Page 47 of Man Advantage

I watched Trev coming out of the box, and my stomach knotted. He usually took penalties gracefully (after he’d said his piece to the refs, anyway). Even when they were trash, he shrugged them off and moved on. But when the camera focused on his face as he crossed the ice, he looked pissed, but also… disappointed? In himself, maybe? He wouldn’t make eye contact with his teammates. Not even as they smacked his back or arm and undoubtedly told him,“Don’t worry about it—we’ve got plenty of time to tilt the ice.”

It didn’t get better, either. During a shift later in the period, he’d taken another penalty, this time for tripping. The twins had been furious over that, but Trev had been far more subdued this time. He’d hung his head on the way to the box, and he’d been staring down at his gloves instead of watching the replay.

Judging by the replay, it was a legit call. I remembered being livid when he’d taken a tripping penalty in high school, since the other guy had tripped over Trev’s leg rather than Trev deliberately tripping him.

“Doesn’t matter,” he’d told me afterward. “Tripping is tripping, whether it’s deliberate or not.”

“But that’s garbage! What’s to stop someone from tripping over you or your stick on purpose?”

The response had been a wicked grin. “What makes you think we don’t?”

Point taken.

At least no one scored on Trev’s tripping penalty tonight, and in fact the Rebels had come incredibly close to a shorthanded goal. That had done wonders for the team’s morale andmomentum, and it wasn’t long after the penalty that they scored. All’s well that ends well, and all that.

But Trev still seemed distracted and off-balance tonight. His passes weren’t as crisp as they usually were. His rookie linemate set him up for abeautifulopportunity to put a one-timer on goal, but Trev bobbled the puck. That had resulted in a breakaway that would’ve been costly had one of Pittsburgh’s defensemen not stolen the puck back.

This wasn’t like him. Especially not since he’d started playing at this level.

Come on, Trev. Where are you tonight?

I didn’t know. I had a feelinghedidn’t know.

But a few minutes later, he was on his way to the penalty box.

Again.

CHAPTER 15

TREV

Hopefully this gamewasn’t an omen for the rest of the season. Not for me, anyway. The team did well for the most part.

Me, though? Christ. By the end of the night, I had the dubious honor of being number one in the League for penalty minutes this season. Of course that wouldn’t last; this was the first night of games for the entire League, and there’d only been six games besides ours. Martin was number one in points, too, after two goals and an assist. Bells, my rookie linemate, was second overall for hits. By this time next week, we’d all probably be bumped down our respective lists. None of those stats or lists meant much of anything until at least a couple of weeks into the season.

But it was still weird to be number one for PIM. I rarely took penalties. Eight minutes in one game? I mean, okay, I hadn’t deliberately tripped that one defenseman. Tripping was tripping, so it was a penalty regardless of intent, but it wasn’t exactly a lack of discipline on my part.

The first slashing penalty had been bullshit, too. The second one, and the interference penalty? Yeah, those were on me. And they’d been stupid on my part. Just plain fucking stupid.

Stupid andcostly. Two of Boston’s four goals had been power play goals onmypenalties. If their starting goalie hadn’t been a sieve, we’d have been fucked. Fortunately, he’d let in five goals before being pulled halfway through the second period, and the backup goalie had let in two more. A 7-4 win on our home opener wasn’t bad at all. 7-2 would’ve been even better.

God, I was not happy with how I’d played.

Since when did I let myself getthatdistracted over anything? The last time I’d played even close to this badly had been the day after I’d realized my husband was cheating on me. And today, it wasn’t even anything bad—I’d just been wildly off-balance ever since I’d seen Cam in that suit, and my jaunt down Memory Lane had completely fucked my concentration.

Get a grip, Trev. Christ on a cracker.

The worst part? My boys had been watching. They weren’t even like some of the other players’ kids who’d get bored and stop paying attention. Zach and Zane wererivetedto hockey games. So they’d watched every last minute of it tonight.

Fuck.

I’d had an embarrassingly terrible game a few seasons ago, but I hadn’t worried about what the boys thought. They’d just turned three—they barely knew what was happening on the ice, and they were just excited about going to games and seeing their dad at the Zamboni gate or on the Jumbotron.

Now they were almost seven. They understood the game better than some kids their age whoplayedhockey. They’d know exactly how badly I’d played tonight, and they were never shy about telling me when I’d fucked up.

After practice one morning, Zane’s voice had been full of disappointment as he’d informed me, “You were slow today.”

“I know I was,” I’d admitted, trying not to chuckle. “I’ll be faster tomorrow.”

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