Page 7 of Writing Mr. Wrong

“It was great seeing you again, Mason, and I appreciate that you were decent about this whole mess.” She looked up at him. “Really. Thank you.”

A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, despite the autumn chill. He was doing this wrong.Whatwas he doing wrong? He needed to figure out what she expected and change course.

“You don’t like coffee? There’s a bubble tea place just—”

“I really need to go, Mason. Again, it was good to see you, but the deadline for this second book is kicking my ass. I’m already late.”

Ah, that was it. Gemma had always been super responsible, and the missed deadline was stressing her out.

“Give me your number then,” he said. “I’ll call later, and we can celebrate after you finish the book. Go for dinner. Catch up.”

“That isn’t necessary, Mason.” Gemma reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Again, thank you. It’s good to see you, and I’m glad to see you got where you wanted to be.”

He found his grin. “Was there ever any doubt?”

That slight roll of her eyes, the old Gemma surging, and then she turned and walked away, and it was only as she disappeared that he realized what he should have said.

I’m glad to see you got where you wanted to be, too, Gem.

Mason skated backward as fast as he could and then executed a perfect stop, feeling a rush of satisfaction at the shower of shaved ice. That never got old.

He had most of the suburban rink to himself, a weekly treat. It wasn’t about practice. It was about just getting out and skating, like he had when he was a kid. He’d barely been old enough to lace his skates before he was sneaking out of the apartment at dawn to skate alone on the pond behind their subdivision.

At thirty-six, Mason had hit his NHL senior years. Hell, for an enforcer, he was a freaking dinosaur. “Enforcer” wasn’t his formal position, of course. After the 2004 lockout, the rules changed to emphasize speed and scoring, and there wasn’t as much room for guys whose primary role was fighting. Also, the game had changed—for the better, Mason thought—with less of the dirty play of slashing, hooking, checking, high-sticking and the like. Oh,Mason liked a good brawl, but he’d always been exceedingly careful with his health and safety, terrified of ending up like the old-school enforcers, with CTE from too many blows to the head.

Mason didn’t mind spending time in the penalty box if it helped his team. Nor did he mind getting cursed out by fans of the opposite team. He was supposed to be an asshole. That was his job description. A professional asshole who’d do whatever it took to protect his team and help them get the goal. It meant he was one of the lowest scoring players on the Growlers, but he had a wall full of MVP awards to make up for it, and when it came time to meet the fans, he had the longest line for photos and autographs.

Or he used to have the longest line. For the past month, he’d been skipping those meet and greets, at the coach’s insistence. No one on the team blamed Mason for what happened. Not even Denny.

Except…

He heard his coach’s voice.Maybe you should speak to Dr. Colbourne about this one, Mace.

That’d been three weeks ago. When he’d ignored the hint, the coach obviously took the direct route because Mason now had two voicemails from the psychologist herself.

Two unreturned voicemails, which really wasn’t like him. He might be the designated asshole on the ice, but in real life, he didn’t do shit like ignoring calls from someone who was just trying to help. That was rude.

But it’s also exactly what he was doing.

Mason shook it off and skated faster. He had no problem speaking to the team shrink, but he didn’t need her this time. He’d get past this on his own, and he’d tell her that. Soon. When, you know,he remembered to return the call off-hours so she wouldn’t pick up and he could just leave a message.

People thought Mason had intentionally failed to protect Denny because he was jealous of the young and popular player. Dr. Colbourne would know that wasn’t like Mason. At all.

You didn’t agree to be an enforcer unless you were a team player. Mason liked Denny. The last thing he wanted was for the kid to bounce on and off the injury list until he finally had to quit hockey. That happened too often with the rising stars, and Mason didn’t want it happening to a good kid—and a good player—like Denny.

So what had gone wrong that night?

Mason had seen what was coming, started to intercede and… froze. He still didn’t know why.

Mason pushed into a hard skate, and his right knee whimpered. He glared down, as if he could shame it into submission. After thirty years of hockey, he pretty muchhadto expect a bum knee, but it still frustrated him.

A girlish shriek pulled his attention to the far left. He always shared his ice time with a figure-skating group who couldn’t afford the rental. The kids were wee ones, none coming past his waist, all of them zipping around, shrieking and giggling. He was glad to see a few boys in the group. There’d been a time when he’d wanted to figure skate. Hockey was his passion, but he’d seen girls whirling and zigging and zagging in figure skating, and it had always looked like fun. He’d asked his dad, who nearly had a heart attack.

“You want to dowhat?” his father had said with that same look he’d given when Mason had said he wanted to go to college.

“You want to dowhat?”

“Get a college degree,” Mason had said. “Maybe kinesiology. Something to fall back on when I retire from hockey.”

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