Page 33 of Yo Ho Ho
"Max, please."
She looked up to see him staring back at her, pleading with not only his words but his eyes. He screwed up yesterday, really screwed up, but he seemed to realize that he was wrong. Maybe she should give him another chance, but not too much of a chance. She didn't need him to end up in her bed again.
Even though he was in her hotel room — alone — in track pants and a t-shirt.
Max sighed and took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure."
She pushed past him, her shoulder brushing up against his chest. Damn, he was hard. His chest, that is. Max physically had to shake her head to clean out the dirty thoughts that were running through it.
She grabbed the chair next to the desk, feeling more comfortable sitting there with Logan in the room. He put the bucket of ice down on the dresser and, with no other place to sit, took a spot on the edge of the bed closest to her.
There was Logan Moore, in her hotel room, on her bed. Max kept thinking about Amanda's words from the night before. "Take a chance on being happy." She couldn't do that with Logan, at least not before she heard what he had to say.
Except he didn't seem to have anything to say. Instead, he just sat there staring down at his feet. For the first time in a long time, Logan seemed to be at a loss for words. The last time Max saw him like this was back in May in a locker room after the team eliminated from the playoffs. It was a heartbreaking loss for all the players, and it was heartbreaking for Max to see them like that. Even though she was supposed to be a non-biased journalist, she knew this team. She knew how hard it was for them to take that kind of loss. She wished she could have given every single one of them a hug and comfort them.
Logan shifted slightly on the bed, his eyes staring down at the floor, his shoulders hunched over.
"Logan?"
His body stiffened slightly, but his eyes stayed focused on the ground. "Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out how I want to say this," he said quietly.
"Don't want to offend me by saying something stupid again?" Max joked.
Logan looked up at her, his eyes dark and serious. "No," he said. "I don't want to do that again."
She could feel her chest tighten and her breath hitch before he finally broke his gaze away from her. What the hell was that about? Max thought he was just being a jerk yesterday in the lot, thought he was being his normal jackass self. There was no way she could've been wrong about that, right?
Wow. Maybe she had been wrong. But could Logan really change overnight? Because yesterday, he was standing in a parking lot yelling at her, telling her he was glad she wasn't going to have a job for much longer.
He was also a hockey player who was amazing when it came to skates and sticks and checks and pucks. He wasn't as good with words. Max once listened to him struggle to answer a simple question after a game. Five minutes of "um" and "uh" as he described a boring run-of-the-mill goal after a particularly tough match-up. Seeing him struggle with stringing some words together wasn't new to her. Hearing him say something that non-sports types would call "stupid" was pretty typical. But to have him sitting there, on her hotel bed, staring at nothing as he tried to get his thoughts together… Well, that was definitely new, and it was making Max feel unsure about the whole situation.
She watched Logan finally take in a deep breath and turn his head to look at her, his brown eyes dark and warm.
"So I read your article before the flight this morning. It was…" He took a deep breath and gave her a small smile. "It was really good, Max."
For the first time since he got there, Max could feel some of the nervous tension leave her body. "Thanks."
"I mean, really, it was awesome. I loved the quotes that you used, and the photos were so cool. It just turned out really great." But then his smile faltered a bit, his eyes pulled slightly away from hers to stare at the wall as he nervously fidgeted on her bed. "Why did you do that?"
Max gave him a perplexed look. "Why did I do what?"
He turned back to her with almost a pleading look on his face. "Why were you so nice to me?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Was I not supposed to be nice to you?"
"Max, I said some pretty horrible things to you in at the rink yesterday."
"So?" she asked. "My assignment was to write about your time with the kids, and that's what I did."
"Right," he said quietly. "And you once again were a professional who did her job."
"Is that a problem?"
"No!" He shook his head vigorously. "I mean, no," he said a bit calmer. "I guess I forgot that you were there because you were doing your job. Lately, my brain has had trouble remembering the line between your job and you with all the… you know."
His voice trailed off as he waved his hand in the air at nothing.
"I know," Max said quietly.
