Page 16 of Triplets for the Pucking Playboys
She doesn’t blink. “Maybe you’re jealous.”
For a second, my jaw locks. “If I wanted you, you’d know.”
She tips her head, eyes daring me to close the gap.
“Then show me. Or are you only good at taking cheap shots in the hallway?”
I stare at her.
This close, I can count the freckles on her nose, the line where her mouth curves up even when she’s mad.
My body is an electric fence, every nerve on high alert.
“You want to see my routine?” I say, voice dropping.
“I want to see if you can back up your attitude with anything real,” she fires back. “You talk a big game, but so far all you’ve done is glare at me from across the rink and flinch every time I get within ten feet of your shoulder.”
My hands flex on the cinderblock wall.
She’s not wrong.
“Fine. After practice, you and me, no witnesses. I’ll show you exactly what I do to get ready for the game.”
She straightens, brushing past my elbow.
“You’re on. But if you tap out, I’m telling Kingston.”
That makes me smile for the first time all morning.
“Deal,” I say, and let her walk away first. She smells like eucalyptus and salt and challenge. I want it, bad.
With her gone, I punch the wall—just once, just enough to burn off the static.
Then I head to the weight room, rolling the dare around in my mouth like a toothpick.
I’ll show her what it means to go toe-to-toe with someone who never, ever lets go.
After the ice, after the sweat, after Kingston’s laughs in the showers and Ryland’s chew out in film review, I wait.
I kill time in the gym, trading sets with McTavish and pretending the burn in my deltoids is enough to erase everything else.
It’s not, but pain is at least predictable.
I make my way to the therapy zone after most of the guys have cleared out.
The place is bright, a kingdom of resistance bands and foam rollers and shit nobody uses unless a woman in a training top is watching.
I hear her before I see her—the soft click of pen on clipboard, the drag of a heavy balance board across the floor.
She’s already got everything lined up like she’s prepping for a hostile invasion.
She doesn’t look up. “You’re early.”
I grab the cleanest towel off the stack and pull off my warm-up jacket.
My shirt underneath sticks to my back; I can see in the window reflection that my hair is wild from the helmet, standing up in a stupid crown. “Didn’t want to keep you waiting,” I say, and the sarcasm is soft, almost shy.
She eyes me over the rim of her clipboard. “I figured you’d chicken out.”
