. “I was going to give you tomorrow off, but now all of you will come back tomorrow at nine am because this is bullshit! We have gone through plays; we've executed them and practiced them repeatedly. My ten-year-old daughter can slapshot better than some of you.”

He threw his papers on the floor, red in the face. Shame hit me, because I knew he was talking about me and Webber. Even Riggs was off tonight.

“Tomorrow its back to the basics and we aren’t leaving the ice until I can see a fucking hockey team. I don’t give a shit if it takes all day,” he yelled, walking away.

“You guys are great players, we see your talent, or you wouldn’t be here, but we are a team. We all need to play well for us to succeed,” Coach Graves said.

He left, leaving us in silence. No one moved or said anything, most of us were probably embarrassed.

“Being on a new team is hard and it's even worse that all of us are new,” Cap said. “We need to leave everything off the ice, and we need to learn to trust each other. Go home, rest and be ready for a hard day tomorrow. I know we can make this work.”

The coach's words made me feel uncomfortable, but Cap's words made me feel embarrassed. I quickly changed gears, thinking about the entire game as I grabbed my towel and headed for the showers.

“Gomez! Ice bath!” one of the trainers yelled, and I groaned.

I didn’t want one, but from the body check I had received, it was probably a good idea. Rinsing off quickly, I dried off before getting a pair of my trunks. The locker room was somber as I walked across it to the medical area.

“Hunter, if this keeps up, you're going to need to see the doctor and get an MRI,” one of the trainers said.

“I’m fine I…”

“Hunter, don’t minimize your pain,” the doctor said to him.

“I’m not, it hasn’t been bad,” Hunter said, wincing when he rotated his arm.

“I still want an MRI,” the doctor said. “You need to quit body checking with this shoulder.”

“Seriously, doc? You think I can be like oh, hold up, let me skate on your other side so I don’t hurt myself,” he said sarcastically.

“Come on, Gomez, five minutes,” the trainer said, pointing to the ice bath.

I stopped myself from groaning as I stepped over the edge, plunging myself in quickly and closing my eyes. A thousand pinpricks hit my body at the same time. The pain was excruciating at first, and then numbness seeped in. I heard someone get into the tub next to me, but I didn’t bother to open my eyes.

The mental and physical exhaustion was hitting me. Since the day I had been signed, it was like everything had been on fast forward and all I wanted to do was have a day to catch up.

“Gomez! Out!”

I flinched at the voice, opening my eyes, feeling so exhausted. My body felt sluggish and I just wanted to lay down somewhere and sleep. Taking a deep breath, I got out of the tub and I realized my teeth were chattering. I looked up to see who was next to me and Riggs was looking at me with an impassive expression.

His hazel eyes looked me up and down, blatantly checking me out. My cheeks heated from his gaze and when we locked eyes, I felt a warm pool of arousal in my stomach reminding me of also checking him out. There was no doubt Hunter Riggs was handsome, but I had never looked at a man the way I looked at him. No one had ever been as attractive as he was.

He was making me feel things that I had never felt before, and I pictured what it would be like to kiss him. His lips were full, his scowl was sexy and I wondered what it would feel like to have his beard rub against my cheek. Blood rushed down to my groin and before he or anyone noticed me getting hard in my shorts, I looked away and walked quickly to my locker.

I had no idea what the hell was happening or what my body thought it liked, but there was no way in hell I would do anything with Riggs. He was a pain in my ass, constantly bitching about everything and some days I knew we just wanted to kick each other's ass.

Yes, that's what it was, the tension we had earlier wasn’t sexual, it was “I want to hurt you because you are insufferable”. I showered and changed quickly, needing to get out of here before he came back. I grabbed my bag, said my goodbyes to the remaining guys and walked out of the locker room wondering if I should just book it to my car.

I turned the corner seeing a head of curls, stopping myself before I ran into Valencia. She yelled, almost losing her balance, but I caught her by the waist pulling her against me to steady her.

“Geez, Gomez, you scared the shit out of me,” she said, looking up at me through thick eyelashes.

My body responded instantly to her, and I welcomed it. Now this reaction was better, it soothed some part of me that was still frazzled from whatever my brain was thinking about Hunter.

“Sorry, Florida,” I said, enjoying her curvy body. “I’m just in a rush to get home, we have practice tomorrow.”

She grimaced. “Damn, I’m sorry.”

“It's a part of the job,” I shrugged.

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