Page 18 of Perfect Playbook

I slide my cell in my pocket. “The cake was…” I search for the perfect word because I know how important baked goods are to her. “Remarkable.”

Her eyebrow quirks. “Remarkable?” She scrunches her nose in some sort of scrutiny over my word choice, but there’s amusement there, too.

“Yeah. As in worth remarking on. Outstanding works, too. As in it stood out.”

She beams at me for a beat until her smile fades and her eyes mist over. She turns away. The sudden gush of emotion has me even more concerned than the drink.

“Hey…” I touch her arm, beckoning her to come back to me.

She whips her head around only to look at my hand onher arm with an unreadable expression. Does she want me to pull it away or keep it there?

“Are you okay?” I ask again.

Shay and I aren’t close anymore, but we have history, and if she needs to talk, I’m probably better than the ruddy-faced man with a suspicious backpack who just sat three stools down. A lot has passed between the Shay I had in college and the one now. I’m sure she’s changed. Hell, she has a kid. But drinking alone in Vegas isn’t usually a good sign, especially when old high school friends from your small town are around the corner waiting for you to join the electric slide.

Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Sometimes a stiff drink makes me bleary-eyed, too.

“There’s nothing I want to talk about, Logan.” She slips her arm from under my touch. “But thanks for asking.” She throws back her drink and drains what’s remaining. “Why aren’t you at the reception? It’s probably kicking off.”

“I’m having a weird night.” I consider telling her about the meeting with my agent. This news is the third worst thing to happen to me in my life. Shay, despite not being close anymore, knows as well as anyone how big a deal it is to me to play with Ashton this season. Everyone in Starlight Canyon knows. Our dads’ rancher friends used to call us peanut butter and jelly.

My mind wanders to my best friend retiring and the thought of me not receiving his passes, checking an opponent for him, giving each other shit-eating grins when the game is ours. It would kill for us to have to play on the opposite side during Ashton’s last season and never wear the same jersey again. We did that for years in the NHL before finally landing on the Scorpions together back in ourhome state.

To top off my friend leaving the game soon, Ashton’s announcement to retire has mortality creeping up my spine and gripping my throat. We’re getting older. I’mold.

Shay always knew how to listen. She knew how to give an honest opinion, and very often, she was right. She was good to talk to and had a way of putting me in my place when I needed it, and I feel like getting my ass kicked right now. Reggie has too much faith in me fixing this, and in a rare moment of self-flagellation, I just want a punishment. Landing myself on the trade list was a massive fuck-up. Maybe I should tell her about it.

She lifts her eyebrows. “Weird day? You and me both.”

I’m back in her cobweb. My mind is stuck on the burning need to know what a weird day means in her world.

“Why didn’t you go to the reception?” It’s likely the reason she’s diving into the booze. I want to give her a chance to talk. Sometimes you need to ask people more than once about their troubles before they realize you truly intend to listen.

“Because…” She drops her head, and that beautiful hair of hers makes a veil between us, hiding why she’s solo drinking. She didn’t have this hair when she was mine. It was short and spunky, but just as shiny, raven silk. I used to love how it bounced around her jawline when we walked around campus together.

She composes a careful explanation. “I checked my email.”

It’s hard to imagine anything rattling Shay. Every time I see her, she seems cool, calm, and collected. Ever since that day in college, she’s taken the reins of her wild destiny. She chose to leave school because it was best for her and her family, staying true to the daughter she needed and wanted to be. She makes being a single mom look like the best thingthat ever happened to her. But Shay is only human, so I’m sureemailisn’t the whole story.

I slide into the space next to her and lean my elbow on the bar and try some humor. “Do you want to talk about it? I know all about emails. Get them all the time. Contracts. Spam. Inappropriate jokes from my teammates. I have a lot of experience.”

Her laugh is more like an exhale. “You can’t help me with this one. And frankly,” her words are something of a command, “I came to this bar to forget about it.” She wraps her fingers around her glass.

I lean closer as if sharing a secret. “I know as much about that as I do emails.”

She chuckles again, and it’s more genuine this time. Making her feel better makes me feel better, too, and the balm washing over me urges me to keep her talking, to keepustalking.

I bring up a character from Starlight Canyon High who everyone knows and the best story from tonight’s wedding slash reunion. “Finchley was at the reception.”

It only takes a beat for her to remember the guy. “Stoner Finchley? Doesn’t he live in Colorado now? No surprise he moved somewhere where weed is legal.”

“Yeah. He lives near Telluride. He’s a teacher.”

“He’s a teacher?” She narrows her eyes. “No way.”

Her thoughts surely replicate my own when I heard. Finchley could barely be in charge of himself back in the day.

“Sorry, I’m telling the story wrong. Finchleywasa teacher.” I recall the tale that had as all in fits of laughter, hoping it earns me another smile. “Apparently, he was an English teacher at some private high school. Just a normalstoner teacher offering up a lit class until they came toLord of the Fliesin the syllabus. You know the book?”

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