Page 57 of Playmaker

Finally, a laugh. “As your mentor, I have to warn you that behavior like that can get you removed from Briarwood.”

It would be worth it. Cooper took care of everyone else, but who took care of him? Someone should.

For now, I was the only candidate in sight.

* * *

We werequiet on the ride back to Toronto. I didn’t know if Cooper regretted telling me, or if he was still dealing with the encounter with Remington fucking Winthrop, but I was comfortable in the quiet, enjoying the feel of the car around me.

Cooper stopped in front of my building. “Are you okay going in on your own?”

I rolled my eyes, as if this wasn’t something I did all the time. “I’ll be fine.”

“Thank you.” Then he reached over and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

I froze for a moment, and then my face heated. “It was nothing.” My voice came out low and gruff.

I scrambled out of the car, a major effort, and closed the door carefully. I waved, unsure if Cooper would see it through the tinted windows, and turned to enter my building.

I wished that kiss had been somewhere other than my cheek.

Cocky Cooper, with his confidence and money and charm, was someone I didn’t understand and couldn’t relate to. But vulnerable, betrayed and mistrusting Cooper? That was someone like me. That was the person I wanted to defend and snuggle up to.

I was glad I was going to this wedding. He might think he needed someone to impress them with a legal background, but what was even more important in this situation was someone like his hockey teammates. Someone who had his back.

I tilted my chin up. I was more than ready to be that person.

Chapter17

Be the playmaker

Cooper

Sometimes I likedto run outside, smell the air coming off the lake and be fairly anonymous. There was privacy from fans when I worked out at the team facilities, but I was still the captain, and I was on duty while I was there. If I used a gym somewhere in the city, even in my building, people watched. Sometimes they didn’t just watch.

I was paid a lot of money to represent my team, and with that came the responsibility of dealing positively with the public. But sometimes I needed to be me, not “the captain of the Blaze.” Running outside gave me a chance at that. It wasn’t foolproof, since my sponsorships had made me recognizable. But even the most intrusive fans couldn’t be upset that I was working out—and they couldn’t keep up.

I’d asked Seb to join me on my run. Meeting Winthrop, talking to Callie… It had all been unsettling, and after too much time dwelling on that, I needed to shove those uncomfortable things back in a box so I could make it through the wedding. It was a month away, and after that, training camp would start in September.

We greeted each other and stretched. Seb and I ran in silence for a few minutes. It was early, to beat the heat. And with school vacation, enough people were out of town that the boardwalk wasn’t too busy.

“How was your trip to Montana?” I asked. “Mitch’s program going well? How’s he doing?”

Seb wiped a hand over his forehead. “Yeah. The kids and their parents were really excited about having something like this in places without hockey opportunities. And Jayna and Faith there together? There were a lot of girls watching them like they were superheroes. A few boys too.”

Mitch wouldn’t have realized, when he set the program up, that it might help him as well. “Keeping busy with the camps is good for him. That goal still bothers him, but Tempo has been there, can help him deal with it. How’s she doing?” Mitch’s girlfriend was a former teammate of Faith’s on the Bonfire, the Toronto professional women’s hockey team, and had found out in the spring that a knee injury was ending her career.

Seb’s brow furrowed, so he was giving this real thought, not a pat answer. “The camps, this whole summer program, it’s helping her. But she hasn’t processed it all. We talked, and I tried to help.” Seb had retired from playing before his daughter was born, after a bad concussion. He knew what Tempo was going through.

“Glad you could help her.”

Tempo—Jayna Templin—wasn’t my responsibility. But her boyfriend Mitch was our team backup goalie, so indirectly, her well-being affected my team. And I liked her. She’d been a great right winger till this injury took her out.

“She appreciates all you’ve done to help her too.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t done much. And I’d been given so much, it was only fair to help others. “Happy to help.”

“Speaking of helping…”

---