Page 15 of The Rebound Plan

“So…” Emery takes her phone back from me. “Maybe it would be for the best if I shared your room.”

It’s not the rebound plan I wanted. But if anyone else were in my shoes, I’d tell them to grab the girl and make the most of it.

But I don’t want to.

Outside, there’s a crunch of wheels on gravel.

Fuck.

Time’s up.

I take a deep breath. “You sure about this? I can take the floor, or maybe I can head to the outfitters later and grab a cot.”

She follows me to the front door, stopping me as I open it. “I have four older brothers,” she says. “I know how to construct an impenetrable pillow barrier on a king-sized bed.”

Great. Just… excellent.

“And during the day?” I gesture at the door, and my teammates on the other side of it. “How are we supposed to act during the day?”

She smiles, far too bright and bold and confident for my liking. “It wouldn’t be a hardship to pretend I’m your rebound girl, would it, Russell?”

Ah, fuck me. “This can’t get back to your brothers.”

“They aren’t on Instagram,” she scoffs. “And I don’t want your tongue down my throat. You can just hold my hand and be respectful.”

To prove her point, she weaves her fingers through mine and squeezes.

I take a deep breath. “All right. On one condition, though.”

“Anything.”

I try to ignore the stab in my chest. “Don’t call me Russell.”

Being in love with another man’s wife used to be a sharp, agonizing pain, a self-inflicted injury of the worst sort—preventable.

More recently, it has often felt mundane. A fact of life.

Today, though, it feels pretty fucking dangerous.

It doesn’t help that Max and Shannon are running late. It’s like a countdown to running a gauntlet. Everyone else has arrived, the spouses setting up by the pool, my teammates and Emery already in the gym with Foster.

All the young guys are eager for Max to arrive, giving him all the credit for this coming together. And I have to give him the nod for the original idea, but the rest of it? Ensuring that Foster could come up to cottage country as well, kitting out the gym with everything we need…hell, I even hired a skills coach Foster recommended, a former Olympian named Thea Brown who lives up in this area in the summer and runs clinics for all the NHL players who flood Muskoka in the off-season.

Foster is even staying with her since I’m so full up.

There has been a lot of thought and effort that has gone into this being everything we need to start the season right, and Max Fucking Tilman didn’t do anything beyond the initial decree to make it happen.

Ever since I arrived in Canada at the age of twelve, it has been drummed into me that hockey is a fraternity, a brotherhood. Being a part of a team is doing something bigger than one’s self. All wins are team wins. All losses are team losses. And no matter what, differences are left outside the dressing room.

The higher I went with competitive hockey, the more intense that code got. By the time I was drafted into the NHL, it was a rule I felt in my soul: whatever team I was on, that was my family.

And some people might say, yeah, but families don’t trade you away for business reasons.

Mine did, though, so that part was never a problem for me.

All of these connections are temporary and transactional, but when we’re in, we’re all the way in.

Right now, Max Tilman is my captain. My brother.

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