Page 27 of Make Your Save

The sound of his throat clearing pulls my attention away from his necklace, my eyes immediately flashing to his. His mouth twitches, a smirk lifting the corner. “I’ll let you go so you can get some sleep.”

It takes a second for my mind to register what he’s even talking about. They flew into a different time zone, so he’s two hours behind us right now. I look at the time on my phone, ignoring the heat traveling across my face, realizing it’s close to midnight.

I have to get up at five tomorrow morning and Mia, Rowan’s coach’s daughter, will be here at six to watch Lucy while I’m at work.

“Yeah, I should probably do that.”

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with my brain tonight. It must be a combination of sleep deprivation and exhaustion. Regardless of what it is, I think I should keep FaceTiming to a minimum with Rowan. Or at least keep our conversations focused only on Lucy.

“Thank you again for helping me and taking care of Lucy,” Rowan says softly, his gaze penetrating mine through the phone screen. I watch his mouth move, the smile that lands on his lips causing my heart to skip a beat. “Sweet dreams, outlaw.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ROWAN

My gaze is focused on the player who’s heading straight toward me. From the edges of my vision, I see two defensemen both skating backward, each of them moving their sticks in an effort to deter the center from getting any closer. Time slows down and everything moves in slow motion, but in reality, this is all happening within fractions of a second.

There’s less than ten seconds left in the last period and we’re only up by one. I cannot let the puck get past me. I can’t let the other team tie this game up. We started off the season stronger than ever, but we had a little bit of a losing streak a month or so ago which has set us back a bit in points. We started off as the number one seed in our division for playoffs, but how quickly that has changed.

We’re now more toward the middle of the pack and if things get tied, we still get a point even if we lose in overtime. We need all the points we can get. We needthis one. These guys need to have a fighting chance for the playoffs, even if we don’t make it out of the first round.

The center moves around one of the wingers, shifting to the left as I drop down in an effort to block his shot. I can’t tell which corner he’s attempting to pick, so I close the space between the post and my body. My eyes flick to his, seeing his gaze immediately go to the top right corner.

It happens so quickly, but I see the puck soaring through the air. My stick is on the ice, but I shift my body upward, my arm extending as I reach with my glove. The puck hits the center of my palm and I stare him down, effectively stopping his shot.

The ref blows the whistle, play stopping with three seconds left on the clock. The center digs his edges into the ice, coming to an immediate halt just to the side of me. He looks less than pleased and satisfaction fills me as I drop the puck onto the ice.

“Motherfucker,” he mutters, skating past me to head to the face-off dot for play to begin again. The ref grabs the puck, skating to where everyone is waiting. This is my job, this is what I’m here to do. I’m the last line of defense and I’ll do everything in my power to protect my fucking house.

Everyone gets into position and the ref drops the puck. Caleb wins the face-off, sending the puck to Gray. He skates with the puck, but the whistle blows, the horn sounding through the area signaling the end of the last period.

The guys hop over the bench, everyone skating overto the net where I’m standing. They all come up to me, each of them either hitting the top of my helmet with their glove or pressing their helmets against mine.

Carson comes over, his hand landing on my shoulder as he kisses the damn top of my helmet. “Good job, bud.”

After they all come to me, we form two lines, skating past one another as we slap hands, our fingertips dancing against one another’s in a stupid little handshake-slash-high-five Carson started. This win puts us two points closer to securing our seed in playoffs, which is exactly what we needed. The entire locker room is buzzing with energy as we all head inside to get undressed.

I strip down and head into the showers, washing the sweat and dirt from my body before changing back into the suit I wore here. The home team has a spread of food set up for us in one of the rooms, so I stop by there to grab a plate before finding both Ford brothers, Lincoln, and Nash all occupying a table.

Lincoln is on a FaceTime call with Nova, Nash is talking to Riley, and Carson and Caleb are talking about the game as I sit down. Caleb usually talks to his daughter before the games, but he doesn’t normally call after in case she’s asleep. His late wife’s aunt typically takes care of his daughter for him and she tends to go to bed early, so he doesn’t bother calling when it’s this late at night.

Especially with the time difference, we’re two hours behind the time at home. I glance down at my phone, wondering if I should even bother with Hadley. I talkedto her earlier today, but it was a short conversation. She called me while she was on her break, just to check in and to let me know that things were going well at home with Lucy. She had to work yesterday and today, so Coach Landry’s daughter, Mia, was with Lucy both days.

She’s in her early twenties and just finished up her internship with the team. From what I was told, she went to school and got a degree in journalism. She was supposedly exploring different options and didn’t love the media side of hockey. I overheard her talking to Nova one day about how she has no idea what she actually wants to do and since she graduated, she’s taking some time off to see if her heart is really in it or not.

Her taking the time off has worked out perfectly and when I put feelers out to find someone to help while Hadley’s at work, she jumped on board immediately. According to Hadley, her first day went seamlessly, so I hope the same was true for today.

I stare down at my phone, noting the time. It’s close to eleven o’clock here, which means it’s already one in the morning at home. I’m torn between whether or not I should text her. Calling her isn’t an option because she’s too polite to ignore my call to tell me that she was sleeping.

Fuck it.

Rowan

I know it’s late, so I hope this doesn’t wake you up. I just wanted to check in and make sure you and Lucy were okay.

It takes me a moment before I force myself to actually press send. She’s off work tomorrow, so I’m not sure if she’s awake or not anyway. Lucy typically wakes up every three to four hours in the middle of the night for a bottle, so I know Hadley will be up at some point and see my message then if she is already asleep.

Just as I’m about to set my phone back down, it vibrates in my hand and I see a message flash across the screen. Lincoln and Nash decide they’re going to go wait in the bus, leaving me and the Ford brothers still at the table. I glance at Caleb, who’s talking to Carson about his daughter, Sydney, so I direct my attention back to my phone.

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